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.

Shameless Self-Promotion Time (Michigan State)

Jake Ryan just drinkin' your milkshake, probably

Wellllllllll. 

As you can see, I did not rush the field. Clearly, this means I am a better human being and MICHIGAN MAN than all of those people (that was a joke). 

This week (!):

• Some thoughts on this past Saturday's throwback BIG TEN FOOTBALL GAME over at Maize n Brew. Did you know that it was a Big Ten football game? Because it was a Big Ten football game, and it was also Big Ten football at its finest (apparently). Petty snark aside, that was a great game to go to and I'm glad I went. Aside from that, if you're still in the trance of the RR era's siren song, beating a Big Ten rival 12-10 with Michigan's kickers going 4-4 on the day should just about snap you out of it. This defense and not-heart-attack-inducing special teams thing is kind of fun. In any case, Michigan is 5-2; not playing Alabama again surely helps, but the improvement in this team since that September 1st contest in Dallas has in fact been something to write home about. Barring a November collapse, Michigan can pretty much lock up the Legends division with a win in Lincoln this Saturday. That's a fairly crazy reality after Michigan's non-conference performance. 

Shameless Self-Promotion Time (Illinois)

(HT: Mike DeSimone) 

This week:

• I talked about the Illinois game over at Maize n Brew. Notes: Denard is awesome, Jake Ryan is awesome, the notion of "having a good defense" is awesome. Everything is about as awesome as it can be for a Michigan team currently sitting at 4-2. The B1G competition thus far hasn't exactly been fierce, and Michigan State doesn't appear to be quite as formidable as many expected them to be. Still, there are demons to be exorcised on Saturday; as such, I'm sure this will be the longest week ever. 

A Rude Welcoming

I'm a little bit late with the recap this week due to being in Ann Arbor/traveling for Thanksgiving (I know you've all been waiting with bated breath). So, here it is. Due to the nature of this week, I'm going to just go with bullets for this one. The threshold has been crossed; no longer should surprise or amazement be our most abundant response to anything that happens. We are good, and at minimum much better than we'd thought we'd be. What a concept.

• In MGoPodcast style, I'll start with the complaints, of which there are very few. First...student section. Why are you all so terrible? I spent my four years complaining to everyone that our student section was pretty lackluster in a number of ways, but I feel like this year they've* taken it to a whole new level. Saturday was the first time I've ever thought "Hey, maybe sitting with a down-in-fronter wouldn't be so bad." Yeah...that's how bad it was. It's almost as if Under The Lights happened and all the students assumed they had fulfilled their giving a crap quota for the season. The student section  had way too many empty seats around kickoff once again, for a big conference game that would net us our 9th win and assure our best regular season record since 2006. If I never see another brah waltz into the student section halfway through the second quarter only to complain that YOU'RE IN HIS SEATS BRAH COME AT ME AND MY BACKWARDS FITTED HAT THAT IS ASSUREDLY LIMITING THE BLOOD FLOW TO MY BRAIN...I'll be pretty happy. It's going to be strange not sitting in the student section starting next year, but I just can't deal with key-jingling morons anymore. I get that there's a pretty huge number of out-of-staters, international students, and other assorted folks that might not be hardcore fans, but man...you guys are terrible, and I thought you were bad before (2007-2011...ah, memories). 

          In short, you're not a student section, YOU JUST SUCK.

•   Other complaints, are, well...not existent? Well, the halftime show was weird, I guess. There's something to be said for trying new things but that was not really something that I would've wanted
  to see, but you know whatever. 

• Denard Robinson not throwing off of his back foot? Check? Putting the 2-QB set on ice for the game, thus allowing him to get in a rhythm? Check. Denard realizing that scrambling is a thing that he is allowed to do? Check. He has obviously had more prolific performances in the past but this game was one of my favorite performances of his just because of the fact that it represents a step toward the type of quarterback we know he can be. A day of 11/18 passing for 180 yards, 83 yards rushing, 4 touchdowns, and only 1 turnover...I can get behind that and so should everyone else. 

