Threat Level is the Perfect Antidote for Misplaced Confidence After a Rough Week for Michigan's Offense

One man may seem incompetent/ Another not make sense/
While others look like quite a waste/
Of company expense

There is a pretty basic belief, among all sports fandoms, in the idea of momentum. This idea expresses itself on the micro level ("He's heating up!" "He's on fire!" "Boomshakalaka!" etc.) and on the macro level ("Ohio State quarterbacks will always be bad in the NFL"), and it's fascinating to me because when it's a real thing that's true, momentum is so real that you can almost feel it, pulling at your soul like the ghost from Poltergeist as it reaches through the television and into your gut.

A lot of the time it's just bullshit. No amount of wanting something to be true actually makes it true. Like, I dunno, Alex Orji being capable of throwing the football, or Donovan Edwards being an elite running back, or a complete overhaul of an offensive line being anything but a problem.

None of those things are true, and I think that that time Michigan fans spent trying to speak those things into existence would've been better served doing... literally anything else? If we assume any of this matters at all, I guess haranguing Sherrone Moore to get a quarterback in the transfer portal would've been the move.

This is funnier.

YOU GET WHAT YOU GOT

Okay yeah, Michigan beat a decent Fresno State team 30-10 at home, which looks fine if you didn't watch the game. A three touchdown win is a three touchdown win, so does any picking of nits really matter?

If you did watch the game, you were treated to a Wolverine offensive line getting stuffed into a locker on third and inches, a nonsensical quarterback rotation that netted 121 yards of passing, wide receivers looking totally lost, Will Johnson vacillating wildly between being the best corner in America and the worst, Wink Martindale dialing up the dumbest possible blitz possible while employing zero coverage, and Donovan Edwards carrying the ball 11 times for 27 yards while generally looking like ass, my dude.

Since all of those things do matter and did happen, I guess the previous four hundred words were just a fancy way of me saying "told ya so, nerds!"

MEDIOCRITY (OR BEING FLAT-OUT BAD) IS NOT A MORTAL SIN

What I don't understand is why Michigan World in general was so insistent that bad or at least not very good things were in fact good this entire offseason (yeah, Alex Orji really earned those TIM TEBOW comparisons, huh?). Everything that looked bad on Saturday for Michigan was predictable for anyone with half a brain, which I know because I predicted it and have half a brain.

I know I'm belaboring the point, but I don't think Michigan is a bad team. I don't even think they're mediocre! They've got bad and mediocre parts, but what's good is still pretty good: keep Davis Warren at QB, throw to Colston Loveland fifty times a game, forget Donovan Edwards exists and run Kalel Mullings' legs off, pray to God that the defense doesn't get any key injuries, and bam, you've got eight wins and an okay start to the Sherrone Moore era.

What's so terrible about that? It's fine to know, and to admit.

TIME TO BACKPEDAL

The two dollar version of what I'm trying to say is that winning a natty convinced a lot of Michigan fans that they flipped the dynasty switch, allowing them to absorb the loss of half their team and coaching staff without any real speed bumps to more trophies.

Truthfully, Michigan was never even close to that. They won a national championship last season largely due to a unique combination of extra eligibility, NFL-level coaching, elite line play, and yeah, some cheating. None of which was ever going to be sustainable, and any pretensions of turning into Alabama (or Ohio State) North were pretty unfounded.

"Iowa with upside" is closer to reality, but remember that Iowa won 10 games last year. Right now I don't see a chance in hell for Michigan to replicate that kind of success in 2024. Maybe "Northwestern with a scarier defense"? I dunno, we'll have to workshop this before Texas absolutely annihilates them next weekend.

Anyway, the Threat Level has been lowered to GUARDED, mostly because of how hard I laughed when Alex Orji threw a simple five yard pass directly into the ground at five thousand miles per hour. See you next week!