And just like that – POOF! - The era of perfection and bliss for Wolverine Football Fans has ended and suddenly!! (Sigh) We all need therapy again. The various factions and camps of Wolverine Fans have returned and there are divisions and debate resurfacing among the Wolverine faithful. The news cycle never seems to end for Wolverine Fans does it?!?! What did we have about 2, 3 days to celebrate a national championship before a never-ending barrage of new articles about Michigan Football. I’m ready to provide some therapy and discuss all of the coaching changes, current and upcoming that we will be seeing in the Michigan athletic program today on another episode of Wolverine Fan Therapy!! This hire seems similar to the hire Notre Dame made when they hired Marcus Freeman in _____ when Brian Kelly left for LSU. Young, energetic, passionate and rising coaching star steps in and takes over when an older, extremely successful coach leaves for a big, new job. We could be looking at - similar to Freeman - a solid transition with some excellent recruiting, but certainly some bumps in the road.

Questions and Dilemmas: · Are we more sad about Harbaugh’s departure or more hopeful about the future? · Warde Manuel · Who should be the next offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator? · What are the expectations of the team going forward? · Are we looking at a return to the days of Brady Hoke or is the program set up for future success? · Is this young new coach ready to handle the gauntlet of a schedule in the fall of 2024? · Will Michigan be able to hold on to all of its players? · Will Michigan be able to make up any ground in the transfer portal and in recruiting?

Michigan Football team # 144 stakes its claim to being the greatest Michigan Football team of all time!

What a season!!

What a time to be a Michigan Fan!

Michigan Ends Another Dynasty with Thrilling Rose Bowl Victory in overtime, 27-20 over Alabama

The historic run of the Michigan Wolverines continues with a comeback, overtime victory over the vaunted Alabama Crimson Tide in the Rose Bowl. Michigan slays the dragon and punches its ticket to a national championship game in Houston, Texas against soon-to-be Big Ten conference member, the Washington Huskies. It has been a couple of days, but do all Wolverine Fans realize just what this team has accomplished? By overcoming more adversity than most teams face in 2 or 3 seasons, by beating college football titans at their own game, this 2023-2024 Michigan Wolverine football team – win or lose on Monday, January 8th -- has already cemented its legacy as one of the greatest Michigan football teams of all time and Michigan is now commencing to rewrite the landscape of college football. The Big Ten conference was dominated by Ohio State for the better part of 20 years and college football has been dominated for more than a decade by southern teams, mostly SEC teams and mostly Alabama. Michigan has ended both of those dynasties, taking over as the top dog in the Big Ten (Ohio State football program is basically crumbling to pieces over the past month) and now Michigan has assured that the new national champion will not be from the SEC, but will be a team with a northern or northwestern address, either Seattle or Ann Arbor. This is remarkable stuff! I have been trying to tell Wolverine Fans this fact since mid-September this season – Michigan is building a new Alabama and this Michigan team is the culmination of everything that Jim Harbaugh was trying to build when he was brought to Ann Arbor on December 29, 2014 to take over the Michigan program. This team is different, this team is special and this team is absolutely fueled by all of the doubter and haters, who have questioned this team for months. Let’s Go Blue!!

We win!! Michigan’s thrilling victory over Ohio State, 30-24 sends all of the theories that Michigan was only good because of sign-stealing to the dustbin of history along with Orson Welles’ War of the World broadcast, Geraldo Rivera’s unveiling of Al Capone’s tomb, Dewey defeats Truman, the Y2K bug and many more of the greatest fake news, scam stories of all time. ESPN and the rest of the sports media world will have to come up with some other ludicrous fake news story to talk about for the rest of the year, because Michigan Football is for real, Michigan Football is the truth and Michigan Football is truly the class of the Big Ten. If things go according to plan, the Biggest Loser conference commissioner in the college history Tony Petitti will be forced to hand the Big Ten championship trophy to our beloved coach Jim Harbaugh this Saturday night on the podium in Indianapolis. The other 13 teams in the Big Ten conference colluded, they lied, they slandered us, they hated, they schemed and they cried louder than a bunch of newborns in the maternity ward but they just couldn’t stop the 2023 Michigan Football from their destiny. In the end, they are just a bunch of losers and Michigan’s stands as the Leaders and the Best. Another 12-0 season, another Big Ten East championship and a 3rd consecutive trip to the Big Ten championship game in Indianapolis. ·

A golden age for Michigan football: * 28 consecutive regular-season wins, matching the Big Ten record. * 24 straight Big Ten wins, a program record. * Three 12-win seasons in a row for the first time ever. . ·

