Alabama schadenfreude. But I kinda respect them
I couldn't help myself and wandered over to the Alabama forum this morning. Gotta admit, they are so much more mature than what you find on RCMB or 11warriors. Granted, that's some faint praise. But it's something.
A couple snippets:
"Have to give UM a little credit for that though. They created situations to cause some confusion about who was supposed to be where.
Yea {sic} clearly they had a few plays they knew would give us trouble"
"I don't disagree with not getting the best version of Bama, but Michigan is also just really good.
Their veteran leadership made the difference. Our immature mistakes as well."
Peruse if you're into this sort of thing:
https://www.tidefans.com/forums/threads/official-postgame-thread-bama-vs-michigan.335817/
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:03 AM ^
I am not a Bama fan but the team and fans for the most part carried themselves with a lot of class. While Ohio State players, fans, and coaches are still making excuses.
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:30 AM ^
Like these folks?
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:42 AM ^
This is just beyond weird. I just can't imagine ever even considering doing something like this and then thinking it was funny. I'm not an attention seeking weirdo though I guess.
January 2nd, 2024 at 12:05 PM ^
99.999% of Michigan fan can't imagine doing something like that. It proves how insane Buckeye fans are, as in 99.9999% of them.
'Bama fans are not like that. I will add that although Michigan didn't see the best Alabama team, nor did they see the best Michigan team. Special teams were a liability but did not cost us the game.
How many bad snaps from Center to QB happened to Michigan? None. How many to 'Bama; too many to count. Seemed like 1 in 3 were bad snaps for the entire game for those guys.
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:46 AM ^
How'd it feel wearing those t-shirts when the clock ticked down to zero?
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:56 AM ^
Like they were two-time losers.
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:01 AM ^
Two-time losers running out of juice. Time to move out quick!
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:15 AM ^
who PAID $$$ to watch that unfold.
It could only be better if they had paid $$ to watch the 30-24 game in Ann Arbor in November.
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:50 AM ^
Truly, these are the worst people that have ever lived. I kind of want them to go to Houston to have to watch us beat Washington, too.
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:58 AM ^
Cincinnati swag under the seat, too.
Fucking clown.
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:59 AM ^
Pete Thamel?
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:06 AM ^
Only thing dumber than those shirts are their smiles.
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:07 AM ^
What a loser
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:32 AM ^
I think the lady in the picture looking like the laughing tom cruise meme is the most disturbing thing about it
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:50 AM ^
What a bunch of LOSERS!!!
January 2nd, 2024 at 12:11 PM ^
Good lord, they're ugly. Their kids must be hideous.
January 2nd, 2024 at 12:18 PM ^
This is weird on so many levels. Like, there is no scenario I wouldn't be incredibly embarrassed to do this . And then to think they shelled out serious money to be there makes it even more embarrassing (although they look like the type of people that don't get embarrassed easily). And seriously...who made those shirts? They look terrible. At least they left unhappy while taking another L when their team wasn't even playing. SMH.
January 2nd, 2024 at 1:01 PM ^
Why would anyone go waaaaaay out of their way to make/wear something that begs strangers to speak with them?
January 2nd, 2024 at 1:24 PM ^
What a fucking douche. And the shirts suck too.
January 2nd, 2024 at 1:27 PM ^
Those people might as well be holding signs that say "I'm a big dipshit".
January 2nd, 2024 at 7:01 PM ^
What total fuckholes. I said before the game there would be random Buckeye fans there in full gear and of course I saw 3 in my section alone. What sad little people.
January 2nd, 2024 at 1:36 PM ^
I had the same impression We were in the south end zone, so our section was a pretty even Bama/M split and throughout, and even after, the game the Bama fans were pleasant, fun to banter with, and clearly knowledgeable. To a one they gave M credit for outplaying them, and no excuses or cheating talk. A shockingly pleasant experience from what I expected.
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:04 AM ^
They have a culture of winning, so they know what winning football looks like. Gotta respect them for their fair comments.
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:10 AM ^
To be fair, Ohio State has a culture of winning, too, but they're also ridiculously entitled -- they think they're the only team in the Big Ten that can win anything and they haven't been able to grasp that other teams can evolve and get better. I have no idea why Alabama is better at losing gracefully than Ohio State. It may just be the rivalry getting in Ohio State's way. We also gifted them Conor Stalions -- an excuse they can use into eternity.
