Punt-Counterpunt: Akron 2013

Still trying real hard to fear the roo, ma'am.

Something's been missing from Michigan gamedays since the free programs ceased being economically viable: scientific gameday predictions that are not at all preordained by the strictures of a column in which one writer takes a positive tack and the other a negative one… something like Punt-Counterpunt.

PUNT

By Nick RoUMel

Akron was already at the Big House last Saturday. Not that you would have noticed, with Notre Dame on the field. Akron was circling around in the skies above, taking in the festivities.

We’re talking, of course, about the Goodyear blimp. Yes, Goodyear’s corporate HQ is in Akron, Ohio, but the company won’t send it out for a mere tilt with their hometown university. Oh no, that was reserved for ESPN “Gameday,” an opportunity to give a few hand-chosen executives a party in the sky, while the blimp displayed the corporate logo and a digital crawl of commercial messages on its belly.

Many fans were also looking up for not one, but two air shows. Whereas a single flyover was once a remarkable occasion, now it’s passé. There were so many planes over Michigan Stadium, that when they introduced the pilots later in the contest, there may have been more than the Michigan basketball team members who were also introduced.

They were joined by Desmond Howard, Anthony Carter, the Women’s volleyball team, Eminem, and by video link, Beyoncé, for the special halftime show she plans to use in a music video. Alum Stephen Ross was recognized for his generous gift to the University. And of course there was the evening’s honored guest, actor Mark Harmon, and son of Michigan legend Tom Harmon, who had dad’s #98 jersey presented to him by Athletic Director David Brandon.

Throughout the game, maize-clad fans waved yellow pompoms, pumped by recorded music blaring over the PA system. When victory was inevitable, instead of hearing creative chants students might have made to taunt the Irish, we were instead treated to the umpteenth playing of Otis Day’s “Shout,” and then the sly musical reference to Notre Dame chickening out of its rivalry with Michigan - an event already chronicled in Wikipedia’s “Chicken Dance” entry.

While I certainly had fun, I felt it was tricked up with all the over the top festivities. We were manipulated as to what to see and hear, and when to chant or sing. It was a three ring circus, deprived of spontaneity.

What it wasn’t like was a college football game in Tom Harmon’s era. Watching footage from a 1943 Michigan-Ohio State game, for example, one hears the marching band, the fans, and the action on the field. That’s all. The only special guest from that game was a little terrier that ran loose in the north end zone. The game was by the students, and for the students. And every fan in attendance sat on the same outdoor benches.

But last week’s event was heavily choreographed, except once: when students lustily booed Dave Brandon during the Harmon ceremony, no doubt still furious over the general-admission seating fiasco that has made them second-class citizens in their own stadium. (When I sat down over an hour before kickoff, I saw with amazement that the student section was nearly full, among an otherwise sparse crowd. I thought, “I pay for my ticket and can come to my seat whenever I want, but they can’t.”)

Maybe in this corporate, luxury box age such changes are inevitable. Certainly the athletic department is raking in money hand over fist. Michigan wants state of the art facilities in order to stay competitive. It’s too bad that with all the noise and distractions, they can no longer hear the fans.

And as for the Akron Zips, the only school named for a party cracker, they’re already scripted to lose today. Big time.

Michigan 200,000,000 – forgotten blimp orphans 0

COUNTERPUNT

Allow me a moment to step off your lawn.

There. Grass, sidewalk, me. Happy?

No, you’re not. And see, that’s the problem with Michigan fans like you. You’re never happy unless you’re unhappy. You know how Brady Hoke often says he has 115 sons? I bet Dave Brandon feels like he has 115,000 in-laws.

Michigan entered the luxury box age because it got a stadium with luxurious luxury boxes. Deal with it. First of all, those things aren’t so bad. If it weren’t for their big imposing walls to reflect all of your whining noises back onto the field, how would opposing teams ever remember that it’s third down?

Furthermore, and before you go on about Brandon and money and corporations, let me remind you it was former athletic director Bill Martin who came up with the idea in the first place. It was really Martin’s renovations that dragged Michigan into the 21st century, where shockingly everyone’s still alive and the earth didn’t blow up because computers couldn’t handle a new digit in timestamps. So it was in fact Martin who created the future, not Brandon.

If you want to get mad, get mad at Brandon for stealing the credit. Don’t be mad about the future, because the future has night games, and night games are pretty cool.

“But why can’t these night games in the future be like all those day games from the past,” you say, watery eyed, with a beat of hesitation that indicates you realized mid-sentence that the words coming out of your mouth might sound a little stupid.

Stupid because, what, were you not entertained? Did you not enjoy the light show? Did you really look up at the sky and say, “That’s too many planes and not enough sun”? Did you look at the scoreboards and wish you could see the replays less clearly? Did you actually think a dog running around the end zone would be a better experience than Mark Harmon honoring his dad and giving us a unique jersey number for a quarterback?

I don’t think you did, because I don’t think you’re stupid. I wholeheartedly understand your fear of abandoning traditions and losing the aspects of Michigan football that you hold dear, even if I don’t hold them dear myself. I know there are things that mean something to you that don’t mean anything to me; there are things that mean something me but won’t mean anything to anyone in a decade or two.

But it’s not something to get upset about. Entropy inevitably follows us into the future, and trying to recreate the past and its quaint ideals in exacting entirety, like trying to put dryer lint back into a t-shirt, is a waste of energy. Just be thankful the essentials, like Michigan blowing out Akron to follow up last week's thrilling victory over Notre Dame, are intact. Ditch the lint and move on.

Michigan 55, Akron 3