Previously: Podcast 9.0A. Podcast 9.0B. Podcast 9.0C. The Story.

DOES THIS THING HAVE A DIFFICULTY LEVEL HARDER THAN "INSANE"

The Law of Harbaugh: it doesn't matter who your QB is

Jim Harbaugh is a kid sitting in a basement frustrated because Dark Souls is too easy. Sure, he crafted the first draft pick of any variety in San Diego history. He beat USC with a pottery major. He got Alex Smith a 70-million dollar contract. He nearly won a Super Bowl with a guy the league is currently passing over in favor of Stoney Case. (For bad reasons, admittedly.) And he turned an Iowa castoff into an NFL draft pick and in-demand trade bait:

All about the QB & 1 generating interest from GMs: #Lions QB Jake Rudock. Went 10 of 13 for 113 vs #Patriots. Teams tried to poach him in 16

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) August 27, 2017

Quarterbacks? Quarterbacks are easy. He has all the Quarterbacka Universalis IV achievements. Except one: take a quarterback recruited by Al Borges and have him finish his career as the starter. It's never happened. Never! Never ever ever. And no wonder. This Speight quote from last year only gets more boggling 12 months later:

"In their eyes, myself, David Cornwell, and this kid from IMG Academy Michael O'Connor are the best quarterbacks in the nation in this class."

Cornwell and O'Connor were both nowhere near the two deep before they transferred, Cornwell to Nevada and O'Connor to UBC. As in British Columbia.

The Borges achievement wasn't going to happen this time either, because John O'Korn was going to swoop in and gun-sling his way into our hearts. Then it did happen. Wilton Speight, a redshirt sophomore who played a chunk of the season with something deeply wrong with his collarbone, was the second-most efficient QB in the Big Ten, averaged nearly eight yards an attempt, and had a 18-7 TD-INT ratio. He's already the best Borges-recruited QB ever, easily outstripping Cam Coffman's 6.7 YPA (and subsequent move to TE) in 2012.

At this point I'm willing to see what the Harbaugh version of Denard Robinson looks like under center. Just in case.

[After THE JUMP: references marginally less dorky than EUIV!]

Previously: Podcast 9.0A. Podcast 9.0B. Podcast 9.0C. The Story 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008. Preview 2016.

THE JONZON CREW RULES SPACE AND TIME AND HATS

This happened so long ago that I don't remember why this daft idea came into my head. But the thing the daft idea spawned still exists and reminds me every Monday that I need to take the trash out. It has been part of my life probably about as long as my wife has. Longer. We go back, this thing and I.

It is a Kylie Minogue-seeded Pandora station. Kylie Minogue is an Australian pop chanteuse who was massively popular in the UK and Ireland about 15 years ago, about when I spent a summer in Ireland because it seemed like a good idea at the time. (Spoiler: it was a good idea.)

I am trying to get the station to play Korn. Because they both start with K, get it? I call it Kylie To Korn because I am an admirably direct person, or uncreative. I have checked that Pandora will play Korn, because God how disappointing that would be if I found out it wouldn't.

At this point I urge the reader not to get all judgy about the destination. Hearing Korn is not, say, beating Ohio State and then winning the national title. Hearing Korn is a disappointing experience for everyone except a very select and shrinking subset of aging nu-metal enthusiasts. Korn is no longer a band. It is an abstract concept. I mean this literally and figuratively. When you think about Korn think about a quixotic, meaningless quest that has become deeply embedded in your very being by sheer dint of longevity, and how it would feel if you finally reached the promised land. You wouldn't even hear the Korn. You'd hear Handel's Messiah.

I will not make a Hanson To Handel Pandora station.

I will not.

I made promises to people.

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you are and then you aren't [Patrick Barron]

Here's Michigan football a year after This Is The Year. Good news! It was pretty much the year, what with Michigan hogwalloping everyone they came across until a very weird, punter-focused night in Iowa City. If Kenny Allen hadn't gone on the fritz against Wisconsin, Michigan would have started the year by cruising to nine straight two-score-plus wins. Everyone got drafted. Multiple outlets have declared their 78-0 whomping of Rutgers one of the worst football games every played. Fancystats loved Michigan, and lo, they should have. 