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:17 AM ^
Ohio State fans really seem to think that their program is clean. They also seem to think that sign-stealing is uncommon and that no team has the other's signs...so that is why Stalions gave Michigan such a large advantage.
Even though Michigan proved pretty conclusively Ohio State had the same information on Michigan.
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:23 AM ^
They self-reported similar recruiting violations to ours in the past several years, namely meeting with recruits during a dead period. But we're the cheaters.
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:27 AM ^
I truly don't get how they can think the way they do but they do.
When you read their comments on the Stalions thing, they believe two things as absolute:
1. Everyone from Harbaugh on down was in on it (even though there is literally no evidence suggesting that to be the case) and he did it because he was desperate.
2. Sign stealing doesn't happen outside of this (even though Michigan had thorough documentation of other teams stealing their signs and they employ their own sign stealers) and because of that, Michigan's advantage produced by Stalions was enormous.
January 2nd, 2024 at 12:12 PM ^
It's a fan-brain take, and it's more prevalent online than in the fanbase as a whole. You have to do mental gymnastics to believe that sign-stealing is evil but somehow OSU/PU/RU/UofI's sign stealing is wholesome. And in their defense, much of the national media - namely, ESPN and The Athletic - haven't just ignored that disconnect, but have amplified the "Michigan cheated" line. So it's not too crazy to see how they get into that ecosystem. We all believe things we don't know, often because it's easy to see how it could be true.
The lesson here is a) don't trust sports fans to be clear minded and b) whenever confronted with anything, ask yourself what you WANT to believe and then if what you're shown lines up with it, you should be suspect of your own understanding. But that latter one is clearly VERY difficult.
January 2nd, 2024 at 12:29 PM ^
I guess they ignore the fact that OSU - as already acknowledged - eliminated the "advantage" by actually changing their signs before the Michigan game, huh?
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:18 AM ^
I can't explain it but last night's win makes the win over osu even sweeter in retrospect...cuz I know the majority of their fan base is really pissed off this morning.
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:18 AM ^
Yeah, I don't think Bama is going to run Milroe out of town like OSU did with McCord. Also, I hope they keep believing that CS is the only reason that they lost. It makes them look weak and whiny and keeps them from actually doing the hard work to become less soft.
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:24 AM ^
Alabama has some terrible seasons within living memory; this has humbled the fan base and helped them to appreciate what they have. Ohio State has not been truly bad in many decades. Hopefully they will fire Day and find their Rich Rod. That fan base needs a serious humbling.
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:37 AM ^
I get the feeling if OSU collapses they'll just turn into another MSU. Adversity brings out humility only from those capable of it.
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:57 AM ^
I don't agree with this on almost any level. But the critical thing most often overlooked--critical contributor to MSU's demise--is the absolute lack of institutional strength, support, or direction from a wider institution that was stumbling badly.
MSU remained in the public eye even while it was spending fifteen years struggling awfully (dating especially from the tens of millions of dollars in loss of funding) by pumping up its sports programs, working hard to hide scandal after scandal that might not have erupted had strong leadership not just fawningly supported athletic programs with cultures of ugly. The OSU football program is an institution of many orders of magnitude bigger and more comprehensive than MSU's with a huge, rising school behind it.
You can partly blame MI's state legislature, which left MSU to languish and could have demanded better even as the UM was very well-positioned, with its endowment, to thrive and grow during that awful period for the economy.
We benefit--and we should not forget it--by having Presidents and trustees who are not only yahoos for sports. I have seen how this obsession harms several universities up close, and --believe me--you're going to want to have a real school there confidently growing during down times for your big sports.
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:37 AM ^
I do think there's a difference in winning between Alabama and OSU - the Buckeyes have the same number of national titles in the BCS era as Tennessee, Auburn, Texas, and OU and fewer than teams like LSU and Clemson. Alabama, by comparison, has won 6 titles and played for a couple more. The dirty secret about OSU fans is that they sort of realize that they just had a golden era for their team with Meyer and early Day and have one title to show for it, and now Michigan is back, PSU is still annoying, and a bunch of new, good teams are coming into the league that'll make it even harder for them.
