Nobody is happy. Not the winning coach. Not the losing coach. Not the winning players. Not the losing players.
Not the Big Ten commissioner. Not the MAC commissioner.
Though the MAC commissioner, Jon Steinbrecher, at least tried to be gracious when he said the Big Ten provided proof that officials had indeed found one last second and that Michigan football
beat Western Michigan fair and square, 13-12, on Saturday, Sept. 5. And if you believe that, well, you’re a fool.Or naïve.
Or exhausted ... like me, at the joyless, relentless endless noise that someone, somewhere, is forever pulling a lever meant to subvert what’s fair and just and true.
Maybe so. Maybe U-M's win over
WMU – decided on the Wolverines' second try at a 47-yard Hail Mary – isn’t just another example of a broken, greedy, increasingly unrelatable sport. Maybe it's a Rorschach test of all that is good and evil – a sign that trying to take the high road is foolhardy.
Not to mention duplicitous, which is what Steinbrecher surely is, after suggesting he accepted the Big Ten’s explanation of where that final second came from.
That was social media's read on the MAC commissioner early Sunday morning – a cog in the cabal, a stooge, an unrepentant unmoored by justice for Western Michigan, more concerned with his member schools' future paydays from wealthy Big Ten teams.
Talk about fealty, eh? Or so went the thinking.
Whatever Steinbrecher’s motivation, it almost certainly didn’t derive from joy.
That particular emotion was nowhere to be found among the maize-and-blue participants on Saturday – an unusual state of things after a Hail Mary, it should be noted. But then it makes sense that Saturday night’s miracle was an equal-opportunity groan inducer, irritating almost everyone who watched it.
Obviously, Western Michigan fans were crushed. Not as obviously, Michigan fans were crushed, too, though if they haven’t felt its weight yet, they will, with perhaps most feel rumbling in their guts as I write.
They have to. Unless they’ve been in bubble wrap the last half-decade. In that case, more power to your bliss, and make room for the rest of us.
And yet I suspect few have been able to keep the outside world at bay.
Oh, they say they’re happy, just as those in attendance Saturday celebrated on the field soon after the moment when U-M Hail Mary-ed WMU back to Kalamazoo in as controversially dramatic an ending as you’ll ever see.
But don’t believe 'em.
The scent of scandal still won't fade
They know they got away with one. Know their Wolverines were outplayed and outflanked. Know their quarterback isn’t who he is supposed to be – not yet.
Know their new coach didn’t have the team ready to play against a MAC foe – albeit it a well-qualified one – Saturday night at Michigan Stadium. Know the players overlooked WMU, and that one of them admitted it afterward, that they were thinking too much about Oklahoma.
Give the players credit for the honesty. Just not their effort.
And, finally, Michigan fans know, or should know, or, perhaps, will know, in their gut, that Connor Stalions was trending on social media early Sunday morning. That can’t be fun. Yes, flags (or College Football Playoff championships) fly forever, but it just isn’t fun, no matter how much troll is in the blood.
No, the Wolverines’ last-second win over the Broncos on Saturday night had nothing to do with the former Michigan analyst who led an NCAA-forbidden sign-stealing operation. But it wasn’t hard to find the jokes about Stalions, like that he was hanging out in the official booth and helping them find an extra second.
So, yeah, the win came with a cost, and it comes with dread – whether a fear the team won’t be much this season or that the scent of scandal will never fade, or both.
For the latter? It will eventually. It always does. Though moments like Saturday night don’t help, fair or not.
As Kyle Whittingham said: “This game will go down in history – Michigan history. I don’t know if it’s in a positive way.”
Whittingham is a realist and rightly described his team’s performance as dookie. Mostly because it was, which means it shouldn’t surprise anyone that, per his words, “there was not a lot of hooting and hollering in that locker room.”
That would’ve been tone deaf, and worrisome – kind of like storming the field after a win over a team you were favored to beat by 27 points. That was a criticism, too, though I’d caution against shaming 19-year-olds with short memories for having a little fun.
Whether or not U-M deserved that second – they almost certainly did not spiritually, no matter what the Big Ten says – Bryce Underwood still launched a rope from beyond the Block "M" at midfield to the end zone, and JJ Buchanan launched his body over a morass of defenders to make the catch of the season.
Yeah, yeah, the season just began. It just doesn’t feel like it, right?
Not after all the tropes resurfaced, not after Michigan football reconfirmed itself as one of the sport’s best villains, not after an underdog thought it vanquished a blueblood, sprinted onto the field in ecstasy, got called back to the sideline, told there was a hidden second that no clock showed and watched as a team it completely outplayed beat it on a one-in-a-million raffle ticket.
Maybe the TV clocks were off and the Big Ten was right and justice was served.
Even if that is true, it doesn’t feel right. Not for anyone.
As Whittingham said, he was “pissed.” Angry, even. And he was the winning coach!
As for the losing coach, how about we take solace in his words and commend him for his sportsmanship. Here was a coach at a Group of Six school who thought he’d secured the biggest win of his tenure in Kalamazoo – only to have it cruelly ripped away – admitting Saturday night that some of the game’s close calls went Western Michigan’s way.
Good for Lance Taylor, giving us a moment of grace amid such disappointment.
Or is he a stooge, too? Whatever one thinks of his sincerity, he wasn’t conveying false joy in defeat. He simply conveyed misery.
Everyone did, it seemed. And not because anyone is pulling the strings.
Some nights are just like that.
Contact Shawn Windsor: swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Hail Mary fuels conspiracists as Michigan football pays for its past
