There's not much left to say now, because what's done is done.
And the fact that Jim Harbaugh and the Wolverines keep doing this, flinching in the face of their rivals and forcing Michigan fans to reconcile the reality of their program with its mythology, shouldn't come as a surprise anymore.
It is what it is, as coaches and players like to say. And at the end of the day, to borrow another tiresome clause, this is what Michigan is: The Big Chill, and not in a nostalgic way.
Today is Election Day. But if it feels like Groundhog Day for the Wolverine faithful, that'd be understandable. Because four years after the height of Harbaugh's tenure at Michigan, the disappointment still arrives like clockwork. An alarm goes off early in the season, there's that inevitable step off the curb into a slush puddle, and then a humiliating ending that guarantees six more weeks of winter before the diehards are convinced that next season really might be different.
Well, Saturday was different, all right. But only because the stunned silence inside Michigan Stadium was due to all the empty seats. Aside from parents and siblings, it was mostly a bunch of cardboard cutouts that saw Michigan State — a three-touchdown underdog – control of the game from start to finish, seal the game with a fourth-down quarterback sneak and then board the bus back to East Lansing with the Paul Bunyan Trophy, leaving the Wolverines to pick up the pieces.
"It was a gut-wrenching loss," Harbaugh said Monday, as he and his team tried to turn the page with a trip to face No. 13 Indiana up next. "You can't dwell on it. Just like any time we've had a win here, we've got to move on quickly to the next game. ... Same with a loss. You lose a game, you come back and work hard and make darn sure it doesn't happen again."
