Michigan 27, Ohio State 30 (2OT): A little extra

Never underestimate the rivalry's ability to find that spot, the one that hurts the most. A well-placed nudge to the unsuspecting elicits a yowl, a yelp, a cringing collapse on the floor.

Just when you thought the rivalry couldn't yield a more painful outcome, it did on Saturday, when No. 2 Ohio State bested No. 3 Michigan, 30-27, in double overtime. It was the first overtime game in the history of the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry, and thus presented Michigan with a chance to lose in a new way.

When the game ended, I quietly checked my phone for 10 minutes, taking in reactions from around the internet, positive and negative. But, eventually, I wondered if this game was even worth the consternation.

After so many losses of all kinds -- unmitigated blowouts, near-upsets of better Ohio State teams, upsets of better Michigan teams, close-but-not-really-close games, and so on -- is it possible that one more piece of kindling on the losing fire burn makes it burn any more horrifically?

How you deal with the loss is up to you. But one fact remains: In its infinite cruelty, the rivalry game in Columbus sought maximum pain, going to not one but two overtimes.

Sixty minutes was not enough -- the newest iteration of disappointment needed a little more time to cook.

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Saturday offered a strange combination of Michigan both looking like the better team yet simultaneously making the errors of a lesser team.

Michigan led 17-7 late in the third quarter, with Ohio State's seven points coming on a Wilton Speight pick six in the second quarter. The defensive line had suffocated the Ohio State offense to that point, putting to bed any notion of a reprisal of last season's dud of an effort, coordinated by now Maryland head coach DJ Durkin. If any individual unit in the country is worthy of a playoff bid, it's this defense (and Alabama's, of course).

While the Wolverines were aided to an extent by JT Barrett's general inaccuracy, they shut down Ohio State's passing game, as Barrett went just 15-for-32 for 124 yards, good for a measly 3.9 YPA. Michigan also shut down the powerful Mike Weber (11 carries, 27 yards).

In essence, Barrett's legs were just about Ohio State's entire offense, as, for whatever reason, Urban Meyer limited Curtis Samuel to just seven carries (he also caught four passes for 32 yards). Barrett made some plays, but the Michigan defense was able to swarm him a majority of the time. Many of those tackles for loss or even simple open-field tackles (Mike McCray's tackle on Barrett late in the game comes to mind) would have yielded big gains in previous years -- in fact, you only need look to 2015 for many examples.

Truth be told, watching Michigan's defense go to work against Ohio State yielded an unfamiliar feeling. It had been quite a while since Michigan's defense kept an Ohio State offense in check like that. Even in years when the Buckeyes were held under 30 (2007, 2009), there was an obvious feeling that they could have scored more if the game was ever truly in doubt.

Of course, the ode to improvement rings hollow. At a certain point, hearing about The Way is tiring. Are we there yet, are we there yet? The answer is no, not yet. They almost scaled the mountain, but had to turn back, low on oxygen and morale.

For Michigan fans familiar with the composition of the roster, most folks said before the season that this was the year to make some noise. It wasn't just bravado -- this team as constructed is loaded, although of course not without weak spots (namely the offensive line and linebacker).

In no uncertain terms, this season was nothing more than a missed chance.
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After close losses on the road, you'll usually hear the following: "Make the plays you need to win the game and don't let the referees have a hand in the outcome."

You hear that and by now are conditioned to nod in agreement. Whether it's Big Ten basketball or football, everybody knows the aforementioned -- it's an unspoken contract. Don't put the game away and any officiating malfeasance is fine, because something.

What can be said about a sport in which the home team has a built-in, infrastructural advantage? A sport in which, in the biggest game of the year, one team is called for two penalties totaling six yards? One in which pass interference can be called on one play and not on the exact same kind of play another time? A sport in which a wrong call can't -- rather, won't -- be overturned. "Indisputable video evidence" is a phrase made up of words made up of letters, but I'm thoroughly convinced is devoid of meaning, etymologically and in practice.

Yes, referees are human and make mistakes. With that said, it's also tiring to watch a big game on Saturday and have to pretend that Ohio State committed just two penalties, or that Barrett got that first down, or that Jim Harbaugh should be called for an unsportsmanlike penalty because a referee's feelings were hurt.

So, you can say Michigan should have won this game, in spite of the officiating -- and you'd be right. Michigan really should have won this game. They were up 17-7 late in the third quarter until a questionable Speight throw from Michigan's end zone essentially gifted the struggling Buckeye offense a touchdown.

Still, the fact that officiating has to have any sort of impact at all is puzzling.

In the end, though, Michigan's weaknesses prevented it from winning. Good teams salt games away with their offensive lines; Michigan's is decidedly just OK.

While the decision to have Speight passing from his own end zone late in the third was questionable, it was a calculated risk, one that Harbaugh and Co. probably felt okay rolling with given that the running game wasn't doing much at all. On the play prior to the interception, De'Veon Smith was dropped for a loss of four.

Rushing totals for the day:

• Smith: 21 carries, 65 yards (2.9 YPC)
• Chris Evans: 6 carries, 18 yards 
• Karan Higdon: 3 carries, 5 yards
• Jabrill Peppers: 4 carries, 9 yards

Michigan's longest carry of the day was a 17-yarder by Smith early in the third quarter (on the drive after Peppers' interception, a drive capped by Speight's mishandled snap at the OSU 1). 

Meanwhile, when Speight wasn't tossing those two interceptions, he was otherwise very good, fitting passes into tight windows and generally looking poised in a raucous Ohio Stadium. The performance is all the more impressive given the fact that it is unlikely he was 100 percent. 

Michigan couldn't close things out with its line, and that did it in. And, late, Michigan's linebackers, including Peppers, didn't make the plays they needed to keep the Buckeyes from driving down the field for the game-tying field goal. 

In overtime and needing to hold OSU to a field goal, Michigan had every opportunity to bring Samuel down for a loss on third-and-9. Instead, Samuel nearly picked up the first down, setting up Barrett's conversion attempt on the following play. 

In the end, Michigan's weaknesses were exposed. Unfortunately, its strengths weren't enough to paper over those holes in the drywall. 

---

Maybe it's fatigue, maybe it's resignation, maybe it's age and perspective, but I've found myself thinking less about this loss than previous losses. Even last year's 42-13 drubbing in Ann Arbor left me more frustrated, simply for the sheer ineptitude of the performance. 

Ohio State won, Michigan didn't. These are facts, even if you dispute the events that led to those conclusions. 

Other facts: Michigan has not won a conference title since 2004. Michigan has not won a division title since the Big Ten started its conference championship game in 2011. Michigan has not beaten Ohio State in Columbus since 2000, in the final months of the Clinton administration. Urban Meyer is the first Ohio State coach to start 5-0 against the Wolverines. 

On the other hand, there are positives. Michigan hasn't had more than three players selected in the NFL draft since 2008, when seven Wolverines were drafted, a year after seven were taken in the 2007 draft. In this coming spring's NFL draft, Michigan is sure to see at least seven players drafted, many from its stalwart defense. 

While this is bad for the Wolverines in the short-term, it's great for recruiting and overall profile. For almost a decade, Michigan was a program where players seemingly only made it to the next level via their own inherent talent and determination to improve individually. Now, potential draftees are being developed into slam-dunk selections, and probable picks are developed into first-rounders. 

In addition, Michigan has recorded 10 wins in consecutive seasons for the first time since 2002-2003. While this feels like faint consolation, it is something. Pending the bowl game, Michigan has a chance to grab 11 wins for the first time since Brady Hoke's first season in 2011. 

