Only until something comes to an end can you take a breath and really understand the things that have happened.
In 2015, Michigan doubled its 2014 win total. It did that with a collection of running backs that cobbled together might make a solid feature back, a low-upside quarterback beaten out in Iowa City, a defense that lost what might have been its best frontline player before the season (next year we'll know for sure).
It did it with a cloud of doubt lingering above, like carbon monoxide, surreptitious and deadly. Maybe Michigan could never be again. Maybe it was all just a feverish mirage, the Michigan we once knew.
But against No. 19 Florida in Orlando on Saturday, Michigan put on its most dominant bowl-game performance we've seen in some time. Forget about all the losses, of course, and even the relatively "recent" bowl wins -- 2008 against Florida, 2003 against Florida, the trio of wins from 1999-2001 against Arkansas, Alabama and Auburn -- were relatively close. Michigan beat Arkansas by 14, but you'd have to go back to the 42-7 Hall of Fame Bowl win against N.C. State on Jan. 1, 1994, for a bowl win as dominant as this one. You'd have to go back to the 1991 thumping of Ole Miss by Desmond Howard and Co. for a bowl win against an SEC team as dominant as this one.
I suppose that a season marked by "it's been a while since" statements should conclude so fittingly.
Sans two runs by Treon Harris and Kelvin Taylor for 22 and 21 yards, respectively, Michigan held the Gators to 75 yards rushing on 25 carries (3 YPC). Harris completed just eight of 21 passes for 146 yards, one interception into the breadbasket of Jarrod Wilson and no touchdown passes.
Coming into this one, it was obvious that UF's offense wouldn't be able to consistently challenge Michigan's injury-affected defense, even after the confidence-shakers that were the Indiana and Ohio State games.
Even so, the Wolverines exceeded even the already lofty expectations many fans had. Florida players compared Michigan's front to Alabama's, which, in this world of Harbaugh, isn't as hyperbolic as one might think. The Wolverines held UF to fewer points than the Crimson Tide, and Harris, while not great by any means, was slightly more effective against Alabama. Sure, UF had issues on the offensive line, to say the least, but to even approach a reasonable juxtaposition with an Alabama defense is an accomplishment in and of itself.
What can you say about this game? Like a movie with a 90-plus percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it's a masterpiece that doesn't need much exposition.
The performances, the script, the cinematography, the score (that's always good): all perfect.
This wasn't about the SEC and the Big Ten -- this was about one team simply being leagues ahead of another. Michigan was better in every facet of the game, and it wasn't even close.
It's one thing to feel that way after a home win against BYU, or a road win at Penn State, or even a what-could've-been loss against eventual Big Ten champion and playoff participant Michigan State. It's another to so seamlessly transition from the regular season to the second season and then thoroughly handle a team that was elite on one side of the ball, at least, in its own state.
Now, comes the hard part.
Before moving on, after Alabama and Clemson have played to conclude the season in earnest, the realization that some players won't be coming back will set in.
When Michigan recruited Sione Houma, for example, I had high hopes for him, just like I do every recruit. I know they all can't be starters, or even contributors, but you root for every one of them to succeed.
And for three years, Houma was a little-noticed piece of the team. It wasn't until this year that he became a serious contributor -- if Michigan had not gotten Harbaugh, perhaps he wouldn't have had this chance at all.
When all was said and done, Houma carried it 43 times this season for 184 yards and five touchdowns, including a majestic 27-yard romp against Michigan State. The fullback dive isn't just some ironic dinosaur -- it is intent, personified. This year, it was Houma and Joe Kerridge.
Going forward, it'll be someone else.
If there's anything to take from this season, it's the revisiting of old things: the fullback dive, the line stacked like a two-story peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a defensive line shuffling incessantly and without mercy.
Of course, Houma's not the only one. If anyone predicted Rudock's revival, they are a clairvoyant, because early returns were not promising.
But take Mark Donnal's recent surge on the hardwood, multiply it by several orders of magnitude and degrees of difficulty, and you have something like what Rudock accomplished this season.
As you probably know, Rudock became just the second quarterback in Michigan history to throw for more than 3,000 yards in a single season. Fittingly, the first, John Navarre, was another guy who started somewhat unimpressively but rounded out into one of the best Michigan signal-callers on paper -- a Big Ten title to his name didn't hurt, either.
In fan lore, Rudock is a strange case. A grad transfer, we didn't really have that incubatory "getting to know you" phase, in which recruits become players become favorites. Even so, by his play alone and his demeanor on the field and after the game, assisted by Harbaugh's coaching, it's as if we saw a full career arc, accelerated. Early struggles, a light going on ... then?
Never in doubt.
---
Every final chapter requires an epilogue. This isn't the final chapter, but the first.
Michigan tallied its first 10-win season since 2011, and its ninth since Bo Schembechler coached his last season in 1989.
Something tells me double-digit win seasons will become the norm rather than something that happens, on average, about once every three years.
And this was in year 1, with somebody else's players, a supposed "stopgap" quarterback and an assemblage of skill players that didn't inspire confidence heading into the season.
But Jehu Chesson pulled his best 2006-Mario-Manningham-oh-wide-open impression against Florida, De'Veon Smith refuses to be tackled by defensive backs and the offensive line has transformed from severe liability to pretty good.
And most of these guys are back. Other than Rudock and Houma, Michigan loses Wilson, Desmond Morgan, Joe Bolden and James Ross, plus Royce-Jenkins Stone and, of course, Mario Ojemudia. Linebacker is a question mark, but Michigan returns a knockout defensive line, a talented secondary, and, you know, Jabrill Peppers, who can play everything from corner to long snapper (I mean, probably). Throw in a dash of talented young players and you're cooking once again, as Harbaugh continues to participate in the world's longest and most intense episode of football Chopped.
The schedule next year is tough -- there'll be more than enough time to talk about that between now and as mentioned, the roster won't be without holes to start the year.
With that said, 2015 was an exercise in belief. Michigan might not make the playoffs next year -- really, who knows.
But whatever happens, there's no doubt that it'll have a chance. That's an assertion that can only emanate from one source: the very top.
Despite losing a nonconference game and two rivalry games -- both in excruciating fashion -- things are good.
This is only the beginning -- and what is more tantalizing, more captivating, more hopeful, than beginnings?
Showing posts with label Michigan football 2015. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michigan football 2015. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
Sunday, November 29, 2015
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.
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.
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Michigan 28, Penn State 16: Greater than its parts
Michigan hadn't won in Happy Valley since 2006. And on Saturday, they headed there again, looking to move to 9-2 on the season.
Even when things don't seem to be going so well, Michigan flexes, you look up and the opponent is done. Like that, disintegrated.
At least watching the game live, it didn't feel like the Wolverines played particularly well. In addition, the officiating was typically poor, with many of the more egregious calls going against the Wolverines (and in this case, it was so frequent as to be beyond partisan interpretations).
Yet, when it came down to it, the Wolverines clocked the Nittany Lions, even if it doesn't show it on the scoreboard.
Through 11 games, it's undeniably true that the coaching staff has squeezed everything out of this collection of players as is humanly possible. More players are seeing the field, improving incrementally as the season trudges forward into the frigid final weeks.
After a big 56-yard run by Saquon Barkley early in the game, visions of Michigan's vulnerability on the ground against Minnesota popped up again. But that would be Penn State's last huge chunk play of the game. Wide receiver Chris Godwin reeled in 38 of his 51 receiving yards on one play, and Jabrill Peppers got lost in coverage on the touchdown underthrow to Saeed Blacknall.
Other than that? Zip, zilch, nada. The clearly frustrated Christian Hackenberg completed just 13-of-31 passes for 137 yards, good for a putrid 4.4 yards per attempt.
Meanwhile, after the big run, the speedy Barkley was held to 12 yards on 14 carries (making for a statistically inferior performance to Michigan's infamous "27 for 27" output against Penn State in 2013...albeit on fewer carries, true).
Michigan hurt itself with a number of pre-snap defensive penalties, and some that are still beyond explanation. Nonetheless, Michigan went on and completed its first undefeated road slate since 1997.
Say what you will about the quality of the Big Ten -- even if you say it's bad, Michigan hasn't gone undefeated on the road in this league for almost two decades.
Michigan's defensive line once again looked dominant, constantly getting in Hackenberg's face. The Wolverines are only marked down for four sacks, but even that seems to underrepresent the level of dominance the line flashed, albeit against a not-so-quality offensive line.
Perhaps most encouragingly, Taco Charlton stepped up and had likely his best game as a Wolverine, leading the defense with a pair of sacks and playing like the athletic, big-time recruit he is. He notched three tackles for loss, and Chris Wormley (2 TFL) and James Ross (2 TFL) found their way into the backfield, too. Other than Jake Rudock's late-season renaissance, the emergence of a different defensive lineman each week has been the most exciting part of the season.
On the other hand, no, it was not Peppers's finest hour. It would do fans well to remember that this is his first full year of college football; mistakes will happen, and coverage skills are still a work in progress.
On the other side, despite throwing 38 times, Michigan only let up two sacks -- let's take a second to remember how things were on the offensive line not too long ago, when poor Devin Gardner never had a chance each time he dropped back to pass. Yes, the running game is an ancillary at best part of the offense, but at least the line is not only holding its own at something, it is excelling.
As for Rudock, two turnovers are the only blemishes on yet another tremendous outing, his third-straight game with 250-plus passing yards. In case you missed it, that makes him the first U-M quarterback in history to pass for that many yards three games in a row.
Not so quietly, Rudock has transformed from liability to net-passable to a real asset. That improvement can in part be attributed to increased familiarity with the offense, but also, of course, to coaching.
