clock management

it was over when [Patrick Barron]

11/12/2022 – Michigan 34, Nebraska 3 – 10-0, 7-0 Big Ten

We have acquired First World problems. My main thought while observing this game was "I wish these guys were more interesting." An injury to the opposition's starting quarterback is now a negative. From Michigan's first snap it was clear that if they wanted to they could grind Nebraska into paste without throwing a single time. One Michigan possession started out with consecutive deep balls; that felt like when you get bored playing a video game and try to up the difficulty level by doing something absurd and unnecessary.

When I was a youth playing Tecmo Super Bowl you'd do this by picking Tampa Bay. Tampa had one incredible defensive back, Mark Carrier, and nothing else. The most viable strategy deep into the season when things got harder was to build your offense around running QB Vinny Testaverde six yards at a time. (For the youth, this is like building your offense around running Tom Brady, if Tom Brady only ever said "it'sa me, Vinny Testaverde." This would be a strange thing for Tom Brady to say, but it was just as strange when Vinny Testaverde won the Heisman (seriously! look it up!) and his acceptance speech was merely that. (Don't look up that part.))

Anyway, if you ran ol' Vinny too much he'd get tired and would inevitably fumble. Sometimes he would die.

So you'd have to carefully balance the only thing that would get you yards with not getting any yards at all. This probably sounds familiar to Chubba Purdy.

In the past we have theorized that the world is a simulation, and that it is the worst of all possible simulations: an Akron teenager's NCAA Football save in which he is taking Ohio State to a million national championships in a row. Now we must reconsider. It is possible that the simulation is someone who is bored with his game and is trying to see if he can beat Michigan with Gavin Wimsatt, Chubba Purdy, Spencer Petras, or Peyton Thorne. The answer is no. God no. Hell no.  Play a different game.

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Michigan has now reached the tier of college football teams where their games are largely ignored because they are not interesting. Alabama is playing Mizzou, you say? Ohio State is up against Michigan State? Georgia is playing… uh… the #1 team in the country? Pass, I have better things to do than watch a heavy favorite sit on someone for four hours.

For the neutral viewer Michigan is at least offering up some moderately competitive first halves, but the methods via which they have to do so are increasingly outlandish. Then the third quarter has been ritual sacrifice. For years and years and years Michigan has been the sort of heavy favorite that you always pay attention to because about 40% of the time they get into a game against a team that was supposed to be sat upon, and fairly often they'd actually lose. Michigan was worth your time, because they were good but not boring good. They were schadenfreude good.

This was an emphatic statement that no, you do not have to watch Michigan games against 30-point underdogs anymore. The method via which Michigan chooses to sit upon the opponent is literal. You will not get any whizbang long touchdowns. Every play will be a run that gains somewhere between four and twelve yards. The red hat will come on the field at some point for touchdown-commercial-kickoff-commercial because one Michigan drive ate up eight minutes of the quarter.

Variance has been banished. Players have been sat down for ever-more esoteric injuries because Michigan can throw out eight functional offensive linemen. Blake Corum's largest Heisman hurdle may be an inability to keep neutrals awake for his 28th carry of five or more yards.

It is all very relaxing, football as a Caribbean vacation. We are permitted to save up our panic for the terminator at the end of the schedule.

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

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bro [Patrick Barron]

you're the man now, dog-2535ac8789d1b499[1]

#1 The Offensive Line. Can't really give this to Corum when CJ Stokes, Tavierre Dunlap, and Isaiah Gash all got in and looked kinda like Blake Corum while continuing to brutalize the Nebraska defense. A couple of pass protection hiccups do not override what was probably the worst ass-kicking delivered to a conference opponent since the Big 2, Little 8 days.

#2 Mason Graham. A sack, another hit on the QB that caused an incompletion, a ridiculous split of a double team, and two other solo tackles as a DT, with limited snaps, against a team that couldn't stay on the field. That is a massive amount of impact. True freshman, somehow. Going to be incredible.

#3 Blake Corum. I mean… yeah. Do you know how hard it is to average 5.8 YPC with a long of 12? That's insane.