On top of all that, Michigan returns the most important player on the field next season: its starting quarterback. Speight, with a year of starting experience under his belt -- including trips to Spartan Stadium, Kinnick Stadium and Ohio Stadium -- will be back to lead an offense that will have some fresh faces next year on the line and at the skill positions. 

In any case, the future is bright. Michigan might not have a playoff-caliber team next season, but there will be time to worry about that when it comes. 

However, talk of the future is empty; promises can be broken, prophecies can be wrong. The present is the only certainty. 

This time, many Michigan fans were hoping to set aside the future for talk of the now: a win against the Buckeyes, a shot at a conference title, a playoff berth. 

None of those materialized. So, in defeat, all eyes fix upon the future, and what might be on another day. 

Michigan 13, Iowa 14: That November feeling, pt. 2

File Photo

On a November Iowa night, perfection crashed into the gaping maw of unpredictability, like a deer running right across I-80 and into your path: sudden terror, swift and paralyzing.

But that's November football. September and October are utterly different things, separate and apart from that month, November. Had T.S. Eliot been a college football fan, perhaps he would have reconsidered his stance on April, the ostensibly cruelest month. T.S. Eliot never watched a No. 3 team in the country -- one that had scored 40-plus points in seven of its first nine games -- travel to Iowa City and cough up 201 yards of total offense and 13 points against a previously 5-4 team, one that lost by 27 points the previous week.

What branches grow out of this stony rubbish? For Iowa, it's a game in which you could say the Hawkeyes outplayed Michigan despite only putting up 230 yards of offense, going 4-for-16 on third down, and 3.5 yards per attempt by C.J. Beathard.

None of that mattered. Michigan ran into a seemingly refocused, re-energized Hawkeyes squad, and didn't have an answer when they weren't able to connect on the early knockout punch. Every game has its primary inflection point (some games have many). The Wolverines laid claim to a 10-0 lead -- it seemed as if one more first-half score from Michigan would have done the Hawkeyes in.

Instead, a Ron Coluzzi punt downed Michigan at its own 2, Michigan's pass protection failed and suddenly Iowa had two on the board. A Michigan three-and-out later and the Hawkeyes were starting on their own 48. Seven plays later, it's 10-8.

In games like these, each mistake is magnified. Khalid Hill coughs the ball up on the kickoff return to open the second half, and it eventually leads to three more for Iowa. Michigan was down just 11-10, but the winds had shifted, unabated on the vast Iowa flatland.

Michigan bumbled through the rest of the quarter before a fortuitous roughing-the-center call on a Michigan punt gave the Wolverines life. Even then, the Wolverines stumbled mightily when faced with a third-and-1 from the Iowa 27, when the swarming Iowa defense engulfed Karan Higdon shortly after he received an outside pitch from Wilton Speight.

The two teams traded interceptions, with Michigan's particularly backbreaking given that they'd reached the Iowa 38 -- even a field goal would have changed everything.

Then, with a chance to truly put the game away, Michigan ran De'Veon Smith for one yard, Jabrill Peppers for one yard, then a shot downfield to Amara Darboh fell incomplete (with Speight taking a vicious shot to the shoulder).

Few situations in sports fandom are more tense than this: The other team has the ball with just enough time to get into field goal range and, in the process, leave your team with little or no time to respond. There's a helplessness that builds with each successful play, with each moving of the chains.

Even worse, starting from the Michigan 36 after a face mask penalty, the Hawkeyes didn't have to go far. They did what they had to and booted the 33-yarder as time expired, ending Michigan's run of perfection.

---
So, what now?

Even after Iowa's brutal performance at Penn State, I knew this matchup presented the proverbial "trap" game (I would be lying if I thought it would be that close, let alone yield a Michigan loss). A Big Ten road game, at Kinnick, at night, is always going to be tough. Ohio State learned a similar lesson earlier this year against what at that point seemed to be a fairly pedestrian Penn State squad.

Such is college football. If Michigan fans can take any solace, it's in the fact that they weren't the only ones to fall. Clemson, Washington, Auburn and Texas A&M all dropped games, with Clemson and Washington falling out of the undefeated ranks.

Still, there's no antidote for the frustration that follows a November failure. With that said, Michigan still, in theory, can win out and join the playoff field.

It's just that that proposition seems far shakier than it did, especially with the news of Speight's injury.

Enter John O'Korn.

It wasn't long ago that another Big Ten team rode a backup quarterback to a national title. Ohio State, of course, struck gold with Cardale Jones, who powered the Buckeyes with his blend of running ability and arm strength to wins in the Big Ten title game against Wisconsin, then playoff wins against Alabama and Oregon.

Michigan fans will have to hope Jim Harbaugh can find similar success with O'Korn, the Houston transfer billed as the higher-ceiling option earlier in the calendar year before Speight proved himself more capable of consistently and prudently moving the ball.

None of that matters now. O'Korn will be the starter, and Michigan's hopes will ride on his ability to get the offense back on track after a faith-shaking night in Iowa City (perhaps Unreal City, as Eliot wrote, is more appropriate).

Bullets

• Tackling ... it is a concern. Whether it's Mike McCray or Channing Stribling or even Peppers, Michigan's back seven players have had some whiffs in recent weeks. Sure, Iowa's Akrum Wadley can make you look silly, but these sort of mistakes don't bode well for Michigan's defense against J.T. Barrett et al. 

• Even so ... talk of the defense's failures should be tempered by talk of its successes. For all of the teeth-gnashing following Saturday's loss, the defense still completely shut down Iowa's passing game. Plus, 12 non-safety points is still pretty good, any way you slice it. 

• But cracks are showing, and it's not hard to have visions of last year. Remember when Michigan's defense started to wilt late last season against Indiana and Ohio State? This isn't that, exactly, but teams were previously unable to do much of anything running the ball between the tackles. That wasn't the case for Iowa. Is it the beginning of a trend or did Iowa simply strike gold via Wadley's shakin' and bakin'? We probably won't find out for sure against an Indiana team that isn't the offensive force it has been -- we certainly will against Ohio State. 

• Pressure. Michigan's 'D' still tallied six tackles for loss, including a sack apiece from Taco Charlton, Chase Winovich and Chris Wormley. So, that's good. 

• Downfield shots. It's an almost pointless thing to say, but if Speight hits one or two of those open receivers down the field, this is probably a different column. But, for whatever reason, he didn't, and here we are. I wouldn't expect the downfield quarterback-receiver synergy to be better with a new quarterback taking the reins, unfortunately. 

• Perfection isn't easy. Four of the last five national champions had a loss. College football is too prone to random bouts of concentrated insanity for perfection to be easy or common. Even Alabama, that paragon of infallibility under Nick Saban, has only won one national championship while going undefeated (2009), while the other three seasons featured a loss (2011, 2012, 2015). I don't know if this Michigan team will join that club of slightly imperfect champions -- let alone make the playoff field -- but it remains true that Saturday wasn't the end of the world. It was only the end of a perfect one. Luckily for Michigan, college football championships are not necessarily won with perfection, but excellence at the right time. 

Almost there

The air hangs still.

The days until Michigan takes the field for the 2016 season have hit the single digits, but all who have paid attention over the years know that this final week never produces proximity.

For months, the arrow of Michigan's fortunes has trended upward, almost improbably so given its 2015 losses. With one dominant showing against Florida, things changed.

The offseason came and went like a breeze, punctuated by occasional blips of noise -- tweets, satellite camps, seemingly every coach in the country being asked What do you think of Jim Harbaugh? If there's anything else I take away from this offseason, it's a longing for that quixotic time when nothing-controversies didn't burst from nothing like wildfires.

