Blog Bickering #4

Those things with the antlers? They're called moose, right? Yeah, I'll take one of those, with fries.

Blue-Gray Sky has the BlogPoll Blog Roundtable IV: Return from Blog Mountain posted. Here are my answers:

Who are your rival(s)?
All Michigan partisans can tell you that Michigan’s primary rivals are (the) Ohio State (joke of a) University, Michigan State, and Notre Dame. No season is a full success unless it includes wins over these three teams, and for good reasons:

- (t) OS (joa) U is a school for ignorant yahoos who don’t read good, struggle to pass courses like Don’t Get AIDS, and haven’t met a law they can’t break. The average Buckeye fan is a belligerent drunk who would rather urinate on him- or herself and get into a fight in an Ann Arbor bar than allow even one ray of logic to penetrate his or her abnormally thick skull. There’s a reason that not a single Big Ten fan base has anything nice to say about those troglodytes from Columbus.

- Spartans seethe in their inferiority complex for 365 days each year, and their manic obsession with the Sisyphusean task of displacing Michigan as the dominant school in the state leads to all kids of cute and funny behavior: they burn couches; they flip over cars; they come to my apartment and vomit into an empty bag of Doritos; etc. Perpetuating that kind of desperate self-loathing is cruelly and somewhat shamefully pleasurable, the same way it’s fun to torment a little sibling.

- Notre Dame, as a school and fan base, is completely delusional. ND hasn’t won a bowl game in a decade, can’t even finish a season ranked, and can’t find anyone who wants to coach the team. It whines about complete bullshit like academic standards and morality, yet then does stuff like set a precedent by firing an academics- and morality-oriented coach before his contract even expired. The fans and the administration still preen as though the brand name means anything anymore, and that kind of out-of-touch behavior is so irksome. ND also forces all fans nationwide to endure the grating ramblings of Pat Hayden, one of the few national-level broadcast homers, an ignominious distinction shared only by other horrendous broadcasters like Dick Vitale and Billy Packer. Contributing to the demise of such an obnoxious program is wonderful fun. And South Bend is one of the worst college towns in America.

A rivalry that does not carry the same traditional mystique but is almost as important is Michigan-Penn State. When PSU came into the Big Ten, the league was supposed to be in trouble since the big, bad Nittany Lions were going to eradicate the Big Two and Little Eight era. Well, that was before senility set in. Since the PSU demise, the fans have become more and more obnoxious and paranoid as the win totals have dwindled and the recruiting losses have mounted. PSU fans now run their “mouths” on the internets as much as anyone, and you can’t help but laugh as wins over Akron become cause for celebration.

Size up your chances in your rival games this year.
Michigan is going to struggle in its rivalry games this year. While many have noted the losses sustained by the Notre Dame defense, the Notre Dame offense returns a number of critical players and will surely be bolstered by the arrival of Charlie Weis, last seen devising an offense that scored in all kinds of ways and won three NFL titles in four seasons. The task of matching wits with Weis falls to Michigan Defensive Coordinator Jim Herrmann, and that’s like bringing a knife to a gun fight. Herrmann has been exposed as a DC who struggles to develop talent and make crucial adjustments, in a game or in a month between blowouts. He’ll also be working with personnel long on recruiting rankings and short on production. The secondary must be rebuilt, the linebackers are starting from the scratch, and the defensive linemen were using “high school techniques” last season. (And please note: That quotation comes from fanzine The Wolverine’s season preview. It’s not good when the propaganda machine can’t even generate a positive spin.) The UM-ND game will be in Ann Arbor, a place where the Wolverines rarely lose, but something tells me that the setting will simply make an ND win all the more resounding.

Michigan will also be hosting The Minimum Security Prison and Home for the Mentally Challenged in the annual Big Ten Championship Game. Ohio State probably has the best linebackers in the country; a Heisman-worthy talent on the outside and in the kicking game (the superfluous-“d”- and 4.2-forty-possessing Tedd Ginn); a mobile quarterback (Troy Smith); and an experienced and deep secondary. Last season, neither the Buckeye offensive live nor defensive line were especially impressive, and the running game was almost non-existent at times. Those are three significant areas of concern for (t) OS (joa) U. However the trump card may be Crime Overlord and Warden Sweatervest Corleone. Jim Tressel is on the verge of complete Lloyd Carr ownership, and Warden Corleone has already won in Ann Arbor. Since his arrival, the Buckeye players have always approached The Game with a palpable sense of excitement and focused, if not quiet, confidence. Meanwhile, UM has usually seemed as though it were playing not to lose, save for 2003. If Troy Smith can be contained and UM kicks away from Ginn, the Wolverines should have a good chance. And playing at home likely means that Michigan won’t get blown out even if it does lose. But as stated before, UM has so many outstanding issues on defense that it might not be able to get enough stops.

The third of the major rivalry games takes place in East Lansing; or, as it may be called on October 1st, “Shock City, USA.” Last year, Michigan State had Michigan beaten in the Big House because Michigan could not stop Drew Stanton or DeAndra Cobb. Lucky for the Wolverines, LaMarr Woodley knocked Stanton out of the game and Braylon Edwards decided to win the Biletnikoff Award in the second half and overtime. This year, there will be no Braylon, there probably won’t be an injury, and if there again be no rush defense, there will be a Spartan victory.

If you could start up a new rivalry with another team, who would it be?
If UM could start a new rivalry with one team, I’d probably pick Tennessee. All the ingredients are there: The Vols have a villainous, sniveling, gluttonous coach; the Vols have a program steeped in tradition; the Vols would be an intersectional opponent against whom a game would command all kinds of attention and attract recruits from the Southeast; the Vols have a big stadium that they wish were as big as ours; the Vols have a good fight song that they wish were as good as ours; the Vols destroyed Michigan in the 2002 Citrus Bowl and initiated UM’s new-found focus on recruiting speed; the Vols are consistently good; the Vols have as many criminals as the Buckeyes, so UM would be used to that kind of an opponent; the Vols used to have Peyton Manning, and nothing was better than hearing him whine when Charles Woodson won “Manning’s” Heisman trophy; and the Vols have that pretty checkerboard thing going on in their end zones. Rocky Top, here I come.

Overall, what do you think the best rivalry in college football is?
The best rivalry in college football is Michigan-Ohio State, but since the subquestion (which I didn't reproduce) asks voters to pick a feud that doesn’t involve their respective teams, I’ll go with either Spurrier-Fulmer, (t) OS (joa) U-Law enforcement, or Alabama-Auburn. The first is just so much fun because you can tell that Spurrier loves ribbing Fulmer and usually, Phil’s mouth is too full and his head too empty to offer witty retorts. The second is self-explanatory. And the amount of journalism and quixotic literature inspired by the third makes me think that I am missing something.

Lastly, game trophies. What are the best and worst rivalry trophies out there?
These trophy-game rivalries all help make college football such a colorful and engaging sport, but to be honest, I don’t usually care who wins the Apple Cup, the Egg Bowl, Pappy’s Ol’ Axe, or any of those other relics. As a Michigan Man, I am contractually obligated to assert that the Little Brown Jug that we “play” Minnesota for (if you can call it that since Minnesota never wins it) is the best rivalry trophy. However, I really just like drinking at the Ann Arbor bar The Little Brown Jug, and I don’t have a particular emotional attachment to this old water bucket. Sorry for offering up such a bad answer.