Guys they lost a lot of 3rd and 4th round draft picks. No one has ever lost that much and been able to field a functional offense the next year. Imagine turning over your entire coaching staff minus one guy and going 12-0 the very next year. Impossible.
I love the first reply to her "We aren't Michigan State, we have a standard to uphold!"
What standard? Since when? Winning only 5 bowl games since 2000 without cheating? Winning zero Big Ten titles in the 15 years between 2005-2020 before the cheating started? That's the standard at Michigan. Fielding Yost has been in Hell for decades and he's not coming up to save the program.
And I thinking about it the other day, those 15 years are key to what happened to Connor Staliona amd Michigan.
Connor Stalions was the son of proud Michigan alumni. But he was born too late. When Connor was 5 years old, the age where the human brain can omewhat fleetingly hold on to memories long term, Jim Tressel took over at Ohio State. In Kindergarten the Buckeyes won a National Championship. Two years later he would see Michigan win the Big Ten...but lose to Texas in the Rose Bowl.
And that would be Michigan's last triumphant moment that Connor witnesses for a long time He is 8 years old.
The following season would begin an absolutely epic run of Jim Tressel demolishing the Big Ten, winning 5 Big Ten titles in 7 years, going 74-15 over that time span and undefeated against Michigan. When the Tressel era ends, Connor is 14.
Connor was finally able to see Michigan defeat Ohio State for a 2nd time after Tressel is uphurled by the Tattoo-gate saga. Buckeye legend Luke Fickell jumps on the grenade to save the program and their recruitiny class and takes over as head coach in 2011, and Michigan barely beats the Buckeyes 40-36. Connor Stalions is a Freshman in high-school and has seen the Wolverines win The Game for only the second time.
That victory must have given him hope. "See, the Buckeyes were cheating this whole time! Now that Jim Tressel isn't breaking the rules, Michigan finally beats Ohio State! We are on equal ground now and Michigan is going to beat the Buckeyes and be favorites to win the Big Ten every year!"
But little did he know his nightmare was far from over. Urban Meyer takes over the Ohio State program, wins the Big Ten three times, the first ever Playoff National Championship and most importantly, goes on a 7-0 against Michigan.
The glimmer of hope in 2011 followed by the Urban era was the breaking point. In 2014, when Ohio State wins the National Championship, Connor's adult life begins. He joins the military to gain leadership skills and enters the Navy Academy with the sole purpose of working in college football and eventually taking over the Michigan program in order to beat Ohio State.
Jim Tressel and Urban Meyer so thoroughly demolished Michigan over Connor's 15 most formative years that he dedicated his life to beating Ohio State. Michigan's coaching hires and stupid decisions all around were so bad that he realized if they were never going to beat Ohio State unless he moved to Ann Arbor and made it happen himself. The guy was living out of his car as a volunteer to entrench himself into the program to try to find a way to make it happen.