• Bo Jackson said that he felt like Cam Newton dropped down on Auburn from outer space...while the same can't exactly be said for Fitz Toussaint, his emergence on the field has been equally critical,especially vis a vis Denard's progression as a quarterback. He has now put up three superb games out of the last four, and with only Molk and Huyge departing after this season, the prospects for the running game are bright for 2012.

• Brady Hoke is secretly Les Miles without the absurdist flair. Don't fool yourself, the man is diabolical. That fake field goal was unbelievably perfect in its execution and timing. Let's hope this continues to be SOP.

• Odoms! I'm going to miss his play on the field. He's now scored in back to back weeks, and a touchdown against the Buckeyes would go a long way toward a fulfilling end to a great career. After that long touchdown I immediately thought back to the game-winning touchdown against Indiana in 2009 and smiled. 

• So apparently Mattison's slightly disturbing manboob jiggle is an exhortation to burninate whatever lays before the defense because that was amazing. Okay, Floyd got beat once deep. It was the first one all year and it happens. The second touchdown was on a very short field after Michigan went three and out starting from their own four yard line. Even Nebraska's field goal come on the heels of a Denard interception that led to the Huskers starting from the Michigan 34. After that they: 1) lost five on first down 2) incomplete pass on second 3) 6-yard pass on 3rd and 15. Otherwise, Michigan's defense throttled the Huskers when they weren't asked to defend a short field. This "happiness" feeling re: the defense is foreign but I like it. 

• Michigan's 2011 Takeaway Tour continues, with Jake Ryan, Terrence Robinson, and Cam Gordon all forcing fumbles. All were legitimate forced fumbles and not the cheap kind, only further underscoring the newfound commitment to special teams and tackling in general. A hat on the ball equals fumble a good amount of the time; Michigan's 2011 special teams is a testament to that fact. Michigan will need to continue that and kick/punt returners will have to keep holding onto the ball in order to prevent the Buckeyes from having a chance at some cheap short field points. 

• Another defensive note: Michigan held the Huskers to 3/13 on third down. The takeaways are great, but this is one of the more underrated points of improvement in this team. Try to think of all the times Michigan could not stop somebody on third down in the last several years; all those drives that once continued all the way to the end zone are now ending with a pathetic whimper.
• Gibbons? 

 Oh yeah. He was 1 for 2 on 42-yarders, which I will take any day of the week and twice on Sunday. I'm still conditioned to cross my fingers every time we attempt a field goal, but Gibbons has quietly had a very nice season. He's not Robbie Gould or anything, but as long as he can continue to hit most things inside 40 and do okay with the 40-45 range then we could consider him our most dependable kicker since Rivas...which, isn't saying much but dependable is dependable.

• Time of possession: Michigan 41:13, Nebraska 18:39. Okay, TOP doesn't mean anything in and of itself, and it's more a product of defensive and offensive efficiency than a directly causative relationship. In the five-course meal that is GOOD FOOTBAW, dominating TOP is a side like mac and cheese or mashed potatoes compared the entrees of takeaways, third down percentages, and rushing yards. Sides don't make a meal but they can certainly detract from it if they're not very good at all. Given Kovacs's comments on the subject after the game, it's obvious that the defense has in part improved because of the change in tempo, although how significant the effect has been is somewhat nebulous and unquantifiable.

Speaking of food...Maize and Blue victory sandwich

•   Nebraska fans seemed pretty cool. I didn't really actively interact with any of them but I didn't notice a single negative interaction between them and other Michigan fans all day. Their fans traveled well as expected, and while this will likely never become a bigger game than the triumvirate of evil that is aOSU, ND, and MSU, it will be a game to look forward to each and every year. Welcome to the Big Ten.

• Here are some more random stats if you need more random pieces of delightful information to make you feel happy. 

• I could say more, but frankly there's only one thing that matters right now...enough Nebraska talk. Beat Ohio.You may continue your regularly scheduled HATE WEEK programs.