The Big House is
losing 1300 seats to make room for handicapped seating. Now we've only got the embarrassingly
7th largest stadium in the world (down from 4th). I would bitch about it, but we're actually falling behind other Big Ten schools in percentage of handicapped seating (and Notre Dame).
We're supposed to be the ones outclassing
them, so I won't argue with the decision. (ND fans are annoying but at least civil, unlike alot of other fans)
We should regain the title by 2010 when they add skyboxes and some more seats. Skyboxes?
Skyboxes. In the Big House. The giant bowl that's banned all advertising. All those rows of crappy metal seats that have been the great equalizer of classes. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but
here's a pretty good justification for them. Also... me wanty! So, I guess what's the big deal?
We'll lose the USA title to Penn State, of all places. The only school other than Northwestern to have a lameass lion/wildcat growl everytime they have a good play (so it's been quiet since roughly 1989, when Penn State left the Big East and joined the Big Ten). I will give them credit for calling it
Beaver Stadium, however. I guess "Pussy Palace" was taken.
Michigan
Stadium is going from 107,501 to 106,201, though the attendance record is 112,118, against Ohio State, natch. There must be lots of fake tickets. And did you know we tack a one on the capacity so that Bo Schembechler always has a seat? In Columbus, one of the most popular bands is called the Dead Schembechlers. They didn't even wait until he was dead to
incite Buckeyes into riots. You have to
see it to believe it.
[ed: I'm adding this graph in later, as my jaw hit the floor again over the utter disgracefulness of OSU fans]
This is the cheerful I Hate Michigan chant from the, no joke, Hate Michigan Rally, held every year before the game. They played it six times. There is no analog to this in Ann Arbor. Anyone doing anything like this would be quickly ostracized.
I'd like to point out for the record that when I was a student at Michigan, a million years ago, the big scandal was that someone climbed a tree on the President's lawn in the 1997 post-national title celebration. In Columbus and East Lansing they burn down their own cities, and in Ann Arbor you get expelled for climbing a tree.
That's the difference.
This is why I don't want Terrelle
Pryor to go to Michigan. He's the #1 recruit in the country, and is a perfect QB match for RR's run and shoot offense. He's narrowed his choices down to Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State (?) and Oregon. He's from PA, so PSU sort of makes sense. Sort of. If Paterno wasn't older than John McCain (Joe is 80, John is 72). But everyone assumes he's going to OSU.
Anyway. I'm sorry, but someone whose not even out of highschool yet and has already been caught taking a free
Corvette from a "friend" in Columbus and gets in
fights all the time, is not someone who belongs at Michigan. That sort of entitled rules-don't-apply-to-me attitude just isn't Wolverine material. However, It doesn't sound like it's his fault about the fight. If I was a black guy, I would throw fists over the n-word too. But still. He's a lightening rod.
We don't want him. That guy is a ticking time bomb. Remember what happened to our
basketball team? Wonder why we still
suck? No thanks! I hope Rich Rod understands where he is and that he can't take players like
Pacman Jones anymore.
There I go ranting again. Come gameday, I would trade all my precious morality for a better football team, like the SEC does. Play to your strengths, I always say.
