[Bryan Fuller]

Michigan's home opener was supposed to look a lot like last year's Rutgers game. Instead, it more closely resembled last week's Florida game. While that was perfectly fine against a talented UF squad, it was far less so against an overmatched Cincinnati team that barely squeaked by Austin Peay last week.

The game began as expected. Ty Isaac churned out yards with ease, setting up a 43-yard Wilton Speight touchdown bomb to a wide open Kekoa Crawford on the opening drive. The defense held up its end, booting Cincinnati off the field in three plays. While the Wolverines went three-and-out on their ensuing drive, Tyree Kinnel got them back on track, picking off an overthrow from UC's Hayden Moore and diving into the end zone for a 28-yard pick-six.

Then things started going sideways. A short punt by the Bearcats bounced off Nate Johnson's leg, giving Cincinnati a first down on the Michigan 38-yard line. After a penalty kept the drive alive, Mike Boone squeezed his way in from a yard out for the first touchdown scored against the M defense this season. The next Wolverine drive stalled in the red zone, and Quinn Nordin's 28-yard field goal opened one of the uglier quarters Michigan has played under Jim Harbaugh.

Seemingly nothing could go right on offense in the second quarter. Speight fumbled a jet sweep handoff to Crawford to kill a promising drive. Tarik Black ran what, on review, turned out to be an 11-yard route on third-and-12 to end the next one. Speight winged a couple passes high, evoking bad memories of last week's second quarter.

Michigan didn't get a first-half point after Nordin's field goal with 14:03 left. The defense didn't give up any, either, but only after an interminable final drive by Cincinnati resulted in a 51-yard field goal sailing wide right. As the team ran into the tunnel, the fans were audibly displeased with the 17-7 halftime lead.

[Eric Upchurch]

The grumbling continued into the third quarter as Cincinnati took the kickoff and marched 85 yards in ten plays to cut the lead to three points. Michigan's next two drives went nowhere. What had been an annoyingly close game was becoming a potential nightmare.

Thankfully, Michigan woke up. With 3:01 left in the third quarter, Speight hit Grant Perry in stride on a crossing route, and Perry jetted through the Bearcats secondary and dove in for a 33-yard touchdown. Cincinnati could only threaten to score after that. Michigan's offense, meanwhile, piggybacked off some excellent running by Isaac to drive for a short Quinn Nordin field goal midway through the fourth quarter.

Luke Fickell handled the rest. On fourth-and-two from the Cincinnati 33, down two scores with seven minutes remaining, he called for the punt team. One yakety snap later, Michigan had a safety and the ball back, and the potential nightmare was over. The next UC drive ended after one play when Lavert Hill cut off a Moore pass, reversed field, and slipped inside the pylon for M's second defensive touchdown of the afternoon.

By pure box score standards, this game turned out well. Michigan outgained Cincinnati 414-200, dominated the ground game, and kept Moore under constant pressure. Speight, for all the complaining, completed 17-of-29 passes for 221 yards, two touchdowns, and no picks. Isaac seemingly cemented himself as the lead back with a 20-carry, 137-yard performance.

Still, it's difficult to shake the feeling of the middle two quarters, which were indisputably ugly. The offense has some issues to work out, especially in the red zone, where they haven't scored a touchdown since the wrongfully negated Crawford catch to open the Florida game. Next week, Air Force presents another overmatched opponent, but one that's tricky to prepare for because of their unusual schemes on both sides of the ball. If Michigan doesn't bounce back with a more authoratative win, the good feeling from the Florida game won't carry over to Big Ten play.

Cincy materials: Preview. FFFF Offense, Defense

dude, not right after I been Tuberville’d

Alright I gotta get this off my chest: this week has done wonders for my constant Cincinnati spelling bugaboo, but what the hell? There are three opportunities in this word to end a short-voweled syllable with a double-letter and yet they pick the least intuitive one. Why isn’t it Cinncinatti? Or Cincinatti? Why double up on one ‘n’ and not the other? Why waste the Roman George Washington’s name on a city in Ohio across the river from Kentucky? What does this have to do with an Asian viverrid? Why doesn’t the word viverrid have two v’s? Why hasn’t anyone told me about this 1971 television series before?

New features this week: Still saving it all for the new site. Enjoy the working liveblog from last year that works.

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FAQ:

The yellow/ orange bar is your mana. 
Sending messages costs mana. 
Messages cost more, the more active chat is. 
The red dudes on the side bar are lives remaining.

If you break the Board Rules, you lose a life. Lose three lives and you have to insert a quarter into your monitor. No no keep trying it, it’ll go in. As always, the Liveblog Chaos Mitigation Post is The Law.

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The link:

Enter here: http://kibitz.io/#/cincinnati

[Patrick Barron]

PUNT

By Bryan MacKenzie

Say you've built a giant killing robot, or a mechanized cyborg of some kind. Think 'Jaeger from Pacific Rim.' Or a Terminator. Perhaps a Voltron or Megazord of some kind. You build it to compete with other beasts of similar size and overall quality. Maybe you're taking on another robot. Maybe a giant lizard creature, or some sort of evil soulless monster. It doesn't really matter. Just say for the sake of argument that your giant robot emerges victorious in its first real battle, and exceeds even your most optimistic expectations. Congratulations to you and your entire engineering team. Job really well done, guys. Bravo.

