There is never a year regardless of our record that we should settle for losing to the scumbags.

NEVER!!

There are no "moral victories", (against anyone)either you've won or you've lost the game.

Any UCLA coach that is not up to that task should not be coaching at the school.

Once again...good article from both schools.

That's the key quotation for me. Michigan and UCLA's football fortunes are not perfectly analogous right now, but this hopeless sense that we observers experience as we clearly witness underachievement without accountability is maddening.

You and the other circumspect UCLA fans see that Dorrell is inadequate relative to past standards, relative to your informed standards, and relative to national standards at peer institutions and are left to pray that someone in charge recognizes it too. That's life as a Michigan fan right now. It is painfully obvious that Ohio State, Notre Dame, USC, Georgia, Texas, LSU, etc. all "get it"--they are totally committed to winning and leveraging their strengths(although USC and OSU appear willing to cross the line, something I won't ever accept). Michigan isn't and doesn't. Lloyd Carr doesn't get the job done in full, and it is galling that we're told to put up with someone who is regularly substituting mediocrity for excellence despite toiling in a place that theoretically prioritizes being among the "leaders and best."

As a Michigan student, I bought into that rhetoric, not for the purposes of elitism but, rather, to feel as though I was part of something greater, an institution with ideals I adored. Inclusion, diversity, meritocracy, altruism, endless curiosity--these are great things, offered and cherished by Michigan, a progressive agenda that makes the strive toward excellence paramount. It was thrilling to be living in that sort of a community, and I am forever indebted to the school and its many, different people.

So how can that rhetoric guide the institution but fail to apply to such a public and important endeavor like football? I would be upset were football to ever become the school's primary focus, but it is naive to deny how important the program is to Michigan. It puts the Michigan brand in millions of households each fall; it serves as a platform on which the University's many constituencies can see their adoration of the institution coalesce and find common direction; it is a coherent social element; and it generates a lot of revenue, both for the University as a whole and for the robust athletic department, one of the largest in the country. Should an important asset like football be treated to more than pretty good by a guy who won the lottery almost a decade ago and has since made the same mistakes over and over again without recourse?

Before, I wrote that this off-season had been like purgatory. To extend and/or alter that image while mixing in another metaphor: As I consider this hamster wheel on which I run in place, endlessly seeking a way to conquer or, at least, outrun my frustration, I am reminded of Sisyphus. What could possibly be worse than pushing the same rock and failing in the same way forever?

In the past hundred years, Alabama has had eight losing seasons.  Three of those of coming since 1997!  

We're on our seventh coach since 1983.  Our fourth since 2000!  We have to deal with an irrational athletic department that claims to be looking for the second coming of Bear Bryant, yet constantly makes bad decisions (bad hires, firing people too early.) Bear Bryant brought unprecendented glory to this program, but his shadow looms large with irrational expectations abounding.

In less than a decade Alabama went from one of the most prestigious programs in the country to being one of the biggest laughing stocks.  

Our boosters at times been out of control, but the NCAA has seemed to take pleasure in hammering us with the most brutal penalties while other schools get slaps on the wrist for the same or greater offenses.  

Since '83 (the year after Bryant's passing) we've won one national championship and three SEC championships.  Unacceptable!

Tradition is great until it gets in the way of the present and future and that's what is happening here.  

Sure, to have gone 10-2 the first year off of sanctions was fantastic, but even at 10-2 we were still #4 in the conference.  

Those complaints aside, Alabama football is what brought the South out of isolation in the 1920s when they beat Washington in the Rose Bowl.  Their historical impact on the state and the region can't be overestimated as far as giving hope and joy to a people who didn't have much to hopeful and joyful about.

I can only hope that our administrators will realize that both administrative and athletic leadership of the past realized that football could be used to improve the academic instution as a whole.  That's undoubtedly happened.  Hopefully they won't lose sight of that and realize that while the academic side of things is the most important, that a solid football program helps greatly in the achievement of the overall goals of the school.