And so they just freak out whenever anyone shows this window is closing ever so slightly. By comparison, Alabama fans have basically 20 years of being one of the top 2-3 teams in the country and while at some point they'll drop back down I don't think they believe they've hit that spot yet.
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:38 AM ^
Yeah with Alabama it could be more like "well there's always next year" whereas OSU feels "next year" slipping away a little each year.
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:01 AM ^
Ohio State has had it MUCH easier than Alabama, having to play the likes of Rutgers and Indiana every season while Alabama has faced much stiffer competition.
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:29 AM ^
I think Wendy makes a good point. There's just seemingly a different attitude between OSU and Bama fans. Both have had great recent success, but I think Bama just seems more appreciative. Theirs hasn't been largely a cake walk, as the SEC generally provides better competition and legit challenges from other good/great teams. They're used to being challenged. OSU fans act as if it's their birthright to be champions. They're spoiled and throw temper tantrums when they don't get their way.
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:35 AM ^
Is that sarcasm? Don’t believe the SEC hype. Bama plays 8 SEC teams, none of which are Bama, and they usually don’t play Georgia until the SEC championship game. OSU has to play us and PSU every season.
January 2nd, 2024 at 8:03 PM ^
Is this sarcasm? Go back further than the past three years.
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:53 AM ^
To be Scrupulously Fair, I have to say that I was impressed with how clean the Michigan-Ohio State game was this year. No stupid personal fouls or dirty plays. OSU generally does that less than, say, MSU, and I know that's a low bar, but still.
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:21 AM ^
my memory over ~ 50 years of watching Michigan football is that the OSU v UM game is almost always very clean. Hard hitting but few cheap shots. Yes you get the jawing/David Boston stuff (or the time we tried to untie the OSU QBs shoes in the pile which was embarrassingly bush league) and some taunting but not the "late hit pile drive helmet twist pop his knee out of the socket by pushing him over the pile when the play is dead" stuff that you see 2-3 times a year against MSU. OSU and UM may hate each other but there tends to be grudging respect on the field; MSU is like an undersized Tasmanian devil on meth - never sure what is going to happen but there is likely to be some unpleasantness involved....
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:31 AM ^
I shall henceforth refer to MSU as the "undersized Tasmanian devil on meth." What a great, superbly accurate description.
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:52 AM ^
OSU and UM may hate each other but there tends to be grudging respect on the field;
I think the difference here is that, by and large, players at Michigan and Ohio State would have had the choice to go to either of those schools. Meanwhile players at MSU typically wouldn't have been offered by Michigan or would have had a contingency offer.
January 2nd, 2024 at 12:16 PM ^
One of the more bittersweet parts of The Game this year was, in theaftermath of Z's injury - Michigan coaches went over to console JTT, who looked a bit broken up over the fact he landed on Z's leg. And then Ryan Day went over to Mr and Mrs Zinter and gave them both hugs.
I don't like Ryan Day, I do think he was cocky, made excuses, and his circumstantial ties to sign-gate make me dislike him maybe more than is fair absent any concrete evidence. He's a good coach tho, and that was a very human moment. Everyone responded to it in the right way, on both sides.
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:02 AM ^
I think it's the rivalry getting in OSU's way. Alabama doesn't have any special hostility toward us, I think in general they view us about the way they view any other non-SEC team. I suspect Ohio State fans would be more mature about losing to Auburn than Alabama fans would.
January 2nd, 2024 at 12:00 PM ^
Bama fans remember times when they would lose to Southern Miss and lost to Auburn a bunch of times in a row. I would imagine the long time fans are pretty mature about things
Ohio State thinks 9-3 is a crisis and acts like it whenever they get a whiff of adversity
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:07 AM ^
These past couple of years they've not been the team they were, but we still beat a good team out there, a team that found there stride later in the season. Head to head we were better. Go Blue!
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:07 AM ^
not all of them were so nice. a few here:
this first one by a moderator: And Michigan still sucks
Work is gonna be insufferable
But to lost to Michigan…really???
When I meet my maker…whether heaven or hell…my first question is going to be was it coaching or execution
Well, are we Texas fans now?
IDK. UT now. Anyone but Harbaugh...