You give and you give and you give, and then Michigan blows a 16 point lead in 94 seconds and what the heck was I thinking?

“Hang in there”, I told myself throughout the weeks leading up to the Outback Bowl,   “Surely the second most extravagantly paid football coach in the universe ( seven million dollars a year)  will come up with an exciting game plan after a month off and the return of starting players.”

Well, no.   A plodding, clumsy, pedestrian Michigan team managed to become the ONLY team from the Big Ten to lose a bowl game.  Stupidly.  With penalties and turnovers.

Fa la la la la and so much for the collegiate football season.  The issue today is not whether Michigan’s coaching staff should be:

a.  given a raise

b. fired

c.  tarred and feathered

d.  fired, then tarred and feathered, then fired some more

The issue is that a season such as this, one that began with such promise and ended with such shame, so damages the heart, mind, and soul that some sort of rite or ritual is necessary to preserve the connection between the fan and the team that has abused him (me).  If so, and I believe that the tissue holding me to Michigan football has worn thin, then a formal process of reconstitution is in order.

This is not the first time I have been shaken as a fan.  The Steinbrenner years were brutal for this Yankee fan; he changed managers twenty times in twenty-three years and went through eleven general managers in the same span.  Comparisons with contemporary political characters may be inevitable; these were the years in which the Yankees were under the thumb of a tyrannical and mercurial self-promoting owner, known as The Boss.  It took Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera to entice me into watching the Yankees again, and incredibly gifted rookies to nudge me even closer to something like the first stages of fandom.

Winning is not everything, as my long-standing allegiance to the Detroit Red Wings makes clear.  Yes, there have been glory days for the Wings, but not many in recent years.  And yet, my fondness for them remains unshaken.  They missed the Stanley Cup playoffs last year for the first time in twenty-five seasons; it hurt, but the they had snuck in under the wire for so many seasons that the end of the streak seemed inevitable.  Had they begun the season with fanfare and expectation, the pain might have been unbearable, but they did not and it was not.

Ah, but Michigan.

I’ve been so chippy with fans of other teams and so strident in my Michigan fandom that I cannot in good conscience hop off the Michigan bandwagon (tires flattened, windshield busted out, rusted fuel tanks) in order to flag down one of the currently superior programs.  Tempted.  Tempted.

In addition to principle, decency, all that stuff, what other conference could I endorse?  SEC? Uh, I’m not a Bubba.  Big 12?  Or a cowboy.  Pac 12/15 whatever?  Colorado, Arizona, and Utah are less Pacific than I might think proper, and, although Stanford and Berkeley are in the mix, I can’t get past USC.  ACC?  Have I mentioned Notre Dame?

No, the only conference I admire almost completely is the BIG, formerly the Big 10 , now made up of 14, including Maryland and Rutgers, whose inclusion bothers me during the football season but who are pretty interesting during the rest of the year.  I can root for Michigan State when Michigan is not in the picture, but sliding over to Penn State or Ohio State would be like giving my children to the Manson family, the Galactic Empire, or the Medellin Cartel.

I know, I know.  Cubs fans took it in the shorts for a century.  Red Sox fans brought suffering to a national pastime.  Indians fans, Bills fans, Lions fans – they’ve all shown thankless dedication.  But, all those teams have been good enough to come close, really close, and I know there is heartbreak in almost, as the Lions have found in the last three seasons, but fans of these teams need feel no shame.  Browns fans?  Another story for another day.

As I watched Alabama play Georgia for the National Championship this year I realized that the football these guys play is of a different species than that which my Wolverines have brought to the field.  There were some similarities on defense, but the talent and imagination presented on offense was remarkable.

So, what’s a fan to do?

OK, I’m sticking with Michigan.  Given what I see at the top of the BIG and SEC, I lower my expectations.  Can Michigan beat Michigan State?  Sure, and they will from time to time, not every year.  Should Michigan beat Ohio State?  Yes, and it could happen in the years remaining to me, although I see a gap in recruiting growing larger year after year.  Will Penn State continue to improve?  No doubt, and that side of the conference just gets tougher and tougher.

How’s this for high hopes?  We’ve went 10-3 in Coach Harbaugh’s first two years, 8-5 last season, won one of three Bowl games in that period, and beat Michigan State once.  How about we beat two of the behemoths on the schedule?  Notre Dame (230 days until we play), Penn State, Michigan State, Wisconsin, or Ohio State?  How about we beat Western Michigan, SMU, Maryland, Rutgers, and Indiana?  That puts us at 7-3.  Nebraska and Northwestern have both improved; toss ups next season.  Best case, 9-3 with wins over Penn State and Ohio State; worst case, 5-7 with losses to Penn State, Michigan State, Wisconsin, Ohio State, Nebraska, and Northwestern.

There, I said it.  Michigan could easily go 5-7 next season, and I’m going to have to consider that possibility from the start instead of fantasizing about a playoff bid.  Indiana looked better last season as well.  4-8?  Please, Santa, please.  I’ve been a fan for too long.  No coal in this fan’s stocking.  No need for upsets next season to tame the prideful.

I’m already tamed.