Chutes and Ladders

Several Michigan fans have begun making comments here taking me to task for my postgame ranting and raving, and in fairness, they aren't out of line. As much as I preach with Will (and soon Charlie) the importance of being a good loser, my demeanor in the aftermath of yesterday's game was similar to Will losing a game of Chutes & Ladders to his grandma after missing his afternoon nap.

(Speaking of chutes, looks like we fell nine spots in the polls, not as far as I thought we would, actually.)

Two follow-up points on that:

1. If you're a passionate fan of a team, especially if it's your home state alma mater, chances are at some point you've lost a heartbreaker and lashed out at the opposing team and its fans. If you haven't, God bless you, you're a better person than me. Or you were wise enough not to post your emotions on the Internet.

If you're a Michigan fan, tell me you haven't felt ill toward Michigan State or Ohio State or Notre Dame fans after losing a winnable game against them.

2. One comment alluded to my one-sided rivalry/obsession. He's right, that's a good characterization of it, even though it casts me in a negative light. Wisconsin-Michigan football should be a run-of-the-mill inferiority complex.

But it was personalized for me on New Year's Day 1998. Our team had been overpicked into the Outback Bowl and was getting waxed by Georgia. My brother and I were watching it at a restaurant in Ixtapa, Mexico, and was the Bulldogs dominated us, a pair of men dressed in Michigan apparel (waiting for the Rose Bowl later that day; they shared the national title that year) snickered and celebrated as Mike Bobo or whoever the hell Georgia's quarterback was played us like a JV team. Until that point, I had hoped Michigan would win the national title later that day -- you know, for conference pride. But those two pricks completely changed my view of Michigan fans, and I've met enough of them since then that have reinforced that view. Most Badger and Big Ten fans have.

Of course, I've also met many other perfectly wonderful people who pull for the Wolverines. I just forget their names when we line up against Michigan.

That said, let's address a point I think all three Michigan commenters made, that their team has superior conditioning and our team is fat. Pretty sure this plays on the rave reviews of Michigan's strength and conditioning coach Rich Rodriguez brought from West Virginia, who is reportedly much more innovative and demanding than Lloyd Carr's guy.

Even though I touched on our defense's fatigue, I disagree that our O-line's size, or P.J.'s size (he's smaller than ever, actually) contributed to poor conditioning that was our downfall. The offensive shortcomings, in a nutshell, were:

-Missing our two top receiving threats for most of the game
-Receivers dropping passes
-Quarterback throwing inaccurately, and at times taking strange-looking drops
-Subsequent Michigan defensive adjustment putting more tacklers in the box than we could block
-Curious offensive play-calling

The comment that our coaching staff didn't make adjustments as well as Michigan's was dead-on. So was the one that Michigan's five turnovers constituted a huge break for us -- one which we certainly didn't capitalized on enough, certainly not as much as they did on ours. And we were overrated. The offense played like this against Fresno, but I attributed that to conservative play calling in a tight game and what I thought was a good Fresno defense, the same one that gave up 54 points to Toledo.

This weekend has been an emotional roller coaster, thankfully ending on a high note with the Brewers clinching a playoff berth for the first time since I was 7. Part of me wishes I'd just not written anything after yesterday's game, the comments keep reminding me of what happened. But that's part of being a fan, dealing with the bad just as you'd enjoy the good. It's not like we haven't had tough losses before ... more on that tomorrow.

Good or bad, blogging is cathartic. Thanks for reading.