2:33 PM, Saturday October 30th, 2021. There was reason to have doubt. Sainristil runs a great route and McNamara threw a great ball to put Michigan up 30-14 with six minutes and change left in the third. Spartan Stadium was the quietest it was all day, and most attendees had a version of Surrender Cobra in-phase. But then Sainristil does his Paul Bunyan pose. I saw it in person in the Stadium from afar and I verified on social media thereafter. In the Stadium, @ 2:33 PM, that was all I needed to know that we were still in this game. And it is because Michigan has become what we once were: SOscUM. Let me explain...
To qualify my Spartan credentials, I am a Michigan State graduate in 2007, and really didn't start my fandom and following of spartanmag.com "deep-dive" nerdery until 2006, so I have little frame of reference to the 80's - early 2000's misery that was being a Michigan State football fan. Dantonio was my Coach. Eff, he is a role model for me. From the jump, that guy was just "it". Serious, yet comedic. Stoic, yet had unmatchable swagger. And while the trajectory of the post-Dantonio era looks very bright today, it will be very difficult to top what he accomplished in his tenure. To go from hoping to qualify for a bowl game, to expect to compete for a B1G Championship, to being one of the best teams in NCAAF for three straight years between 2013-2015...that's Nintendo with Game Genie stuff. The short video of Mark Dantonio on the field watching the celebration yesterday was poetic. Meme appropriate: "Celebrate, young children, for this is what I created...". What did he create?
Poise. Faith. Integrity. That is what Mark Dantonio brought to Michigan State. I forget the source and media outlet, but Kirk Cousins wrote a great piece after his career @ MSU about how CMD had a belief in Michigan State that no one shared. And he refused to let anyone associated in the program not accept that mantra. Very on-brand with, "It doesn't come from the Coach, it comes from the program."...and it started with this Coach. Without that infrastructure, without those years, without his tenure, what is the outcome of the game yesterday? Seriously? We lose by four, five scores? We play individual football? We commit a million personal fouls? We end up burning couches and making excuses out of angst instead of unbridled joy? THAT is what MD did. We should be forever grateful.
Circling-back to 2:33 PM yesterday. While I didn't have much service in Spartan Stadium, I did have a few group texts going. FWIW, I find myself the lone Spartan in a few group texts filled with Wal*Mart Wolverines. And I mean Wal*Mart by definition: No affiliation with the University of Michigan (GVSU, WMU, et al graduates, not that there is anything wrong with that, FWIW), yet mock Michigan State University for its academic standing, talk endless crap before things happen, call me Sparty and now Sharty, and so forth. No skin in the game. Ooze the arrogance and delusion that is main-stream Michigan propaganda. I normally do my best Dantonio and walk very slowly, and walk very boldly, and carry a big stick, but I was annoyed yesterday. @ 2:33 PM, every Wal*Marter was telling me the game was over. That may be the one I hate more than anything. Celebrating victory when you haven't yet achieved victory. Who the eff do you think you are? Then I thought about everything Jim Harbaugh was "supposed" to be for Michigan. Hell, same as Hoke and Rich-Rod. Not "when" they would win a National Championship, but "how many"? Then I thought about Braylon Edwards attitude. Taylor Lewan being Taylor Lewan. Now, before my very eyes via my phone and Sainristil in the endzone, they were doing it again. To quote Jesse from Breaking Bad: "He (They) can't keep getting away with this!?!".
And they haven't. Because they have become what they have mocked for years: SOS. For me, SOS always embodied a curse where no matter how talented, no matter how large a lead, no matter how the schedule setup, Michigan State was going to find a way to lose something that really mattered. In the state of Michigan, no Team embodies this cursed culture better than the Lions. It's laughable @ water coolers these days with them...I can't envision them every winning @ a reproducible clip in my lifetime, because losing is so engrained into the fabric of their being. And that is what Michigan has become. And, better yet, that is what we no longer are. So @ 2:33 PM, I still had poise, faith, and integrity. The Stockdale Paradox teaches us that you have to embrace the brutal facts of your reality but have unwavering belief that you will survive your environment. And thanks to KWIII, the defense bending but not breaking, and Michigan being SOscUM, we stole victory from the jaws of defeat. Not too long ago, that script would have been flipped. Not anymore.
So when the post-game-predictables of blaming officials, blaming Harbaugh and playing two QB's, blaming the weather, claiming luck ruled the day, I just grinned. I grinned a confident grin of, "I told you so.". Talk is cheap, Wal*Mart Nation. And when X-Henderson's post-game presser opened in the manner that it did, I could have kissed him on the lips. Perfectly said. So on-point. Keep effing calling us little brother. Seriously. Keep doing it. That attitude is literally the match to our gasoline can. Keep being you, SOscUM, and your last B1G Title will be in its 30's, 40's, and beyond before you know it...
