My phone started blowing up Saturday evening, about 10 minutes after the end of the Southern Cal-UCLA game.

"Yo! D! We're in now baby!" screamed the guy on the other end, my friend Dennis.

Five minutes later, phone rings again.

"What's up man!?! "It (sic) don't matter what Florida does 'cause Michigan and Ohio State are clearly the best two teams in the country now," said my boy Tim.

After about an hour, I just stopped answering the phone altogether, and didn't answer it at all Sunday unless I recognized by caller ID it was family.

This morning, I stopped at the gas station to get my daily paper on the way in to work and the headline (in BIG BOLD TYPE) in The Detroit News was: "UM Denied!"
It featured a picture of UM coach Lloyd Carr doing his best "bitter beer face" imitation.

Right next to it on the stand was the Detroit Free Press, which had a headline that said: "UM wronged by BCS voters."

So, I get to work and some of my co-workers are already huddled up in the corner at 7 o'clock in the morning talking about how disgusting it was that Michigan got robbed by not getting to play Ohio State again ... this time for the national championship of college football.

I couldn't stand it, so I kept walking.

I get to my computer and there's a note stuck to the screen from my boss that says: "Darron, come see me please."

What the @#$#$%% I thought.

So, I walk down to his office and he says: "Well, whaddya think?'

"About what?" I said.
"That problem we talked about in Friday's meeting?"

"Naw, man," he says.
"Whaddya think about Michigan getting screwed?"

AAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!

OK!
That 's it!

MEMO TO MICHIGAN FAN: GET THE FU@# OVER IT!!!

First lets get this straight...
The word "fan" is derived from the Latin term "fanatic," which means: "A person possessed by an excessive zeal for AND uncritical attachment to a cause or position."

Now, I don't know if fanatic is Latin or not ... it just sounded good to say.

But, I do know this ... it never fails at this time of year (bowl season, that is, to you football illiterates) that some school's fans will scream to whomever's listening that their team got screwed.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Nobody's ever gonna be happy.
And even when the NCAA decides to go to a playoff system (which we are probably closer to today than we've ever been in a while), there's still gonna be unhappy fans.

Why?
Because they're fuc%&*# fans! That's why!!!

You wanna see somebody upset, just "dis" a football fan's team or spell a moma's kid's name wrong in the newspaper.

So, it stood to reason that when the BCS (Big Controversial Shit) pairings were announced, and Michigan was left out in the cold, the Wolverines fans were more than a little chapped in their asses!

I've got news for 'em though ... they've got bigger problems than worrying about getting dissed by the BCS.

Their immediate problem is USC.
As in Southern California.
As in Trojans ... not the species of the nightstand kind, either.
As in the team they played in the Rose Bowl two years ago and got spanked by.

I know, I know UM fan.
I hear ya ... "This is a better Michigan team than the one that played Southern Cal two years ago, and this Southern Cal team isn't as good as the one they had then, either."

Yeah, yeah.
OK.
And that jackass George Bush dropped down onto a carrier deck in a Navy jet three years ago, declaring the end to major hostilities in Iraq, too.

You get my point, right? ... Things ain't ever what they seem.

So, be careful, UM Fan.
Be careful.

USC is not Ohio State.
But its a dangerous team.

They hung 60 on Arkansas ... IN ARKANSAS ... in September.
They are extremely fast (something that ALWAYS gives Lloyd Carr-coached Michigan teams trouble).
AND, they are extremely pissed off at blowing a shot at the national title.

If Michigan does lose to 'em, I can hear ya now, UM Fan: "Well, the team was down cause it didn't wanna be in Pasadena. They wanted to be in Arizona playing Ohio State for the national championship."

Un-huh.

And I wanna be in Jamaica right now, on the beach, with Halle Berry sitting on my lap.
BUT ... does that mean my boss will overlook it if I come to work, don't do my job and say I wanna be somewhere else?

Not hardly.

Now, please don't misunderstand me, UM Fan ... I hate Florida worse than you ever can.
YOU don't have the ability to hate Florida like people from the South who know everything there is to know about the Southeastern Conference.
 
Florida Gators are the most despised band of people in the world, as far as we're concerned.

As an intense Alabama fan, I'd like to say:
1. Florida sucks!
2. The state sucks!
3. The people in that state suck! (And, hey! I've got relatives there!!!)
4. The football team sucks ... bigtime!

I hate Florida!
EVERYTHING about Florida sucks!

Now that we've got THAT cleared up, don't think I'm happy Florida is in the national championship game.
And if you think the nation's coaches weren't pulling for USC to beat UCLA ... JUST SO they wouldn't have to see Florida in the title game ... you've got another think coming, too.

Even other coaches across the country hate Florida.

As a matter of fact, I think Florida fans even hate themselves, but they just can't move outta state.

So, in short ... let it go, UM Fan.
There's worse things that could've happened this past weekend.

Your basement could've flooded.
Your mother-in-law could've bought the house next door.
Your daughter could've come home and said she was engaged to marry Osama bin Laden.

It could've been much, much worse...

(Darron Patterson is an award-winning freelance journalist who lives in Detroit.)