Even after The Year ended with what can only be described as a wet fart, ludicrously optimistic predictions weren't actually far off. Their losses were by one point, three points (in double overtime), and one point, all more or less on the road, two of them with a severely damaged starting quarterback. Michigan went into Columbus and felt like the better team for 75 of the 60 minutes. Amidst this very cathartic feeling they suffered a cripplingly sad series of maximally-devastating setbacks that allowed OSU to escape their own stadium with a win, thereby obliterating the feeling. A few weeks earlier, Penn State blocked 75 different Ohio State kicks, punts, twitter accounts, cheerleaders, pieces of legislation, and novelty license plate holders to acquire a not-at-all dubious victory, because life is fair and everyone gets what they deserve.

FUCK!

Anyway.

What I'm trying to say here is that despite the brutal end to the season, Michigan was good as hell last year. They weren't good enough to survive their QB melting down or a referee rogering in Columbus or the absence of both Jabrill Peppers and the offensive line, but in a slightly different universe they were. One where Speight's a tiny bit more accurate or Darboh's a tiny bit better at catching passes a tiny bit behind him. And while it sucks so much that This Is The Year was a 10-3 jam—please see previous paragraph—if we can get past the, like, wins, man, we can see a deeper truth. Because wins are a social construction, man.

What's more important than wins, he said, sobbing softly onto his keyboard, is what Michigan looked and felt like once it became a Jim Harbaugh/Don Brown co-production. Harbaugh made the best possible hire at DC—college DC lifer with an insane track record and spread specialization—and followed that up by adding Greg Frey and Pep freakin' Hamilton at the same time he loaded Michigan to the gills with highly touted space cowboys who are not only highly touted recruits but also future astronaut doctors. Astrodocs. Whatever the technical term is.

This is a transition year between The Year and The Year, unless it isn't. They'll have to get lucky on a couple freshmen and one right tackle, but teams have been luckier. Just not Michigan.

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the author the first time a Nirvana song was available [Bryan Fuller]

Kylie To Korn is actually great fun. Pandora stations alter themselves when you thumb a song up or down. Down means you never hear it again; up means you hear it more and the song insinuates itself into the DNA of the station, pushing it more towards the thing you just approved. This is how one gets from Kylie to Korn. I made rules: I could not downvote a Kylie song, and once I thumbed something up I couldn't take that back.

The station is thus a map of how I got from Australian pop chanteuse to what is now a near-comprehensive 90s grunge station. "Lovefool" is on there, because at one point anything that sounded vaguely indie was a priority. So is something called "Space Cowboy" by somebody named The Jonzon Crew. I mean. The hats. Hell yes this was a good idea.

The main problem now is that the station is very good at playing stuff somewhere between great and tolerable but now I have to thumb stuff like Staind up as we try to stumble our way to... some Korn song. I literally could not name one. (Again, Korn is a metaphor.)

So here's the 2017 football season. As we work away from the Hoke-era-type substance, desperately thumbing up anything that looks like a functional offensive lineman, we reach a pleasant, if probably unsatisfying, plateau. Michigan has eight games they're going to be double-digit favorites in and four that will determine their year. One of them is going to be Nickelback—the thing does occasionally play Nickelback. We may have to not only endure a Staind song but feel like that song is not just past but prologue.

[Eric Upchurch]

Or maybe not. Look at that beautiful terror above. Michigan is still loaded in their front seven; they've got a Returning Harbaugh Quarterback. The roster is packed to the gills with blue chips. A freshman wide receiver might not suck. Capital-Y Years: there are going to be a lot of them coming up. It would be far from the weirdest thing in the history of college football if this was one of them.

Michigan test drives its new program in 2017. Flip on the radio. Every track could be the end of a journey that started with the Horror or a hot Australian lady, and ends with the most satisfying sports thing of your life. Or, yes okay, a Korn song.

It's a metaphor! Jeez!