This is still far from a big-play offense, but those are starting to trickle through in recent weeks. Rudock completed a 26-yard touchdown pass to Jake Butt, a 26-yarder to Amara Darboh and a 39-yarder to Jehu Chesson. Michigan needed that, as it stumbled to just 2.9 yards per carry on the ground, with the longest run of the day, 20 yards, coming from Chesson.
Comparisons to the 2006 game will be made. Michigan's defense once again overwhelmed a PSU offense in a game that appears closer than it actually was.
---
So, here we are.
Michigan is 9-2, outshooting probably at least 95 percent of the fan base's expectations. Unfortunately for the Wolverines, Ohio State did not take care of business yesterday, making Michigan's road to Indianapolis seem more like a dead end than a viable route. Michigan needs help from the same Penn State team it just defeated.
Also, of course, they have to win in the Big House against the Buckeyes. I don't need to tell you that Michigan has only come out on the winning end of The Game once since 2003.
No, the Buckeyes didn't exactly look invulnerable this past Saturday, playing against Michigan State's backup quarterbacks and running an offense that was baffling to partial and impartial observers alike. Who knows what Ezekiel Elliott's postgame comments mean for next Saturday, what state of mind the Buckeyes will be in, what sort of team will be coming into Ann Arbor two days after Thanksgiving.
Michigan might not get a shot at Iowa, even if it wins this Saturday, because of one faulty punt snap in October. In the topsy-turvy world of college football, sometimes that's all it takes to knock you off course.
Even so, it's been a while since Michigan has been playing for something in earnest.
Nonetheless, there's no doubt that Michigan has had a successful campaign. But a product of that success is increased expectations. We all know this, like we know the sky is blue or that when in the red zone, Michigan wins far more often than it loses (on both sides of the ball).
But if Michigan plays Ohio State tight, and loses? Well, for that day, no one will remember 9-2. The 2006 season is remembered for many things: the Notre Dame blowout, the Penn State game, even the too-close-for-comfort Ball State game. Above all that, though, that season is remembered for No. 1 vs. No. 2 -- and, to a lesser extent, the disappointing second half of the Rose Bowl.
Unfortunately, that's the nature of sports and humanity. We only remember the last thing.
The road to Indianapolis might close in East Lansing next Saturday. If it does, Michigan will wait -- Indianapolis will be there next year, and for years to come.
On Saturday, the only thing that matters is the two teams on that field, and what they do on that field. On Saturday, this season's legacy hangs in the balance. Lose, and it's just a nice season with two losses to Michigan's rivals.
Win? That's a season to remember, Indianapolis or not.
Even when things don't seem to be going so well, Michigan flexes, you look up and the opponent is done. Like that, disintegrated.
At least watching the game live, it didn't feel like the Wolverines played particularly well. In addition, the officiating was typically poor, with many of the more egregious calls going against the Wolverines (and in this case, it was so frequent as to be beyond partisan interpretations).
Yet, when it came down to it, the Wolverines clocked the Nittany Lions, even if it doesn't show it on the scoreboard.
Through 11 games, it's undeniably true that the coaching staff has squeezed everything out of this collection of players as is humanly possible. More players are seeing the field, improving incrementally as the season trudges forward into the frigid final weeks.
After a big 56-yard run by Saquon Barkley early in the game, visions of Michigan's vulnerability on the ground against Minnesota popped up again. But that would be Penn State's last huge chunk play of the game. Wide receiver Chris Godwin reeled in 38 of his 51 receiving yards on one play, and Jabrill Peppers got lost in coverage on the touchdown underthrow to Saeed Blacknall.
Other than that? Zip, zilch, nada. The clearly frustrated Christian Hackenberg completed just 13-of-31 passes for 137 yards, good for a putrid 4.4 yards per attempt.
Meanwhile, after the big run, the speedy Barkley was held to 12 yards on 14 carries (making for a statistically inferior performance to Michigan's infamous "27 for 27" output against Penn State in 2013...albeit on fewer carries, true).
Michigan hurt itself with a number of pre-snap defensive penalties, and some that are still beyond explanation. Nonetheless, Michigan went on and completed its first undefeated road slate since 1997.
Say what you will about the quality of the Big Ten -- even if you say it's bad, Michigan hasn't gone undefeated on the road in this league for almost two decades.
Michigan's defensive line once again looked dominant, constantly getting in Hackenberg's face. The Wolverines are only marked down for four sacks, but even that seems to underrepresent the level of dominance the line flashed, albeit against a not-so-quality offensive line.
Perhaps most encouragingly, Taco Charlton stepped up and had likely his best game as a Wolverine, leading the defense with a pair of sacks and playing like the athletic, big-time recruit he is. He notched three tackles for loss, and Chris Wormley (2 TFL) and James Ross (2 TFL) found their way into the backfield, too. Other than Jake Rudock's late-season renaissance, the emergence of a different defensive lineman each week has been the most exciting part of the season.
On the other hand, no, it was not Peppers's finest hour. It would do fans well to remember that this is his first full year of college football; mistakes will happen, and coverage skills are still a work in progress.
On the other side, despite throwing 38 times, Michigan only let up two sacks -- let's take a second to remember how things were on the offensive line not too long ago, when poor Devin Gardner never had a chance each time he dropped back to pass. Yes, the running game is an ancillary at best part of the offense, but at least the line is not only holding its own at something, it is excelling.
As for Rudock, two turnovers are the only blemishes on yet another tremendous outing, his third-straight game with 250-plus passing yards. In case you missed it, that makes him the first U-M quarterback in history to pass for that many yards three games in a row.
Not so quietly, Rudock has transformed from liability to net-passable to a real asset. That improvement can in part be attributed to increased familiarity with the offense, but also, of course, to coaching.
This is still far from a big-play offense, but those are starting to trickle through in recent weeks. Rudock completed a 26-yard touchdown pass to Jake Butt, a 26-yarder to Amara Darboh and a 39-yarder to Jehu Chesson. Michigan needed that, as it stumbled to just 2.9 yards per carry on the ground, with the longest run of the day, 20 yards, coming from Chesson.
Comparisons to the 2006 game will be made. Michigan's defense once again overwhelmed a PSU offense in a game that appears closer than it actually was.
---
So, here we are.
Michigan is 9-2, outshooting probably at least 95 percent of the fan base's expectations. Unfortunately for the Wolverines, Ohio State did not take care of business yesterday, making Michigan's road to Indianapolis seem more like a dead end than a viable route. Michigan needs help from the same Penn State team it just defeated.
Also, of course, they have to win in the Big House against the Buckeyes. I don't need to tell you that Michigan has only come out on the winning end of The Game once since 2003.
No, the Buckeyes didn't exactly look invulnerable this past Saturday, playing against Michigan State's backup quarterbacks and running an offense that was baffling to partial and impartial observers alike. Who knows what Ezekiel Elliott's postgame comments mean for next Saturday, what state of mind the Buckeyes will be in, what sort of team will be coming into Ann Arbor two days after Thanksgiving.
Michigan might not get a shot at Iowa, even if it wins this Saturday, because of one faulty punt snap in October. In the topsy-turvy world of college football, sometimes that's all it takes to knock you off course.
Even so, it's been a while since Michigan has been playing for something in earnest.
Nonetheless, there's no doubt that Michigan has had a successful campaign. But a product of that success is increased expectations. We all know this, like we know the sky is blue or that when in the red zone, Michigan wins far more often than it loses (on both sides of the ball).
But if Michigan plays Ohio State tight, and loses? Well, for that day, no one will remember 9-2. The 2006 season is remembered for many things: the Notre Dame blowout, the Penn State game, even the too-close-for-comfort Ball State game. Above all that, though, that season is remembered for No. 1 vs. No. 2 -- and, to a lesser extent, the disappointing second half of the Rose Bowl.
Unfortunately, that's the nature of sports and humanity. We only remember the last thing.
The road to Indianapolis might close in East Lansing next Saturday. If it does, Michigan will wait -- Indianapolis will be there next year, and for years to come.
On Saturday, the only thing that matters is the two teams on that field, and what they do on that field. On Saturday, this season's legacy hangs in the balance. Lose, and it's just a nice season with two losses to Michigan's rivals.
Win? That's a season to remember, Indianapolis or not.
Monday, November 16, 2015
Michigan 48, Indiana 41 (2OT): Different parts
Not all wins are the same.
Some are easy, some are hard. Some are aesthetically pleasing, some are 2014 Northwestern. Some make you sweat, some are laughers.
Some rip your heart out. Some get it beating, shaking uncontrollably like a pinging tuning fork, so much so that it threatens to burst from your chest.
Saturday's trip to Bloomington was a strange concoction, a combination of all of the above. Disorienting, confusing, terrifying: in other words, a normal game against Indiana in the Kevin Wilson era.
Defensively, the Wolverines, now undermanned -- or, at least, relative to prior depth levels -- on the defensive line, were worn down by Indiana's relentless pace. All offense and no defense, the Hoosiers overwhelm with a barrage of passes and quick runs, aided, of course, by the talented Jordan Howard, who would be a good player in any offensive system.
The Michigan defense didn't come away from this looking good, even though 27 regulation points allowed (seven on the punt return touchdown) is actually not that bad against that offense.
It's often said that playing Air Force in your nonconference schedule is a lose-lose, simply because that offense is difficult to prepare for, and even if you beat them, it's not going to be counted in the quality win ledger. Indiana is like that, only Michigan doesn't have the choice to not play them.
So, the Wolverines will have to deal with this every year going forward (that is, until the next tectonic shift of Big Ten alignment). The Hoosiers aren't going away, which is somewhat of a funny statement to make about a team that is now 4-6 on the season, including a loss to Rutgers and close calls against Southern Illinois and Western Kentucky.