Now, imagine that a week later you are asked to use that same giant killer robot to take on a new adversary: WALL-E.

You are suddenly presented with a new set of challenges, and some things that you might not even have thought about: can your giant lasers aim that low? Can your tracking system lock onto a target that small? How will my attempts at deception work against an opponent that is almost entirely incapable of reacting to stuff? And how do we judge how well we have done? Is 17 seconds a good time in which to crush an opponent like this? 

Look man, we built this thing to take on Sharkosaurus. And swarms of JoeBots. We never really put much design effort into a task like this.

You see both the dilemma and the lack of dilemma facing Michigan this week. How do you keep players motivated and focused, both during the week and during the game itself? How much do they pull out of the bag? How soon do the starters come out? Where is the line between "healthy competition" and "stop stop he's already dead?"

These are real considerations. But take a step back in your giant mechanized killing machine, and look at the bigger picture. Some things may be in doubt, but one thing isn't: WALL-E is gonna get crushed into, ironically, a pile of garbage. Maybe it's a 35-10 pile, maybe it's a 60-0 pile. But at a certain point, scrap metal is scrap metal.

That screen pass almost worked

From a pure football standpoint, it's hard to look at any aspect of this game and see even a hypothetical, "devil's advocate" argument for a competitive game. Cincinnati finished last year losing 7 of their last 8 games (by an average margin of nearly 18 points). They opened this year by getting outgained by an FCS team that had lost 47 of 48 games. Maybe WALL-E has a plasma cannon hidden in there somewhere... but I doubt it.

Michigan 52, Cincinnati 3

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COUNTERPUNT

By Nick RoUMel

Cincinnati has a lot going for it. It is the biggest, baddest, Rockem-Sockem Robot of all time. Cincy is the Iron Giant. Megatron. Dolph Lundgren from Rocky IV.

Cincinnati was originally named Losantiville. It was a major exporter of pork products. The German immigrants developed a product named “Goetta,” made of ground pork and pinhead oatmeal.

“Cincinnati Chili” is also a local food thing, a thin gruel-like concoction flavored with cinnamon and served over spaghetti with cheddar cheese. Skyline Chili is the iconic franchise that pioneered this phenomenon, in 1949.

The Ann Arbor School District opened Skyline High School in 2008. This was shortly after Bo Schembechler died, and there was strong sentiment to name the high school “Schembechler High.” The school board went with the safe pick, the same way that a large group always ends up settling for plain cheese pizza. I am always tempted to order a three-way when I visit that high school.

Cincinnati is also known as the Queen City. This is because the glam rock band “Queen” once performed a concert there at Riverfront Stadium, where Vontaze Burfict blindsided Freddie Mercury and was suspended for six games, yet also given a $38 million contract extension.

The city of Cincinnati is also the cradle of mediocre Notre Dame coaches. In 1980 the Irish stunned the football world by plucking Gerry Faust from Cincinnati Moeller High School. The bold experiment ended five years later, with Faust finishing 30-26-1. Former Bearcat coach Brian Kelly is in his eighth year at Notre Dame, with a 60-31 record and three bowl victories: Sun, Pinstripe, and Music City.

Other former University of Cincinnati coaches have performed better elsewhere. Mark Dantonio did well at Michigan State during the period the Michigan Wolverines temporarily suspended their football program; now he is content to lose with dignity. Tommy Tuberville and Butch Jones have also coached at UC; this year their new coach is former Ohio State assistant Luke Fickell. Michigan fans will remember Fickell from 2011, when he assumed head coaching duties for a year after Jim “The Little Penguin” Tressel resigned in the wake of scandal. That was the ONLY F*NG TIME MICHIGAN HAS BEATEN OSU IN THE LAST 13 YEARS.

You can see where I’m going with this. Yep, out to get a beer with my son in law.

IVAN DRAGO 35, C3PO 0

1 hour, 4 minutes

Beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see?

MGoRadio is recorded before a live retail audience audience at the Bo Store on Fridays before home games (and Thursdays nights at various locations before away games).

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The Sponsors

We can do this because people support us. You should support them too so they’ll want to do it again next year! The show is presented by UGP & the Bo Store, and if it wasn’t for Rishi and Ryan we probably would have real jobs.

Our other sponsors are also key to all of this: Homesure Lending, Ann Arbor Elder Law, the Residence Inn Ann Arbor Downtown, the University of Michigan Alumni Association, Michigan Law Grad, Peak Wealth Management, and Lantana Hummus

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After UFR: The Defense

starts at 1:00

So THAT’S how a 3-3-5 works. That play did not go well for Brandon Powell—Metellus can cover. Were we too positive about Devin Bush? About everybody? Were there any busts in the secondary? Is there literally anything to complain about?