Those predicting a steep fall-off in Michigan Football in 2024 really just haven’t been paying attention. Will there be a fall-off? Well sure, it’s hard to be one of the top 5 offenses and defenses in consecutive seasons. However, Reasons that I don’t expect a steep fall-off in Michigan Football next year: · Transfer portal era – Michigan has proved to be one of the best at pulling in players from the transfer portal · J.J. McCarthy is better than 50/50 to return to Michigan, in my opinion · Michigan has elite coaches on offense and defense · Michigan returns an impressive group of 1st and 2nd year players

We are all products of our experience and we all have bias. All of us have watched so many versions of this game through the years and all of us have watched these two football teams play so many games and it taints and skews our view of the match-up. Before these two teams play, we are all filled with memories of past games and the history of these two great programs. Even former players and well-paid college football analysts are subject to the same biases. I have several well-known and well-paid analysts saying things like, “well Ohio State has a much better record in top-5 match-ups like this one” OR “Michigan has a tendency over the years to do _____ in games like this”. The problem is that all of those historical paradigms mean nothing in this year’s game. I even heard one analyst say, “well remember this Buckeye just narrowly lost to Georgia in last year’s national semi-final game. They were only a few inches on a field goal away from winning the National Championship. And they said this, as if this was the same exact Ohio State Buckeye team. When in fact, they were speaking about last year’s team. And just because several of the players are the same. It’s not the same team. And if you watch Ohio State play this year, the 2023 version of the Ohio State Buckeyes is a LOT different than the 2022 or 2021 versions of the Ohio State Buckeyes. And the main reason is Quarterback play. Ohio State has a solid college Quarterback this year in Kyle McCord. But he is basically a pure drop-back passer. Think the Ohio State version of Chad Henne or Brian Griese. I would say that Kyle McCord reminds me a lot of Chad Henne. So a damn good quarterback but much different than C.J. Stroud or Justin Fields or J.T. Barrett or Braxton Miller. Michigan-Ohio State QB Match-ups: 2023 Kyle McCord vs. J.J. McCarthy 2022 C.J. Stroud vs. J.J. McCarthy 2021 C.J. Stroud vs. Cade McNamara 2019 Justin Fields vs. Shea Patterson 2018 Dwayne Haskins vs. Shea Patterson 2017 J.T. Barrett (Dwayne Haskins) vs. John O’Korn 2016 J.T. Barreett vs. Wilton Speight 2015 J.T. Barrett vs. Jake Rudock 2014 J.T. Barrett vs. Devin Gardner 2013 Braxton Miller vs. Devin Gardner 2012 Braxton Miller vs. Devin Gardner 2011 Braxton Miller vs. Denard Robinson 2010 Terrelle Pryor vs. Denard Robinson 2009 Terrelle Pryor vs. Tate Forcier 2008 Terrelle Pryor vs. Nick Sheridan 2007 Todd Boeckman vs. Chad Henne (injured) 2006 Troy Smith vs. Chad Henne I’m not going to also list all of the running back match-ups but suffice to say, those have also often been a mis-match with Ohio State featuring future NFL starters like Ezekiel Elliott and J.K. Dobbins among others, while Michigan was countering with solid players but not future NFL players like Fitzgerald Toussaint or Karan Higdon. This year, TreVeyon Henderson may be #1 but Michigan with Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards is certainly on par with Henderson and Chip Trayanum. The 2023 Ohio State team has been really led by its defense and the likely Biletnikoff winner Marvin Harrison, Junior, but they have also been plagued with red-zone scoring issued, inconsistent offensive line and Quarterback play, difficulty regularly moving the ball. Ohio State has played poorly in road games at Ohio State, Wisconsin and Rutgers and needed to mount comebacks in those games, really led by their defense. I believe the # 1 unit on the Michigan Football team is the defensive line. I believe that it is probably the best defensive line that Michigan has ever had, featuring at a minimum 3 future NFL players and possibly as many as 5 or 6 future NFL players. I think this unit will flex its muscle on Saturday and show the country just how dominant that they can be and they will make Kyle McCord’s life miserable. My biggest concerns: • Health of J.J. McCarthy, Roman Wilson and O-line • Linebackers • Missing Coach Harbaugh and Coach Chris Partridge The Michigan Wolverines team remains really angry and highly motivated to quiet a nation full of doubters and haters. There are no certainties in life or in football, only scenarios and probabilities Michigan wins in a blowout - 25% Michigan wins a close game - 40% Ohio State wins a close game - 25% Ohio State wins in a blowout - 10%

The stage is set for a historic match-up with Ohio State. Two undefeated teams. Two fan bases that hate each other.

Earlier in the 2023 football season, I spoke about how no one believed in Michigan and some folks said that wasn’t true that I was speaking in hyperbole. Well, do you believe me now!?

This is what I think happened at Ohio State:
1) Ohio State paid players under the table for decades, which gave them a huge unfair advantage against Big Ten teams, allowing them to dominate the conference for years.

