Michigan Has The Most Delusional Fan Base In The Big Ten East

Siblings of Mark Wahlberg8 years ago

It’s too bad I have a word limit, because this discussion could go on for volumes like a goddamn senior thesis. Though I’ve been accused of “being on Harbaugh’s dick” in the lovely comment section, I challenge anyone to harbor a more detailed and raging disdain for the University of Michigan fan base than me. No, the school I went to is not exactly a “rival” of the once-mighty Wolverines, but they do play quite regularly, and our far less-funded program tends to lose in heartbreaking fashion. But these sickeningly upsetting outcomes do have even more sinister side effects: spending time with, and near, the wretched Michigan fan base.

Let’s start with some facts. In the last century, you know, since Woodrow fucking Wilson was in the White House and less total votes were cast in his victorious first term election than the current population of Florida, the Wolverines have won 12 total games in a season just once, have claimed one split national title and fewer Big Ten Championships than their hated rival Ohio State, and have a fringe top 25 overall winning percentage since 1990. Michigan has not won a conference title in over a decade, is 2-18 in their last 20 matchups with both of their chief rivals (MSU and the aforementioned Ohio State), and, since 2008, has won barely HALF of their Big Ten conference games. To put this into proper perspective, since we were in elementary and middle school, Michigan has performed worse than: OSU, MSU, Nebraska, Iowa, and Wisconsin (hooray DeVry!) in its own conference.

Yet, when ESPN ranked the top programs in all of college football last month, the comments section was littered with angry Michigan fans spewing maize and blue rhetoric prompting a PTSD attack of my interaction with TFM commenters. When Lloyd Carr stepped down, Michigan fans thought every coach in the country would want the job, though reportedly Les Miles and Greg Schiano turned it down. When Rodriguez was fired, and native son Jim Harbaugh backed out at the last minute to head to San Francisco, Michigan, the mightiest of all the programs (in their own minds), hired a MAC and MWC coach with a career record under .500: Brady Hoke.

Yet, even in the midst of perhaps their most miserable stretch in program history, optimism (read: delusion) raged on in Ann Arbor. Each fall of the Rodriguez era we’d hear about the September Heisman crowning of non-throwing quarterback Denard Robinson, only to fade into obscurity as the actual defenses of the Big 10 vanquished Denard and the Wolverines. The Hoke era was all about “toughness” and “defense,” and after an inaugural season Sugar Bowl victory, Michigans fans all thought Michigan is back! These people even had shirts made after robbing Michigan State, who had beaten them, of a BCS bowl berth. The shirts read “Spartan Tears Taste Like Sugar.” In a bit of karma, Michigan would proceed to win fewer games each successive year of the Hoke tenure, and has since gone 1-5 against those “crying” Spartans.

I understand the University of Michigan has a lot of money, and now what is at the least a respectable coach, but in typical Michigan fashion, after one decent season of 10-3 in which they lost to both rivals and were statistically curb stomped by fucking Utah, all of a sudden they’re the most popular bet to win the national championship in Vegas. With no quarterback in sight, a recruit that has never played a college down (Gary), the most overrated player in the nation (Peppers), and a coach that has NEVER won a conference championship at the division I level.

These people are fucking delusional. But hey, on the bright side, at least you get to have a basketball player on your football jerseys now. Congrats on that, and your repeated recruiting ranking championships..

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