On our end, CMT has carried the baton in a short-period thus far, and we have a unique, one-year-talent in Kenneth Walker III, so we should enjoy this short-period while we can. But, culturally, in the long-term, we have corrected a plague that had termed us SOS for a generation...and that is something that should be appreciated and celebrated, especially because that Team down south now suffers from our previous affliction. Quote Seinfeld: "That's a shame.".
#GoGreen
To qualify my Spartan credentials, I am a Michigan State graduate in 2007, and really didn't start my fandom and following of spartanmag.com "deep-dive" nerdery until 2006, so I have little frame of reference to the 80's - early 2000's misery that was being a Michigan State football fan. Dantonio was my Coach. Eff, he is a role model for me. From the jump, that guy was just "it". Serious, yet comedic. Stoic, yet had unmatchable swagger. And while the trajectory of the post-Dantonio era looks very bright today, it will be very difficult to top what he accomplished in his tenure. To go from hoping to qualify for a bowl game, to expect to compete for a B1G Championship, to being one of the best teams in NCAAF for three straight years between 2013-2015...that's Nintendo with Game Genie stuff. The short video of Mark Dantonio on the field watching the celebration yesterday was poetic. Meme appropriate: "Celebrate, young children, for this is what I created...". What did he create?
Poise. Faith. Integrity. That is what Mark Dantonio brought to Michigan State. I forget the source and media outlet, but Kirk Cousins wrote a great piece after his career @ MSU about how CMD had a belief in Michigan State that no one shared. And he refused to let anyone associated in the program not accept that mantra. Very on-brand with, "It doesn't come from the Coach, it comes from the program."...and it started with this Coach. Without that infrastructure, without those years, without his tenure, what is the outcome of the game yesterday? Seriously? We lose by four, five scores? We play individual football? We commit a million personal fouls? We end up burning couches and making excuses out of angst instead of unbridled joy? THAT is what MD did. We should be forever grateful.
Circling-back to 2:33 PM yesterday. While I didn't have much service in Spartan Stadium, I did have a few group texts going. FWIW, I find myself the lone Spartan in a few group texts filled with Wal*Mart Wolverines. And I mean Wal*Mart by definition: No affiliation with the University of Michigan (GVSU, WMU, et al graduates, not that there is anything wrong with that, FWIW), yet mock Michigan State University for its academic standing, talk endless crap before things happen, call me Sparty and now Sharty, and so forth. No skin in the game. Ooze the arrogance and delusion that is main-stream Michigan propaganda. I normally do my best Dantonio and walk very slowly, and walk very boldly, and carry a big stick, but I was annoyed yesterday. @ 2:33 PM, every Wal*Marter was telling me the game was over. That may be the one I hate more than anything. Celebrating victory when you haven't yet achieved victory. Who the eff do you think you are? Then I thought about everything Jim Harbaugh was "supposed" to be for Michigan. Hell, same as Hoke and Rich-Rod. Not "when" they would win a National Championship, but "how many"? Then I thought about Braylon Edwards attitude. Taylor Lewan being Taylor Lewan. Now, before my very eyes via my phone and Sainristil in the endzone, they were doing it again. To quote Jesse from Breaking Bad: "He (They) can't keep getting away with this!?!".
And they haven't. Because they have become what they have mocked for years: SOS. For me, SOS always embodied a curse where no matter how talented, no matter how large a lead, no matter how the schedule setup, Michigan State was going to find a way to lose something that really mattered. In the state of Michigan, no Team embodies this cursed culture better than the Lions. It's laughable @ water coolers these days with them...I can't envision them every winning @ a reproducible clip in my lifetime, because losing is so engrained into the fabric of their being. And that is what Michigan has become. And, better yet, that is what we no longer are. So @ 2:33 PM, I still had poise, faith, and integrity. The Stockdale Paradox teaches us that you have to embrace the brutal facts of your reality but have unwavering belief that you will survive your environment. And thanks to KWIII, the defense bending but not breaking, and Michigan being SOscUM, we stole victory from the jaws of defeat. Not too long ago, that script would have been flipped. Not anymore.
So when the post-game-predictables of blaming officials, blaming Harbaugh and playing two QB's, blaming the weather, claiming luck ruled the day, I just grinned. I grinned a confident grin of, "I told you so.". Talk is cheap, Wal*Mart Nation. And when X-Henderson's post-game presser opened in the manner that it did, I could have kissed him on the lips. Perfectly said. So on-point. Keep effing calling us little brother. Seriously. Keep doing it. That attitude is literally the match to our gasoline can. Keep being you, SOscUM, and your last B1G Title will be in its 30's, 40's, and beyond before you know it...
On our end, CMT has carried the baton in a short-period thus far, and we have a unique, one-year-talent in Kenneth Walker III, so we should enjoy this short-period while we can. But, culturally, in the long-term, we have corrected a plague that had termed us SOS for a generation...and that is something that should be appreciated and celebrated, especially because that Team down south now suffers from our previous affliction. Quote Seinfeld: "That's a shame.".
#GoGreen