Previously: Quarterbacks, Running Backs, Wide Receivers & Tight Ends, Offensive Line

OSU brings back their whole dang D-line. [Bryan Fuller]

Before Brian's previewpalooza begins this afternoon, let's get one more opponent position preview out of the way. Just like yesterday, Ohio State has the best group in the trenches; this time on defense, and this time there aren't any weak points to attack.

Details on the statistics used in this post can be found here; I've added Havoc Rate (the percentage of plays in which a defense or defensive unit recorded a tackle for loss, forced a fumble, or defensed a pass (intercepted or broken up) for the defenses.

1. Ohio State

The talent was already quite impressive last year and Ohio State doesn't lose a single contributor. The Buckeyes boast a group of four defensive ends—Tyquan Lewis, Sam Hubbard, Nick Bosa, and Jalyn Holmes—who would star on just about any team in the country; they'll even play all four at once on obvious passing downs. Lewis was the defensive player of the year in the conference last year; Hubbard is a great run defender who's still developing and Holmes is nearly as good against the run; Bosa looks very much like a Bosa. Incoming five-star freshman Chase Young looks ready to play but he's going to have a very hard time finding snaps.

Perhaps even more worrisome, from an opponent perspective, is that OSU still has plenty of room to improve at getting to the quarterback. Meanwhile, they were beastly against the run. Tackles Dre'Mont Jones and Robert Landers had really impressive debut seasons, and with the return of Tracy Sprinkle from injury Landers isn't even projected to start. They'll get an early-season boost when Michael Hill returns from suspension, too.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the list.]

Previously: Quarterbacks, Running Backs, Wide Receivers & Tight Ends

Isaiah Prince (#59) had a rough starting debut in 2016. [Bryan Fuller]

The opponent position group previews march on with a look at enemy offensive lines, which somehow may be in a worse state than the enemy quarterbacks. As you'll see from the advanced stats, which I've culled from Football Study Hall, no line Michigan faces this season finished in the top half of the country in both pass- and run-blocking—some were good-to-excellent at one or the other, but none were exceptional at both. That dripping sound you hear is the Michigan defensive line drooling uncontrollably.

You can find explanations for the advanced stats used in this post here.

1. Ohio State

Ohio State's worst line of the last few years still excelled at creating holes in the run game, especially behind the All-American interior duo of Pat Elflein and Billy Price. Elflein is the only departed starter; Price will slide over to center to take his place, and he'll be a favorite for the Rimington Award. While the interior may not be quite as strong without Elflein, an added year of experience for guard Michael Jordan (NTMJ), who started 13 games as a true freshman in 2016, and new starter Branden Bowen should keep the run-blocking strong.

The issue is pass protection. Ohio State couldn't keep JT Barrett upright last year, an issue that caught up to them in a major way when they faced Clemson in the playoff semis. Left tackle Jamarco Jones is solid, but right tackle Isaiah Prince was a disaster, and he's still in line to start. Bowen played limited snaps last year and didn't look great in pass pro. If Prince and Jordan don't take big steps forward, Barrett will be under fire on a frequent basis again this year.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the list.]

For 2017, instead of previewing conferences division-by-division, I decided to preview the 64 Power Five teams individually, so I ranked them and counted down from the bottom.

I created a ranking system based heavily off of Bill Connelly’s S&P+ rankings: half of the ranking comes from the S&P rankings from the past five seasons among Power Five teams (1/3 of that number is 2016’s ranking; 1/3 is the average from 2014-2016, 1/3 is the average from 2012-2016); half comes from two component parts of his 2017 S&P+ projections, weighed evenly – recruiting impact and returning production – and ranked 1 through 64. There is no subjectivity involved in these rankings and they skew towards emphasizing where the teams were according the 2016 S&P+. I think it serves as a decent way to sequence these previews.

