As you may be aware, Michigan won the national championship. Brian's said his bit on what this means to him, and now it's everyone else's turn. We're inviting everyone who's contributed to the blog over its existence to write whatever they want about the 2023 football team, and hope to roll out a series of these over the course of the next few months. Our next writer is Jon Schwartz (@jonlschwartz). Freshmen athletes arrive as the hottest thing in the hometown, and most smack their heads in humiliation on their first encounters with the skill and talent at this level. For me, an award-receiving young journalist who thought he was the next Mitch Albom, that moment was joining the Michigan Daily and staring down four years of competing with Jon Schwartz's pen. As Daily sports editor, he was the thinker you wanted to hear from before formulating your take. Jon has been around the writer's block since then—New Jersey Monthly, Spin, and the New York Yankees, for whom he's the deputy editor of Yankees Magazine. Let him at Michigan again, however, and you're all about see why I fled to Editorial rather than share a depth chart with the five-star of my class. Previously in this series: Business is Finished by Ace Anbender You'll Fight and You'll Make It Through by Desmond Was Tripped Goodbye, Coach by Jordan Acker It’s strange that I found it during the week between the Rose Bowl and the National Championship Game, a stretch when I attacked each day with an enthusiasm for Michigan gear unknown to mankind. Packing for Houston, I came upon a navy shirt — purchased from the MGoBlog store — that, instead of Michigan, said “FERGODSAKES.” It was a silly purchase, the type of faux-ironic shirt choice that you wear while silently begging for the opportunity to explain it. It’s also indicative of what was wrong with the University of Michigan football landscape for so long. Let’s back up. In January 2011, Brady Hoke — not Jim Harbaugh and not Les Miles — stood before a packed media contingent to accept the job running the winningest college football program in history. He had been a successful enough head coach at Ball State and San Diego State, but — much more importantly around Ann Arbor — he had been an assistant under Gary Moeller and Lloyd Carr. “I can promise you,” he said, in a quote that wouldn’t end up on any T-shirts, but that would be the first sign of the incredibly poor in-game strategy and behind-the-scenes decision-making that became Hoke’s trademark, “we would have walked to the University of Michigan.” We can make fun now, a decade later and finally recovered from the dysfunction of the Hoke era, but it’s worth remembering that the coach really did win that introductory press conference. Even Dave Brandon came in for praise at locking up a real Michigan man. “This is an elite job,” said the decidedly not elite coach, confident that he could return the Wolverines to glory both on the field and in the public consciousness. “This will continue to be an elite job. This is Michigan, fergodsakes.” For a while, that was enough. Like Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy, just say it and it’s true. We’re Michigan. Pay no attention to anything you’re seeing. [After THE JUMP: You'll see what I mean.]