But that's just how Indiana rolls. The Hoosiers are nonsensical, a striking configuration of asset and super-flaw, competing against one another. It makes for entertaining viewing from afar, but is nerve-racking to be a part of, whether as a fan of the Hoosiers or a fan of their opponent.
Fortunately for the Wolverines, Jake Rudock seems to finally be coming into his own. Despite sarcastic, eye-rolling comments after first-down scampers (made by yours truly) about his being like Denard, he looks like a completely different, more confident player.
Yes, I know, Rutgers and Indiana likely have something to do with that. Still, Rudock has had an excellent couple of weeks, and I don't need to recite the records broken in Bloomington on Saturday (by the way, it is still somewhat startling that the Michigan record for touchdowns thrown in a game was "only" four).
So, this was Michigan's Air Force of the Big Ten season. With the chance at a division title hanging in the balance, Rudock delivered on the final play of regulation after a frustrating trio of unsuccessful runs leading up to that five-yard strike to Chesson, who had a breakout game of his own.
Rudock's rise has come at a good time, as the running game continues to struggle. Michigan still doesn't really have a reliable feature back, despite promising stuff early in the year from De'Veon Smith, particularly the BYU game. The offensive line isn't really making those holes, and when they do, the backs aren't hitting them. Or, when there's an opportunity to get the edge, Smith is often unable to get there, sometimes resembling a city bus trying to make a left turn.
This is a situation that probably is not going to magically resolve itself in the next two games, particularly not against defenses like Penn State, Ohio State and whatever bowl team (probably an SEC team, I'd imagine) Michigan has to face.
Here we are, with a struggling running game and a defense that is all of a sudden starting to look mortal, and it's Rudock who is coming through it all looking like he could be Michigan's saving grace.
Maybe things are starting to finally click. Maybe this is to a great extent a product of the competition. Like this Indiana win, it's a combination of things, of different parts at odds and yet complementary.
On the bright side for Michigan, Rudock is seasoned. A trip to Penn State and a tilt against Ohio State won't be too big of a stage. He now has 10 games under his belt as a Wolverine and took a big step forward in Bloomington, making throws requiring him to trust his receivers, throws he wasn't making early in the season (not that unmitigated trust in the receivers is always warranted, particularly given some of the route miscues early in the season).
Rudock finished an incredible 33-of-46 for 440 yards, six touchdowns and only one interception. If I gave you that stat line without telling you to whom it belonged, you'd probably think it was the work of [insert Baylor quarterback here]. But no, it was Michigan's Jake Rudock.
That stat line likely won't happen again. The reality is, however, that given the defense's situation, particularly up front, the Wolverines will again need something close to Rudock's best at Penn State, and certainly against Ohio State.
The margin for error is thin. Perhaps the defense's decline is exaggerated, but with the run game being what it is, and Michigan's special teams experiencing a sudden correction in the wrong direction, the burden will increasingly fall on the fifth-year senior from Weston, Florida.
What happens these next two weeks (and beyond) will go a long way toward determining how Rudock is remembered in Michigan lore. If Michigan plays tough but loses out (irrespective of the bowl game, pending the matchup), he'll be the caretaker quarterback who nursed Michigan through a transition year, performing to the best of his abilities. Not great, not bad, but just the right person for the moment to get Michigan through.
But if Michigan wins out, and gets the help it needs to reach Indianapolis, that's a different discussion. That's a discussion of legacy, waiting to be made.
For now, though, let's put the legacy pen back into the ink well, and wait.
Michigan heads to Happy Valley for a noon start this Saturday, playing in a place they've taken losses in 2008, 2010 and 2013. It won't quite be 1997-level "Judgment Day" hype, but it'll be something. If Michigan wins, they'll have a chance to play for a division title on Nov. 28, pending the result of this Saturday's game in Columbus.
It's mid-November, and Michigan is playing for something other than saving its coach's job. That, in and of itself, is something.
Michigan won the Big Ten in 2004, had a shot in the final game of the 2006 season and competed in 2011 (but two division losses sunk that, despite what ended up being a strong season).
This team is flawed, imperfect, a work-in-progress. Still, at 8-2, Michigan has a chance to win something that matters. Through a combination of luck, masking of said imperfections and isolated bursts of skill, Michigan has a chance to make 2015 a memorable one, not just Harbaugh's first year, or the Year that Jake Rudock Played Quarterback and Did Reasonably Fine.
For the first time in a while, Michigan is in the conversation. Forget the much-discussed top four: the playoffs are already here for the Wolverines.
These November games matter. It's an old, yet new feeling. Michigan is playing for something, even a chance at something.
It's been a while.
Some are easy, some are hard. Some are aesthetically pleasing, some are 2014 Northwestern. Some make you sweat, some are laughers.
Some rip your heart out. Some get it beating, shaking uncontrollably like a pinging tuning fork, so much so that it threatens to burst from your chest.
Saturday's trip to Bloomington was a strange concoction, a combination of all of the above. Disorienting, confusing, terrifying: in other words, a normal game against Indiana in the Kevin Wilson era.
Defensively, the Wolverines, now undermanned -- or, at least, relative to prior depth levels -- on the defensive line, were worn down by Indiana's relentless pace. All offense and no defense, the Hoosiers overwhelm with a barrage of passes and quick runs, aided, of course, by the talented Jordan Howard, who would be a good player in any offensive system.
The Michigan defense didn't come away from this looking good, even though 27 regulation points allowed (seven on the punt return touchdown) is actually not that bad against that offense.
It's often said that playing Air Force in your nonconference schedule is a lose-lose, simply because that offense is difficult to prepare for, and even if you beat them, it's not going to be counted in the quality win ledger. Indiana is like that, only Michigan doesn't have the choice to not play them.
So, the Wolverines will have to deal with this every year going forward (that is, until the next tectonic shift of Big Ten alignment). The Hoosiers aren't going away, which is somewhat of a funny statement to make about a team that is now 4-6 on the season, including a loss to Rutgers and close calls against Southern Illinois and Western Kentucky.
But that's just how Indiana rolls. The Hoosiers are nonsensical, a striking configuration of asset and super-flaw, competing against one another. It makes for entertaining viewing from afar, but is nerve-racking to be a part of, whether as a fan of the Hoosiers or a fan of their opponent.
Fortunately for the Wolverines, Jake Rudock seems to finally be coming into his own. Despite sarcastic, eye-rolling comments after first-down scampers (made by yours truly) about his being like Denard, he looks like a completely different, more confident player.
Yes, I know, Rutgers and Indiana likely have something to do with that. Still, Rudock has had an excellent couple of weeks, and I don't need to recite the records broken in Bloomington on Saturday (by the way, it is still somewhat startling that the Michigan record for touchdowns thrown in a game was "only" four).
So, this was Michigan's Air Force of the Big Ten season. With the chance at a division title hanging in the balance, Rudock delivered on the final play of regulation after a frustrating trio of unsuccessful runs leading up to that five-yard strike to Chesson, who had a breakout game of his own.
Rudock's rise has come at a good time, as the running game continues to struggle. Michigan still doesn't really have a reliable feature back, despite promising stuff early in the year from De'Veon Smith, particularly the BYU game. The offensive line isn't really making those holes, and when they do, the backs aren't hitting them. Or, when there's an opportunity to get the edge, Smith is often unable to get there, sometimes resembling a city bus trying to make a left turn.
This is a situation that probably is not going to magically resolve itself in the next two games, particularly not against defenses like Penn State, Ohio State and whatever bowl team (probably an SEC team, I'd imagine) Michigan has to face.
Here we are, with a struggling running game and a defense that is all of a sudden starting to look mortal, and it's Rudock who is coming through it all looking like he could be Michigan's saving grace.
Maybe things are starting to finally click. Maybe this is to a great extent a product of the competition. Like this Indiana win, it's a combination of things, of different parts at odds and yet complementary.
On the bright side for Michigan, Rudock is seasoned. A trip to Penn State and a tilt against Ohio State won't be too big of a stage. He now has 10 games under his belt as a Wolverine and took a big step forward in Bloomington, making throws requiring him to trust his receivers, throws he wasn't making early in the season (not that unmitigated trust in the receivers is always warranted, particularly given some of the route miscues early in the season).
Rudock finished an incredible 33-of-46 for 440 yards, six touchdowns and only one interception. If I gave you that stat line without telling you to whom it belonged, you'd probably think it was the work of [insert Baylor quarterback here]. But no, it was Michigan's Jake Rudock.
That stat line likely won't happen again. The reality is, however, that given the defense's situation, particularly up front, the Wolverines will again need something close to Rudock's best at Penn State, and certainly against Ohio State.
The margin for error is thin. Perhaps the defense's decline is exaggerated, but with the run game being what it is, and Michigan's special teams experiencing a sudden correction in the wrong direction, the burden will increasingly fall on the fifth-year senior from Weston, Florida.
What happens these next two weeks (and beyond) will go a long way toward determining how Rudock is remembered in Michigan lore. If Michigan plays tough but loses out (irrespective of the bowl game, pending the matchup), he'll be the caretaker quarterback who nursed Michigan through a transition year, performing to the best of his abilities. Not great, not bad, but just the right person for the moment to get Michigan through.
But if Michigan wins out, and gets the help it needs to reach Indianapolis, that's a different discussion. That's a discussion of legacy, waiting to be made.
For now, though, let's put the legacy pen back into the ink well, and wait.
Michigan heads to Happy Valley for a noon start this Saturday, playing in a place they've taken losses in 2008, 2010 and 2013. It won't quite be 1997-level "Judgment Day" hype, but it'll be something. If Michigan wins, they'll have a chance to play for a division title on Nov. 28, pending the result of this Saturday's game in Columbus.
It's mid-November, and Michigan is playing for something other than saving its coach's job. That, in and of itself, is something.
