It's the Same Old Song

Once again it's a different year but the same story. Michigan makes it to the Rose Bowl, I get excited since I don't have to travel for the bowl game and then we end up losing, and I've only been through 3 of these I can't imagine what the older fans go through with this. As I rolled into the Rose Bowl parking lot yesterday morning I was pleasantly surprised to see so much Maize and Blue in the crowd. I didn't expect as many Michigan fans but unfortunately for us, the fans were the only ones that showed up because the team was somewhere else maybe left on that field in Columbus on November 18th, or perhaps in Ann Arbor on December 3rd but this was not the Michigan team we had seen all season long.

Credit goes to USC for coming up with a gameplan that worked and made proper adjustments when needed, something our coaching staff did and cannot seem to do very often. One of the first plays for USC when they rolled Booty out, something I had not seen USC do all season long I thought to myself, that's very smart and we could be in for some trouble and unfortunately I was right. USC was never able to run successfully against the run defense, but they were able to pass at will. The great front four was never able to get much pressure on Booty, something I thought would give us the edge. Since Booty got time to throw he was able to pick us apart.

So here we are again, January 2nd, a good season since we made it to the Rose Bowl, but not a great one. Sadly, I am not distraught over this loss as I had been in years past. I see my brother last night take the loss extremely hard while I was pretty calm. All my friends I went with were surprised I took it so well and the reason is I'm getting used to this. It's the reality that continues to set in as I will root for Michigan until the day I die but right now we are a good, maybe sometimes even very good team/program, but we are not a great one. I can only hope that changes soon but with all the tradition that Michigan has and since we continue to win more games than we lose, I don't think it will change at all. It's sad to say but I will probably be able to recycle this post in years future, the team may change and the way the game unfolds may be different but the outcome will be the same. We will have an opportunity to make a change when Coach Carr retires in the next few years, but knowing the Michigan I know we won't.