Honorable mention: CJ Stokes made the most of his eight carries, displaying a Higdon-like ability to get vertical and make good cuts. Mazi Smith and Kris Jenkins both whooped up on Nebraska DL. Andrel Anthony didn't do a whole lot but did rescue a touchdown. Ronnie Bell managed a bunch of yards even in this game.

KFaTAotW Standings.

(points: #1: 8, #2: 5, #3: 3, HMs one each. Ties result in somewhat arbitrary assignments.)

43: Blake Corum (#2 CSU, #2 Hawaii, HM UConn, #1 Maryland, #2 Iowa. HM Indiana, T2 PSU, #1 MSU, T1 Rutgers, #3 Nebraska)

23: The Offensive Line (#3 Iowa, #1 PSU, HM MSU, #3 Rutgers, #1 Nebraska)

21: JJ McCarthy (#1 Hawaii, #2 UConn, HM Maryland, HM Iowa, #3 Indiana, HM PSU, HM MSU. HM Rutgers)

17: Mike Morris (T3 Hawaii, HM Maryland, #1 Iowa, T1 Indiana, #3 PSU, HM Rutgers), Ronnie Bell (HM CSU, HM Hawaii, #1 UConn, #2 Indiana, HM PSU, HM Nebraska)

15:  Kris Jenkins (#3 UConn, T3 Hawaii, HM Iowa, T1 Indiana, #2 MSU, HM Rutgers, HM Nebraska)

14: Mazi Smith (#1 CSU, T3 Hawaii, HM Maryland, HM Iowa, HM MSU, HM Nebraska)

9: Donovan Edwards (HM Hawaii, T2 PSU, T1 Rutgers)

8: Mason Graham (HM Hawaii, HM Iowa, HM Indiana, #2 Nebraska)

7: Gemon Green (HM UConn, T2 Maryland, HM PSU)

5: DJ Turner (T2 Maryland), Junior Colson (#3 CSU, HM UConn, HM PSU), Luke Schoonmaker (T3 Maryland, HM Iowa, HM Indiana, HM MSU), Michael Barrett (#2 Rutgers).

4: Eyabi Okie (HM CSU, HM Iowa, T1 Indiana),  Jake Moody (HM PSU, #3 MSU).

3: Derrick Moore (HM CSU, T1 Indiana), Jaylen Harrell (HM CSU, T1 Indiana), Rod Moore (HM CSU, HM Indiana, HM MSU)

2: Roman Wilson (HM CSU, HM Hawaii), Max Bredeson (T3 Maryland), Joel Honigford (T3 Maryland), Mike Sainristil (HM Maryland, HM Indiana)

1: Braiden McGregor (HM CSU), Makari Paige (HM Hawaii), Rayshaun Benny (HM Hawaii), Cornelius Johnson (HM Hawaii), , AJ Henning (HM UConn), Caden Kolesar (HM UConn), RJ Moten (HM Maryland), Will Johnson (HM Rutgers), CJ Stokes (HM Nebraska), Andrel Anthony (HM Nebraska).

Who's Got It Better Than Us(?) Of The Week

God, who can tell when every offensive play is a run somewhere between 4 and 12 yards? I don't know, you pick one.

Honorable mention: Ronnie Bell gets Michigan a Rube Goldberg touchdown. Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant flash next year stuff. More runs from between 4 and 12 yards.

image?MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

Back to back attempted deep shots fall incomplete, mildly annoying people concerned about the outcome of this game and delivering a deep-seated paranoia to people focused on what happens against Ohio State.

Honorable mention: The other deep shots that fell incomplete. DJ Turner gets hit with a deep shot, see above about OSU paranoia. Officials blow a very obvious roughing the kicker penalty. Late half clock management is abominable.

[After THE JUMP: Redzone encouragement]

Pasted image at 2015_10_13 02_19 PMSponsor note. I tailgate, but I do not set up tailgates. They are a large undertaking. If you are daunted by such an undertaking, Tailgater Concierge can take care of all that for you. They'll reserve you a space, set up chairs and tables and silverware, and grab whatever food you desire.

Then they clean it all up afterward so you can be inside the stadium before Grapentine asks the band to take the field. They have spots at Pioneer right across from the stadium for maximal efficiency and real bathrooms. If you've got a corporate event they can take a load off your mind, as well.