Michigan won the Big Ten in 2004, had a shot in the final game of the 2006 season and competed in 2011 (but two division losses sunk that, despite what ended up being a strong season).
This team is flawed, imperfect, a work-in-progress. Still, at 8-2, Michigan has a chance to win something that matters. Through a combination of luck, masking of said imperfections and isolated bursts of skill, Michigan has a chance to make 2015 a memorable one, not just Harbaugh's first year, or the Year that Jake Rudock Played Quarterback and Did Reasonably Fine.
For the first time in a while, Michigan is in the conversation. Forget the much-discussed top four: the playoffs are already here for the Wolverines.
These November games matter. It's an old, yet new feeling. Michigan is playing for something, even a chance at something.
It's been a while.
Monday, November 9, 2015
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Michigan State 27, Michigan 23: Things Happen
A time-tested mantra I've found myself resorting to over my years of watching sports is a simple one, but resonant: Things happen.
Michigan completes a Hail Mary against Northwestern in 2012. Colorado completes a Hail Mary against Michigan in 1994. Yin and yang, a grand swinging pendulum of Fortune, karma, mindless spinning of a dimpled, brown prolate spheroid through wind and rain and snow and the sun's reaching rays in the Midwestern fall.
In 2001, with the Wolverines and Badgers tied at 17 in Madison, a Wisconsin punt bounced off of Badgers special teamer Brett Bell and was recovered by Michigan's Brandon Williams. Hayden Epstein then kicked the game-winning field goal with 10 seconds left to give Michigan a 20-17 win.
That same year, the now infamous "Spartan Bob" gave the Spartans extra time, one second -- so the story goes --and MSU's T.J. Duckett caught the game-winner as time expired. Predictably, and sadly, Spartan Bob received at least one anonymous threat by phone.
Now, fourteen years later, the threatening is done over Twitter, targeting Australian punters who would be lauded as heroes if not for one fatal mistake.
Michigan completes a Hail Mary against Northwestern in 2012. Colorado completes a Hail Mary against Michigan in 1994. Yin and yang, a grand swinging pendulum of Fortune, karma, mindless spinning of a dimpled, brown prolate spheroid through wind and rain and snow and the sun's reaching rays in the Midwestern fall.
In 2001, with the Wolverines and Badgers tied at 17 in Madison, a Wisconsin punt bounced off of Badgers special teamer Brett Bell and was recovered by Michigan's Brandon Williams. Hayden Epstein then kicked the game-winning field goal with 10 seconds left to give Michigan a 20-17 win.
That same year, the now infamous "Spartan Bob" gave the Spartans extra time, one second -- so the story goes --and MSU's T.J. Duckett caught the game-winner as time expired. Predictably, and sadly, Spartan Bob received at least one anonymous threat by phone.
Now, fourteen years later, the threatening is done over Twitter, targeting Australian punters who would be lauded as heroes if not for one fatal mistake.
One mistake amid a sea of inviting data.
Things happen.
And the sports world continues apace. Michigan fans still talk about Spartan Bob from time to time when invoking memories of wrongdoing against the Wolverines. Meanwhile, two extra seconds granted to the Wolverines in 2005 against Penn State continue to stick in the craw of Nittany Lions fans. Time finds a way to come back around, balancing precariously on an axis made of popsicle sticks and fragile dreams waiting to be crushed or upheld with one slight sway in either direction.
In a sense, things have a way of evening themselves out, albeit chaotically and nonsensically. For a program of Michigan's level playing against other similarly competitive programs on a yearly basis in the highly variable world of college athletics, things are bound to happen.
Oh, things are bound to happen.
On Saturday, they did, in a flash. Only 10 seconds remained, with one final routine play separating Michigan from a major victory, both in the context of the rivalry and the overall health of the program as it attempts to dig itself out of the post-Carr Dark Ages.
For 59 minutes and 50 seconds, Michigan looked ready to notch a win against the rival Spartans, the first since 2012 and just the second since Mark Dantonio arrived in East Lansing. Even more improbably, a win would've vaulted Michigan into serious contention for the divisional crown, and, more improbably still, an outside shot at the college football playoff.
I only mention all of this to note how quickly expectations can accelerate. Of course, expectations adjust with results, and Michigan's results to date had been exceptional, to say the least. Shutouts, a grinding ground game and erudite coaching all foretold a distant future full of promise and a near future already overshooting expectation.
Then a punter dropped a snap, and in a moment, those burgeoning hopes collapsed in a moment of concentrated shock. I'm still not quite sure that it happened, and I've watched the replay of it more times than I'd care to admit.
Things happen.
And the sports world continues apace. Michigan fans still talk about Spartan Bob from time to time when invoking memories of wrongdoing against the Wolverines. Meanwhile, two extra seconds granted to the Wolverines in 2005 against Penn State continue to stick in the craw of Nittany Lions fans. Time finds a way to come back around, balancing precariously on an axis made of popsicle sticks and fragile dreams waiting to be crushed or upheld with one slight sway in either direction.
In a sense, things have a way of evening themselves out, albeit chaotically and nonsensically. For a program of Michigan's level playing against other similarly competitive programs on a yearly basis in the highly variable world of college athletics, things are bound to happen.
Oh, things are bound to happen.
On Saturday, they did, in a flash. Only 10 seconds remained, with one final routine play separating Michigan from a major victory, both in the context of the rivalry and the overall health of the program as it attempts to dig itself out of the post-Carr Dark Ages.
For 59 minutes and 50 seconds, Michigan looked ready to notch a win against the rival Spartans, the first since 2012 and just the second since Mark Dantonio arrived in East Lansing. Even more improbably, a win would've vaulted Michigan into serious contention for the divisional crown, and, more improbably still, an outside shot at the college football playoff.
I only mention all of this to note how quickly expectations can accelerate. Of course, expectations adjust with results, and Michigan's results to date had been exceptional, to say the least. Shutouts, a grinding ground game and erudite coaching all foretold a distant future full of promise and a near future already overshooting expectation.
Then a punter dropped a snap, and in a moment, those burgeoning hopes collapsed in a moment of concentrated shock. I'm still not quite sure that it happened, and I've watched the replay of it more times than I'd care to admit.
I can bring up additional examples of Michigan's positive trysts with Lady Luck. The list is a long one, and, by comparison, there have been far unluckier programs out there.
Still, I would be lying if I said this one didn't sting more than the others, simply for its suddenness and the lack of comprehension that followed.
Things happen -- sometimes they happen before you even have a chance to say oh, no.
That moment, unfortunately, rendered a largely positive performance moot. I could tell you about how Michigan's run defense and special teams (sans the obvious) looked superb, or how tantalizing Jabrill Peppers's offensive debut was. I could tell you how Michigan looked, at minimum, Michigan State's equal, which I don't know could even be said after the 2012 win. We could even talk about officiating, but even that is a faint plea against a howling wind -- it matters, and it doesn't.
I could tell you how this is just one game, and what's one more rivalry loss in a season Michigan fans began by looking at 8-4 as a highly optimistic outcome. I could tell you how Michigan's season appears headed for at least eight wins, and probably more barring a bad loss and figuring in a potential upset of Ohio State (things happen, you know).
But all of the numbers and logic on Saturday were darkened for a moment, the sun blotted out by a cloud of chaos, casting a shade that still lingers.
Things happen -- and sometimes there's nothing you can do about it.
Naturally, Michigan now enters the bye week, a cosmic taunt in and of itself, as if the Universe is saying "think about this and the irrational nature of your recreational pursuits."
The only thing to be done now is to, as Harbaugh put it, steel the spine and move forward.
The theme here, things happen, can consume you, of course, but it can also make things whole in a sports world that often makes no sense. Staring at it too long is like staring into the blinding, burning sun: it's there, because it is, and will be until it isn't, until it's exhausted its stores of hydrogen and chaos.
Unlike the sun, I don't think college football's supply of chaos, of games concluding in a flash and bang, will ever run out.
On Saturday we saw a college football finish that we may never see again. It probably won't happen again. Probably. It probably won't happen to Michigan again.
But when it does, I'll shrug and say the same thing, a rhetorical anchor in roiling, unstable waters.
Things happen.
Monday, October 12, 2015
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Michigan 28, Maryland 0: Boring Is Good
As Michigan went into the half up 6-0 in dreary College Park on Saturday, I felt like I'd seen this game before.
That's because I had, last Sunday, when the Chicago Bears traveled to Seattle to take on the Seahawks, with backup quarterback Jimmy Clausen at the helm for the NFC North cellar dwellers, in for the injured Jay Cutler.
Only this time, my team, Michigan, was the Seahawks, and the Terrapins, led by Caleb Rowe, looked much like the punch-less Bears.
After that Bears game, the coaches and even some local sports personalities praised the first half of play -- the Bears went into the break down just 6-0. The game plan worked, they said, a limited thing in which the Bears didn't allow Clausen to take chances downfield (that, or he chose not to take any) and featured goal line formations near midfield -- the latter was about as close as the Bears got to looking like a Harbaugh-coached outfit.
Even so, it was clear that the Bears had no chance, even down six.
That's why, when Matt Millen -- in an attempt to infuse some sort of life into the surreptitious thumping that was Michigan's eventual 28-0 win -- noted at some point in the third quarter that it was still "a two-score game," I laughed to myself.
As fans, we can often trick ourselves into thinking a game is closer than it is. After all, Michigan fans have had numerous opportunities to be on the trailing end of that in recent years. There's still 10 minutes to go, if we can just make one play and get a stop ... if we can just force a turnover ... if we can just hit this field goal ... if we can just score and recover the onside kick.
So on and so forth. The sports fan's mind can bend and contort like no other, envisioning realities only found staring back at you in a house of mirrors.