Previously: #64 Purdue, #63 Rutgers, #62 Kansas, #61 Illinois, #60 Boston College, #59 Virginia, #58 Vanderbilt, #57 Syracuse. #56 Maryland, #55 Arizona, #54 Wake Forest, #53 Duke, #52 Iowa State, #51 Texas Tech, #50 Missouri, #49 Oregon State. #48 Arizona State, #47 Cal, #46 Indiana, #45 Kentucky, #44 West Virginia, #43 South Carolina, #42 Washington State, #41 Northwestern. #40 Minnesota, #39 Iowa, #38 Colorado, #37 Kansas State, #36 Utah, #35 Georgia Tech, #34 Nebraska, #33 Michigan State. #32 North Carolina, #31 NC State, #30 UCLA, #29 Mississippi State, #28 Oregon, #27 Arkansas, #26 Pittsburgh, #25 Baylor. #24 Oklahoma State, #23 Virginia Tech, #22 Georgia, #21 TCU, #20 Texas, #19 Tennessee.

(I didn’t include Notre Dame)

18.OLE MISS

#5 SEC West, #6 SEC

5-7 (2-6) in 2016

If you look at them in a particular way, Ole Miss might be the most intriguing team in the country. Over the summer, Hugh Freeze, the coach who’d built the program into a legitimate contender in the nation’s toughest division, resigned – even though the program was (and is) under NCAA investigation for alleged recruiting violations, Freeze was given the resign-or-be-fired ultimatum due to a pattern of calls to escort services that were found when his phone records were revealed as part of a lawsuit brought against the program by former coach Houston Nutt. Freeze’s sanctimoniousness was a cover for the probably pretty egregious recruiting practices that delivered unprecedented talent to Oxford; most predicted that he’d eventually have to leave Ole Miss, but the exact circumstances were a surprise.

In 2014 and 2015, Freeze’s Rebels upset playoff-bound Alabama teams (for the only two regular season losses the Tide had during those seasons) and made it to New Year’s Six Bowls themselves, but the program began to slip in 2016 – and then a rash of injuries caused the wheels to fall off. In two of the first three games of the season, Ole Miss gave Florida State and Alabama some competitive games before eventually succumbing to defeat; they crushed Georgia a week after the loss to Bama. Then they lost five of their last seven games, with one of the wins coming against a Sun Belt team, Georgia State. A five-touchdown loss to Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl wound up being Freeze’s final game.

His up-tempo spread offenses produced plenty of big plays, and even though the Rebels have a ton of turnover at the skill positions, there’s enough talent that they could still have one of the best offenses in the SEC. QB Shea Patterson lost his redshirt last season when Chad Kelly went down with an injury; the former five-star was an impressive if unrefined dual-threat weapon and played well in a road win over Texas A&M. Fellow blue-chippers are expected to step into bigger roles at RB, WR, and TE, as Ole Miss lost their top rusher and three of their top four targets in the passing game from 2016. The OL had a ridiculous amount of turnover throughout last season, but four starters return and the only new starter is LT Greg Little, one of the top recruits from the 2016 class. The Rebels also have one of the best specialist tandems in the country with K Gary Wunderlich and P Will Gleeson.

After the loss of several stars following the 2015 season, the “Land Sharks” defense fell off a cliff: in 2014, they gave up just 16.0 points per game; in 2015, it was 22.6; in 2016, they fell all the way to 34.0. Freeze hired a new coordinator before he was fired, as the Rebels have up at least 38 points in half their games. Their top tackler from last season, LB DeMarquis Gates, is back, as is excellent pass-rusher Marquis Haynes, but the talent level has dipped quite a bit over the last few seasons. Their new DC, Wesley McGriff, may move away from the aggressive 4-2-5 scheme that had become the program’s signature look on that side of the ball under Freeze.

Interim HC Matt Luke will have his work cut out for him. The program just lost a coach that had a winning record in SEC play. They self-imposed a bowl ban. There’s no guarantee that the Rebels’ season won’t be dead on arrival, with all the tumult surrounding the program. Patterson has star potential and there hasn’t been an exodus of transfers yet – Ole Miss could overachieve and pull an upset that recalibrates the playoff race. Their non-conference slate is very weak, but they face Alabama and Auburn each on the road in their first two SCE games. If those get ugly, the rest of the season could be a disaster. The range of potential outcomes is what makes Ole Miss so interesting: they have the talent to win games; they also could implode spectacularly.