Meanwhile, in actual football news, Michigan brings back most of a 10-win team, including a defense that should prove to be its best in a long time -- 2006-level is certainly within reach. Even that '85 Bears of recent Michigan lore, the 1997 Michigan defense, is not an unattainable goal.

Only this time, instead of Steele and Sword and Gold and Woodson and Renes, it's Wormley and Glasgow and Lewis and Charlton and Peppers. This isn't 2011, when a smattering of talent and several winning lottery tickets yielded something more than what probably should have been.

What Michigan has is something real, something definitive and sharp. Michigan has a defensive front that eats offenses and a secondary that guards its airspace with precision and expertise. For a long time, that wasn't the case. For a long time, Michigan football was a series of mistakes, compounded, an edge blunted by a lack of precision and expertise. That's not to denigrate the coaches and players who came before -- it's simply what happened.

Each season begins with its own set of expectations, a reasonable subset of all possibilities. For Michigan, that subset was limited indeed for some time.

Now, though, the whole playbook of expectation is in play. The Jabrill Peppers carry is as much a part of it all as the handoff to De'Veon Smith or the deep throw to Jehu Chesson. Nothing is out of play, too farfetched, too crazy.

If this all sounds hyperbolic, well, maybe it is. But why hold back when it's so plainly obvious?

The schedule sets up nicely (albeit with road games at Iowa, Michigan State and Ohio State) and Harbaugh has a proven track record when it comes to developing quarterbacks. Juxtapose that record with what Michigan did with Denard Robinson late in his career and what Devin Gardner's career became, and the divergence in ability and expertise is stark.

Setting aside all of that, the team is fun to watch again. It was fun in 2011, but even as I sat in the Superdome watching Michigan concoct a win out of hopes and prayers like an underfunded scientist, a sense of ersatz success lingered. It looked good until it didn't -- when that happened, when the light focused on the guts and bones of it all, it revealed a body unwell. Crumbling, deteriorating, unable to stand consistently.

In one year, that changed. That's not to say that Michigan is now a perfect team without question marks, or that it is surely destined for a playoff berth. What changed was the level of precision and purpose.

Think of all the minutes and hours in the day wasted. The times you get up to do something, wander around the hallways of your home like an intruding ghost, only to make a sandwich and sit back down, not having done that thing. Then you remember, oh, right. 

That was Michigan under Rich Rodriguez and Brady Hoke. Wandering listlessly, making unintended sandwiches. Under Rodriguez, the sandwiches were unique, but weren't sandwiches at all, for they lacked the bread that would have made it a sandwich. They were, figuratively, piles of deli meat, doused in hot sauce and other exotic dressings and toppings.

Under Hoke, Michigan ran out of deli meat in Year 1 and subsisted on mayonnaise sandwiches for the next three years. This was not a good time for anyone involved.

Now, though, Michigan makes sandwiches and remembers to do the other things. It rakes the leaves, takes out the trash, assembles a TV stand and drinks enthusiasm, the caffeine of life. Things are done in order and time is not wasted.

And, as this sandwich metaphor threatens to become unwieldy, threatens to burst, let me also say that this sort of adulation naturally makes me uncomfortable.

The best thing about sports is the unvarnished hagiography it produces, the good things we want to believe (and often should believe, for they are true and good). That is, it's the best thing until it no longer is. And as we've seen in recent years, when hagiography is flipped upside down, revealing something else, those engaged in that categorical praise are more likely to avert their eyes than not. To be honest, I hesitated about including this passage, but felt the need to say it, as it's generally how I've come to view the game and sports in general -- and nowhere is the cult of the coach stronger than collegiate athletics, especially college football (in certain places, it's the basketball coach, but that is more exception than rule). A casualty of growing older and more cynical, maybe. Of reserving praise until it is truly earned, and even then holding the door open for the doubt without. This isn't so much a warning as it is self-preservation -- because there's no doubt that if things go south here, they will do so in a new and likely more acrimonious way than they did with the last two gentlemen who threw their hats into the Michigan football head coaching ring.

That unanticipated aside, well, aside, the season is coming. The offseason is almost completely behind us, the year's night slowly receding as the sun rises in the east.

If you're like me, maybe you pretend, maybe you put on a show, that all of this isn't so important. Maybe, just maybe, this is the year a particularly crushing loss won't affect you out of nowhere, like the honk of a car's horn behind you as you sit entranced at a green light for a second longer than you should but a half-second sooner than is appropriate for one to be honked at. You blink and shake your head through the intersection, on to the next block.

There are no surprises now. There are no doubts about what needs to happen. Michigan's merry band of defensive stalwarts will look to render the quarterback situation a mere footnote. The offense will aim to balance that with fireworks of its own: Smith plowing through defensive backs like they are sentient tackling dummies, Chesson streaking past all like a fiery comet, Peppers zipping around like a 205-pound electron.

When it comes to what we think will transpire on the football field, during the games we care about, the prognosis is positive. And, thankfully, we'll soon no longer have to lean on predictions -- we'll soon have reality, screaming at us knowingly.

On Monday, Harbaugh said:

"…the unique thing about college football is there’s no preseason, there’s no spring training, there’s no exhibition season, there’s no warm-up games. It goes right into the season. I don’t think there’s any other sport in college athletics that’s like that. Certainly not in the professional series. College football is a stand-alone in that way. So, yeah, the practices rage on. The competitions rage on."

The competitions will likely rage on until the final minute, the final moments. We're almost there.

Come Sept. 3, we'll start to know for sure. What is real? What isn't? Even in September, we won't truly know, and maybe not even until the end of October.

But in the wormhole that is a college football season, it'll all happen in an instant. One second, we're subject to the laws of the world, an interminable offseason marked only by rumors and news of other, lesser sports.

Once it starts, there's no going back, no way to reset. And for this team, at this time, there should be no mulligans. All the pieces are there -- now it's time to put them together. The script is being written, but it will likely change along the way, many times. Luckily, Michigan has one of the best directors in the game -- remember that as you pop your popcorn and turn off your cellphones for this move experience with no previews. This is college football: Forget the trailers, just give me the action.

After two failed coaching administrations, we've become accustomed to the notion of "giving a coach time" -- don't you know you have to give a guy a full recruiting cycle before you can really judge him? This isn't an unreasonable sentiment, but in the context of the last two regimes, it's one borne of unreasonable hope in a hopeless situation.

This is Year 2, but we're not talking about time. We're not talking about vague incremental improvements, waited upon absurdly. Vladimir and Estragon have gone home.

We're talking about now, the present, the always-existing fulcrum of time. Everything balances on now, not next year or the year after. What better time to do something than now, when everyone is there, ready to go and do it?

Now is the best time. Now is the only time. There will be time to worry about another time another day.

The joy and agony of expectations, from Armour Square to Ann Arbor

Fouad Egbaria

As I sat watching the White Sox take on the Cubs tonight, not long after Big Ten Media Days wrapped up not far away at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place, I was reminded how expectations can distort.

A White Sox fan since I had the agency (and interest) to make the choice, my expectations for the squad were middling entering the season. I expected, pretty much, what the Sox are at now: hovering around .500 (with tonight's win against the Cubs, the Sox inched back to .500, at 50-50, a true paragon of mediocrity).

But the South Siders surprised in April, starting the season on the heels of the truly silly LaRoche saga with a 23-10 run.

Just like that, those previously modest expectations evaporated. The first Cubs-Sox World Series was sure to happen, the first since Teddy Roosevelt's administration -- before the first World War, before the formation of the National Park Service, before, well -- you get the picture.