They're coming. They're wearing gorilla suits and transformer heads.

You can also check out this guy's Oreos review.

YOU DON'T SAY. The infinite anger machine can take slight at anything, including "people looking at football":

We'll see how much that chip helps against Jim Harbaugh.

Breaking down the beast. PFF takes a look at Michigan's "terrifying" defense:

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this defensive run isn’t the results, but the grading at the heart of it. Of 26 players that Michigan has used on defense this year just two of them have a below-average grade, and none is worse than a -1.8, which is still closer to average than disastrous.

16 of those 26 have strong positive grades and of the players that are left, five of them have played fewer than 20 snaps. In fact, the Wolverines have just one player on defense that has played 100 or more snaps and doesn’t have a significantly positive grade.

They include a number of illustrative graphics as well:

They are happy to leave defenders in man coverage and attack with overload blitzes up front, and that too happens with speed, but watching any time Northwestern tried to gain the edge against this team was an incredible display of hustle by the Wolverines.

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Take the play above, which was not in any way held up or delayed. A simple option trying to stretch the defense and the running back ends up facing five separate defenders all converging on him behind the line of scrimmage. That should not happen, and does not happen with most defenses. There wasn’t even a catastrophic breakdown in blocking assignments to create it. The Wolverines just read, diagnose and attack the football like a pack of hungry dogs chasing after a wayward ribeye steak.

There is much more; strongly recommend you read the whole thing.

A slight difference. Brian Fremeau's stats site has game-by-game breakdowns in which he assigns point values to all three phases of the game. For example, against Utah the offense was –6.2, the defense –1.8 and the ST +1.0. These aren't schedule adjusted, they're just trying to explain where the final margin came from.

I particularly like Fremeau's special teams numbers in this department because he takes field position into account for field goals and punts and the like—his stats are going to understand that a 32-yard punt that ends at the 3 is a good thing. Also, SOS isn't a huge factor on special teams.

Shall we review this year versus last year?

2014

Wk Opponent ST
1 Appalachian State 5.3
2 Notre Dame -5.2
3 Miami (OH) -1.3
4 Utah -9.5
5 Minnesota -4.1
6 Rutgers -0.4
7 Penn State 3.5
9 Michigan State 3.8
10 Indiana 1.8
11 Northwestern 6.8
13 Maryland -3.1
14 Ohio State -1.7
  TOTAL -4.1

2015

Wk Opponent ST
1 Utah 1
2 Oregon State 4.2
3 UNLV 1.7
4 BYU 3
5 Maryland 5.9
6 Northwestern 10.6
  TOTAL 26.4

Much of Michigan's positive value last year came on a blocked punt that Gedeon returned for a TD against Appalachian State. I'm not actually sure what Michigan did to get solidly above zero midway through the season other than blocking a Northwestern field goal. Best guess is that the punting was good and they didn't give up big returns for that section of the season.

Anyway: things are different now.

Goodbye to The Head Ball Coach. Steve Spurrier was and is a living avatar of college football and why it's so awesome. He ran up the score, he bombed people in press conferences after, he talked like a human. He simultaneously had all and no chill. He was college football's Roger Sterling. In the aftermath of his departure people collect his best lines

7. On a fire at the Auburn library that destroyed 20 books: “The real tragedy was that 15 hadn’t been colored yet.”

…and even those who hated him admit that he was pretty awesome. Spencer on Spurrier is required reading:

Another coach Spurrier liked to tweak later in his career was Nick Saban, someone Spurrier would point out had taken the Alabama and LSU jobs.

"If he wants to be the greatest coach or one of the greatest coaches in college football, to me, he has to go somewhere besides Alabama and win, because they've always won there at Alabama."

You could take favorable jobs as a bad coach and look okay, or take great jobs as a good coach and look orders of magnitude better than you might actually be.

Spurrier, in contrast, took the Duke, Florida and South Carolina jobs, jobs that were garbage scows before he arrived. He won at all three, in biblical fashion — the Old Testament Bible, where locusts ate your crops, lightning blew up your houses, and your village was flattened by a tidal wave before your rescue boat was swallowed by a whale. He drew the ire of illiterate nanny-take pissmerchants like New York columnist Mike Lupica, who accused Spurrier of running up the score, whatever that means.