If it wasn't over after Michigan's first two field goals, it was over when Drake Johnson went 31 yards down the left sideline for a touchdown score on another beautifully executed screen pass.
Maryland is not a good football team. They weren't last year, either, and we know how Michigan's matchup against the conference newcomers went last year in Ann Arbor.
The Wolverines led 16-9 in the third quarter. Having advanced to the Maryland 32, a Devin Garden pass on 4th-and-6 fell incomplete.
And it was all downhill from there en route to a 23-16 loss in Michigan's final home game of the season, dropping them to 5-6 and all but assuring a bowl-less season (with a tilt against Ohio State on the road the next week).
Oh how things have changed.
Instead, Michigan ground out a not-aesthetically-pleasing but comfortable win. The defense extended its streak of quarters without allowing a touchdown to eight, not allowing a score in 14 of the last 16 quarters, going back to the second game of the season.
The offense, meanwhile, did enough to make it work. Perhaps the only downside was the offense's seeming inability to make a consistent ground game work in De'Veon Smith's absence. Luckily, it sounds like he could have played, and is set to to do so when undefeated Northwestern comes to Ann Arbor on Saturday.
Drake Johnson (13 carries, 68 yards) did some nice things, but wasn't exactly a replacement for Smith's abilities. Ty Isaac (6 carries, 17 yards) has done some nice things this season, but coughed it up twice (albeit losing just one of them) -- with Smith likely to return to the backfield, I'd imagine that Isaac slips down a slot on the tailback pecking order. How long he stays there will be an interesting early test case in the Harbaugh era vis-a-vis bouts with fumbleitis and their repercussions. Derrick Green (7 carries, 26 yards), in what seemed like yet another audition for more playing time, didn't seem to help his case.
Overall, though, this is an offense that is making do. Jake Rudock's turnovers remain a concern, a week after a turnover-less affair against BYU inspired confidence that maybe the Iowa transfer was set to start playing the generally Big-Mistake-free football many expected him to play.
Against weak competition in Oregon State, UNLV and Maryland, it hasn't hurt the Wolverines. Of course, against Utah, what ultimately was a one-score loss, the pick 6 loomed in its culpability.
Against a Northwestern squad with a freshman quarterback who can run but leads an offense ranked 118th in passing, Michigan cannot afford to gift the Wildcats extra opportunities, especially via turnovers granting them prime field position.
This Saturday's game in the Big House is assured to be a low-scoring slugfest (the legitimate kind, not the euphemism for bad football rationalized as something else). Mistakes could prove the difference when these two teams, fielding two of the statistically strongest defenses in the country, meet this weekend.
But unlike the recent low-scoring Michigan-Northwestern tilts, this one won't make you want to close your eyes and imagine being somewhere else, watching something else, like I felt at Ryan Field last season where the Wolverines won, 10-9, but the game of football lost.
Whatever happens this Saturday, one thing is clear: Michigan football the last few weeks has been boring, but the good kind of boring. Like going to your favorite restaurant and getting the same thing you've been getting for years: the trusty, comfortable standby.
It'll be a while before Michigan once again assumes the mantle of good-boring on a consistent basis. There are still too many variables, particularly at the offense's most important position, to assume that Michigan can't lose to a team it "should" beat (and is it stands now, there are far more of those remaining on the schedule than perhaps previously predicted).
When expectations on a play-by-level are consistently met -- Smith grinding out yards after contact, Michigan's defensive line detonating the pocket, Jabrill Peppers pulverizing the grand designs of an opponent's screen pass -- it can be easy to settle into a feeling of something resembling boredom, stripped of its negative connotations.
I guess -- and this is an old feeling being dusted off and returned to a prominent position on the shelf of the fan base's collective consciousness -- this is what happens when you expect good things to happen, and they do.
This is good. Boring is good. All aboard the boring train to Indianapolis.
It won't be that easy, of course, and I'm being more than a little facetious. But there is something comforting about a 28-0 win in which a 6-0 halftime lead inspired little to no worry.
Whatever happens, despite this team's flaws, I don't dread sitting in front of the TV to watch this team play, even while I know things will go wrong at certain points in a game.
As the Wolverines attempt to put miles behind it and everything that's been, this campaign, almost at its halfway point, has been a success.
This is fun again. It's been a while since I could say that. I suspect it won't be the last.
Eventually, though, I won't have to say "again." It'll just be "this is fun."
Until then, the novelty of the boring reigns supreme.
That's because I had, last Sunday, when the Chicago Bears traveled to Seattle to take on the Seahawks, with backup quarterback Jimmy Clausen at the helm for the NFC North cellar dwellers, in for the injured Jay Cutler.
Only this time, my team, Michigan, was the Seahawks, and the Terrapins, led by Caleb Rowe, looked much like the punch-less Bears.
After that Bears game, the coaches and even some local sports personalities praised the first half of play -- the Bears went into the break down just 6-0. The game plan worked, they said, a limited thing in which the Bears didn't allow Clausen to take chances downfield (that, or he chose not to take any) and featured goal line formations near midfield -- the latter was about as close as the Bears got to looking like a Harbaugh-coached outfit.
Even so, it was clear that the Bears had no chance, even down six.
That's why, when Matt Millen -- in an attempt to infuse some sort of life into the surreptitious thumping that was Michigan's eventual 28-0 win -- noted at some point in the third quarter that it was still "a two-score game," I laughed to myself.
As fans, we can often trick ourselves into thinking a game is closer than it is. After all, Michigan fans have had numerous opportunities to be on the trailing end of that in recent years. There's still 10 minutes to go, if we can just make one play and get a stop ... if we can just force a turnover ... if we can just hit this field goal ... if we can just score and recover the onside kick.
So on and so forth. The sports fan's mind can bend and contort like no other, envisioning realities only found staring back at you in a house of mirrors.
If it wasn't over after Michigan's first two field goals, it was over when Drake Johnson went 31 yards down the left sideline for a touchdown score on another beautifully executed screen pass.
Maryland is not a good football team. They weren't last year, either, and we know how Michigan's matchup against the conference newcomers went last year in Ann Arbor.
The Wolverines led 16-9 in the third quarter. Having advanced to the Maryland 32, a Devin Garden pass on 4th-and-6 fell incomplete.
And it was all downhill from there en route to a 23-16 loss in Michigan's final home game of the season, dropping them to 5-6 and all but assuring a bowl-less season (with a tilt against Ohio State on the road the next week).
Oh how things have changed.
Instead, Michigan ground out a not-aesthetically-pleasing but comfortable win. The defense extended its streak of quarters without allowing a touchdown to eight, not allowing a score in 14 of the last 16 quarters, going back to the second game of the season.
The offense, meanwhile, did enough to make it work. Perhaps the only downside was the offense's seeming inability to make a consistent ground game work in De'Veon Smith's absence. Luckily, it sounds like he could have played, and is set to to do so when undefeated Northwestern comes to Ann Arbor on Saturday.
Drake Johnson (13 carries, 68 yards) did some nice things, but wasn't exactly a replacement for Smith's abilities. Ty Isaac (6 carries, 17 yards) has done some nice things this season, but coughed it up twice (albeit losing just one of them) -- with Smith likely to return to the backfield, I'd imagine that Isaac slips down a slot on the tailback pecking order. How long he stays there will be an interesting early test case in the Harbaugh era vis-a-vis bouts with fumbleitis and their repercussions. Derrick Green (7 carries, 26 yards), in what seemed like yet another audition for more playing time, didn't seem to help his case.
Overall, though, this is an offense that is making do. Jake Rudock's turnovers remain a concern, a week after a turnover-less affair against BYU inspired confidence that maybe the Iowa transfer was set to start playing the generally Big-Mistake-free football many expected him to play.
Against weak competition in Oregon State, UNLV and Maryland, it hasn't hurt the Wolverines. Of course, against Utah, what ultimately was a one-score loss, the pick 6 loomed in its culpability.
Against a Northwestern squad with a freshman quarterback who can run but leads an offense ranked 118th in passing, Michigan cannot afford to gift the Wildcats extra opportunities, especially via turnovers granting them prime field position.
This Saturday's game in the Big House is assured to be a low-scoring slugfest (the legitimate kind, not the euphemism for bad football rationalized as something else). Mistakes could prove the difference when these two teams, fielding two of the statistically strongest defenses in the country, meet this weekend.
But unlike the recent low-scoring Michigan-Northwestern tilts, this one won't make you want to close your eyes and imagine being somewhere else, watching something else, like I felt at Ryan Field last season where the Wolverines won, 10-9, but the game of football lost.
Whatever happens this Saturday, one thing is clear: Michigan football the last few weeks has been boring, but the good kind of boring. Like going to your favorite restaurant and getting the same thing you've been getting for years: the trusty, comfortable standby.
It'll be a while before Michigan once again assumes the mantle of good-boring on a consistent basis. There are still too many variables, particularly at the offense's most important position, to assume that Michigan can't lose to a team it "should" beat (and is it stands now, there are far more of those remaining on the schedule than perhaps previously predicted).
When expectations on a play-by-level are consistently met -- Smith grinding out yards after contact, Michigan's defensive line detonating the pocket, Jabrill Peppers pulverizing the grand designs of an opponent's screen pass -- it can be easy to settle into a feeling of something resembling boredom, stripped of its negative connotations.
I guess -- and this is an old feeling being dusted off and returned to a prominent position on the shelf of the fan base's collective consciousness -- this is what happens when you expect good things to happen, and they do.
This is good. Boring is good. All aboard the boring train to Indianapolis.
It won't be that easy, of course, and I'm being more than a little facetious. But there is something comforting about a 28-0 win in which a 6-0 halftime lead inspired little to no worry.
Whatever happens, despite this team's flaws, I don't dread sitting in front of the TV to watch this team play, even while I know things will go wrong at certain points in a game.
