Wolverine Watch: Time For Michigan Fans To Back Bell — Loudly
There’s no cheering in the press box, an edict announced via loudspeaker every week. But if they allowed it, here’s one set of hands that would be coming together vigorously for human decency and perspective.
They’d be coming together for Ronnie Bell. And they wouldn’t clap alone.
Michigan’s sophomore receiver became nationally known this week, for all the wrong reasons. He caught five passes for 82 yards in the Wolverines’ 28-21 loss at Penn State. The fact that he didn’t catch a sixth made him a target for lunatic hatred in the game’s aftermath.
Jim Harbaugh’s crew clawed back almost all the way from a 21-0 first-half deficit. Michigan loomed three yards away from Penn State’s goal line.
Senior quarterback Shea Patterson scrambled to buy time, then floated what appeared to be a perfectly thrown pass to what appeared to be a perfectly open Bell in the middle of the end zone. Never mind that Penn State defensive back Lamont Wade was pulling a Fast Eddie Brown (you kids, ask your parents) from behind, with a wad of Bell’s jersey in one hand and both mitts involved before the ball arrived.
Patterson’s toss looked catchable. Bell didn’t catch it. Michigan didn’t win.
For that heinous offense, social media and email warriors told Ronnie Bell to quit the game. One suggested that he die.
Never mind the 100 other individual efforts on Michigan’s 82 offensive plays that could have produced a one-touchdown swing in the final score. Never mind Bell standing alone as Michigan’s leading receiver this season, with 25 catches for 443 yards.
Never mind that without Bell’s 35-yard catch and run on a fourth-quarter third-down play, Michigan likely doesn’t score the subsequent touchdown to pull within seven.
And never mind that Bell remains one of the toughest, most-invested, most-caring, highest-effort Wolverines, who came away devastated by the loss.
He should cease to exist, because he dropped a football.
Some folks should drop watching football. The humane and intelligent ones will be rooting harder than ever for No. 8 this week.
“We would take as many Ronnie Bells as we could possibly get on this team,” Harbaugh said. “How far he’s come, what he does for our team, the way he played in the game. He was one of our top performers, and he is, consistently game-in and game-out. He's tough as nails and mentally and physically as tough as anybody we’ve got.”
Michigan sideline reporter Doug Karsch has backed that notion all season long, watching up close Bell’s efforts not only on the field but also in consistently pumping up teammates.
“Ronnie Bell comes across — when I’ve seen him on the sidelines, when I’ve seen him in the postgame in the locker room, when I’ve seen him in Schembechler Hall — as a team-first guy, and the kind of guy you want to build your program around,” Karsch offered.
“When I saw it most overtly was up at Wisconsin, when things were avalanching, and Michigan had kicked up its heels and showed a bit of a pulse. Ronnie Bell was working up and down the sidelines, trying to get guys fired up, inspiring his teammates and doing what he could in every moment, to try and turn the ebb and flow of the game.”
Karsch pondered various categories of “rah-rah guys” he’s seen. Ones who don’t make plays but try to be encouragers. Ones who aren’t taken seriously. Ones whose play backs their verbal enthusiasm and who demonstrate leadership.
“I get the sense that Ronnie Bell is one of the latter,” Karsch said. “Those are the guys that eventually become captains. There’s a lot to play out, but it strikes me that Ronnie Bell is captain-type material.
“The fact that he took it so hard speaks to his accountability, when there were obviously other plays that could have been made, other calls that could have been made. The kid was heartbroken.”
He stood in tears on the Michigan sideline, while Penn State ran out the clock. That wasn’t enough for some.
What gets into the mind of someone who wants to reach out and pummel an athlete who hasn’t crossed any moral or legal lines like some do, but who simply makes a mistake? What impels their viciousness?
Alcohol stands as a prime suspect. But there’s not enough booze in all of Bangkok’s bars to turn a stable mind into one advocating the death penalty for a drop.
Thankfully, most football fans are far more lucid than that. Many have come forward on Bell’s behalf. Even that drew pushback, for “virtue signaling.”
In general, we’re anti-virtue signaling. But in this case, absorbing the accusation beats the heck out of idiot signaling, the path taken by anyone savagely attacking an athlete for a physical error on the field of play.
Michigan faces another big game this week. There will be intense scrutiny, coverage from every angle, commentary from the booth to the stands to living rooms across the country.
The Wolverines can put their best foot forward by continuing to battle. The fans in the stands can put theirs forward by — on national television — letting No. 8 know it’s okay.
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