It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great state when they see the streets and cabin-doors crowded with young children, clad in the discordant colors of blue and an odd, corny shade of yellow. "Go Blue?" is the meek and sad statement, or question, muttered almost apologetically by these babes.
I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of small Wolverines is, in the present deplorable state of the state, a very great grievance. Whoever could find a pragmatic method of making these children useful members of the community would deserve a statue as a preserver of the nation.
But my intention is very far from being confined to providing only for the children. For these ragamuffins are so often accompanied by similarly dressed adults, sporting the same color scheme and the name of a certain academic institution known as the University of Michigan.
Increasingly, these poorly dressed fanatics wear a confused look on their faces: a strange combination of smugness and bewilderment. They have often been told that they are "the Leaders and Best," yet life experience so often teaches them that they are neither. The weight of such cognitive dissonance sits heavily on their souls.
But the said confusion is not limited to the realm of the academic, though that area is notable.
No, far more visible in the public eye is the glaring gulf between the strength of the University of Michigan athletic department as perceived by its fans and its generally mediocre results, at least when forced to play by a common set of rules.
Without question, some programs have enjoyed fleeting success in recent decades. However, a closer inspection of said successes lays bare a deeper set of flaws from which there is likely no escape.
In the game of tackle football, the record books, which are obliged to be more charitable than I am, recognize Michigan as the national championship for the year of our Lord 2023. Even so, any serious fan of the sport is well aware of the plainly illicit and immoral sign-stealing scheme that led to this so-called title.
No honest observer respects this record. Despite the ruling body's lack of true punishment for these egregious offenses, even hard-core fans of the Wolverines struggle to celebrate this "accomplishment." Once the unfair advantage was brought to light, the football team returned to its more natural state of mediocrity.
More recently, the tall and itinerant gentlemen of the Ann Arbor hardwood, hired from every corner of the land, were declared the winners of a multiround tournament. However, many professed fans became vaguely aware of the team only a month or two before its triumph in March and early April.
Yet the success appears transitory, as the coach and a core set of players, many of whom were on campus for less than a year, fled as quickly as they had arrived. It is a typical reaction among those who have endured even a short stay within the limits of Tree Town. A regression to the mean and to irrelevance seems inevitable.
Even in ice hockey, where the team is once again strong, the Wolverines bear the burden of a long string of failures in both the Big Ten regular season and the final weekend of the national tournament. There is no reason to believe this year will be any different.
Beyond these failures, the past half-century has produced a remarkably diverse portfolio of improprieties: booster payments, vacated basketball victories, football arrests and investigations, tunnel and sideline melees with multiple opponents, a basketball coach who liked to engage in fisticuffs with opposing coaches, and hockey hazing accusations.
Compliance officers, attorneys, and public-relations staff could stay employed for generations. One is forced to conclude that scandal at Michigan is not a temporary affliction to be cured, but a durable feature of the institution’s culture.
As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes, I have reached an educated conclusion about the best remedy for the current tragic situation.
I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.
I propose that the University of Michigan simply abolish intercollegiate athletics altogether, thereby achieving in a single, swift administrative stroke what decades of investigations, suspensions, settlements, and probation have so conspicuously failed to accomplish.
I think the advantages of this modest proposal are obvious, numerous, and of the highest importance.
First, consider the reduced burden on NCAA compliance and enforcement staffs, not to mention local police, if the town were suddenly devoid of University of Michigan student-athletes and coaches.
Furthermore, think of the financial strain the university would shed if it were relieved of NCAA fines, coaching buyouts, and payments to overrated high school prospects.
The cost savings from this move would almost certainly offset the economic benefit of seven or eight home football games a year or a sparsely populated basketball arena.
Second, the property and buildings currently used for athletic competition could be reallocated for purposes more beneficial to the public good, such as low-income housing or the town's chronically underserved market for artisanal cold-brew roasteries, gluten-free sourdough bakeries, boutique yoga studios, small-batch kombucha taprooms, and craft cannabis dispensaries, of which the town has barely one per block.
Perhaps the Big House, already a penitentiary in name, could at last become one in fact, redeeming the town's unfortunate defeat by Jackson in the 1838 contest for the state's first prison. The town allegedly received the university as a consolation prize, so that both towns would host an institution that is hard to get into and whose residents never stop talking about their time inside.
Third, consider the financial benefit to certain billionaires if they no longer needed to almost single-handedly bankroll the university's name, image, and likeness fund to appease their fifth or sixth wife. Think of the positive contributions to society that they could make with these reallocated funds.
Then again, considering that billionaire marriages have a shelf life shorter than a tub of organic, plant-based cashew cheese from Plum Market, this problem may solve itself naturally in the near term.
Fourth, if the University of Michigan were to shut down athletics, fans and alumni could shift their mental energy from being arrogant about their overrated sports teams to simply being arrogant about academics.
The university could finally devote itself to what it does best: producing tenured professors, professional protesters, and graduates who mention their alma mater within the first minute of any conversation. It could also keep charging premium out-of-state tuition to the wealthy sons and daughters of the eastern seaboard, who were unable to gain admission to Penn, Cornell, or, in the worst cases, Dartmouth.