Hard to imagine the HBC existing in any other sport. I plan on sleeping well past Gameday but if you want to do me and college football a favor, it would be pretty awesome to see a Hatin' Ass Spurrier sign.

What are you even doing? BC Interruption breaks down the ludicrous ending of their 3-0 loss against Wake Forest. After recovering a fumble on the Wake Forest 11 with 56 seconds left. BC ends up with first and goal, 29 seconds left on the Wake Forest 1:

0:29 left, 1st and goal from the Wake Forest 2.  108 seconds after the possession began.

Because the play wasn't communicated to the team, BC huddles and as Chris Berman would say "tick..tick.tick".  The Eagles break the huddle and with everyone in the building screaming at them to hurry up snap the ball some 11 seconds after the ball was marked ready for play at the 18 second mark.  The game was essentially down to one play.

Result:  Rouse runs the ball into the A gap on the right side.  The play is blown up and Rouse does not even quite make it back to the original line of scrimmage.  The whistle is blown with 12 seconds remaining on the clock.

From 29 seconds with a stopped clock for a first down, BC gets one play off. That reminds me of you know who. At worst BC should have been able to spike the clock and then take two shots on pass plays before a do-or-die fourth down (or, knowing Addazio, a chip shot field goal).

Just brutal. Everyone needs a Madden 14 Year Old Assistant.

On joking about problems that turn out to be serious. I am frequently bothered by the rush to condemn people on twitter with egg avatars who have terrible opinions. (Exception: "Denard Robinson is not a QB" eggs during his tenure at Michigan. You people can go straight to hell.)

When something like CC Sabathia entering rehab transpires there is inevitably a flood of righteous tweets that seem directed at Mike Lupica columns from 1980 that do not in fact exist. These are designed to acquire twitter status, which is the worst status to have. I do not give twitter points to people for not having awful opinions, or pointing out that other people should not have awful opinions. You get none of my points. You are wasting everyone's time.

This just came up in college football when Steve Sarkisian's alcohol issues went from an odd but isolated incident to a scary pattern, and I think Ryan Nanni hit exactly the right tone in response:

I think we make these jokes because we see these as isolated ncidents of failure, like laughing at a friend who busts his ass on an icy sidewalk or has a soda explode when he opens it. Steve Sarkisian getting drunk at a booster dinner is funny, in isolation, because it's wildly unexpected. Placed in the larger context of what appears to be fairly serious alcohol problem? Now I just feel like an asshole for that throwaway tweet, laughing and pointing at someone who's grappling with a disease that sent over a million American adults (and another 73,000 adolescents) to treatment in 2013.

This isn't me putting on my Joke Police badge; one of the fundamental aspects of EDSBS is that we write what we think is funny, even if other people don't, and that's fine. Declarations that something is or is not humorous are as tiring as they are useless. It's like claiming shrimp is poison because you have a shellfish allergy. You can still think Steve Sarkisian coaching the Arizona State game under the influence is really funny, and I'll disagree with you.

Back when the Brendan Gibbons thing was going down there were a number of commenters who yelled at me because I didn't make the prescribed statements about how rape is awful. I don't do that because it's obvious and I don't need to polish my wand in public. If you demand someone else do it it's probably because you're not as great of a dude as you want to make everyone think you are.

Injuries. Injuries will be a major story for the game. Michigan has a banged-up running back corps, with De'Veon Smith missing the Maryland game and both Smith and Johnson limited against the Wildcats. Joe Kerridge missed the two games before Northwestern but seems fine now. Channing Stribling has missed the last two games but should be ready to go against the Spartans:

"It was longer than a one week (injury)," coach Jim Harbaugh said Monday. "He was very, very close this past weekend. He could've played, but we thought it was more prudent to not play him.

"I do (expect he'll play Saturday)."

Michigan is also down Bryan Mone and Mario Ojemudia for the year. They will also be without James Ross for the first half—and in MSU Michigan finally plays a team they want to run a bunch of 4-3 against.