17. TEXAS A&M

#4 SEC West, #5 SEC

8-5 (4-4) in 2016

Kevin Sumlin has coached A&M for a half decade, and while the Aggies have been at least decent throughout his tenure, the feeling that he peaked in his first season is inescapable. That was the year Johnny Manziel won the Heisman as a first-year starter; A&M lost just two games that season – close defeats to Florida and LSU – upset eventual national champion Alabama in Tuscaloosa, and obliterated a good Oklahoma squad in the Cotton Bowl. Since that 11-2 debut, Sumlin has gone 9-4 and then 8-5 three straight times. They’ve gone 15-17 in the SEC over those four seasons.

As mostly a consequence of their schedule structures, A&M has raced out to fast starts, climbing up the rankings (they’ve reached the Top Ten in each season of Sumlin’s tenure), only to collapse down the stretch. In 2014, the Aggies lost five of their last six SEC games; in 2015 it was four of the last six; in 2016, they lost their last four, including as decided favorites over Mississippi State and Ole Miss. They started last season unranked, and upset a very overrated UCLA team at home in OT to open the season; a crazy home victory over Tennessee in 2OT led to a matchup of undefeated teams the next week – and Alabama won easily over A&M. A bowl loss in Houston to Kansas State capped the disappointing finish.

Sumlin, perhaps more than any coach, is subjected to the unique dynamics that affect everybody in the SEC West outside of Saban: he’s very highly paid, has recruited well, has been moderately successful, and despite winning at least eight games in each season, fans are growing restless. The late season slides have grown to define the program under Sumlin, and his job security is perceived as tenuous. “Pretty good, but not elite” has started to read as “relative mediocrity” in the highly competitive division.

While his offenses haven’t been as good as they were with Johnny Football at the helm, Sumlin’s had some quality groups at A&M. There will be uncertainty this season though: the QB position is completely up for grabs with the departure of Oklahoma grad transfer rental Trevor Knight – any of Jake Hubenak (a senior former walk-on who backed up Knight) or freshmen Nick Starkel or Kellen Mond could win the job. They’ll have WR Christian Kirk, who’s one of the best return men in the country, and no other WR who caught more than a handful of passes a year ago. Sophomore RB Trayveon Williams will likely be the focal point of the offense; he had plenty of explosive plays out of the backfield last season and ran for 1,057 yards. Sumlin’s had some elite linemen at A&M, but will be breaking in a new left side of the line and doesn’t have that type of top talent in 2017.

Sumlin lured away John Chavis from Les Miles’s staff at LSU and that move has worked out perfectly for both parties: Chavis instantly improved the Aggie defenses and has blue-chip talent to work with – and he bailed from that sinking ship in Baton Rouge. He’ll be replacing top overall draft pick DE Myles Garrett (and a few other contributors, including the top two tacklers in 2016), but there are still some excellent players at each level of the defense: DT Zaycoven Henderson, LB Otaro Alaka, and box safety Armani Watts. They’ll have to find new pass rushers – JUCO DE Michael Clemons will have plenty of opportunity – and it should be solid defense once again

On the whole, 2017 looks to be more of the same for A&M. They’ll make a bowl and should get to at least seven or eight wins, but the schedule ramps up starting with an October game against Alabama and a trip to the Swamp the following week. There are enough questions on offense to put A&M squarely in the middle of the SEC West yet again: they’ll probably be able to beat the likes of Arkansas, South Carolina, and the Mississippi schools, but the ceiling is rather low.

[13-16 after the JUMP]

is the local pidgin for a phenomenon called

Draftageddon 2017: This Was Homer It Was Always Homer Edition

This is Part X. Let’s just get it over with and have some football.

Previously: Picks 1-10 (Hurst, Gary Speight), Picks 11-20 (Peters), Picks 21-28 (Cole), and Picks 29-40 (McCray, Mone) Picks 41-50 (Winovich), Picks 51-60 (Bredeson, Kekoa, Khaleke), Picks 61-70 (Evans, Kinnel, Bunting), Picks 71-80, Picks 81-90 (K.Hill, Solomon, L.Hill)

[Jump here if you want this, shaddup and scroll if you don’t]