Alas, April proved to be a mirage. The Sox plummeted, losing their once-sizable division lead in the blink of an eye.

I don't have time to tune into every game anymore, but I still tune in when I can, even now. And when I do -- or when I hop on the Red Line toward 95th to catch a game at U.S. Cellular Field -- I'm just looking to consume the sport in its rawest form. Watching just to watch, to see something fun: maybe a home run, some fireworks, a meaningless win. It's all in good fun.

And if those things don't happen, it's fine. Bereft of the weighty albatross of expectations, you can hold your head high, no matter the result.

Meanwhile, on the gridiron, behold a different view.

Michigan is being talked about -- not just Harbaugh and his endeavors, but Michigan as a whole. No, not "is this the season coach X gets fired" talk -- Michigan is being discussed as a possible playoff team. How crazy is that? Two years ago I watched Michigan eke out a miserable win against Northwestern in Evanston, wondering how this Michigan program could possibly be cut from the same cloth as the one I saw in 2000, when Drew Henson's Wolverines battled Northwestern (and ultimately lost) in an spectacle of offensive pyrotechnics, back when they were still novel things.

This is far different than 2007, when Michigan entered the season ranked in the top 5 after a brilliant 2006 season capped by losses to good Ohio State and USC teams. It made sense, then, to have expectations. The 2007 season was meant to be a logical continuation of 2006.

Does it make sense now, to have those expectations? Is it logical, tethered to reality, believable? Yes, the pieces are all there, but after Michigan lost to its three toughest regular-season foes last year (and in spectacularly poor fashion against Ohio State), I'm not sure the same level of preseason certainty can be had.

That's what I would think, if Michigan didn't have Jim Harbaugh, the motor behind it all, the ultimate X-factor. Given Harbaugh's clear penchant for baseball, and the baseball theme of this post, it should be noted that his career coaching WAR is impressive, worthy of consideration when pondering the future.

This summer, Harbaugh has worn seemingly every jersey under the sun, traveled more than Carmen San Diego, angered SEC coaches, traded Twitter barbs with said coaches and wore a Michigan ballcap during his Media Days appearance. The whole enterprise, the idea of it, has picked up steam, gathering hype and attention magnetically.

With all of that, of course, comes expectation. And at a certain point, hype gives way to imminent reality. The season will start and all of the offseason antics will become a distant memory, a pleasant diversion, a rallying cry, a beacon of pride leading the Michigan fan base away from an era in which there was not much pride to be had.

While I love the White Sox, I look forward to having expectations again. Sports are made by stakes, and stakes are raised up high or brought down to the Midwestern earth by the lever of expectation.

Many fans expect a Big Ten East division title, a Big Ten title, a playoff appearance -- even more than that, possibly. None of those things are totally unrealistic. There are question marks lingering, but not necessarily enough of them to invalidate the hype.

A callback to his younger days in Chicago, Harbaugh will throw out the first pitch tomorrow at Wrigley Field, adding to the now expansive inventory of "Harbaugh throws a baseball" photography. I can't say whether he'll throw a ball or a strike.

I will say this: I expect the latter. And if he doesn't, we'll laugh and move on.

But come September, October, November, that will change: the games are no longer just fun and games. Everything indicates, however, that Harbaugh, the rest of the coaching staff and the players are ready for what's to come.

But what about the fans? What happens if Michigan falls at Iowa or Michigan State? Or, once again, at OSU, keeping that Henson-led 2000 team as the last Michigan outfit to win in Columbus?

Those moments mark the point when the taut line of expectation whips back against those who expect.

But failure and success are each meaningless by themselves without the idea of the other. The taut line slackens when none of it matters at all.

As time marches on toward kickoff, the line tightens and tightens with each day. It extends forward, like a sharp line drive, girded by expectations and hope.

Will it fall, shattering upon impact by virtue of its hardened material? Maybe. But maybe it won't.

And if it doesn't, Michigan can tight-rope across that line, all the way to what once seemed an unattainable light in the distance.

Michigan 13, Ohio State 42: November blues

When you get a new coach, and the hype builds and reacts with the reality of the present situation -- the roster, the schedule, the standard transitional questions of scheme and philosophy-- you get a test tube bubbling with scenarios.

Best case scenarios, worst case scenarios and something in the middle.

Worst case? Michigan was looking at something similar to last year, or maybe a little better: 5-7, 6-6, the Harbaugh effect setting in, but not so much to offset a lack of talent at a number of spots.

Best case? Well, you have just about close to what happened. If not for a once-in-a-generation-style loss against rival Michigan State, the Wolverines would have been 10-1 heading into the Ohio State game, with their destiny in their own hands in terms of a conference title game berth.

Then, there's the vast in between.

When all was said and done, Michigan finished at the upper end of that in between, a 9-3 peppered with impressive blowouts, a pair of close losses (one on the road against a strong Utah team to open the season, the other at home in fairly ridiculous fashion).

Then, there was this past Saturday.

After opening as double-digit underdogs in the summer against the defending national champion Buckeyes, most places had this one even heading into Saturday. Michigan was fresh off a better-than-it-looked win at Penn State, and the Buckeyes were reeling after a listless loss at home against Michigan State.

But the Buckeye team that took the field was not the one that took the field the week before, in spirit and in execution.

The previously disgruntled Ezekel Elliot carried it 30 times for 214 yards and two scores (7.1 yards per carry), and J.T. Barrett only had to pass 15 times (and really, he didn't even have to pass that many times).

Closing a season in which Michigan adeptly hid its deficiencies against the majority of its schedule, it was unable to do so, particularly on the defensive side of the ball, in two of its last three games, when the Hoosiers and Buckeyes tore through the Michigan defense like it wasn't there.

Sure, injuries on the defensive line were an issue, but probably not so much as to send the Wolverines into an abyss of vastly less-effective run defense.

Unfortunately for Jim Harbaugh and Co., they just didn't have enough tricks to take on a refocused Buckeye team, eager to wash away the disappointment of blowing its chance for a Big Ten title game appearance (and thus, likely a chance at another college football playoff berth).

In retrospect, considering Michigan went into the half down just 14-10, the second half is all the more disappointing.

The Buckeyes had their way with the Michigan defense: think the Indiana game, only with more talent, and an actual defense to shut down the Wolverines' surging yet one-dimensional attack (and who would've thought that the effective dimension would be the passing game).

While the initial reaction is surely embarrassment, and a glum resignation, the reality is that Michigan has a long way to go.

The linebackers, who were deemed the weak link of the defense early on, were preyed upon by the Ohio State attack. They looked slow, indecisive, and not up to the task of Urban Meyer's talented, athletic attack, keyed by Elliott and Barrett's skillful running ability.

The good news? Michigan returns players like Bryan Mone on the defensive line next year. The bad? The linebackers are gone, save junior Blake Gedeon. If Michigan's defense is to avoid a reprisal of this performance, some answers will need to be found here, and fast.

Through the air, even Jourdan Lewis didn't have a great day, even though Barrett completed just nine of his 15 passes. But, such is life when facing talents like Michigan State's Aaron Burbridge and Ohio State's Michael Thomas.

Offensively, Michigan's inability to make hay on the ground finally sunk it in a big way. For all of his heroics earlier in the season, De'Veon Smith's (10 carries, 23 yards) lack of any sort of speed (or, more importantly, explosiveness) or ability to consistently hit the right hole continued to be an issue. The fact that Jabrill Peppers led the Wolverines in rushing (7 carries, 29 yards) is not ideal, nor is the fact that fullback Sione Houma was third in carries.

