When Michigan lost 34-32 at home to defending 1-AA champion Appalachian State in the first week of the season, people were shocked all over America.

"They just weren't ready!" shouted UM fans.
"They'll win next week and get back on track!" was the rallying cry.

But when they got the snot beat out of 'em at home again a week later ... this time 39-7 by an Oregon team that could've put up five more touchdowns if it had wanted to ... it might have been the best thing to have happened to the Wolverines' program in years.

Forget the fact they shut out a Notre Dame team last week that's so pitiful even Touchdown Jesus is saying Hail Mary's down in South Bend, there is still no confusion about the Wolverines.

There is no misunderstanding...
Michigan needs a makeover ... from the coaching staff to the players it recruits!

For too long UM's football program has flirted with death, only to be revived by excuses on the operating table at the last second.

Getting run out of the 2004 Rose Bowl by eventual national champ Southern Cal was "no shame. USC was just a better team."

Losing to Texas in the same game the next year was explained as simply being too much Vince Young, who has done what he did against Michigan then to everybody he's played in the pros since.

Being beaten by a clearly inferior Nebraska team in the Alamo Bowl 11 months later was labeled "a fluke."

And then, last January, getting slammed 32-18 by USC in the Rose Bowl again was only because UM had a "let down" after losing the Big Ten title to Ohio State and wasn't playing Florida for the national championship.

At the time, at least a couple of those excuses might've seemed legitimate.

But not now.

After the royal ass kicking by Oregon, it was clear as glass that UM's arrogance in resisting change had finally caught up with it.

If ancient and even more decrepit Penn State Coach Joe Paterno could send his coaches to Texas before last season to study the "spread offense" Young made famous, UM and coach Lloyd Carr can surely just as easily swallow their "We are Michigan... The Victors ... Champions of the West" pride now and ask for help, too.

May I suggest Carr call West Virginia Coach Rich Rodriguez and schedule a visit to see how the Mountaineers operate the spread and what kind of athletes they recruit to run it.

How 'bout even checking with Rutgers (Rutgers!?!) to see how they run their offense?
Nawww.
Not Michigan. They'd never admit they're out of step with college football reality.

But UM desperately has the need for speed.

It doesn't have athletes fast enough to simulate the spread in practice, so they damn sure can't defend it in a game.   

But, at least now the Wolverines are exposed.
And that's a good thing, too, because they're going to have to scrap both their offensive and defensive philosophies next season (its too late to do it this year) to get in step with the times, or they face several more embarrassments in the future.

Sadly, depending on who's talking, that metamorphosis has to begin with the coaching staff.
And as nice a guy as Lloyd Carr is, it's time for a change in Ann Arbor.

In baseball, when your infield is making a bunch of errors and the runs against you are piling up, more times than not managers change their pitcher ... if for no other reason just to get a different look and give their team a jolt of confidence.


(Darron Patterson is an award-winning freelance writer based in Detroit)