As the Wolverines attempt to put miles behind it and everything that's been, this campaign, almost at its halfway point, has been a success.
This is fun again. It's been a while since I could say that. I suspect it won't be the last.
Eventually, though, I won't have to say "again." It'll just be "this is fun."
Until then, the novelty of the boring reigns supreme.
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
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.
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.
Monday, September 21, 2015
Michigan 28, UNLV 7: The machine knows where it's going
NB: I did not get to watch this live and only have had the chance to watch the Every Snap cutups, which makes for a speedy viewing but doesn't quite give you the full perspective that watching a game in its regular progression does.
For the second week in a row, Michigan clobbered an opponent that was some degree of undermanned and overwhelmed.
For the second week in a row, Michigan allowed just seven points.
Most importantly, for the second week in a row Michigan won. Let's not take even something that small for granted.
But, unlike last week's win against Oregon State, the optimism rings aren't arcing quite as far along the waters of our perspective.
That's not to say that there is appreciably more worry about the rest of the season than there was before. Again, Michigan is 2-1. They decidedly #wonthegame.
But there's the elephant in the room that is the quarterback situation. I think it's safe to say that barring a spectacular collapse, Jake Rudock is going to be Michigan's guy the rest of the way. And to cast my meaningless opinion into the mix, I have to say I'm okay with that.
He seems like a smart guy, he gets players where they need to be, he hits the short stuff, and, up until this three-game stretch as a Wolverine, was a low-upside, low-turnover signal caller. That is, in a nutshell, the kind of thing Michigan needs this year, if only to serve as a sort of palate cleanser from the turnover bonanza we've watched during the twilight of the Hoke era.
But, of course, that last part's the key: turnovers are a thing that can kill any team, but especially a Michigan offense that will look to embark on long drives reminiscent of the stroll to Mordor.
As you probably know, Rudock has already matched his 2014 season total in interceptions. Sure, maybe one in the Utah game was partially Grant Perry's fault, and who knows if any of the others fall under the same umbrella
Still, though, this is something that's not quite a trend but not necessarily something about which to be unconcerned. The assessment of Rudock's play exists somewhere in that nebulous nothing-space between relative calm and the line of demarcation between nagging worry and outright panic.
We don't have much on which to operate: three games is just three games. This team will get better, it will get worse, it will look good against some opponents and not so good against others. Such is life in college football, when the quality of opponents varies far more than the NFL, where everybody can play.
Even with all of that said, Rudock was 14-of-22 for 123 yards, one touchdown and one interception. That's not good, to be sure, but a 63.6 percent completion rate is at least something, even though a 5.6 yards per attempt is not.
On the whole, minus the turnovers, I'd say we've gotten, for the most part, exactly what we expected. Hypothetical exercises are always a little silly, but take away, say, two of his five interceptions, and would the outlook be different? Honestly, I think it might.
Sample size being what it is, it's understandable to be slightly concerned about what Michigan's getting from the most important position on the field.
On the bright side, the sample size will grow, and we'll soon find out whether what's happened so far is some form of bad "luck" or a trend. Right now, it's too early to say.
Whatever happens, though, this is, for better or worse, the Year of Rudock, and Michigan fans should probably get used to it.
---
Outside of that, it's hard to find much to pick at from Saturday's blowout, especially when you adjust for the fact that a 35-7 or 28-7 win for Harbaugh's Michigan equates to something a little more eye-popping for, say, your average Lloyd Carr team (and we all know those squads weren't exactly up-tempo offensive outfits...save when down by two scores late in a game).
The biggest takeaways on the defensive end were such: 1) the play of the defensive backs 2) the general disruptiveness of the line and 3) tackling.
On the first point, Jourdan Lewis is easily the most impressive corner to come through Ann Arbor in a while. Yes, you have to go back a while to find the next one, but when all is said and done, Lewis will likely join the pantheon of pretty good Michigan corners: whether he's among the best of the best (i.e. the tier just below Charles Woodson, who was a tier unto himself) remains to be seen, but the odds are favorable.
As for the defensive line, it's been somewhat remarkable to watch this Michigan defensive line make plays in the backfield despite: 1) the loss of Bryan Mone and 2) its (earned) rep as a unit without much edge rushing panache. Ryan Glasgow continues to make his presence known in the middle and Matt Godin has seemingly rounded into a very useful player for the Wolverines.
For a defense that doesn't have a real edge rushing terror, I'd say things have looked about as good as you can hope for (and that's even when you take into consideration that Chris Wormley had a relatively quiet day compared to his monstrous Weeks 1 and 2).
With that said, even a Taysom Hill-less BYU presents a big step up in competition from teams like Oregon State and UNLV. Michigan's front will need to continue to bring the heat, especially as Michigan's secondary gets ready to face a BYU squad with some large, large wide receivers.
On the last point, tackling, the nice thing about the every snap videos is that they allow a very quick snapshot into the game, removing the downtime between plays that can dissolve big picture memories of individual aspects of the game (e.g. tackling).
Yes, there were a couple missed tackles, but there are always going to be a few, especially on those outside screens. On the whole, however, Michigan's tacklers were sound and often emphatic in their ability to finish. Again, competition caveats apply, but when faced with an opponent like UNLV, Michigan did what needed to be done.
The Wolverines held UNLV to 235 total yards (a good chunk in garbage time, obviously) and 5-for-15 on third down, while the now-No. 9 UCLA held them to 237 and 2-for-15 on third down. All in all, that's an encouragingly comparable performance, if you are one to read into these sorts of juxtapositions (which you probably shouldn't but there it is anyway).
---
As we sit here at the end of Michigan's first quarter, it's hard to say whether Michigan is a buy or a sell. The BYU game will be an inflection point for potential investors (trafficking that most fleeting stock: hope).
With that said, things have thus far gone mostly according to plan, save for Rudock's turnovers. At this point, you can only just shrug about that and hope that's a blip and not something real.
But for the first time in a while -- if you can't tell, I'm looking to set the Guinness World Record for saying "for the first time in a while" during a single season -- there is solidity and shape to Michigan's profile.
Before, it was a mushy, formless nothing. Things happened and meant nothing. Michigan would get blown out by Minnesota at home then play Ohio State tough on the road. Toughness was talked about, but seemed more a fleeting ideal than something being actualized on the field.
Now, at least Michigan's deficiencies are obvious in a comforting way, in that there seems to be a way out. The Michigan program was lost before, using a paper map to navigate out of the abyss.
These days, Michigan has GPS.
But, of course, even GPS fails, as Michael Scott would tell you. GPS only goes so far; after all, following a plan blindly is just as doomed to fail as a Luddite existence, in which a road to toughness is mapped out on a paper map, splayed out on the dashboard in the face of a glaring sun.
The way is only found with a combination of GPS and intuition. Michigan seems to have that, now, in the form of its current leadership.
Then again, GPS doesn't mean a thing if your car fails. And Michigan's car will, in all likelihood, need a few trips to the shop this season. You might have to get out and push, even.
But now, at least Michigan knows where to push. The Michigan of old stood by the side of the road, hat in hand scratching its head.
When the smoke unfurls from Michigan's engine this season -- and it will happen -- at least there's the thought that Michigan knows the exact mileage to the next point for repairs.
Michigan's got GPS. It knows where it's going, even if the parts will make the going slower -- for now.
For the second week in a row, Michigan clobbered an opponent that was some degree of undermanned and overwhelmed.
For the second week in a row, Michigan allowed just seven points.
Most importantly, for the second week in a row Michigan won. Let's not take even something that small for granted.
But, unlike last week's win against Oregon State, the optimism rings aren't arcing quite as far along the waters of our perspective.
That's not to say that there is appreciably more worry about the rest of the season than there was before. Again, Michigan is 2-1. They decidedly #wonthegame.
But there's the elephant in the room that is the quarterback situation. I think it's safe to say that barring a spectacular collapse, Jake Rudock is going to be Michigan's guy the rest of the way. And to cast my meaningless opinion into the mix, I have to say I'm okay with that.
He seems like a smart guy, he gets players where they need to be, he hits the short stuff, and, up until this three-game stretch as a Wolverine, was a low-upside, low-turnover signal caller. That is, in a nutshell, the kind of thing Michigan needs this year, if only to serve as a sort of palate cleanser from the turnover bonanza we've watched during the twilight of the Hoke era.
But, of course, that last part's the key: turnovers are a thing that can kill any team, but especially a Michigan offense that will look to embark on long drives reminiscent of the stroll to Mordor.
As you probably know, Rudock has already matched his 2014 season total in interceptions. Sure, maybe one in the Utah game was partially Grant Perry's fault, and who knows if any of the others fall under the same umbrella
Still, though, this is something that's not quite a trend but not necessarily something about which to be unconcerned. The assessment of Rudock's play exists somewhere in that nebulous nothing-space between relative calm and the line of demarcation between nagging worry and outright panic.
We don't have much on which to operate: three games is just three games. This team will get better, it will get worse, it will look good against some opponents and not so good against others. Such is life in college football, when the quality of opponents varies far more than the NFL, where everybody can play.
Even with all of that said, Rudock was 14-of-22 for 123 yards, one touchdown and one interception. That's not good, to be sure, but a 63.6 percent completion rate is at least something, even though a 5.6 yards per attempt is not.
On the whole, minus the turnovers, I'd say we've gotten, for the most part, exactly what we expected. Hypothetical exercises are always a little silly, but take away, say, two of his five interceptions, and would the outlook be different? Honestly, I think it might.
Sample size being what it is, it's understandable to be slightly concerned about what Michigan's getting from the most important position on the field.
On the bright side, the sample size will grow, and we'll soon find out whether what's happened so far is some form of bad "luck" or a trend. Right now, it's too early to say.
