Hail to the Victors Valiant

POSTED BY Kenneth England, 02 September 2007

What a Saturday of football we got this weekend, if you like the upsets. Well, not that Notre Dame getting smoked by Georgia Tech is an upset except in an historical sense, if that makes any sense. It probably doesn't. What makes even less sense is the Wolverines getting beaten by Appalachian State at the Big House. Ouch.

I gotta admit I got a lot of joy out of that score. When I saw the ticker at halftime I couldn't believe my eyes, and I was thrilled with the prospect of Michigan getting beat at home at the season opener, coming into the season ranked #5 and making lots of noise about a National Championship..... by a team in another athletic division. Not that I pretend to know what division... or subdivision... they are in, but it doesn't matter.

All that matters is that Michigan lost to them.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not some rabid Ohio State fan (or a Buckeye fan at all.) Although I'm sure Ohio State fans Saturday were probably experiencing the sort of cosmic, euphoric bliss that comes around only once in a lifetime. Actually, they will probably feel that all year, regardless of what they do with their team, just from that one Michigan loss. Somewhere in Columbus, there are people looping the highlights of that game endlessly for hours, amid a sea of overturned cars and fuzzy hangovers. All along the Michigan / Ohio border, Michigan fans are dreading the eventual trudge into work on Tuesday morning.

After all, upsets of this caliber well.... are arguably unprecedented, at least in college football. And the big team losing to the little guy is always the greatest thing in sports... when it's not your team.

Let the guessing begin on how many ranking spots Michigan plummets after this. I'm going with at least 20.