Low brow? Positively. But that’s what this has come to listening to all these people. {democracy:4}

Here’s a few positives in the aftermath of Saturday’s disaster. 1. There was not a single appearance of ‘The Wave’ in the Big House on Saturday. 2. All you Carr regime bashers may have secured your wish to not only have Carr gone at the end of this season, but now English and DeBord are probably off any short list. And while Bill Martin confirmed his unconditional support of Lloyd Carr yesterday, he did make reference to “the next coach”. 3. Your ticket stub is worth between $10-$20 bucks on the eBay if you kept it in decent condition. 4. FWIW, if you were at the game you witnessed one of the major events in college football history. 5. The stakes have changed but the ante on the individual games may have increased. Michigan remains the butt of every joke in lockerrooms around the country and many of these teams will play the Wolverines this year. Despite my disgust for the events of last Saturday I can not wait to see how the team responds against Oregon.

This week’s Sports Illustrated cover is out, enjoy: The worst SI cover for a Michigan fan? Tough to say, M fans have swallowed some nasty medicine over the years, remember these beauties?:

{democracy} Most M fans were excited about the Oregon game coming into the season. Heck, Brian at mgoblog called this game a 50/50 proposition prior to The Debacle. Obviously most thought this would be the first chance to see what the 2007 Wolverine squad was made of. That’s still a reality but not how anyone had hoped. The situation that the team in is difficult to comprehend but you have to think we’ll get a lot of answers at 3:30 Saturday. It’ll reveal true mettle of Carr and the determination of Hart & co to preserve (salvage?) their legacy. The good news: – Could the schedule set-up better for this team given what just happened? A breather against a MAC school following this game wouldn’t take any of the heat of the team or Carr. For the next three weeks every US American will be watching the Blue in some of the biggest games of the year. A nice win over Oregon could dose a lot of the flames. Following up with wins over Notre Dame and Penn State and Michigan will certainly be ranked again and heading into the Big Ten schedule with major steam. Obviously most Michigan fans, even the folks that want Carr’s head, will be pulling for these guys to rebound. The bad news: – If…

I don’t have a contest but if I did this dude would win. I’ve had a few folks make this point but I think Eric said it best, or at least funniest: As far as the comments from other Big Ten fans and or students on this, you might want ease back on the insults considering you haven’t played Michigan yet. It’s like ripping on a guy for getting beat up by a girl and then getting your a$$ kicked by that guy.

In today’s weekly press conference Coach Carr was asked to react to Jim Carty’s column which ran in today’s Ann Arbor News. The piece basically states that Carr should gracefully step aside at the end of this season and that the game has passed him by. Carr said he hadn’t read the piece and therefore couldn’t comment. On his blog Carty was asked if he expected any backlash from the school or from Carr himself. Here’s JC’s comment: It’s never any fun when you have to write critical things about people, especially when the guy involved is a good person. I do think the piece was more nuanced than the headline, but we’re in a sound bite world. As far as fearing backlash … my experience has been that Lloyd Carr respects the right to have an opinion he disagrees with as long as it avoids personal shots and avoids treating his players badly. We’ll have to see how this plays out but I think Carty is probably right about no backlash. And if Carr starts blackballing every reporter that is calling for him to be fired or step down at this point it’ll get pretty weird. The people who are defending Carr (who have mostly head for the hills) will focus on the man, the clean program he runs,…

Maize & Blog ran a post yesterday in which several witnesses claimed that Friday night prior to the Appalachian State game Chad Henne, Mike Hart and other players were at a fraternity house on campus, drinking and carrying on. The original post ran here but as you can see it has been pulled. Someone didn’t like the story. The site came back with a brief note confirming what they posted while taking a shot at whomever was responsible for squashing the original post. My reaction: Players having a few drinks, staying out late and maybe even taking a few liberties with their female guests before games are the least of my concerns after watching that debacle. These guys are college students afterall. This said, the team typically stays at a hotel the night before the game to avoid things like this from going on and if some team rule was violated it should be addressed. After watching the disorganized mob that Coach Carr put out there on Saturday you have to wonder if the team is on the verge of imploding. If team rules are loosely enforced, and some players get special priviledges, what are the chances that this team can turn things around? Don’t see it happening. Elsewhere: Many media folks are calling for Coach Carr to step down…