In this regard, Michigan could follow the model of original Big Ten member the University of Chicago. Since the school abandoned football in 1939 and left the Big Ten in 1946, its academics have flourished. Many Americans even remain aware that the University of Chicago still exists.
If it so chooses, the university could even opt, in a few decades, to restart the football program at the Division III level, as the Chicago Maroons have done with great success.
Fifth, state and private resources could be put to more efficient use by the state's remaining Big Ten institution, which is already held in higher esteem by the more learned sports fans across the nation.
The result would likely be more legitimate athletic success for the state of Michigan without the embarrassing baggage that has followed the Wolverines for the last several decades.
Many other advantages might be enumerated.
I can think of no one objection that will possibly be raised against this proposal, although certain rival schools would likely mourn the loss of the opportunity to soundly defeat the Wolverines annually or semiannually on the field, court, or ice. But in time, they would find new rivals who would be far less obnoxious and who would certainly smell better.
I am not so violently bent upon my own opinion, as to reject any offer, proposed by wise men or women, which shall be found an equally innocent, cheap, easy, and effectual way to impart any shred of humility or rationality to our Wolverine brethren. Sadly, I can think of no alternative.
I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work. Any benefit to the university in East Lansing would be incidental, however substantial. I merely submit this modest proposal in the hope of creating a brighter future for the people of the state of Michigan and beyond.
Will a bye week be enough to carry Michigan State to victory in Ann Arbor?
If the state and the conference do not accept my modest proposal as stated above, we will actually have a football game to watch this weekend, and it should be ... something, all right.
The Michigan Wolverines and Michigan State Spartans have met 118 times, with the Wolverines holding a 75-38-5 overall advantage.
But this record is heavily biased toward the first half of the 20th century. From 1898 to 1949, the Wolverines dominated the series, 33-6-3. They were even gracious enough to travel to East Lansing five whole times over that 51-year span.
The rivalry has been far more competitive since the Spartans officially joined the Big Ten in 1950. Over the next 20 years, Michigan State controlled the series, 14-4-2, under coaches Biggie Munn and Duffy Daugherty.
But the Spartan program fell on hard times starting in 1970. Over the next 38 seasons, Michigan State won only eight games in the series, losing the other 30.
Michigan State returned to dominance in 2008. After Mike Hart called the Spartans "little brother," Mark Dantonio and then Mel Tucker beat the Wolverines 10 times in 14 tries. Since the Kenneth Walker III honeymoon in East Lansing ended after the 2021 season, Michigan has won the last four meetings.
Since 1950, Michigan has held a 42-32-2 advantage over Michigan State. Ironically, that is virtually identical to Ohio State's 41-32-2 record against the Wolverines over the same span.
In the 21st century, Michigan holds a narrow 14-11 advantage straight up. Five of the Spartans' 11 wins were upsets, and three of those upsets occurred in Ann Arbor. The Spartans are also 16-8 against the spread since 2001.
The line for this weekend’s game opened with Michigan as a 13.5-point home favorite and a point total of 39.5. Historically, that gives the Spartans just a 17% chance to pull an upset and keep their faint bowl hopes alive.
Notably, the Spartans have been double-digit underdogs in Ann Arbor seven times since 2001. Michigan State has pulled an upset only once in that set of games, in the odd, COVID-19-shortened year of 2020, when the Green and White were 21.5-point underdogs.
My computer, for its part, thinks the 13.5-point line is not modest enough. It proposes a much closer game, with a margin of less than a touchdown. Alas, it does not foresee an upset win for the Spartans. Its predicted final score is Michigan 24, Michigan State 18.
As for me, even the point total of 39.5 seems high. Frankly, both offenses are dreadful, and I suspect neither team will find the end zone easily. This is the kind of game that could resemble the 2012 rock fight, when Michigan won 12-10 on a last-second field goal.
For the Spartans to win, I believe they will need several key players back from injury and perhaps a pick-six or a scoop-and-score on defense to generate enough points.
Will that happen Saturday night? In this rivalry, stranger things have happened.
Either way, the result of Saturday's game could have major ramifications for the fate of each school's 2026 season. A win by the Wolverines would secure a bowl berth while simultaneously guaranteeing the Spartans a losing record for the fourth straight year.
But if the Spartans do find a way to spring an upset, the trajectory of both teams could change drastically.
Suddenly, Michigan State would have momentum with three winnable games left on the schedule: two home games against potentially jet-lagged former Pac-12 foes and a third against the worst team in the conference (Rutgers). A win Saturday night could propel the Green and White back into bowl contention.
In contrast, a loss to the Spartans could kick off a swift November death spiral for the Wolverines. Michigan closes the season at Oregon, against UCLA, and at Ohio State. My calculations suggest these are three of the four toughest games on Michigan's entire schedule.
A final record of 5-7 would be very much on the table, which would be a sobering dose of modesty for our Maize and Blue frenemies. I wish it for no other reason than the improvement of their souls.
Big Ten Overview
Table 1 summarizes the Big Ten’s Week 10 schedule, including my projected scores, the opening spreads, and each computer’s projected margin.
My modest proposal for Michigan has been tabled, so we must turn to more practical matters. Subscribers get every projected score in the Big Ten, three computer models, and the best bets, upset picks, and point-total plays of Week 10. The upsets are cheap, easy, and effectual. Subscribe to read the rest.
