Threat Level is in a holding pattern.
Traditionally this entire endeavor ends when the Michigan season ends. The Wolverines lose to Ohio State, we laugh, they go to a bowl game, we laugh some more, and the memories of both helps sustain us like big ol' grizzly bears as we hibernate during the long off season.
But these are lean times, my friends. There was no The Game this year, and Michigan isn't playing in a bowl game. The delicious grubs and berries that are the fruits of Wolverine failure are nowhere to be found, and I lack sustenance. So here I am, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for Michigan admin to pull the trigger either way on the Jim Harbaugh era so that I might have fatty, delicious content to keep me warm during this, the shortest, darkest day of the year.
THREAT LEVEL
If Michigan is close to making a decision on What To Do With A Problem Like Jim Harbaugh, there doesn't seem to be many signs of it. They are taking their sweet, buttery time trying to pick between one button that blows up the program immediately and another button that blows up the program slowly over the course of the next two to three seasons.
So, in lieu of just sitting around and hoping something happens, here's some other stuff to keep you occupied in between wishing pain on Dabo Swinney and turning on an Ohio State men's basketball game that you didn't know was being played that started an hour ago.
Big Dummy Tweets Wrong Thing
Michigan offensive coordinator Josh Gattis tweeted that Ohio State deserved to be in the College Football Playoff. That's it. Well, not completely. He added a few things about adversity and the ups and downs of the offseason, but that's about it.
What fun about this story to me is that I didn't expect the next thing to happen, which is Michigan fans apparently giving enough of a shit about anything right now to pull themselves out of their waist-deep ennui and tell the dude that he was a jackass for daring to prop up a "hated" "rival" when the Wolverines looked like boiled ass all season. And honestly, props to them! That was in fact the correct course of action; if Kerry Coombs started tweeting about how he respects Michigan's defensive schemes, I would hope that we would similarly put him on blast.
Oh, and Gattis locked his account. Smart move for the first dude on the chopping block if Harbaugh is retained.
An mlive.com Postmortem
If you've studiously read the Threat Level this fall, you'd have an utterly complete knowledge of everything that's happened to Michigan football and also an utterly complete knowledge of my particular anxieties and existential dreads. But! If you need a refresher, here you go.
Which brought us to the end of the season. Michigan, whose coach introduced the “stay positive, test negative” mantra in October, could no longer fend off the virus. A cluster of COVID-19 cases forced the Wolverines to cancel a home game against Maryland on Dec. 5, prompting conspiracy theories and suggestions that Michigan was “waving the white flag” on the season.
It's just like Threat Level, except the jokes are all implied and more sad than funny. So maybe it is actually exactly like Threat Level.
Everybody's Leaving
Kwity Paye, Jalen Mayfield, and Christian Turner are all gone, which will cause varying degrees of worry for Michigan fans, depending on how predictable/damaging the loss of those players are individually. Normally I'd say "damn, Kwity Paye is pretty good! How will the Wolverines replace him?" but instead I'll say, damn, Kwity Paye is pretty good, and it doesn't matter whether he stays or goes because his talents would be wasted anyway.
So that's it! Figure out what to do with your dumb coach, Warde, so I can stop writing these things! The Threat Level is "My Pal Foot Foot" by The Shaggs!
