2012 northwestern

The answer to MSU's defense is a center as smart as Cesar [Patrick Barron]

Previously in this series covering the 2010s: Favorite Blocks, QB-RB-WR, TE-FB-OL, Defensive Line, Linebacker, Secondary, Worst Calls, and Dumbest Plays so might as well do the flipside.

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10. Martin and Van Bergen, Coaches at Large

2012 SUGAR BOWL

image

Football hmmm… [Eric Upchurch]

The press got word after the 2011 Ohio State game that senior DTs Ryan Van Bergen and Mike Martin had been given the green light by their coaches to make the line calls for each play, including when and how to stunt. That in itself wasn’t highly remarkable; the modern Michigan equivalent of RVB’s position, the Anchor, makes line calls for the defense today. The reason it goes down in the lore of these guys is they got so good at it.

They were also the two who lined up and dove into the A gaps to stop VT’s hurry-up 4th and 1 sneak, called the slant that got Frank Clark in to intercept a screen pass, and the slant that got Jake Ryan inside the tackle then chasing inside out on the ensuing rollouts. RVB was doing it on a broken foot too.

-Seth

[After THE JUMP: Glasgows be here]

keeping wildlife, um... an amphibious rodent, for... um, ya know domestic... within the city... that ain't legal either [Bryan Fuller]

Previously in this series covering the 2010s: Favorite BlocksQB-RB-WRTE-FB-OLDefensive LineLinebackerSecondary, Worst Calls.

We were in the midst of assembling our list of best and worst plays from the last decade of Michigan football when someone suggested that a particular incident wasn't really bad or good, but was spectacularly dumb. Someone suggested a list of smartest and dumbest plays of the decade.

It will not shock the reader that assembling the list of the most stupefying things was far easier than best, worst, or smartest. Our top ten has 11 plays in it because we remembered something halfway through. It was that kind of decade. A stupid, stupid, stupid decade.

11. Any Play Against A Service Academy, Let's Pick This One

2019 ARMY

This was an RPS -2 play that set up a touchdown for Army but it's the vibe, man. The vibe.

Michigan did this three times! They signed up to play a bunch of maniacal option fanatics three times over the past decade so they could do a bunch of military frippery pre-game. I hope those dudes parachuting into the stadium was worth three hours of bowel-clenching terror, because that's what every one of these games was.

Last year's Army game noses ahead of the two Air Force outings because it was significantly more terrifying, a game that went to overtime even with the aid of Don Brown's "MOVE" false start. Also this was the year after Army took Oklahoma—Kyler Murray Oklahoma!—to overtime, and happened mere weeks before Michigan cancelled a home and home series against UCLA.

The Black Knights had embraced the tao of option fully by going for it on any plausible fourth down. This happened four times in regulation, each of them another twist of the knife. Michigan spent the game running basic inside zone and never running the split zone play their QB ground game was built on. Michigan scored 14 points in regulation; a few weeks later Tulane would put up 42 on Army.

Every single second this was happening every Michigan fan was thinking "why are we doing this again?"

-Brian

[After THE JUMP: a journey into the heart of dorfness]

[Bryan Fuller]

When you get a prompt this good, you use it.

As we've covered this week, Pat Fitzgerald has everything going for him to be difficult to dislike—local kid returns to alma mater in time of turmoil, runs a program that's historically bad, is funny and charming in press conferences when he's not saying batshit stuff about RPOs and communism, etc.—and yet, when you see him on the opposing sideline, it becomes pretty easy to find the guy obnoxious.

The feeling can be acute when Northwestern is unexpectedly winning and Fitzgerald goes full-blown cheerleader. Which is fine. It's fine. I'm not mad. This didn't bother me at all after one of the more miserable opening quarters in recent memory.

Definitely not mad, he said, while squeezing the remote until the battery case snaps.

Anyway, we never have to stay mad at Fitz for long, because his teams always find a way to gack it away to Michigan, usually in exceedingly comical/painful fashion.

[After THE JUMP, one man's emotional rollercoaster.]