Meanwhile, Ty Isaac has disappeared since his fumble issues, and Derrick Green, as unfortunate as it is, does not seem to be a viable option.

Michigan did well enough in keeping Jake Rudock's jersey clean when he was in the pocket this season; that is, until Joey Bosa et al came to the Big House. On the ground, Michigan will have to hope that another year of seasoning will make this collection of linemen a little bit better in 2016.

But, it won't matter unless the Wolverines can find a tailback that can do the job. And right now, Michigan has a roster of ball carriers who each carry a significant flaw that seemingly prevents them from being a reliable feature back.

Ignoring the obvious vacuum at quarterback post-Rudock -- and Michigan does at least have options there, albeit unproven -- the running back position and the new slate of guys at linebacker will be the biggest question marks heading into next season, discounting the obvious of all-around improving of the skill and athleticism of the skill players on the outside.

In a world of one-game scenarios, it goes without saying that Saturday's blowout falls under the umbrella of worst-case. After a successful season, one would have thought that Michigan had put the days of blowout losses in The Game (e.g. 2008 and 2010) behind it.

Unfortunately, Saturday proved otherwise. If you don't have the players, you don't have the players, and no amount of coaching acumen or schematic chicanery can disguise that fact, particularly when met with the well-oiled machine Meyer has built in Columbus.

So, here we are: 9-3, with three losses to the best opponents on Michigan's schedule. The Wolverines beat who they were "supposed" to beat, and probably a couple others that might not have fallen in that category when the season started.

Overall, the 2015 season will be remembered as the year of transition, a strong first step toward better football and, Michigan fans hope, the beginning of a long and prosperous era on the gridiron in Ann Arbor.

Until those next steps can be taken, though, Michigan is left with the sour taste of Saturday -- of Elliott running through the line, of the Buckeyes not letting up late (which, for the record, I would not expect them to, nor would I necessarily advocate doing if the situations were reversed), of another rival's post-game celebration on the Big House turf.

The Wolverines will get a chance to notch a 10th win, potentially completing just its second double-digit win season since the end of the Lloyd Carr era. That is something worth applauding for now, as Michigan gets back on its feet after wandering aimlessly for the better part of a decade, like someone in a new city with a dead phone and unhelpful townies.

Irrespective of what happens in some prospective bowl game in Florida or California, Michigan successfully eluded the macroscopic reality of its present state for most of the 2015 season.

On Saturday, there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

Michigan 49, Rutgers 16: One man can change the world

At first, I saw this tweet and laughed, like I've laughed many times before when having the pleasure of reading an amusing Harbaugh tweet, one assuredly sent without irony (which makes it all the funnier). 

Then, I thought about its content: one man can change the world. 

And really, could anything be more true for Michigan football right now? 

That man, of course, is Jabrill Peppers. 

Already up 14-3 early in the second quarter, Michigan lined up at the Rutgers 18-yard line and hit Peppers on a bubble screen to the right side. There seemed an impossible amount of traffic for the New Jersey native to wade through, like so much flotsam and jetsam crowding a shore. 

Nonetheless, Peppers weaved his way through like a talented high school player clearly operating on a different plane this his peers (which, naturally, was very much the case in Peppers' own high school career). 

Yet, this is college, and the aesthetics are much the same for the sophomore. Peppers caught it at the 25, avoided a Rutgers tackler, sped past three others through to the line of scrimmage, then locked into another gear, following a Jake Butt block past the final potential tackler into the end zone. 

Too easy. 

Even when he wasn't scoring, his mere presence makes an impact. On another play, a trio of Rutgers defenders followed him, a decoy, as if they were magnetized.

College football isn't college basketball, where one player can truly make the difference between a middling (or even slightly above average) team and a title contender.

But take Peppers away and what you have is simply a slightly better version of last year's team. A team that still has a solid defense, but probably not elite, and an offense that doesn't turn it over (as much) or get its quarterback killed via poor blocking nearly as often. Michigan would still be better by virtue of added experience and Harbaugh, but they likely wouldn't be 7-2, with a very really chance to finish the regular season 10-2 (given a little magic to close the season against the currently undefeated Ohio State Buckeyes).

Before going down with an injury, Peppers briefly flashed his raw ability early last season. But now that he's back in the lineup, he's making an impact in every phase of the game. And as eye-rollingly meathead-ish as the following is, he's also returned a bit of swagger to the University of Michigan football team that hasn't been seen in over a decade, and likely not since Charles Woodson played in Ann Arbor 748 years ago, the Heisman-winning do-everything player whose doings are recorded on papyrus, covered in vague and tremendous hieroglyphics portraying one-handed interceptions and detonations of hapless wide receiver screens in nonconference play. The language is old and not known to many, but call the Michigan sophomore Jean-François Champollion, for he's cracked the code and is using its secrets in the present day. 

There isn't much to say about this one other than Michigan took care of a bad team the way they're supposed to, a week after the scraped by against a team they probably should not have had to scrape by.

In other spots, Jake Rudock put on his most impressive performance in the winged helmet, passing for 337 yards and two touchdowns on 18-of-25 passing, a week after being brutally knocked out a game. Sure, it was Rutgers, but the Iowa transfer didn't exactly light the world on fire against weak opponents earlier in the season, so this was progress.

When one kick return touchdown that ended up not mattering at all is the only glaringly obvious blemish in a game, you know things have gone well.

Even so, Michigan is still trying to find its mojo on the ground. De'Veon Smith carried the load with 15 carries for 73 yards, in a week when there were rumblings that Drake Johnson might have his chance at becoming the feature back. Michigan is just going to continue this Swiss Army knife, back-by-committee approach, which I think everyone, including Harbaugh, is okay with for now.

In perhaps the most unironically delightful development of the season, fullbacks Sione Houma (6 carries, 19 yards) and Joe Kerridge are actual pieces of the offense beyond the token single carry for two yards.

Michigan has had a surprisingly diverse cast of fullback types over the years (leading to its relative disappearance in the Rich Rodriguez years): Kevin Dudley, Aaron Shea, B.J. Askew and Chris Floyd, among others.

Houma and Kerridge, in their own way, are adding to that tradition. In perhaps a glossed over development of this season, the use of the fullback is one that I hope, and expect, will continue in the Harbaugh era.

And hey, if there ever was a time to be a school angling for the few fullbacks that now exist, roaming the American plains like the rare buffalo, this it it. With this one-year resume alone, the Wolverines should be in good position to possibly landing even more talented versions of guys like Houma and Kerridge going forward.

After parading through five-straight blowout, then two nail-biters, the Wolverines returned to the land of the comfortable win this past weekend. I felt bad for thinking, at several points in the second half, that this was kind of boring. But then I was quickly reminded that these sorts of wins should be appreciated, now and even long past the point that they're no longer rare.

The rest of this season, however, promises to swing the pendulum back in the other direction. Road trips to Indiana and Penn State are tougher than they might seem, and the Wolverines close the season with, well, you know who.

Peppers alone won't win Michigan those games, particularly the season finale. Even so, it's true: one man can change the world (or, in this case, a football team, if we're avoiding hyperbole).

And with the sophomore from New Jersey playing defense, offense and special teams, the Wolverines will continue to have more than a fighting chance the rest of the way.

Michigan 38, Northwestern 0: Visions of verisimilitude

It's only a matter of time before Jabrill Peppers breaks one, they said.

So, when Jehu Chesson took the opening kickoff 96 yards to the house, I laughed, because of course.

As the redshirt sophomore from St. Louis left everyone in the dust, the next thought that rolled down the brain stem was: That's probably enough, right? 