Whatever happens, though, this is, for better or worse, the Year of Rudock, and Michigan fans should probably get used to it.
---
Outside of that, it's hard to find much to pick at from Saturday's blowout, especially when you adjust for the fact that a 35-7 or 28-7 win for Harbaugh's Michigan equates to something a little more eye-popping for, say, your average Lloyd Carr team (and we all know those squads weren't exactly up-tempo offensive outfits...save when down by two scores late in a game).
The biggest takeaways on the defensive end were such: 1) the play of the defensive backs 2) the general disruptiveness of the line and 3) tackling.
On the first point, Jourdan Lewis is easily the most impressive corner to come through Ann Arbor in a while. Yes, you have to go back a while to find the next one, but when all is said and done, Lewis will likely join the pantheon of pretty good Michigan corners: whether he's among the best of the best (i.e. the tier just below Charles Woodson, who was a tier unto himself) remains to be seen, but the odds are favorable.
As for the defensive line, it's been somewhat remarkable to watch this Michigan defensive line make plays in the backfield despite: 1) the loss of Bryan Mone and 2) its (earned) rep as a unit without much edge rushing panache. Ryan Glasgow continues to make his presence known in the middle and Matt Godin has seemingly rounded into a very useful player for the Wolverines.
For a defense that doesn't have a real edge rushing terror, I'd say things have looked about as good as you can hope for (and that's even when you take into consideration that Chris Wormley had a relatively quiet day compared to his monstrous Weeks 1 and 2).
With that said, even a Taysom Hill-less BYU presents a big step up in competition from teams like Oregon State and UNLV. Michigan's front will need to continue to bring the heat, especially as Michigan's secondary gets ready to face a BYU squad with some large, large wide receivers.
On the last point, tackling, the nice thing about the every snap videos is that they allow a very quick snapshot into the game, removing the downtime between plays that can dissolve big picture memories of individual aspects of the game (e.g. tackling).
Yes, there were a couple missed tackles, but there are always going to be a few, especially on those outside screens. On the whole, however, Michigan's tacklers were sound and often emphatic in their ability to finish. Again, competition caveats apply, but when faced with an opponent like UNLV, Michigan did what needed to be done.
The Wolverines held UNLV to 235 total yards (a good chunk in garbage time, obviously) and 5-for-15 on third down, while the now-No. 9 UCLA held them to 237 and 2-for-15 on third down. All in all, that's an encouragingly comparable performance, if you are one to read into these sorts of juxtapositions (which you probably shouldn't but there it is anyway).
---
As we sit here at the end of Michigan's first quarter, it's hard to say whether Michigan is a buy or a sell. The BYU game will be an inflection point for potential investors (trafficking that most fleeting stock: hope).
With that said, things have thus far gone mostly according to plan, save for Rudock's turnovers. At this point, you can only just shrug about that and hope that's a blip and not something real.
But for the first time in a while -- if you can't tell, I'm looking to set the Guinness World Record for saying "for the first time in a while" during a single season -- there is solidity and shape to Michigan's profile.
Before, it was a mushy, formless nothing. Things happened and meant nothing. Michigan would get blown out by Minnesota at home then play Ohio State tough on the road. Toughness was talked about, but seemed more a fleeting ideal than something being actualized on the field.
Now, at least Michigan's deficiencies are obvious in a comforting way, in that there seems to be a way out. The Michigan program was lost before, using a paper map to navigate out of the abyss.
These days, Michigan has GPS.
But, of course, even GPS fails, as Michael Scott would tell you. GPS only goes so far; after all, following a plan blindly is just as doomed to fail as a Luddite existence, in which a road to toughness is mapped out on a paper map, splayed out on the dashboard in the face of a glaring sun.
The way is only found with a combination of GPS and intuition. Michigan seems to have that, now, in the form of its current leadership.
Then again, GPS doesn't mean a thing if your car fails. And Michigan's car will, in all likelihood, need a few trips to the shop this season. You might have to get out and push, even.
But now, at least Michigan knows where to push. The Michigan of old stood by the side of the road, hat in hand scratching its head.
When the smoke unfurls from Michigan's engine this season -- and it will happen -- at least there's the thought that Michigan knows the exact mileage to the next point for repairs.
Michigan's got GPS. It knows where it's going, even if the parts will make the going slower -- for now.
Monday, September 14, 2015
Michigan 35, Oregon State 7: Harbinger
Michigan ran the ball: again and again and again.
For the first time in a while, they did it powerfully. Make no mistake, Michigan's ground game under one Denard Robinson was no less spectacular, and if another Denard were to walk through Ann Arbor and onto the Big House turf, I doubt if anybody would raise an objection.
But that offense was different. That offense was predicated, in large part, on individual brilliance (i.e. Denard Robinson). There is nothing wrong with individual brilliance, of course. Denard was the shooting spread star of Michigan offensive history -- he came and went, streaking across the Michigan sky at hyperspeed, much to our wonder.
What happened Saturday against Oregon State, however, was something different. While Michigan's fortunes previously hung on the balance of Denard's brilliance -- and the ancillary opportunities said brilliance provided, as in wide open receivers when Denard so much as moved an inch toward the line of scrimmage -- it now seems to hang its hat on sheer, bull-headed anger.
Okay, just to get it out of the way, Oregon State is not a good team: we know that.
Still, Michigan has faced not-so-good teams in recent years, and not come out so well. The ground game, shall we say, was often grounded. It was a tricked out pickup truck that fell apart with the first move forward: set, hut, to the sound of a wheezing engine, a faulty transmission and tires slowly bleeding air.
On Saturday, Michigan looked like a real offense for the first time in some time -- real in the sense that it executed by both malice and design. The linemen, more or less, did their jobs, and Michigan paraded out a series of large tailbacks, with De'Veon Smith the headliner and Ty Isaac and Derrick Green also barreling toward the line imposingly. I wasn't around then to see it, but I imagine it was not unlike the days when Bo's offenses featured multiple tailbacks, well before the workhorse -- think "Chris Perry carrying 51 times in one game" -- became became the norm.
For the past few years, Michigan fans have bemoaned the way the defense, left out to dry by the offense, would eventually wilt late in games. Well, this time, the Oregon State defense wilted, not Michigan's. When Michigan did this...
...one could hear the sound of will being broken.
And so, as tantalizing as Denard's exploits were, there's something equally rewarding about this way of doing things.
As Smith et al pounded through the line over and over again, and Beavers defenders receded into the artificial turf like unblooming flowers, I felt like we were watching a trailer for a movie coming out next fall (or, probably, a couple of years from now).
We were privy to a sneak peak of that film, which is not quite finished. Not even close, really. There's production to be done: editing, cutting, fixing, tweaking. There are scenes that need to be added, story arcs to be emphasized or pushed away.
Michigan is led by a seasoned team of directors and miscellaneous production staff -- Harbaugh, in particular, has a cinematic record worthy of optimism. He's succeeded on multiple sets in California, after all, the nexus of the film industry.
Sure, what we saw was just a trailer, a snapshot of things to come. But on the heels of nearly a decade's worth of box office duds, Michigan finally seems on to be on track, heading somewhere approaching the memorable.
Ultimately, I'm not sure that Saturday's win will make it into that hypothetical movie. Odds are, it'll end up on the cutting room floor, to make way for more dramatic happenings.
If anything, it'll be a blip, a short prologue before the deeper story. For now, though, it is the story, 225 rushing yards and 48 carries in narrative capital.
Sometimes, it's hard to predict box office success. Like anything in life, things can, at times, veer off course.
But if you asked me now, based on the trailer alone, I'd tell you, in between bits of popcorn: "I can't wait to see that."
For the first time in a while, they did it powerfully. Make no mistake, Michigan's ground game under one Denard Robinson was no less spectacular, and if another Denard were to walk through Ann Arbor and onto the Big House turf, I doubt if anybody would raise an objection.
But that offense was different. That offense was predicated, in large part, on individual brilliance (i.e. Denard Robinson). There is nothing wrong with individual brilliance, of course. Denard was the shooting spread star of Michigan offensive history -- he came and went, streaking across the Michigan sky at hyperspeed, much to our wonder.
What happened Saturday against Oregon State, however, was something different. While Michigan's fortunes previously hung on the balance of Denard's brilliance -- and the ancillary opportunities said brilliance provided, as in wide open receivers when Denard so much as moved an inch toward the line of scrimmage -- it now seems to hang its hat on sheer, bull-headed anger.
Okay, just to get it out of the way, Oregon State is not a good team: we know that.
Still, Michigan has faced not-so-good teams in recent years, and not come out so well. The ground game, shall we say, was often grounded. It was a tricked out pickup truck that fell apart with the first move forward: set, hut, to the sound of a wheezing engine, a faulty transmission and tires slowly bleeding air.
On Saturday, Michigan looked like a real offense for the first time in some time -- real in the sense that it executed by both malice and design. The linemen, more or less, did their jobs, and Michigan paraded out a series of large tailbacks, with De'Veon Smith the headliner and Ty Isaac and Derrick Green also barreling toward the line imposingly. I wasn't around then to see it, but I imagine it was not unlike the days when Bo's offenses featured multiple tailbacks, well before the workhorse -- think "Chris Perry carrying 51 times in one game" -- became became the norm.
For the past few years, Michigan fans have bemoaned the way the defense, left out to dry by the offense, would eventually wilt late in games. Well, this time, the Oregon State defense wilted, not Michigan's. When Michigan did this...
...one could hear the sound of will being broken.
And so, as tantalizing as Denard's exploits were, there's something equally rewarding about this way of doing things.