2) Ohio State hired one of the most decadent, corrupt coaches in NCAA history in Urban Meyer, who took the paying of players to the next level, effectively buying multiple Big Ten championships for the Buckeyes, before leaving after yet another OSU scandal.

3) Ohio State fans, accustomed to having much more talent than the rest of the Big Ten teams (because they bought the best recruits) assumed that they owned the Big Ten conference and treated it as a piece of property.

4) Ohio State fans really never thought that any other Big Ten team would be able to match them on the field for obvious reasons. When you buy the best recruits and pay the best players, you will win against less talented opponents. No OSU fan believed that this would ever change since they would break any rule and compromise any principle, in order to win.

5) Michigan brought in NFL coaching talent and player development talent and over the course of 8 painful years, began to produce just as much talent and just as many NFL prospects as Ohio State, all with an actual team mentality and with more toughness. Also, Michigan was able to do this without blatantly "buying" this talent but did it through hard work and determination.

6) Ohio State fans have severe cognitive dissonance and just can't accept that Michigan is actually better than they are on the field, since they are like spoiled children who have always gotten their way, so they created this fantasy world where Michigan must have "cheated" to get better. In Psychology, this is called gaslighting when you accuse someone of doing something that you actually are guilty of doing. Ohio State is the program that cheats, not Michigan.

The Michigan Football program is currently facing constant attacks from every flank and yet nothing seems to be able to derail the Michigan Wolverine Freight train. Talent wins in all sports and Michigan is simply more talented than all of the teams on its schedule. Now that we know in detail just how everyone in the Big Ten conference feels about Michigan and now that the gloves are off. It’s go time baby and there is blood in the streets. Everyone in the Big Ten is taking a turn to take shots at Michigan, because of envy, one of the worst and deadliest of the 7 deadly sins. In most seasons, The Michigan vs. Everybody platitude is just a meaningless slogan, but this season, it is verified reality!! Michigan is truly being attacked by anyone and everyone in the college football world. Rivals-check, conference opponents-check, feckless conference commissioner-check, opposing coaches-check, corrupt and soon-to-be defunct NCAA-check, all other fan bases-check, social media-check, ESPN the worldwide leader in woke sports, pundits around the world · This cannot be just about college football and who gets in the last and final 4-team playoff could it? Yes it could and it is. The decision about who gets in the 4-team college football playoff is all about politics. This is all a grand game of politics to see who gets in and who doesn’t. Otherwise, why would the 4-team CFP even be a topic when Michigan’s ridiculous sign-stealing scandal is being discussed. These moronic talking heads give themselves away every single damn time. They start talking about ·

Coup Attempt by Big Ten conference o No repairing the relationship between Tony Petitti and Michigan o I will never root for any other team in the Big Ten – I have seen the error of my ways · Being preached at from a moral hilltop by other college football programs is like being lectured about haute cuisine by a bunch of fry cooks at What-a-burger or maybe Rally’s. Every single college football program in the country with the possible exception of the service academies would sell its soul for an appearance in the 4-team CFP and they basically do sell their soul almost on a weekly basis throughout each year. So stop it with your fake outrage and · Victory at Penn State was one of the biggest wins in recent memory o Penn State had much more riding on the game than Michigan did o Literally coaches jobs were on the line § Offensive cooridinator was fired § James Franklin is back on the hot seat o Penn State is one of the top 10 largest fan bases in the country o Beaver Stadium is one of the hardest road games in all of college football, maybe top 5 most difficult places to play o Michigan sustained a Coup attempt from its own conference the evening before the game o Michigan found out 90 minutes before kickoff that they would be without their head coach o Penn State’s high school offense certainly helped Ohio State fan base and their moronic perspective. They have all now have the opinion that Michigan only won the games in 2021 and 2022 against Ohio State because of sign-stealing and Connor Stallions. That’s fine because I only think that Urban Meyer coached at Ohio State because he knew that the program was drowning in a sea of dirty money and that he could buy the best players in the country. Oh you don’t like when I saw that. Well sorry but it’s my opinion and I’m entitled to my opinion, just like you are.

ESPN – the worldwide leader in sports is now just a political off-shoot focused on anger and getting more people to bet on sports

After decades and bending and breaking every rule in the college football world, Ohio State football fans are forever delusional. Ohio State fans know that they pay their best players and have for many years. They assume that everyone does this and it is fine - Ohio State just does it better than everyone else. Ohio State accepts that being put on probation every 10-12 years is also part of life in big time college football. This mindset causes them to project onto Michigan, their own paradigm. They assume that Michigan is just as corrupt as Ohio State.

ESPN talking heads denying that they are parroting a narrative for their corporate parents, while then coming up with their devious and deceitful ideas. Sinicism oozing out of every pore in their body.

Paul Finebaum is so annoyed with the Michigan story, even though he has been one of the leading voices on the ESPN network pushing for a rush to judgement and embellishing, amplifying the rumors and innuendo