Moe: No, it's true. I got their names written down right here on what I call my, uh, "enemies list." [reaches under the bar for a sheet of paper]Barney: [takes list and reads it] Jane Fonda, Daniel Shore, Jack Anderson ... Hey! This is Richard Nixon's enemies list. You just crossed out his name and put yours.
Moe: Okay, gimmie that, gimmie it back. [takes list] [writes] Barney Gumble.
Barney: Oh.
Something bad happened last season. Taylor Lewan left Michigan.
In a macro sense I don't have a problem with that development, mainly because Taylor Lewan is/was a turd, and more importantly a talented turd who played for our foremost rival. On the flip side of this, however, Ohio State fans no longer have a central figure to fixate on a direct all of their hate towards. This could end up being a significant problem.
One of the central theses of my Grand Unified Theory Of Being A Football Fan In The Big Ten is that B1G football fans are powered through an unholy combination of bratwurst and hate. Without a central figure to fixate on and psychically direct large amounts of hate and vitriol toward, B1G football fans eventually collapse into a black hole singularity of sadness and depression, from which no light can ever escape (Bloominton).
So when Taylor Lewan left Michigan, I began to panic a little. Who would I make snide remarks about whenever I didn't have a real point to make but still wanted to slam the team that I hate? Who would be my convenient go-to scapegoat for all the ills of the world when I don't have the time or motivation to actually figure out what those ills are? Who would be there to stand around with crappy tattoos and a smug, incredibly punchable look on his face as he explained to a reporter about how important friendship and his teammates are, given that he was alleged to have done some seriously messed up stuff in protection of a teammate who possibly did some horrible crap?
Obviously I had gotten pretty good at this as far as Lewan is concerned, but to overcome his leaving, I had to turn to a page from the Michigan playbook. All college football fans are good at creating villains out of thin air, but Wolverine fans are particularly adept at it. For example, their hatred of Jim Tressel was completely understandable given his overall record against their team, but instead of simply hating him on the basis of that, Michigan fans have elevated Tressel to the level of some kind of football Attila the Hun combined with the love child of Jack Abramoff and Gordon Gekko, when really he was more a fairly boring micromanager who made a really stupid decision to lie to the NCAA.
But reality doesn't matter that much when you're mad, and using a very specific criteria (Michigan football player, on their current roster, did something bad, did something less bad to Ohio State which we'll fixate on instead) we'll target a Michigan player who we can fixate on for all eternity, or at least until he leaves the team.
Step On Up, Graham Glasgow!
Congrats Graham! You are now the target of our ire, deserved or not!
To be fair, you probably do deserve it. You were just suspended from the Michigan football team for "a violation of team expectations," which turned out to be an OVI instead of you not making your bed or something, which is what "a violation of team expectations" sounds like rather than a broken law that could've led to someone being killed.
Brady Hoke quickly swung down the axe on the career of Glasgow, giving him an unprecedented one game suspension which might somewhat irritate the player who was thought to be Hoke's starting center going into the season. Ever the disciplinarian, Hoke refused to be swayed by the fact that the team Graham is suspended for is Appalachian State, which is some seriously bad juju on his part.
But is that really enough? I mean, look, what he's accused of doing is admittedly really messed up, but is that really enough reason to hate on the guy? Everybody makes mistakes, it's part of the human experience. You can't really expect a guy to go through life and not accidentally beat someone half to death in a parking lot, or punch a woman in the face, or drink and drive. Things like that just happen, and for us to vilify Glasgow for this one, small-
Glasgow is a 6-foot-6, 303-pound redshirt sophomore from Aurora, Ill. He did not have any FBS offers coming out of Marmion Academy in 2011, according to Rivals, but did originally agree to become a preferred walk-on at Ohio State before "flipping" to Michigan.
...
But it could be the walk-on Glasgow who lands in the starting lineup this fall. He played in five games last season as a reserve, and star left tackle Taylor Lewan spoke highly of his development.
YEEESSSSSSSSSSSSS. Screw putting lives in danger, Glasgow. You made the horrible mistake of spurning The Ohio State University, and given that you could've shored up our offensive line corps but instead defected to the enemy and then got praise from He Who Shall Not Be Named pretty much seals the deal. You not have a gigantic target on your back going into next season.
OVIs, DUIs, etc., are all horrible and generally serve to make you a bad person. But the thing is that football fans in general will suffer a horrible person as long as they're good at what they do, even if they're fans of a rival team. Ray Rice, Ben Roethlisberger, Jeremy Hill, and on and on are all bad, bad people, but their issues with the law and treating other human beings with respect are mostly just background noise to the fact that OOOOOO DANGIT I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY SAID THAT ABOUT [insert favorite team here].
So Graham. You are the worst! Just the worst. You thought that you could hide by merely getting arrested for being behind the wheel of a vehicle while intoxicated, but the day that you rejected preferred walk-on status with the Buckeyes you sealed your fate. Pray for mercy from the Michigan penal system, for Ohio State fans will have none!
Until you graduate.
