Michigan faces Ohio State tomorrow in the supposed biggest rivalry in college football.  For the first time in my life, I can’t watch.

I’m 24 years old.  For at least twenty of those years, I have been a Michigan man.  I busted out the Desmond Howard Heisman pose on the imagined gridiron of my eight-year-old mind.  I did the same on the real one in my cap and gown.

During games I have Howard Dean yelped.  I’ve chest bumped.  I’ve thrown furniture.  I’ve stared in disbelief.  I’ve skipped with the sprightliness of a school girl.  I’ve run outside shirtless, swearing on a subzero night.  I’ve kissed.  I’ve cursed.  I’ve cried.  I’ve cried for blood.  I always cared.

Lloyd and I had a stormy time together.  I defended him often, but also disparaged him.  I toasted his health, but once threatened to disembowel him.  There were ups, downs, highs, lows, lefts, rights and general silliness over the Carr years, but the existential issues remained cozily inside the box.

I’m not sure what this season did to me.  Perhaps, it is the compiled dismay of watching Utah, Illinois, Toledo, Michigan State and Northwestern cudgel us at home, in the same season.  I feel like the lab rat, shocked so many times it just lies there and takes it.  I limit my calls home.  I haven’t exchanged text messages with my brother in more than a month.

Tomorrow, I will be on an airplane when the Michigan-Ohio St. game kicks off.  I chose that flight on purpose.