Dear diary: Confessions from Big House
Tweet
Matt Bishop
Time after time, inside sources have come through for journalists, such as when the Detroit Free Press broke the story about Michigan’s alleged cheating (Spartan Scoreboard Bob isn’t the only person without a firm grasp on time). I have received an entry from an unnamed U-M football staff member’s personal diary. Unfortunately, the name of the staff member has been redacted. Enjoy.
Dear diary,
I’m sorry it’s been so long since I last wrote. I finally grew out of my LiveJournal and Xanga accounts, so I’m in the process of converting you to paper.
I can’t believe my last entry was dated Oct. 24, 2008. A lot has happened since that day. Back then, we were coming off a loss to Toledo two weeks earlier. It didn’t get much better. The loss to Michigan State the next day was crushing. Despite our horrible record, our players had us convinced our s—- didn’t stink against those guys. I guess most of those guys are LSA majors for a reason.
And don’t even get me started on those quarterbacks. We had Nick Sheridan, who simply is not good. Then there was that one guy, from Adrian, what was his name? Came from Georgia Tech? Thorpe? Thriple? Treat? Well, whatever his name, he wasn’t any good, either. Then there was McGuffie. Oh, Sam. High school all-star turned Big Ten washout. Turns out his hype couldn’t hold a candle to Beanie Wells or Javon Ringer, two backs that shredded us. I’d be shocked if ol’ Sam had as many yards the whole season as those two had when they played us.
So when we had it handed to us by, well, pretty much everybody, I was so disappointed.
I know The Big House practically was The Out House last season, but that’s still no excuse to lose to Utah, Illinois, Toledo, Michigan State and Northwestern there. I think the last time we lost to that many teams there, Herbert Hoover was president or something.
The combination of getting smoked by Michigan State and Ohio State — not to mention Toledo and Purdue — was enough to drive me over the edge. I have a loan at the Bank of Ann Arbor I have to pay off, so I couldn’t afford to be canned after a season.
So we didn’t have bowl practice for the first time in like a bajillion years. When I was brought on, I thought we just got an automatic bid to a bowl game like Notre Dame. Since we lost the bowl practice, I had to make the time up elsewhere, ya know?
But that’s not the worst part. We actually were shown up by those losers that inhabit that dump Crisler Arena. John Beilein showed that we aren’t just from the back roads of West Virginia. We’re coaches, too!
But from what I’ve learned in my short time here, if the basketball team is outperforming football by a large margin, something’s wrong. And if we’re doing worse than a program that has to offer its students incentives to occupy what is probably the worst student section in the nation, we’ve got problems.
But finally, it’s a new season. Time and time again, I say never judge a staff on its first year. We’re 4-0 and rolling over powerhouses like WMU and EMU. We could win the MAC!
But I’m just not convinced we have what it takes to win in the Big Ten. I’ll be lucky if Forcier isn’t killed by Greg Jones this weekend. He already runs around like a chicken with its head cut off. I don’t want to send him out there to get McGuffied. And this defense is the definition of incompetence. We should not be giving up 33 points at home to Indiana. We got Pistol-whipped. I can’t even imagine what Kirk Cousins and Keith Nichol are going to do with Mark Dell, B.J. Cunningham and Blair White out there. I scouted Indiana and can’t name a single player on their team. What are players I actually know going to do?
But it’s OK. We have Delaware State coming here in two weeks. And we can’t possibly lose to Purdue at home, can we? That’s six wins. WE’RE GOING BOWLING, BABY! I hope.
But if this season doesn’t work out, I could just go elsewhere. A buyout’s never gotten in my way before.
Oh well. TTYL,
[Name Redacted]
Matt Bishop is a State News football reporter. He can be reached at bishop20@msu.edu.
Commentary
Add your $0.02, go to the comment form or follow the comment feed
State Grad
(10/01/09 11:12pm)Report
I think you missed the point of the yearly satire article
Mac White
(10/01/09 11:25pm)Report
I still can’t believe this will be U-M’s first road game. How is that possible? Go State!
Sarah
(10/01/09 11:39pm)Report
Agreed with State Grad, this is atrocious & not funny at all. Weak sauce.
Grow-up!
(10/02/09 12:27am)Report
Not worthy of ink! You are putting State down-as a loss Michigan should not have had in 2008. Also bad timing to put down the MAC! Did you catch that we continue to lose to CMU? We were a far better team than Michigan last year; we’ll see this year. I’m not drink’n Dantonio-Aid until they start proving “something” on the field.
