[jwplayer JgrZoSF1-XNcErKyb]
No matter how often it’s said, in its annual rote, always by yet another personality, ‘We don’t pay attention to that stuff,’ is a lie. Though a purposeful one. A useful one.
Sticks and stones.
This is not particular to the Michigan fanbase, but in all of sports. While the bulk of any fandom are likely generally appreciative, win or lose so long that the effort is in the right place, it’s always the malcontents that are loud and vocal. Yes, those in the former category can find themselves frustrated after — say — the last five years of Michigan football, after what was anticipated following the hire of Jim Harbaugh.
But then you have those in the latter.
We’ve seen our fair share of it after games, win or lose, over the past few years. Much of the recent ire has been directed at quarterback Shea Patterson. Whether he had a good game or a bad one, the mentions on social media — Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, various website message boards — were relentless in their loathing. But by fans of the team that he plays for.
Throughout the season, Patterson, when he’d meet with the media, would inevitably say something to the effect of the aforementioned dismissal about not paying attention, but, like any other young adult, social media is impossible to ignore. It’s hard to not read the comments, especially when they’re directed right at you.
As he told the media at the NFL Scouting Combine on Tuesday, he eventually does see the comments, but he does his best to shrug them off.
“Me, personally I try to stay off it as much as possible, especially around game time, but it’s tough,” Patterson said. “When you look that Sunday after a game when you didn’t play too well, or throughout the week, it’s just random. Guys will tweet stuff at you and come out of nowhere and sometimes it won’t even make any sense.
“I think having that mindset it’s all part of it and it doesn’t affect who you are a person or as a player. You control what you can control. No other man or woman has the right to mess with you mentally. As long as you’re a strong enough person to know who you are, that’s how you deal with it.”
He continued:
“Man, there’s a lot of bad stuff out there right now. I couldn’t really pinpoint one. There’s a lot of negativity. Just got to stay positive with it.”
Like I said, it’s emblematic to any large fanbase, not just Michigan. There’s a reason I came to appreciate former Ohio State QB J.T. Barrett, and it entirely has to do with the things I heard his own fans yell at him in 2016 while I was on the sideline at field level, But still, it doesn’t compute.
There’s a difference between acknowledging that a player had a bad game — Patterson’s had a few of those, but many of his detractors wouldn’t even acknowledge when he had a good throw, let a lone a good game — and a good one. And those who throw on Michigan jerseys, singing about being the ‘leaders and best’ moments before they launch into a message board tirade, or tweeting their displeasure directly to the quarterback himself in the heat of passion. ‘That’s the life they live,’ they likely explain to themselves about what it’s like being in the spotlight like Patterson, having no idea the work and effort it takes just to get and stay there, let alone the ridiculousness of the criticism beyond the standard.
Given his tumultuous tenure in Ann Arbor, it seems unlikely that Patterson will be remembered as a fan favorite. But his numbers suggest he should be. He finishes with the second (2019) and ninth-best (2018) single seasons passing by yardage in Michigan history. In just two seasons, he’s seventh in career passing, ahead of Jim Harbaugh and Tom Brady, but behind Chad Henne, John Navarre, Elvis Grbac, Devin Gardner, Denard Robinson and Todd Collins. He has the fifth and tenth-best games in Michigan history — 2019 against MSU and Indiana, respectively. He’s sixth in career passing touchdowns. Fourth and sixth in single season variety. And has the second-most touchdowns thrown in a game in a Michigan uniform.
But, he won’t go down as one of the best to do it in a winged helmet. Those who want to say things about him never beating Ohio State tend to overlook Chad Henne’s lack of having done so, or have glowing memories of Jake Rudock’s single season in Ann Arbor, but aren’t willing to give Patterson the same pass.
This is just one case. Of many. I’m not singling out Patterson saying he deserves a statue next to Bo or anything of the sort. But both on the record and off, I’ve heard it time and time again from players, current and former. There’s a reason Zach Gentry, after a bad game in Columbus in 2018, quit social media. And it wasn’t because of unruly OSU fans provoking him. There’s a reason why others choose to go on sabbatical from Twitter once the season starts, because the negativity can be too much.
The spotlight might be what you sign up for when you choose a school like Michigan, but that doesn’t mean that they should have insults hurled at them every time they don’t make a play. If they’re on vacation in May, basically the only month they have off, they shouldn’t get a bevy of ‘you should be using this time to work on beating Ohio State’ just because they’re finally able to take a minute to themselves.
And for those who don’t think it matters, one very high-level recruit that Michigan is targeting told me recently that part of his rubric in finding his choice of school is a fanbase that supports their own, through better or worse. It matters.
To the many of you who don’t do any of this, good on you. You don’t have to always love the team you love, but you understand that those players have skin in the game that you don’t, and you don’t take it too seriously.
To the others, the vocal minority, the ones who knew before you opened this that I’m talking directly at you: find a way to better exemplify Michigan’s ‘leaders and best’ motto, instead of making a mockery of it. And if you’re not a Michigan fan, just be better. There’s more to life, for all of us, than this game we love to watch.
And those you’re attacking know it better, know it more personally, than the rest of us. For better and worse.