A rhetorical question, tinctured with rationality (Northwestern's offense is not that prolific) and hubris (Michigan's defense is good at methodically grinding offenses into a pulp).

The onslaught didn't stop there, as the Wolverines added two more touchdowns in the first quarter and another in the second. Meanwhile, the visiting then-undefeated Northwestern Wildcats managed just four first downs in that first half to Michigan's three touchdowns.

It's gotten to the point where the defense giving up anything at all -- missing a tackle, allowing a ball carrier to get outside the tackle box, giving up a score -- is almost an assault on the senses. When bad things happen so infrequently, the rare mistake is magnified.

Conversely, take recent years, when it seemed like a pass was a 50-50 proposition at best: by some miracle, a completion, or a sack or turnover. Defensively, after solid starts, it was almost a certainty that things would fall apart down the stretch, due to fatigue or whatever reason to which you'd like to chalk up those declines.

Now, Michigan is predictable, in a good way. It's difficult to talk about this team without resorting to the sorts of cliches that are often derided when it comes to sports writing, but this team fits them to a T. The running game produces and the defense plays with a toughness, tenacity and confidence that hasn't been seen in years. They'll rush five, four or three, even, because they can and things will be fine.

The secondary looks like a secondary a good [insert title-winning team name here] SEC team would field. The same goes for the front seven, which at this point might be forced to pay the City of Ann Arbor in property taxes for their constant forays into opponents' backfields. Ann Arbor has built quite a few luxury buildings since my time there, and I suppose it fits with the new vibe of the town for the Wolverines defenders to follow suit, with a brilliant building constructed of tackles for loss, replete with in-unit laundry machines -- for cleaning dirtied uniforms -- and quartz countertops to display the helmets of the fallen.

At first, this was a novel feeling, watching this team incinerate opposing offenses while the offense grinds its way to what it needs.

Halfway through a season in which the Wolverines have already dispatched two ranked opponents with ease and hung tough on the road against another, this is clearly real.

At no point could this have been said during the previous two regimes. Even Brady Hoke's 11-win season felt like a thing that maybe shouldn't have happened, that could've fallen apart when inspected under the light. (It did, beginning with the rout against Alabama to open the 2012 season.)

Rich Rodriguez' tenure never even got the chance to reach this level of reality -- even in the moments of usually Denard-Robinson-inspired brilliance, the Wolverines subsisted on vague magic to move forward, mana that was observably finite.

When it ran out, there was nowhere left to turn.

But Michigan rolled what looked like a strong Northwestern team, one that was 5-0 with a win against a Stanford squad that has looked much better since the 'Cats beat them at Ryan Field. That all felt like a distant memory this past Saturday, as the Wolverines made them look like a generic, overmatched pre-1995 Northwestern team.

Michigan notched three straight shutouts with the win for the first time since 1980, and the first in FBS play since 1995, when Kansas State did it against the following unranked foes: Akron, Northern Illinois and Missouri.

Michigan held the Wildcats to 168 yards of total offense and a 2-for-13 mark on third down. Running back Justin Jackson carried it 12 times for just 25 yards. Clayton Thorson finished with 106 yards passing -- on 4.7 yards per attempt.

The defense gives nothing -- charity is not its forte.

---
Way back in 2011, after Michigan followed a positive first Hoke summer with a rain-soaked thumping of Western Michigan, I dubbed it the Era of Good Feelings.

In retrospect, like many things in life, that is a little funny now, considering what followed and what is currently happening before our eyes.

If that was the Era of Good Feelings, then what is this? The Epoch of Excitement? The Age of Augmented Positivity? The Time of Tenacity?

Whatever it is, something is being built with capable hands and a plan, something that has been missing for a long time. When Gary Moeller and then Lloyd Carr came after Bo, they weren't so much cementing a plan as continuing the success that came before them. Yes, the game changed quite a bit post-Bo, and Moeller and Carr changed with the times as they had to, but what they did wasn't a wholesale upheaval of the previous order.

So, I think it's justifiable to say that Michigan hasn't seen what is happening right now, on an ideological level, since 1969, when Bo came to Ann Arbor. Whether Jim Harbaugh will continue on this track and have the same success as Bo -- or greater -- of course remains to be seen.

But, on a basic level, this all feels very real.

---

Late in the game, something happened that sent a chill up my spine.

The stakes were as low as they could be, on the surface. Michigan was already up 38-0 with 29 seconds left in the game. Northwestern had the ball with a fourth-and-17 upcoming.

Not exactly the most engaging hook, right?

Well, what if I told you a packed Big House started chanting "de-fense" like it was a one-score game? I wasn't there, but watching on my TV, the noise was indicative of a philosophy, a way of being, that has filtered up among the masses.

A shutout is not something you want, it's something you need. Why should they have any points? They shouldn't have any points.

Give nothing and take everything -- points on offense, on defense and special teams. Jourdan Lewis's pick six, rivaling De'Veon Smith's teleportation act against BYU in the incredulity it inspired, was not a chance act or a moment of transcendent brilliance.

Well, it was the latter, but when those moments become the norm, they're no longer extraordinary: they're just ordinary.

And so when the Michigan Stadium erupted in that chant, it felt like one of those moments that would linger.

Matt Millen said that the fans doing so was the mark of a "well-schooled crowd." The first half of this season has been a crash course in Harbaugh's way of doing things. Thus far, it seems like everyone's in good shape after a tough final exam to close the first half of the football year.

But there's always another test on the horizon. Michigan has one week to prepare for another test, this time against the AP No. 7 Michigan State Spartans.

Win that one, and you're talking about some serious verisimilitude being added to this thing.

This one should be a little closer: it's Michigan State, after all. Despite Michigan's offensive limitations, it seems like they haven't come close to showing their hand completely just yet. Michigan has busted out something new in games against BYU and Northwestern, to great effect. It stands to reason that Harbaugh et al probably have some tricks up their sleeve when Michigan State comes to Ann Arbor this Saturday.

And those tricks won't feel like prayers, even if they don't work.

Whatever happens the rest of the way, it's clear that this thing is real. How good this season will be hinges, of course, on how the Wolverines fare against the Spartans and Buckeyes. Lose both and it's still likely a very good season. Win one -- or both, even -- and you're talking about a Harbaugh premiere that blows Hoke's 2011 out of the water.

Michigan football is a real thing again. So are the stakes. It's been a while since either of those things were true.

Narratives of fantasy are often more gripping than those of reality -- but in the case of 2015 Michigan football, the two genres are one. Fantastical yet real, a combination of disbelief clashing against a burgeoning reality.

When the imagined becomes real, you have something. You have crowds chanting "de-fense" near the conclusion of a blowout. You have performances that don't happen too often, one after another. You have records broken and plays that don't seem to be tethered to this world except for by the frailest of threads.

You have all the elements of a good story, a serial Saturday confirmation steeped in a truth so crazy that it has not other option but to be true again and again and again.

Michigan 31, BYU 0: Symphony of Destruction

On third-and-11 from the BYU 20-yard line, almost seven minutes into the game, Michigan did something that made me go oh. 

Jake Rudock dropped back to pass -- but that's not the interesting part. It's what happened next.

But first, the prologue.

Michigan rolled out into a two-wide, single-back set. Jake Butt motions from his tight end spot into the backfield, joining Drake Johnson.

Rudock takes the snap. Butt heads for the left flat, clapping his hands, almost as if he's in on something devious.

Johnson, meanwhile, heads to the right. He can be seen waving his arm, even going so far as to start jumping up and down, the internationally accepted motion for I'm open, throw it!

