Pictures from The Bear Tailgate and Tommy Time

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The Greener Grass

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Patrick Barron / MGOBLOG

The story of a hometown unicorn who spurned his childhood favorite team to commit to LSU and a piece of child-killing human garbage, only to be lured back by Larry Ellison’s girlfriend and publicly advertised bags of cash, isn’t exactly the kind of story people rally behind.

And when that unicorn shows up without a horn and performs more like a horse with misfit blinders, the story gets worse.

And it compounds. And the pressure mounts. And he can’t figure it out. And the play calling isn’t helping.

And then, coming off a game where he went 10-of-21 for 101 yards and two interceptions and left the Jug in Minneapolis, he starts the first half against Penn State on ice that’s getting thinner by the minute. Five-of-11 for 42 yards and two more interceptions, the second essentially closing out the half. And quite possibly his tenure as Michigan’s starting quarterback. At least for now.

Then there’s another story.

The story of the grandson of a legendary Michigan coach. The son of a former Michigan quarterback. The brother of Notre Dame quarterback CJ Carr. And the brother of Chad, whose courageous battle with childhood cancer and tragic passing united a fanbase around a cause much bigger than football.

The story of a kid who committed to Michigan despite the unicorn firmly planted ahead of him. Who outshined that unicorn in the spring game, won the eye test at seemingly every opportunity, and waited patiently for a chance that, given the money and expectations involved, might never come.

And finally, the story of that kid getting his shot. An opportunity to spark, inspire, and bring a steady hand to an anemic offense that desperately needed all three.

That’s the story. That’s the movie.

Michigan scored all 21 of its points in the second half with Tommy Carr at the helm, and every unit seemed to play better. The offense had a pulse. There was energy, decisiveness, and a sense that something might actually happen when Michigan had the football. It wasn't perfect, and it wasn't always pretty, but it was different. And after six games of waiting for the offense to become something resembling functional, different was pretty fucking refreshing.

A difficult position for Coach Whit, but not a difficult decision. There was no choice. And IMHO, there is no choice moving forward.

None of this is necessarily an indictment of Bryce Underwood's future. He's an enormously talented teenager who was handed a bag of money, the keys to the kingdom, and expectations that would have been difficult for a seasoned NFL quarterback to meet. Maybe he becomes everything we hoped. Maybe he doesn't. But Michigan doesn't have the luxury of waiting around to find out. Not this season. Not anymore.

Not with the first 0-3 start in Big Ten play since 1967 staring them in the face.

Make no mistake, this is not a cure-all. Tommy Carr is 18, inexperienced, and not particularly built to take a hit. The offensive line is still an injury-plagued, rotating mess that has had no chance to gel. The Utah-based play calling is still a work in progress. Carr will make mistakes. He'll have bad games. There will almost certainly be moments when the same people clamoring for him now will wonder what the hell they were thinking.

But I don't think there's a question that Michigan's best chance to win right now comes with Tommy Carr under center.

The world rejoices as the player they would have all sold their souls to just get to make a visit to their crap campuses seems to be a Michigan bust. But for Michigan, it's next man up.

The financial aspect means nothing. Your tickets will continue to be at the same level of unaffordable either way. The money is spent. The expectations are what they are. And the worst thing Michigan could do now is let the price tag dictate who plays quarterback.

Wipe a little egg off your face and focus on the fact that the regular season is only half over, Michigan is 4-2, and everything is still in front of them.

Cignetti is on the clock, and googling him is so 2023. ChatGPT tells me he's an asshole.

Go Blue.

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The Season of Giving

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Is this ai whit or just an ai generic santa? And is there a difference?

It ain’t Christmas yet, though I kinda wish it was. I’d like to fast forward to a time when this whole mess is fixed.

And make no mistake, despite my delusions of positivity based on the Iowa game, we have a mess. We have a team that is well paid and full of talent, that had expectations and goals, and it’s becoming very clear those won’t be met on any level.

Man, things can change fast from one week to the next.

But what doesn’t change? Michigan is the most generous group of gentlemen in all of college football. We gave Minnesota the win of a lifetime, no matter how bad of a team we end up being. Same goes for Iowa, who is wearing a badge of honor for a game where they were manhandled and still managed to avenge a directional school’s perceived clock screwing. And let’s not forget that directional school, Western Michigan, who in a controversial loss found a level of football relevancy that can only be measured by the record uptick in Google searches for “where is Western Michigan.”

More traffic than when they won a hockey natty, to be sure.

And so Michigan, a school known for its philanthropy, continues to give in ways no other school can.

The Michigan Difference: bestowing temporary relevancy to middling football programs.

Memories of the ghosts of coaches past are being referenced. “Practice is great!” says Coach Hoke. “Rich Rod doesn’t understand the Michigan culture,” says Ann Arbor Torch and Pitchfork.

And the unifying feature of past leaders in peril?

Losses.

Two in a row.

Not a common occurrence in Michigan’s storied history, definitely not against the Big Ten, and definitely definitely not to start a conference slate. Michigan is 0-2 in the Big Ten for the first time since Brady roamed the sidelines without a headset on, and that’s without even sniffing what is supposed to be the gauntlet portion of the schedule.

And don’t get me started on the comedy of errors and crappy football that awaits us in November if us and Little Bro stay on our current trajectories.

This is not a diatribe about how it’s not going to work. There’s still time, blah blah blah.

But it is one about how things are not working.

The offense is abysmal, the result of what seems like a cyclical torture test:

QB isn’t trusted.
Defense knows we’re not passing, so we can’t run.
Offense gets forced into passing downs.
QB makes a mistake.
QB is trusted even less.

And around and around we go.

The elite Michigan defense doesn’t look so great when it has to play the equivalent of two games in one afternoon. And special teams, despite a blocked punt — wasted by a quick three-and-out — still managed to look like former Buckeye Kerry Coombs has been sent to destroy us from the inside.

An embarrassing result against an average-at-best team. A trophy game that we have owned for the better part of 50 years.

Lost.

So where do we go from here?

Season goals become game-to-game goals. Scratch for signs of improvement. Figure out how you keep NIL-era talent that might want to abandon a sinking ship.

Find a way to keep it from sinking, I guess.

The new AD takes the reins on January 1. Depending on how things play out between now and then, they might want a fresh face in charge of the department’s premier team.

I’ll just keep tailgating.

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Way Back When-sday Partied with Legends

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Mel and John — legends

October 1, 2011 - Two absolute legends, Mel and John (miss these dudes so much), hanging in The Cove before Michigan’s 58-0 pasting of the Golden Gophers behind Fitz Toussaint’s 108 yards on just 11 carries. Denard would add a rushing TD and 2 passing TDs on one of those "Denard doing Denard things” days. More pics from the day on the game page here.

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Oans, zwoa, drei, g’suffa! The Oktoberfest Tailgate Pictures

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