Michigan Football Fan huddles warily in a corner of the room. Adorned head to toe in full protective gear, he won’t be hurt this time around.
The winged helmet features bee netting pulled over the top, keeping the sting away. There’s the chain mail suit, goalie pads, steel-toed shoes and a flak jacket.
MFF carries the attitude to go with it. He’s as leery of a 5-0 start as Charlie Brown eyeing a winking, placekick-holding Lucy. He’s as convinced as Urban Meyer is contrite at confession time.
Yeah, right. Blowouts over MAC teams? Big deal. Washington? Well, they’re not all they were cracked up to be, are they? Rutgers … it’s Rutgers! And Wisconsin? Please. They’re 1-3, and terrible.
Never mind that Wisconsin’s three losses came at the hands of teams which stand a combined 14-1, all ranked in the nation’s top 15. Forget that Western Michigan is 4-0 since getting smoked (47-14) by the Wolverines, including a win over Pittsburgh.
Never mind that Northern Illinois knocked off Georgia Tech, or that Rutgers took down Syracuse.
Michigan hasn’t beaten anybody. If they beat Nebraska under the lights in Lincoln, Scottie Frost, his [Olympian] mom and their team are nobodies, too.
And so it goes. One sure sign of Michigan football beginning to return to “normal” involves the denigration of each opponent in the rearview mirror.
On the one hand, it’s understandable. MFF still carries PTSD from the 2020 campaign. And even in the best seasons of late, everything still blew up in the final game like Bushwood Country Club at the end of "Caddyshack."
On the other hand, scared, cynical and awaiting imminent disaster isn’t any way to enjoy a college football season.
“I notice it all the time,” offered Brian Boesch, who works on Michigan Radio’s coverage team for football before spending the winter and spring as play-by-play man for U-M basketball.
“I was reading a story yesterday about [LSU head coach] Ed Orgeron. I didn’t necessarily disagree with anything being said about Ed Orgeron at LSU, but it was something framing it as the quick spiral to mediocrity.
“They won the second-most-recent national championship. It hasn’t been mediocre forever. Listen, these are big-time programs. Everyone wants to have success. But this happens every single year.”
Following Oregon’s loss to Stanford, the Ducks enjoy a 4-percent chance of winning the national championship, according to ESPN. Boesch is stunned over that number.
“They have the best win in college football this season [over Ohio State],” he said. “How can they have a 4-percent chance? Clemson is 2-2 and now the ACC can’t play football …
“This is how it works everywhere, especially when you are a program like Michigan.”
It hasn’t helped that the week before Michigan’s biggest showdowns — Washington and Wisconsin — the opponent took a pratfall.
Still, Boesch contends, there are elements of Jim Harbaugh’s team that go beyond just a feel-good run over debatably talented foes. It’s more than the energy everyone is talking about.
It’s more than a Jump Around moment.
The Wolverines feature aspects that will pack into the travel bags and serve them well — at Nebraska, at Michigan State, at Penn State and beyond, he opines.
“I continue to be impressed with the offensive line,” Boesch said. “Maybe [co-worker Jon] Jansen’s rubbing off on me, but they really have played well … the better rushing attack on Saturday was Michigan’s, and that’s not easy to do. That will age well, I think.
“Secondly, the pass rush … they’re not going to have the best pass rush in the country, but [junior defensive end] Aidan Hutchinson puts them pretty darned close. It puts them in the conversation. And with the emergence of [redshirt freshman linebacker] David Ojabo, I think Michigan has several [contributors].
“When you lump the entire front seven into this, and talk about the Michigan linebacker corps, it’s hard not to be impressed with what you’ve seen. They’ve made big-time plays. Back-to-back strips sacks for David Ojabo. Of course, Hutchison is playing like a man possessed … this is a team that is getting it done in that area.”
It might not get it done every week. It might not get it done Saturday night in the land of 10,000,000 cornstalks. But the more times the Wolverines do get it done, the more protective-gear items MFF may kick off.
At some point, the Wolverines become certified, Boesch asserts.
“You’ve got Nebraska this week, and if Michigan wins, that conversation will continue — ‘Ah, Nebraska’s not any good,’” he said. “But eventually, one of these teams down the road — Michigan State, Penn State, Ohio State — will be everything that people believe them to be right now.
“And probably more than one. What’s nice is, this isn’t a 50-game schedule. This isn’t a 162-game schedule. This is a 12-game schedule. And right now, perception doesn’t really matter.
“Put it this way: If Michigan goes 12-1 and wins the Big Ten, I don't see any way they will be out of the playoff. And they will obviously be Big Ten champions.”
That swishing sound you just heard involved another layer of chain mail, hurriedly pulled on.
(To hear more of what Boesch had to say, listen in to TheWolverine.com podcast from today).
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