The play unfolded beautifully. Rudock faked left to Butt. At this point, I assumed he'd turn around and flip it to Johnson, or perhaps try a shot into the end zone to Drake Harris.

He didn't, though, and that's when the ball, resting at the top of the hill overflowing with potential energy, unleashed the kinetic.

Rudock looked to the right, again faking, this time to Johnson. Something was afoot.

In a matter of seconds, one Michigan football play was full of more unexpected plot twists than any entire Michigan offensive series in recent memory.

The second fake served as the critical juncture: either something anticlimactic was about to happen, or something extraordinary.

And then, it happened: they forgot about Khalid Hill.

Hill lined up as a second tight end, on the right side. The Cougars defense looked right, they looked left, but they didn't look middle. Upon the snap, Hill waited a moment, looking back to Rudock like a seeker about to uncover his eyes in a game of hide-and-seek.

He released down the middle of the field into an oasis of green, a bountiful land of opportunity and joy and first downs.

Rudock hit a wide open Hill, who rumbled to the 1-yard line, after which Michigan punched it in two plays later on a Rudock scamper.

It was a 19-yard play, not even a touchdown. And yet, the way in which it so artfully unfolded indicated something grander. Nothing like that happens without precision, without thought, without imagination.

It's been a while since Michigan did something that made it seem as an opponent was unprepared for what was coming. The last example approximating this is the trusty Denard Robinson standby, in which even a mere step toward the line left receivers like Roy Roundtree open with acres of verdant, inviting space.

This, however, is less dependent upon magic. As great as Denard was, Michigan came and went with his exploits. Needless to say, Michigan does not have a Denard at the quarterback position now.

And that's okay. Because now, after Michigan exerts its will physically, it does so mentally, too.

I don't know what the BYU players and coaches expected coming into this game. Clearly, based on their postgame comments, they got something very different.

Contrast that with the now infamous comments from USC defenders after the 2007 Rose Bowl, and a diametrically opposed thing is building.

Michigan doesn't have all the pieces yet -- everyone knows that. It might not even have all of the pieces next year, either.

But that one play stands as an early vote of confidence. One play in a 10-play, 80-yard drive to give Michigan a 7-0 lead, a score that, also, was all they needed en route to the third-largest margin of victory by an unranked team over a ranked foe in the last 30 years.

Michigan committed a false start on the next play, but I was still reeling from the 19-yard pass to a tight end.

This is football: this is Michigan.

---
With all of that said, none of the above "trickery" -- and I hesitate to even dub it that -- works without developing a sturdy base.

For Jim Harbaugh and Co., that of course means a face-mashing running game and an equally face-mashing defense.

The product of that, when it works, is an opponent whose will has withered.

As part of my preparation for the Chicago Marathon, on Sunday I went out and ran 20 miles. When I was done, my legs were sore and for the most part useless for the next few hours.

The next day, walking was uncomfortable, each step somewhat of a laboring thing.

Magnify that by an order or 10 and distribute it across the entire body and I imagine that that aching pain is what tackling De'Veon Smith et al and being tackled by Jabrill Peppers and the rest of the Michigan defense for 60 minutes must feel like.

BYU was mystified and overwhelmed, the same team that beat Boise State and Nebraska and nearly upset UCLA. At this juncture, normally such wins can be tempered by lack of sample size and, more importantly, a lack of meaningful sample size, BYU's schedule to date, of course, somewhat negates that. The Cougars have played probably the toughest schedule in the country. They are as tested as a team can possibly before the month of October.

And as the dust settles on the nonconference portion of the schedule, Michigan appears to be by far the best of BYU's first four foes.

Jabrill Peppers executed an impressive takedown, Michigan's defense line parades six or seven players all capable of making an impact and Michigan's secondary is conservatively as good as the 2006 group, which in reality was only buoyed by the talent of the front seven. Truthfully, this secondary is the best to come through Ann Arbor since 1997.

I know it's early, but whether that is an indictment of the secondaries since 1997 or an outright, unmodified designation of praise, I suppose, remains to be seen.

But I don't feel crazy or unrealistic for saying that it's as good as anything since 1997 -- it's not hyperbole, it's just true.

The Wolverines are tied for fourth (with Wisconsin) in points allowed per game, just behind Northwestern's 8.8 per. (Other rankings of note in this category: Ohio State, 10; Penn State, 21; Iowa, 28; Minnesota, 31; and Michigan State, 46.)

Remember when Brady Hoke and Greg Mattison turned a moribund Michigan defense into a solid, functioning thing in 2011? This is like that, but more emphatic. Michigan never had a defensive performance against a meaningful opponent that season like Michigan had against BYU on Saturday.

All in all, things have gone just about as well as one could hope for, especially when you figure in Michigan's performance against the Utes in light of their demolition of the Ducks. Michigan thumped the teams it was supposed to thump (Oregon State, UNLV) and flattened the one that was supposedly a toss-up (BYU).

Now, the Wolverines head into the conference schedule with a head full of steam.

Suddenly, a Mone-less defensive line is one brimming with seemingly even more depth than it had before. A backfield of flawed options has became a parade of bulls, with former five-star recruits fighting for carries behind a four-star from Warren, Ohio.

There probably aren't many people out there who appreciate this season as much as I do, considering the comical juxtaposition of my football watching days. On Saturdays, I watch a Harbaugh-led Michigan.

On Sundays, I watch the Chicago Bears, a team that has given up kick return touchdowns in back-to-back weeks, started Jimmy Clausen at quarterback and was shut out for the first time since 2002 on Sunday in Seattle.

So, when I wax poetic about 19-yard passes to tight ends, keep that in mind.

Kidding aside, one-third of the way into the season, Michigan has for the most part hit all the right notes. Save for Rudock's turnovers in the first three games, the U-M defense looks like one of the best in the country and the ground game appears to be strong enough to mask Rudock's limitations.

Whether Michigan can do it against the cream of the crop in the Big Ten East, Ohio State and Michigan State, remains to be seen.

But right now, Michigan appears poised to possibly head into the matchup against the Spartans with a 5-1 record.

But for now, like Harbaugh, it's best to focus on the next one. That's not because fans looking ahead means anything at all -- seriously, why do people think that matters in any way? -- but because it means you might miss something along the way, fail to appreciate it in all its simple complexity.

The hand-waving Butt and Johnson, probably laughing through their facemasks. Hill, tip-toeing up the middle like an animated bowling ball destined for the sweet spot between the lead pin and either one behind. Two BYU defenders following Johnson upon Rudock's fake, as if they were magnetized. Recording a sack on a three-man rush.

Amid the chaos of power football, it's the little things that make the difference.

A Familiar Feeling, A New Feeling

In less than 72 hours, Michigan will take the field time zones away from Ann Arbor, in a stadium of red and white on a Thursday night. Like the beginning of every campaign, there's a growing sense of a paradoxical far-off imminence (something that is probably a magnificent word in the German lexicon not available to English speakers).

The first game is near, yet far. We are all hurtling through the dark and dusty space that is the offseason -- a wormhole beckons. Next to it is a sign: "Here for college football." It is both far away and very close, the wormhole. Who knows how long it will take to get there, and what will happen once there.

You spend hours and hours waiting, but really they're months. February passes, and then you wake up one day and the snows have melted for good. A walk outside without an umbrella becomes a foolish venture in the rainy days of spring. Summer hits, those dog days.

Then August. August, August, August. Time stretches and bends and distorts. As a fan, it almost feels closer to football on Aug. 1 than it does on Aug. 31.

But it's game week: finally.

