The first set of votes are in for the newly installed Fan Confidence Polls and I think it's safe to say that Michigan sports fans are not very confident in their teams. (If you're still not sure what these polls are, here's the basic run down. They're located on each team blog in the left column underneath the blog logo. Every so often, you'll be able to rank just how much you believe in the given team, at that point in time, on a scale from 0-100.) Read the breakdown after the jump.
There's no telling how many people voted, as far as I know, but the early returns suggest that Michigan sports fans are the most confident in the Red Wings. The Red Wings received a score of 63 out of 100. With the Stanley Cup Finals ending last night, the new hope for a fresh season hadn't kicked in quite yet.
The next highest total was 53 for Michigan State, but the two college teams are tough to gauge because the blogs tend to cover all the major sports, not just one. What exactly are the Spartans fans confident in? The football team? Izzo staying? It could just be the university's sports program as a whole, but we'll never know if that's how people are voting.
The Lions surprisingly collected the second most confidence points amongst the four major sports with 49. That's not bad morale, though, since they do seem to be on the rise (and that's really the only place they can go). They've had their second straight quality off-season in terms of drafting players and free agent signings. Lions fans have every right to be as confident as they've ever felt in the past decade about the upcoming season.
The fact that Michigan sports fans have more confidence in the Lions than the Tigers or Pistons was what shocked me. The Tigers are in-season right now and just 4.5 GB out of 1st place in the Central Division. It's clear their recent struggles have created a cause for concern amongst Tigers nation, but 40 seems way too pessimistic.
As for the Pistons, well, they are coming off their worst season in nearly a decade. On top of that, their two biggest free agent signings from last summer put up sub par numbers and are signed on for several more years, leading many faithful to believe Joe Dumars has lost his Midas touch. This summer's huge free agent class isn't a good confidence-building reminder.
You can check the fan confidence poll results about half way down the main page of SB Nation Detroit or on each individual blog's front page. It's going to be interesting to see how the graphs change over time. Hopefully, we can get back to a time when Michigan sports fans held their teams in a little bit higher regard.