2013 outback bowl

John O'Neill
Never attribute to malice what can be explained by a decade of John O'Neill. [Eric Upchurch]

Previously in this series covering the 2010s: Worst Calls of the 2000s, Favorite Blocks, QB-RB-WR, TE-FB-OL, Defensive Line, Linebacker, Secondary

We've put these in two sections for balance: five calls that went in favor of Michigan and calls against Michigan. Calls are being judged 75% on the level of ref boner, and 25% on situational relevance (e.g. if the most insanely bad call in history is overturned on review that gets a 7.5/10—also this happened). 

Specifically Omitted Non-Errors

The Spot. Unknowable: this was an impossible call that was bound to stick with whatever was called on the field, and what was called on the field could have been anything. Yes, karmically in the context of that game and cosmically for what it did to Harbaugh's program, The Spot is emblematic of factors outside of Michigan's control having an outsized effect on how we all feel today. It's also a coin-flip that the most competent line judge in the world would call that a first down. Complaining about The Spot is a bad look.

Canny Doale. Danny Coale's overturned completion in the Sugar Bowl is also left off the list. Here again is a call that infuriates the people at the business end of it because of the karma built up at that point by other calls. Also because the announcers didn't know the catch rule, which is a weird rule. VT fans stick around: you absolutely got screwed in this game.

It Wasn't the Refs. Calling the 2011 WMU game early because of weather does not make the list because that was an agreement between Michigan's and WMU's athletic directors, not the officials.

Correct. It was pointed out to me that Penn State fans are mad about the offsides on PSU's successful onside kick in the Coach Failtacular of 2014. I watched it again three times to be sure but it's not even close: he was offsides. Also not offsides: the final stuff of 2015 Minnesota, which complaint warrants mention only because it's why I named our segments with Steve Lorenz "Inside the Crooked Blue Line."

In Which Making the Incorrect Call Was Absolutely the Correct Call (2016 Rutgers)

You’re Rutgers, it's 57-0, Michigan is well into your territory again, and the only thing their fans haven’t gotten yet for their price of admission is to see the cannons fire. Since the offense responsible for giving the artillerymen cause has yet to record a first down, the chances of that aren’t great. Now, as they chant “Fire the can-non” the cannoneers' pride is the only hope of yours.

The third stringer’s in—the onetime “five-star” recruit everybody knows they’re planning to ship off to some directional MAC school. He got to throw a block last play, because everybody’s getting a career highlight at your expense tonight. The scrub now drops back to throw. There isn’t even play-action, is how little they respect you. But it’s low. There’s some commotion—pass interference? probably a pass interference flag—no, the ball’s ricocheted into the air. It’s going to be caught! OMIGOD that’s Deonte Roberts! Your GUY! He’s going to SCORE! TOUCHDOWN RUTGERS! FIRE THE CANNON!

BOOM!

Oh man, you gotta see the replay of that! It’s….oh, that bounced right of the turf. But it was right in front of that ref and he didn’t signal incomplete, so maybe he’s a competent human being who saw something you didn’t. And just like that…

call-reversed

it’s gone. Michigan then scores with a walk-on fullback. It's a great play by that guy. Probably a career highlight.

[After THE JUMP: Five times Michigan was bailed out, and otherwise.]

IT ALSO EXISTS

FORMATION NOTES: Michigan did a lot of that stuff the Redskins did in Tecmo Bowl, lining up in one formation and then changing everyone around. There were some oddities.

This I called "near twins." You can see that Kerridge is the nominal tailback and Denard is aligned to his left.

near twins

In the NCAA football games that constitute the closest thing to a Unified Internet Football Lingo Database this might actually be "far." I don't remember. Someone tell me which it is and I'll fix it going forward.

This was "full house near," what with the two fullbacks and Denard:

full-house neaer

And this is "I-Form offset tight":

i-form offset-tight

Michigan also ran a few plays where Schofield and Lewan were on the left side of the line with the tight end playing right tackle:

lewan-schofield-united

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: Gardner was at QB the whole way except for a few Denard QB plays, and often he was at WR when those happened. Denard was essentially the starting tailback; Smith came in and that was it at RB. Kerridge was full-time at FB.

The line was the usual save for one drive on which Lewan got knocked out; when that happened Schofield flipped to LT, Omameh slid over to RT, and Burzynski came in at RG.

WRs were the usual rotation heavy on Gallon and Roundtree with Dileo and Jackson filling in.

[AFTER THE JUMP: Gardner gets wobbly, Gallon owns people, Lewan vs Clowney verdict]

IT EXISTS

GENERAL NOTE: I am not doing the chart because of Michigan's uniformz. It was just about possible to tell white guys from black ones and big ones from small ones but an awful lot of the time I had no idea if a player was Beyer or Roh, Morgan or Bolden, Pipkins or Washington, Clark or Black. I noted this early but eventually I just started going "eh." I did do the plus minuses in the chart but adding them up is an exercise in futility that people will take as gospel in a year. Nope.

It's not going to be that exciting anyway. Because of the nature of the game the linebackers and linemen all had very few opportunities to even get +/- and the secondary just got destroyed. If you want to imagine it: Black and Washington are good, Campbell was bad, Wilson got destroyed, as did Taylor, Kovacs and Gordon are moderately negative, and all the linebackers get 0-0-0.

FORMATION NOTES: Michigan had some oddities going on but the exotic packages were kept to a minimum by their inability to substitute in the secondary and South Carolina consistently spreading the field. One thing of note was Michigan's frequent deployment of a 3-4, like so:

3-4-base

South Carolina was little threat to run—the starting tailback had 5 rushes for 6 yards and the only reason SC got anything on the ground was two Will Campbell busts on midline zone read plays—and Michigan used this to send four man rushes from a variety of angles. A GERG-like side effect was a large number of three- and even two-man rushes.

They did this a bit on passing downs. Note that the DT in there standing up is a linebacker:

nickel rush

As per usual I called this 3-3-5 nickel.

SUBTITUTION NOTES: Again because of the uniformz I'm partially guessing here. Mostly, actually. The line seemed to be the usual in four-man fronts but Michigan spent a big chunk of the game in that 3-4; when they did that it was Roh/Washington/Black as your first options on the line with Clark and sometimes Cam Gordon as the extra LB type. In the linebacking corps, Kenny Demens left early and never returned (probably), leaving Joe Bolden to pick up a ton of snaps.

The secondary lacked JT Floyd, of course, and Michigan responded by putting Avery and Taylor outside and really, really trying to avoid nickel packages. When they did run nickel—mostly on the last drive—they brought in Jarrod Wilson and shuffled Gordon or Kovacs down as the nickelback. This would end in disaster.

[After the jump: a big damn table and moaning about big plays.]