Jziila
(10/02/09 1:09am)Report
This was the worst Michigan week article I’ve seen… ever. Not funny at all. Is this the one that gets sent to AA? I hope not because this article can’t hold a flame to past ones.
Joseph
(10/02/09 9:23am)Report
I agree this article was terrible. I was excited to read the yearly MSU-UM articles, is this really it ?
I was planning on passing it along to my UM friends, but this is borderline embarassing literature and not funny.
Tim
(10/02/09 9:27am)Report
This article is terrible – not well-written, not funny, and not even relevant… WEAK. And by the way, this is what was printed in the Michigan Daily this morning. HA. Nice job. Go Blue!
Come On
(10/02/09 10:10am)Report
I look forward to this article every year and I feel like you have ruined it. You should have been honored to be the writer chosen for this article and instead you brushed it off.
dave
(10/02/09 10:16am)Report
this is the single worst Michigan week article i have ever read from State news. mock us for beating two mac teams when you could not beat one. nice.
Alex
(10/02/09 10:34am)Report
I would feel bad for you Matt but you really did bring this upon yourself. You are now the laughingstock of the campus of the University of Michigan. You were just a joke before, but now you have established yourself as so much more. I really hope you do not plan on moving on to bigger and better opportunities in the world of Journalism. Best of luck to you and your phony degree.
Oh and good luck winning the MAC this year, we are 2-0, and you are…? Go Chips!
ZT
(10/02/09 10:44am)Report
Think they printed his goofy picture in U of M’s paper???
Sparty Sam
(10/02/09 10:46am)Report
Are you Icelandic or retarded? As a MSU alum, this is embarrassing. How much did daddy donate to get you into this fine institution?
skinny
(10/02/09 11:03am)Report
Total utter ballsacks.
Dantonio = John L. Smith
(10/02/09 11:24am)Report
This is what all the MSU brainpower has to offer. This is the voice of the schoool. This is why UM rejects go to MSU. This is pathetic.
Embarrassed
(10/02/09 11:47am)Report
I love how your own classmates and alumni are ripping you to shreds. That is downright embarrassing. I especially love the people attacking Andy Reid who wrote the opposing column for the Michigan Daily, which is, not surprisingly, absent from this webpage. To write this piece, shame on you, to allow anyone to defend this piece, shame on the world. What have we come to? In response to my previous post, I do hope you pursue a career in the newspaper business, because it is unfortunately a dying industry. And hopefully some day, very soon, you will be just another Spartan with a fake degree working a meaningless job and rooting on your team that just cant quite get over itself.
student
(10/02/09 12:03pm)Report
this guy is an embarrassment for MSU. this is why the state news and its all journalist-majors staff is worthless.
he should write a letter of apology.
want to read a real article with class?
http://annarborchronicle.com/2009/10/02/column-sibling-rivalry/comment-page-1/?scrollTo=comment-31347
Enjoy!
Matt
(10/02/09 12:26pm)Report
This is pretty weak for the rivalry week. I get that you are taking shots at UM’s team last year, but pointing out that the team lost at home to an undefeated team as well as 2 bowl teams in the Big 10 doesn’t really work as satire.
Anonymous
(10/02/09 12:48pm)Report
Oh dear lord, this is horrendous…the worst UM/MSU article I’ve ever read. Please quit your job and leave the state. Go Green!!!
Steven
(10/02/09 12:53pm)Report
This is simply embarassing. One of the worst satirical articles I have ever seen written. How did this get printed? Now I get to see this on the mini-feeds of all of my UM friends about how dumb all of us here at MSU are. Thanks for representing.
UofM student
(10/02/09 12:54pm)Report
Wow. You’re column sucked serious nuts. Try reading some of the past UM/MSU articles and you’ll see what you’ve written is utter shit compared to Andy Reid. Oh and yes his fat face was printed in the UMich paper today haha. GO BLUE!
David
(10/02/09 1:01pm)Report
Cracks me up seeing all the UofM fans posting on the State News site; whereas I could only find one purported pro-Sparty comment over on the Daily. If this is a ho-hum game…which means no more than any other…and which is so certain to be won by the Maize and Blue that they should save money and energy by not even playing it…if all that is true, why so much attention from UofM fans?
Maybe one of them-there smart Michigan fans will enlighten us.
Matt Bishop
(10/02/09 1:15pm)Report
Come on guys, lay off. My mom liked it.
Mrs Bishop
(10/02/09 1:17pm)Report
Boys, please be nice to my son he did his best.
jon
(10/02/09 1:39pm)Report
WE’RE SORRY MRS BISHOP!
Mr Bishop
(10/02/09 1:43pm)Report
Son, this is terrible. I have the belt waiting when you get home.