Thursday, March 28, 2024

Dear diary: Confessions from Big House

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.

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