This time, things are different. Not in the sense that "Michigan is back," or anything like that. Things are different -- and as I write this, I'm still trying to figure out exactly what it is.

*** 

I haven't written here in a while -- life has gotten in the way. Nothing has changed about my obsession with Michigan sports, the obsession that pushed me to start this thing on a perfectly uneventful summer night five years ago.

But as anyone knows, when you get a little bit older, things change, particularly once you are no longer a student (undergraduate or graduate) and are, what they might call, a "real person." This is a terrifying metamorphosis, for all of the obvious reasons, but perhaps one of the least consequential subset of changes is the way fandom changes over time.

For the first time last year, I found myself getting up during game action to grab something from the kitchen. There was once a time when, once the game started, I did not move from my sitting spot, as if tethered to it for eternity or the end of the game, whichever came first.

Last year, during the Indiana game, I vaguely remember falling asleep during a portion of the third quarter. It was a long week and a dreary day, and even the surprising success of Ann Arbor's own Drake Johnson couldn't fend off a doze.

Maybe I was tired. Maybe I'm getting older. Maybe it was something else: indifference, a dissipation of pointless resolve.

***

A counterpoint, exemplifying said pointless resolve. Once, as a freshman at Michigan, in 2007, I stayed for the duration of the Oregon game. Until the bitter end, I always thought, and that didn't change then. A reasonable person would think of the hours wasted at a game that was headed for dissatisfaction: I, like some indeterminate thousands in that stadium, decided to stay, out of some misplaced sense of duty (or, less romantically, the selfish ability to say, years down the road, that I stayed, pointlessly).

Even after the hire of Jim Harbaugh, the offseason took hold, and I will admit -- and this is alarming to write -- that a cousin of indifference continued to hold sway. Life has a way of flicking away less consequential things, sports and the watching of them. At least, it tries to do that.

And so the months went by, and Harbaugh stories rolled in: the summer of Harbaugh. He helped people involved in car accidents, he endeared himself to many by stonewalling Colin Cowherd, he upset coaches far away by setting up camps on their turf, he recruited, he talked about Bo, he unleashed the crazy.

And yet, slightly older me viewed it from afar, bemused but not invested, yet. We've seen this before, after all. Contrast this approach with what I imagine would have been my reaction to all of this as an 18-year-old, or a Michigan sophomore, or even someone a year out of Ann Arbor, and the gulf is vast.

I would have once yelled upon hearing the news of the Harbaugh hire, shared every story I read about his antics, texted and called friends and family to talk about the man who had returned.

Just the other week, I explained to someone how I thought a 7-win season in 2015 is a reasonable expectation, as if I was in a lukewarm conversation about mutual funds or a plant-based diet low in cholesterol or the hopes of an NFL franchise. They could lose to Minnesota, you know. Utah is assuredly a loss, I posited. The gap is too wide between Michigan and the teams at the top, Michigan State and Ohio State.

Let's wait until next year, I thought. But then next year, the linebackers are gone. And next year, the mutual fund of quarterbacks, Jake Rudock, is gone, leaving a yet-unproven Shane Morris and a parade of even-less-unproven young signal callers. And next year, Michigan has to travel to both East Lansing and Columbus. Worries, all of them.

It seems as if life, and its worries, have infiltrated the safe space that has always been college football. Even when it isn't safe (see: 2014 Michigan football, or, really, almost anything from the past eight years), it was something to be excited about, to invest in and not care about the repercussions.

The beginning of each season was once like what I imagine the moment when a first-time skydiver steps to the edge, the infinite air ahead and below and above. But, over time, it became something else: something to be approached reasonably, with caution, with care.

This, it goes without saying, is a regrettable development.

Sometimes, it takes something small to kick you out of something like that, to climb out of a place where caution and reason exert their influence, like a 3-yard hitch on 3rd and 5.

The other day, I read this story about Harbaugh's reaction to a phone call from Michael Jordan. As a native of Illinois, something clicked. Here was Harbaugh, revered by many to be the man destined to return Michigan to a prior state, reacting with awe to a call from -- and I unabashedly say this, despite the aforementioned pseudo-cynicism -- MJ, a hero of my childhood.

"Come onnn, who is this?" he said.

I don't know if that transcription is an embellishment, or a reflection of the conversation. Did he really say "onnn," like someone truly awestruck, like, for example, me if I received an unexpected phone call (a redundant phrase, of course) from Michael Jordan?

Did he? You might think this a splitting hair, a negligible footnote.

It matters, not because of its inherent truth or untruth, but because its truth or untruth doesn't matter.

And with that realization, as I've come to it now, I realize that I'm ready for football. I'm ready for the weekly parade: the afterglow of the previous game extending to Monday and Tuesday, the beginnings of mental preparation on Wednesday and Thursday, the imminence of Friday, and the anguish and exaltation of Saturday morning.

Harbaugh was awed, I believe, because, quite simply, I think that he was. I really do. It fits with the picture of him as a person, simultaneously aware and unaware of his station in the football universe. It's an agreeable thought, a simple one.

In the summer of Harbaugh, with the man preparing to take his first Michigan team into a season -- how weird is that to type, even now -- he took the time to reflect on a summer phone call with Michael Jordan.

Come onnn. Jim Harbaugh, coaching Michigan?

It's real. No, really.

In a rush, it's all coming into picture. The little human interest stories, the camp quotes, the discussions of his personal quirks, were all seemingly disparate dots, disconnected but amusing, like a standup comedian connecting on approximately two-thirds of his or her jokes. A good show, a spectacle, maybe even memorable.

But they hadn't formed up together, a picture of meaning.

I don't know how many games Michigan will win, but the picture, in these last few weeks, has started to become more clear. Michigan has a coach, a great coach, who has returned to the place of his youth, a place in which he won games and made declarations (guarantees, even).

Forget the football storylines and the personnel hand-wringing: that is a story to cling to, an idea worth investing in, like the idea of the Rich Rodriguez offense was worth investing in or the lovable yet stern persona of Brady Hoke once stood as a beacon of something more. But, of course, there's more to it than those vestiges of Michigan's recent past.

This, this is a story. A combination of proven excellence and quixotic wanderings of the mind. We are witnessing a homecoming, different than any other we've seen.

And if this sounds like a building cult of personality -- if you'll excuse one more intrusion from Cynical Fan -- well, I suppose it's too late for Cynical Fan to pump the brakes on that train. It's out of the station, screeching across the tracks from Salt Lake City to State College, leaving sparks in its wake like a continuous fireworks show, laughing metallically into the quiet heart of America, bombastically announcing its presence wherever it goes.

College football was never meant to be reasonable. It was never meant to be analyzed. It was born in a nebulous era when you got maybe one game on TV, or were able to huddle up to a radio, with the hope of hearing something worth remembering. It was born in an information void: you took what you could and filled in the gaps with mythology.

For a little while, I forgot that. Remembering that, I think, was the greatest victory of this offseason.

And this is the moment when I, the previously cynical, walk up to the edge in that college football skydiving aircraft.

What lies below? Who knows. A soft landing spot, maybe, or perhaps not.

But, you know, there's no story in the would-be skydiver who didn't skydive, who stayed in the plane and upon bumping down on a remote landing strip, drives home safe and sound.

It's 2015, the only 2015 season there will ever be. It's 2015, the only first-Jim-Harbaugh-season there will be. It's 2015, the time-space home of the only summer of Harbaugh there will ever be (there will be other summers, in which Harbaugh does Harbaugh things, but this is the only summer of Harbaugh). It's 2015, the only time this particular version of newness will ever be before us.

Forget the rest: that's the crux. That's all there is, and all there needs to be.