Unexplainable?
Unexcuasable? Michigan?
Writers saw same team.

Michigan, as a football team, stunk up the joint yesterday.

Michigan, as a football team, stinks.

Michigan, until about 2PM Saturday afternoon was thought to be one of the best teams in the county.

A top ten team.

Michigan changed everyone’s minds with their game play at Wisconsin.

Their performace was unexplainable.

Their performance was unexcusavke.

They were pretenders.

They were a fraud.

Now wait just a minute.

The only reason most of us had any idea that Michigan was a top ten team was because the people who are paid to know such things told us such things.

Like Will Rodges, all I know is what I read in the papers.

What, where, who, how and why did the collective sports world think Michigan was so good?

And because the sportwriters thought so and wrote so and said so, it is Michigan’s fault that the team is not as good as the sportwriters thought?

How dumb and I to listen to sports writers?

At the end of the day, I am a Michigan Man, so called.

A winning football team would be better than a losing football, but I do not consider myself a Michigan Man because OF the football team.

While in no way comparable, I am reminded of the Iron Brigade in the Civil War.

The Iron Brigade was the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division of the 1st Corps of the Army of the Potomac.

The wore distinctive black hats called a Hardee Hat which looked like a Lincoln stovepipe hat with a wide brim, pinned up on one side, aussie style.

This in the Army of the Potomac, the army of the Eastern United States, was made up of regiments from Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan.

It was recognized as one of the hard fighting units in the army and was famous throughout both the armies if the North and South.

At Gettysburg, when the Iron Brigade came into view, Confederate soldiers were heard to say, ‘It’s those Black Hat fellers again.’

It was at Gettysburg that the Iron Brigade was wrecked.

In the first day at Gettysburg, the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division of the 1st Corps of the Army of the Potomac lost two thirds of its effective strength of 1800 men.

“And,” wrote Bruce Catton in Glory Road, his thee volume history of the Army of the Potomac, “for the rest of the war, it existed as a shadow, always a great name but never again a mighty force in battle.”

Like I wrote, the state of Michigan Football cannot in anyway be compared to the Iron Brigade.

But the simply poetry of the phrase, always a great name, appeals to me.

I hope I am wrong.

I hope the eggheads in the Athens of the West can collectively come up with a Coach who can prepare a team of athlete’s to compete on the big stage.

If not, win or lose, always a great name.

I can live with that.