After UFR: The Offense

starts at 18:00

Wilton was suboptimal but fine—you can tell why he’s starting over O’Korn. Nolan Ulizio got worked by the number one guy out of Wyoming. Important that the backs look good because you lost Ty Wheatley. Chris Evans for Michigan 2040!

Gimmicky Top Five: Places to Go on Gameday

starts at 37:54

How many 50-yard field goals per game would it take to get Ace to carve the Wild Thing into his hair? Come for the overpriced food, stay for the red hot beer takes.

Cincinnati Preview

starts at 53:31

It’s getting funky in here. So this is not a very good team. They have some good receivers and a decent defensive line. Their linebackers were decimated, the defensive backs bust spectacularly. What’s Alex Hornibrook with a less strong arm?They’ll dink ‘n dunk; Michigan should break some big plays. Kevin?

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MUSIC:

• “Every Empty Town”—Dear Noble Reader, which was the band of reader @WolverSwede and friends because we actually forgot to run it last week.
• “Wild Thing”—The Troggs
• “WKRP in Cincinnati Theme”
• “Across 110th Street”

THE USUAL LINKS

• Helpful iTunes subscribe link
• General podcast feed link
• Direct download link
• What's with the theme music?

Our campus tradition returns.

---------------------------------

The Sponsors

We can do this because people support us. You should support them too so they’ll want to do it again next year! The show is presented by UGP & Bo Store, and if it wasn’t for Rishi and Ryan we probably would have real jobs.

Our other sponsors are also key to all of this: Homesure Lending, Ann Arbor Elder Law, the Residence Inn Ann Arbor Downtown, the University of Michigan Alumni Association, Michigan Law Grad, Peak Wealth Management, Human Element, and Lantana Hummus

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Get down here! 333 S. Main, Ann Arbor.

Essentials

Overview

Michigan kicked off their 2017 campaign with an authoritative victory over a ranked Florida squad. Cincinnati kicked off their 2017 campaign with a narrow victory over Austin Peay, an FCS team that entered the year having won one of their previous 47 games. The Governors(!) outgained the Bearcats.

Tommy Tuberville left Luke Fickell in quite the hole. Fickell, who was accustomed to quite a bit more talent at Ohio State, will eventually get his program moving in the right direction, but this one is going to be ugly.

Run Offense vs Cincinnati

Cortez Broughton is a disruptive, undersized tackle.

The relative strength of this defense is the line, which returns most of the contributors from last year's #22 rush defense by yards per carry allowed. The standout up front is DT Cortez Broughton, whom Seth described as a "poor man's Mo Hurst" in this week's FFFF. He's got a quick first step that can make it tough to get hands on him off the snap; he's also 282 pounds, so getting hands on him should neutralize him.

Broughton isn't the only solid lineman. End Kevin Mouhon recorded 8.5 of his 9.5 TFLs against the run last year, and nose Marquise Copeland impressed Seth on film. The Bearcats should be relatively sound up front. Size could be an issue, however; neither DT cracks 300 pounds and both DEs are in the 250 range.

Once you get past that line, though...

Woof. The primary issue is a complete lack of linebacker-sized outside linebackers, or even competent hybrid types:

Handed a depth chart with one sorta experienced guy and one RS freshman, defensive coordinator/linebackers coach Marcus Freeman (yes THAT Marcus Freeman you incredibly old person) raided the safety ranks. His SAM is a total hybrid who’ll follow the slot receiver around if there is one, and that’s pretty typical in 2017. His WLB is…well his WLB is Jonas Mouton’s head on Brandon Harrison’s body.

MIKE Jaylyin Minor looked like Cincinnati's best defender last week. He could only make so much of an impact, however, because said Mouton-Harrison frankenbacker, Perry Young, was repeatedly exposed as a safety in way over his head at WLB. At 5'10", 205, Young is smaller than Cinci's actual hybrid space player, and if he's not running himself out of the play he should be a fun blocking dummy for the tight ends and pulling linemen. It doesn't get much better at the next level, either:

That’s the good safety—he knows where to go but gets there not-fast. He’s dead if blocked, and falls off a ton of tackles. The “bad” safety, Malik Clements (#4) is more athletic but more combustible. He was at fault for the wheel route touchdown, takes awful angles, and tends to get his face blocked off by Peay slot receivers (see the TD below). This stat boggles: he had 18 tackles in this game…2 solo. It’s more believable the fifth time you see him getting dragged on a guy’s leg.

While there will be some resistance at the line, Michigan will find plenty of room to run, and once they hit the second level some big plays are inevitable.

KEY MATCHUP: NOLAN ULIZIO and MIKE ONWENU versus BLOWING ASSIGNMENTS. Ulizio was the obvious sore spot on the line against Florida as a run-blocker as well as a pass-protector, but Onwenu also racked up a lot of negative plays against the Gators. Being in the right place at the right time is largely opponent-irrelevant, so against a team as overmatched as Cinci the main thing I want to see is a lack of obvious screw-ups up front.

[Hit THE JUMP for total annihilation]