As Smith et al pounded through the line over and over again, and Beavers defenders receded into the artificial turf like unblooming flowers, I felt like we were watching a trailer for a movie coming out next fall (or, probably, a couple of years from now).
We were privy to a sneak peak of that film, which is not quite finished. Not even close, really. There's production to be done: editing, cutting, fixing, tweaking. There are scenes that need to be added, story arcs to be emphasized or pushed away.
Michigan is led by a seasoned team of directors and miscellaneous production staff -- Harbaugh, in particular, has a cinematic record worthy of optimism. He's succeeded on multiple sets in California, after all, the nexus of the film industry.
Sure, what we saw was just a trailer, a snapshot of things to come. But on the heels of nearly a decade's worth of box office duds, Michigan finally seems on to be on track, heading somewhere approaching the memorable.
Ultimately, I'm not sure that Saturday's win will make it into that hypothetical movie. Odds are, it'll end up on the cutting room floor, to make way for more dramatic happenings.
If anything, it'll be a blip, a short prologue before the deeper story. For now, though, it is the story, 225 rushing yards and 48 carries in narrative capital.
Sometimes, it's hard to predict box office success. Like anything in life, things can, at times, veer off course.
But if you asked me now, based on the trailer alone, I'd tell you, in between bits of popcorn: "I can't wait to see that."
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Disconnected Optimism: Michigan 17, Utah 24
The lead-up to this past Thursday's opener reminded me of rediscovery -- finding an old album of photos, an old game you used to play as a child, a weathered book with bent page corners and marginal notes.
When all those disparate feelings coalesced, it was like a reminder of an earlier time: a fond childhood.
In a way, that is what the long prologue to Thursday's opener came to be by the opening kickoff at 7:30 p.m. Central Time. Both literally and figuratively, it evoked memories of childhood. With respect to the former, it was a reminder of earlier days -- and the thing about the history of Michigan football is, that, this could apply to nearly anyone's childhood as a Michigan fan -- when the Wolverines were a respected power.
Figuratively, those anticipatory moments evoked childhood in a less tangible but more meaningful way: for the first time in a long time, I, and many others, were reminded of what it was like to be truly excited for a game, just like we were as children, before we knew what a 4-3 under defense was or the merits of various punting formations.
And although the result on the field didn't work out how Michigan fans would have wanted, there were moments. Jabrill Peppers blowing up screens, going from 0-60 like an Aston Martin powered by a synthetic blend of dinosaur bones and Gatorade. Chris Wormley caving in the interior of Utah's offensive line. Jake Butt soaring over multiple Utes, posterizing the hapless players in red for a touchdown. Even, if you please to go that far, a Blake O'Neill punt to pin Utah inside its own 5-yard line.
In many ways, Michigan looked much the same as last year. Iowa transfer Jake Rudock turned it over three times (albeit with the blame for one pick seemingly falling on the shoulders of freshman receiver Grant Perry), the offensive line got handled more often than not, the running backs missed holes and the defense was strong but seemed to lack that extra oomph that is the difference between good and great defenses.
On the other hand, the offense executed a competent two-minute drill late (too little too late, of course, but still), the receivers got separation (and made plays even when they didn't separate), the corners looked strong and the run defense, like last year, was stingy.
The relatively cushy schedule helps matters, but there's a sense that Michigan will improve from here on out. It remains to be seen how good Utah actually is, but it's safe to say that they're a solid football team.
It might have been nice to catch Utah in Week 3 or 4 instead of right out of the gate, but such is the schedule. With that said, there is something nice about being thrown into the fire, in a tough road environment at altitude, and seeing how these guys adapt, from the head coach on down.
To a certain extent, they did just that. It wasn't enough, but for the first time in a while, Michigan looked like a real football team, despite its obvious limitations and still existing deficiencies, as seemingly disconnected as those two thoughts might seem.
When the clock rolled to zeroes last Thursday, the old sting was there: not dulled and lifeless, like it has been lately, like it was throughout most of the 2014 season.
It stung, like it mattered, like something worth feeling stung about.
When all those disparate feelings coalesced, it was like a reminder of an earlier time: a fond childhood.
In a way, that is what the long prologue to Thursday's opener came to be by the opening kickoff at 7:30 p.m. Central Time. Both literally and figuratively, it evoked memories of childhood. With respect to the former, it was a reminder of earlier days -- and the thing about the history of Michigan football is, that, this could apply to nearly anyone's childhood as a Michigan fan -- when the Wolverines were a respected power.
Figuratively, those anticipatory moments evoked childhood in a less tangible but more meaningful way: for the first time in a long time, I, and many others, were reminded of what it was like to be truly excited for a game, just like we were as children, before we knew what a 4-3 under defense was or the merits of various punting formations.
And although the result on the field didn't work out how Michigan fans would have wanted, there were moments. Jabrill Peppers blowing up screens, going from 0-60 like an Aston Martin powered by a synthetic blend of dinosaur bones and Gatorade. Chris Wormley caving in the interior of Utah's offensive line. Jake Butt soaring over multiple Utes, posterizing the hapless players in red for a touchdown. Even, if you please to go that far, a Blake O'Neill punt to pin Utah inside its own 5-yard line.
In many ways, Michigan looked much the same as last year. Iowa transfer Jake Rudock turned it over three times (albeit with the blame for one pick seemingly falling on the shoulders of freshman receiver Grant Perry), the offensive line got handled more often than not, the running backs missed holes and the defense was strong but seemed to lack that extra oomph that is the difference between good and great defenses.
On the other hand, the offense executed a competent two-minute drill late (too little too late, of course, but still), the receivers got separation (and made plays even when they didn't separate), the corners looked strong and the run defense, like last year, was stingy.
The relatively cushy schedule helps matters, but there's a sense that Michigan will improve from here on out. It remains to be seen how good Utah actually is, but it's safe to say that they're a solid football team.
It might have been nice to catch Utah in Week 3 or 4 instead of right out of the gate, but such is the schedule. With that said, there is something nice about being thrown into the fire, in a tough road environment at altitude, and seeing how these guys adapt, from the head coach on down.
To a certain extent, they did just that. It wasn't enough, but for the first time in a while, Michigan looked like a real football team, despite its obvious limitations and still existing deficiencies, as seemingly disconnected as those two thoughts might seem.
When the clock rolled to zeroes last Thursday, the old sting was there: not dulled and lifeless, like it has been lately, like it was throughout most of the 2014 season.
It stung, like it mattered, like something worth feeling stung about.
Bullets
- Rudock. I have to say, his arm strength and accuracy seemed fine to me, except, perhaps, on the deep throws, when it seemed like his entire body weight was going into them, compromising accuracy. It's easy to be frustrated at the inability to connect on those deep shots, but let's not all pretend that those missed throws don't happen all the time, even to the best of quarterbacks. Sure, you'd like to connect on them, but they're tough throws for a reason.
- Missed opportunities. Again, Michigan's running backs seem to eschew following their blocking in favor of plowing into a thicket of interior linemen. De'Veon Smith's toughness is commendable, and his ability to turn a loss of 1 into a few yards is great when the line gets whipped. It's not so great when the line does its job and he misses a wide open hole to the left side, plowing ahead for a 4-yard gain that could have been a 10-plus yard play. At this point, I don't know that this is an area in which to expect improvement. The only back who has shown the ability to hit the hole? That would be Drake Johnson, but, of course, the sample size there isn't great, and then there's the whole knee injury thing...
- Linebackers. Despite Jake Ryan's at times undisciplined/unsound play at middle linebacker -- understandable, as he's not a MIKE linebacker -- he took with him something this linebacking corps lacks: explosion. Desmond Morgan and James Ross don't bring that except in thumping mano-a-mano stops on ball carriers, and Joe Bolden's game still seems to have a tinge of hesitation in it. The again, you look at the box score and see that Bolden led the Wolverines with 13 tackles (and added a TFL), so who knows. In any case, it'll be interesting to see if Blake Gedeon gets some run against Oregon State.
- Grant Perry. Minus the interception in which he didn't run the right route, I liked what I saw from the freshman. It's easy to shrug off preseason hype, especially for a true freshman, but Perry looked exactly like the guy we'd heard about: a move-the-sticks, possession type with sure hands. If he can work out the intricacies of the offense (and based on his high school career, he seems capable of doing so), he could be in store for a very nice freshman campaign.
- Harbaugh. Somehow, I made if this far without mentioning the guy. Strangely, I find myself not having much to say about his outing. I guess it's still strange to see him on the Michigan sideline, play cards fluttering to the ground as he grimaces like a madman.
- Tight ends. I don't need to say anything about Butt -- that guy might end up being the best tight end in the country. Ian Bunting, however, had a nice grab himself. Given his height, you'll continue to have people noting that he needs to add weight, which is probably true if he's going to present even a vague threat as a credible blocker. Still, though: the potential is tantalizing. Also, I suppose it's only fitting that the first touchdown of the Harbaugh era was reeled in by a tight end.
- Peppers. Okay, yes, he did straight up get beat in coverage once or twice in that first half. Chalk it up to nerves, luck, a bad play or two, whatever. Overall, his potential as a serious force in space was on display. A guy like that can erase mistakes and increase the defense's margin of error simply by virtue of his athletic ability. Very different plays, of course, but one screen blown up by Peppers reminded me of the Charles Woodson hit on a wide receiver screen against Baylor in 1997 -- not the same raw hitting power of the Woodson hit, but the burst and recognition were comparable. With that said, there's a long, long way to go before Peppers can in any way be compared to Woodson.
- Special teams. Not a bad outing. Peppers had a nice return late and O'Neill booted a nice one to pin the Utes deep. Also, they didn't give up a punt/kick return score, which is a sad but very real victory given recent history. Field goals could be an ongoing adventure, but really, in college football that will be the case more often than not.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
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.
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.
***
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.
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