Hype is a funny thing. It completely and totally influences one’s personal beliefs and slants them in one direction before they ever experience what the hype is about.
Observe your own thought process when someone says, “let’s go to Restaurant X to eat. They seriously have the best burgers in the state.”
At that point, you’re probably locked into being let down. “The best” leaves no room for anything but amazing. The safest bet is to lowball expectations on everything, therefore if it’s really great, you’re thrilled and surprised. If it’s lousy, you didn’t expect much anyway so you don’t feel let down.
In the sports world, hype normally cannot be controlled. Michigan football isn’t walking around saying, “we’re gonna take the Big 10 by freaking storm, so put on your big boy pants and get out of the way when we come down the tracks, or risk getting squished. Choo, choo!”
You can’t blame folks for being skeptical of Michigan’s rise and the subsequent hype surrounding it. The media is always thirsty for certain programs to be great again. In a perfect world for them, the CFB Playoff would be some amalgam annually of Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Alabama, Texas, Southern Cal, and maybe a few others.
But eventually, Michigan is going to get back to where folks envision them being. It’s only a matter of time for programs like the ones listed that the grave dancing on their stretches of mediocrity end and they start steam rolling again.
Well, folks, for Michigan, that time is here.
For the first time in four years, Michigan will return an offense in the same system for two years in a row. They return four of five starters along the offensive line. The wide receivers, green and new to having to step up last year, are steady and veteran this time around.
Amara Darboh and Jehu Chesson will need to have steady hands, as the lone major question on offense is who will take the snaps. But if Jake Rudock, painted as nothing more than Steady Eddie who can’t go out and win you a game can come in from Iowa in one year and set career highs, imagine what Houston transfer John O’Korn can do.
O’Korn has slung 34 touchdown passes in his college career. The rest of the roster has tossed one.
Along the defense, the secondary will cause hives for quarterbacks. Jabrill Peppers and Jourdan Lewis are terrorizing. Don Brown spearheaded one of the top defenses in the country last year … at Boston College.
Suffice to say, he’ll have more talent to work with this time around, and an offense that will be a little more helpful in making his job easier.
Where the hell happens in the Big 10 is in the trenches, and that will never change. Michigan boasts two senior defensive ends, and plenty of veteran savvy along the defensive line. There literally isn’t a place on this team where experience doesn’t carry the water.
The schedule may suck, with trips to both Michigan State and Ohio State, but one has to remember… this is a team last season that was a mishandled punt snap away from being at least in the discussion for a playoff spot going into the last week of the season when they got demolished by Ohio State.
And therein lies the rub.
If you believe the hype, you probably were put off last year by how seamlessly Ohio State smoked Michigan like Rich Rodriguez or Brady Hoke never left. If you never believed the hype, it was your perfect chance to grave dance.
If you don’t believe the hype, you’re sitting in the corner cackling with a glass of bourbon noting how it’s Michigan State … not Michigan that seems to be hanging around the CFB Playoff, and everything coming out of Ann Arbor is nothing more than hot air and grist for the disrespect mill.
Eventually, though, water finds its level and Michigan will be great again. It doesn’t mean Ohio State won’t. It doesn’t mean Michigan State won’t.
But it’s coming, and by the look of things on this roster, it’s coming sooner rather than later. The burger at various Restaurant X’s hasn’t been up to snuff. But in 2016, you’re going into the restaurant and it finally meets the hype.
