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At the end of fall camp.

This is not content, and not sponsored. It's just a personal and charitable note.

So as many of you know, my six-year-old was hospitalized for 4.5 weeks this past summer with Miller-Fisher (no relation) Syndrome, a type of Guillain-Barré, meaning his immune system decided to eat away at his nervous system. Five months later, he is doing GREAT—as in other than running kind of like Devin Mockobee you'd never know anything happened to him. We have a follow-up with neuro this Friday with nothing but good news and a full recovery in sight.

I bring it up now because a lot of people also asked what they could do to help. The answer is most of the heavy lifting was already done by the incredible nurses, doctors, and staff at Mott Children's Hospital. I've been wanting to do something to pass this gratitude along, and the best thing I could think of was to donate toys to Child Life Services at Mott. You can do this with a Michigan player (and get an autograph for your troubles), or just go on Amazon and send something off the list, choosing the Mott Community Relations address at checkout.

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[Details at THE JUMP]

Will JJ McCarthy... BECOME SHEA PATTERSON? [Bryan Fuller]

Yesterday I answered a number of your burning questions for our summer mailbag, but there were enough good questions and enough long answers to break this into two pieces. Today we tackle the remaining questions I liked, starting with good old fashioned QB PARANOIA: 

 

Is there any reason to fear (sorry for being paranoid) JJ regresses like prior QBs in year 2 starting under Harbaugh given recent history? (-yoyo)

This question has been in the back of my head for some time, so let's take a look at the evidence about QB "regression" under Harbaugh. Harbaugh has had the following QBs return for a second year at the helm of the offense during his time at Michigan: Speight 2017, Patterson 2019, McNamara 2022 (Cade doesn't count as a returner for 2021 because he obviously didn't play enough in 2020). That's an extremely short list to begin with. You always have to be careful with concluding that something is a pattern based on the evidence when the sample size of evidence isn't large, but let's break it down based on our three player sample size. 

Speight in 2017 was definitely a case of regression, if we're comparing him to his pre-injury 2016 self. But I'm not sure how much regression there was compared to the post-injury 2016 Speight, who was also not particularly spectacular. He threw two pick sixes against Florida to start 2017, okay, well let me tell you about some interceptions he threw against Ohio State in 2016 (*ducks*). For me the story of Wilton Speight's career was the injury and how much it changed him. Before the '16 Iowa game, Speight had an average passer rating of 158.0 in the 2016 season. From Iowa through the Orange Bowl, his rating was 97.6. In 2017 up until his second injury against Purdue, Speight had an average rating of 121.9. He wasn't the same player he'd been in early 2016, but 2017 looks like a mere extension of late 2016. Does that qualify as "regression" overall? I'm not so sure. 

With Shea, I would say that his 2019 year was worse than 2018, though perhaps not dramatically so. His Y/A and TD/INT ratios were nearly identical, but a lower completion percentage. Shea was a bit worse in '19, but it felt so much worse because we'd been expecting significant improvement. He didn't make a leap, he instead got a little bit worse. Again, perhaps not massive "regression" but definitely not good either. Finally, with Cade in 2022, it's a very small amount of tape to go off of because McNamara was only playing parts of the first couple games before getting injured. He wasn't very good, but it's not like he'd been a worldbeater previously, and again, we're talking about 25 total throws that Cade attempted before injury. Not a whole lot to speak of and I think the best way to phrase this example is "incomplete" due to insufficient evidence. 

So what are we left with? One case of mild regression and two players who were not great, with injury mixed in and who didn't make it out of September of that next season healthy. If anything, this review of the examples should make you more terrified about an injury to JJ than regression, because that is anecdotally what tends to happen more often. But as for "regression" itself, I don't know. People can be as paranoid as they want, but I tend to think that the Shea regression was due to questionable work ethic (the infamous golfing remark) than something fundamentally wrong with the coaching. JJ on the other hand seems dedicated and a hard-worker. He's also younger than Shea, 20 during his returning starter season vs. 22 for Patterson, which perhaps means there's more physical upside to tap into that could mitigate any potential regression. I guess the long way of looking at this is it's a possibility but I wouldn't rate it as a super high one and using the past as a guaranteed roadmap for the future is only so useful with only three examples to go off of. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: deep threats, hot dogs, bowl games, and non-revenue sports]

Why is it called an upset when it makes everybody happy? [David Wilcomes]

[Editor's Note: John Morgan, aka L'Carpetron Dookmarriot, has been putting together front-page quality previews over Michigan Lacrosse's incredible run and posting them in the diaries. If you're new to the sport, this primer is still mostly relevant. –Seth]

THE ESSENTIALS

WHAT #9 Michigan (10-6)

vs #1 Duke (14-2)
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WHERE Casey Stadium

Albany, New York
WHEN Saturday, 2:30 PM
THE LINE BetMGM: Duke-3.5
TELEVISION ESPNU

OVERVIEW

In my preview of the Cornell game, full of references to historic battles, Homeric epics and West Coast hip-hop, I wrote that Michigan’s lacrosse odyssey had finally and fittingly brought them to Ithaca (get it?!? English major over here!). And then in their first NCAA tournament appearance, Michigan played the greatest game in program history and capped it off with a classic sudden death winner. However, The Odyssey doesn’t end with Odysseus simply debarking in Ithaca. No. There’s more work to be done.  And now for Michigan it’s back to the Empire State to Albany where they get the #1 seed.

And the wild ride is about to get wilder.

Michigan is riding a five-game winning streak right now, three in a row over top-10 opponents and is probably the hottest team in the country. Going into the season finale against Ohio State, a team that was ranked ahead of them at the time, Michigan’s fate was very unsettled. The Wolverines were a bubble team that needed more wins to keep their NCAA hopes alive. Then they crushed their rival Buckeyes and did it again the following week in the B1G tournament to firmly end their season. In the B1G semis, Michigan played a tight first half against Penn State and then turned it on and dominated the second half. They kept that momentum going by blowing the doors off of national champs Maryland in the conference final. Then they upset Cornell in an all-time tournament thriller.

When underdogs go on a run like Michigan’s, people often ask “When is their luck going to run out?”. But if you’ve watched this team play the last month, you know that luck has had little to do with it.

[Hit THE JUMP for more of the preview]

I talked to my friend who went to Illinois and he had to burn his degree after they let in Shannon. They all lost their jobs too.

i know you're really just here to read what BryMac has to say about gymnastics

Recap the triumphs and failures of Michigan's fall sports seasons

HEY, EYES UP HERE!