Where Was THIS Michigan?

After that loss, not only were Michigan fans forced to continue enduring shattered high but reasonable hopes, they and their football program were now being criticized, scrutinized, and dismissed on a regular basis by ESPN, college football fans across the nation, so-called Michigan and/or Big Ten football fans/commentators online, the Big Ten Network, the SEC, and anyone else you can think of.

Michigan pulled off six straight wins, but it didn’t matter because those wins came in the Big Ten, the conference that everyone—even “objective” and “logical” commentators—had a field day degrading all season, no matter what any player or team in the conference accomplished. All fans heard all season long was that the Big Ten was weak, the SEC is/was/will always be the best conference, the Big Ten doesn’t have the speed or the talent to hang with the SEC, the Big Ten is overrated, Ohio State doesn’t play anybody except Michigan and Michigan sucks, and so on.

No one cared about Mike Hart and Chad Henne’s records or acknowledged that they were among some of the best talent in college football regardless of conference—the same is true for Mario Manningham, Adrian Arrington, and Shawn Crable. No one acknowledged the strength and talent Michigan obviously had in order to lose the two most valuable players on the team to injuries and still pull off victories, unlike highly respected teams of the 2007 season such as Oregon, or even USC and Florida losing while playing with valuable injured players as Michigan also sometimes did with Henne.

But the glimpses fans got this season of Michigan’s talent, strength, determination, and ability to win tough games against the best teams in other conferences—the latter two being something we didn’t see to the same degree in 2006—kept validating in some of their minds that Michigan had everything they expected of the Wolverines inside of them but, over the years, often failed to bring those things to the field, even when they were 100 percent healthy.

Then Michigan draws Florida in the Capital One Bowl, and less than 10 percent of the nation and essentially no commentators give Michigan a chance. They had more confidence in Illinois in the Rose Bowl (and look how that turned out). After the year they’d seen Michigan have, some fans didn’t even believe in them—not because Michigan isn’t good enough, but because Michigan doesn’t play good [sic] enough.

But with the exception of four turnovers—turnovers that could have resulted in a mind-boggling 62 to 69 total Wolverine points to Florida’s 35—Michigan did exactly what fans knew they could have been doing in each and every game at full strength. Although that ultimately might not have been enough this season due to injuries, it could have meant a win over Ohio State and a 2006 BCS National Championship title...especially considering that Michigan did something on Jan. 1, 2008 that Ohio State failed to do in last season’s Championship game—beat Florida.

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