We are annually confronted with the success of teams that "we" did not believe in. The haters, the nay-sayers, the adversity-creators: these are the recurring characters of every post-championship interview session. As outsiders, we have little choice but to sit there while they break down some dubious facts for us.
“Not one of y’all said the Chiefs were gonna take it home this year,” Travis Kelce roared during the Super Bowl celebrations. “Not a single one! Feel that shit. Feel it! And on top of that, the next time the Chiefs say something, put some respect on our name!”
"They thought we were gonna go 7-5, and we end up perfect," Georgia's Nolan Smith inexplicably asserted a year ago. "I can talk trash now, 'cause I'm done."
Heading into this Michigan football season, the haters-to-waiters mentality eluded us. Since the launch of Defector, not a single pro team in Detroit had even appeared in the playoffs, though that will mercifully change in five days. But over the last several months, as the big shots of college football tried to nail Wolverines head coach "Crooked" Jim Harbaugh for having a staff that loved to watch games just a little too much, we could appreciate what it's like to have the whole world against you.
It kind of rules! Regardless of how much the haters strive for sabotage, it's so much fun to be petty to your enemies. And by enemies, we mean, of course, anybody who is not us. As the team itself adopted the "Michigan vs. Everybody" slogan, we learned to live it. No matter what anyone said about our boys, we had an undeniable response. "Haha, Sherrone Moore was crying on TV." Michigan vs. Everybody! "'The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald' is a silly song to get pumped about." Michigan vs. Everybody! "Actually, the University of Washington has a really beautiful campus." Michigan vs. Everybody!
This mantra lives on through the first day of our national title era, but in the interest of not falling into the same trap as Kelce and Smith, we can give some citations. Here, then, are some of the everybodies who would try to slander America's Team:
- Ohio State head coach Ryan Day
- Ryan Day's brothers
- Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti
- Paul Finebaum
- Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule
- Purdue head coach Ryan Walters
- FBS coaches who spoke to The Athletic's Bruce Feldman anonymously, for fear of ending up on this list
- The Athletic's Ari Wasserman (Blue-chip ratio? L + ratio.)
- 32 ESPN "experts"
- Jay Mariotti
- Scott Frost
- Defector commenter SanDimasHSFootballRules
- Maitreyi's mother, who claimed Michigan "wasn't good enough to beat an SEC team"
- Lauren's mother, who rooted for the Huskies after a very pleasant trip to Seattle in 2023
- Jasper's mother-in-law, who reads Eleven Warriors and has a lot of thoughts about Jim Harbaugh
- 2020-era Matt Campbell stans
- Zak Zinter's tibia
- Huskies fans who insisted Michigan hadn't seen "an offense like Washington's." You won the Joe Moore Award? WE INVENTED THE JOE MOORE AWARD.
- Joe Moore Award voting committee
- Chris Thompson
- Luis Paez-Pumar
All of you are banned from Zingerman's Deli.
