All's Well That Ends Well

As you know, the band is of course making the trip to the Lone Star State this fall. If you are shocked, then you are probably less than a year old and get startled every time a face is revealed via the always surprising peekaboo. If so, how are you even reading this?

MMB members' raucous reaction to the good news was as loud as the MMB had been since...

In any case, this should stem the tide of incessant complaining for a while (that is, until Dave Brandon does another UNACCEPTABLE thing) so we can focus on the important things in life, like Will Campbell's pad level and how Devin Gardner is basically Jerry Rice 2.0.

A few brief bullets:

• Telling Michigan fans "no" is like telling a small child at Toys R Us that no, they cannot have that thing that they want. 
• While the concept of a neutral site game is not ideal, the proceeds from the Alabama game (a pseudo-home game), plus the home game next year that would've been a trip to Tuscaloosa under a home-and-home setup>>>>>>>>>the revenue from one home game. Am I missing something? Let's not forget all the merchandise and other various streams of revenue related to this game that folks aren't thinking of at the moment.  
• Let's remember that we're playing Alabama, the defending national champs, in primetime. Nobody wants this to become a regular thing (i.e. neutral site games) but this is still very cool and something that might not happen again in any of our lifetimes. 
• I'm no expert on the band and its finances, but it has been stated numerous times that the band funds itself, not the athletic department, so...how was any of this even a thing? 
• Let's recap. DB said he wouldn't pay for this--even though it's not his department's obligation to do so anyway--and in doing so riled up the Internet masses and got the wealthy donor(s) to reach into their Scrooge McDuck vaults of cash. The result? The band is going and the bill is being footed by a entity that is not the AD. The only fallout is a little bit of e-anger stretched out over a few days, and it's not like DB didn't anticipate--or care about--that anyway.
• Is DB actually a contemporary Machiavelli? Maybe not, and maybe I'm giving him too much credit. However, I think it's completely plausible--and even likely--that he knew this would happen and that, ultimately, somebody would pay for it. As someone once said, "all's well that ends well." 

• Dear MMB: next time, just take the bus. Road trips are fun.