MSU has a slightly longer list of the wounded, most importantly on the offensive line. Backup LT Dennis Finley is done for the year. Jack Conklin hasn't played in two weeks; he was available in an "emergency" against Rutgers but it's kind of hard to imagine what that emergency could have been that didn't see him on the field late. That's because Kody Kieler tried to give it a go but had to leave, and very late center Jack Allen took a nasty hit from the side that knocked him out of the game.

Anywhere from zero to three of those guys will be available; I'm guessing that both tackles suit up and at least try to play. Allen is a much murkier proposition. Some dubious twitter rumors held that he was done for the year but in that case you'd probably have confirmation from the program, and from students on campus who spot the guy in a cast or something. I wouldn't lend those much credence.

Changing some minds. Inside NU's podcast covers the Michigan game this week, and they kick it off by talking about how the atmosphere inside the stadium greatly exceeded its reputation:

There's a lot of interest to M fans until about the 25 minute mark, when they turn the page to Iowa.

They also have an article up from a former Northwestern linebacker detailing the various things that went wrong. I'll address it in more detail in UFR; you can read it now.

Surprise. The only difference between Laremy Tunsil and the other guys Ole Miss has pirated away from bigger programs is that Tunsil had a stepfather sell him out. He has been reinstated after it was revealed had acquired a raft of illicit benefits:

Ole Miss is lucky to get Laremy Tunsil back at all.

That was my first thought reading the full list of charges brought by the NCAA against Tunsil, and after letting it digest for a little while it still holds. The list of impermissible benefits Tunsil has received in Oxford is lengthy and more than just the one loaner car which had been previously reported. It was about three of them, over a six-month period without payment. A four-month interest-free promissory note on a $3,000 down payment for purchasing a used vehicle, two nights of lodging at a local home, an airline ticket purchased by a friend of a teammate and one day use of a rental vehicle were also among the impermissible benefits Tunsil has received in Oxford. Tunsil was also apparently less than truthful with the NCAA when first asked about all these things, and the NCAA is a lot like a mother in this regard: lying only makes it worse.

That is just the tip of the iceberg, no doubt. In addition to being the right thing to do, paying people legitimately will help reduce the impact of side benefits like Tunsil's. I think the NCAA needs to give up the ghost here and focus exclusively on making guys get actual educations, but I remain annoyed at programs that are flagrantly breaking every rule they can think of before that happens.

Etc.: Carr to the M Athletics HOF.Weather for MSU tentatively expected to be chilly but dry. Dude who exposed the Volkswagen fraud was a Michigan alum. Mama said knock you out: Michigan is killin' em early. Weztel on the game. Warning: autoplaying audio.

Hinton on the aftermath at USC. Excellent data-laden Kirk Goldsberry article on how unassisted two point jumpers are the devil. Mr. Harbaughchav, build up this wall. Inside the basketball offense. Holdin' The Rope.

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FOR SCIENCE! Bakers And Best compiled 36 different combinations of cereal and gatorade into POWER RANKINGS:

1. Trix with Cool Blue - This was the second one we tried and unfortunately it was all downhill from there.  We had both assumed the ‘fruit’ flavored cereals would taste best and for the post part this was true.  I’m not going to start eating this for breakfast, but if you asked me to eat a bowl of it I wouldn’t protest.

36. Frosted Cheerios with Strawberry Lemonade - We kept notes as we tasted.  I ended up with 2.5 pages single spaced.  My notes for this were relatively short, because we wanted to forget it ever happened and move on.  They read, “NO. NOPE NOPE NOPE.”.  It so grotesquely intensified the taste of the strawberry lemonade, which yes, as you’ll notice according to the rankings is worse than rotten chocolate yogurt.

Now you know. Interestingly, the "Cool Blue" flavor—blue is not a flavor—scored three of the top four combinations but finished 33rd when paired with Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Anyone who wants to remain un-banned will agree Cinnamon Toast Crunch is the king of breakfast cereals.

Hey… uh… nevermind. Ace dutifully compiled a commitment post for three-star CA WR Deontay Burnette after various outlets reported he'd flipped his commitment to Michigan. That is apparently not happening.

WTF happened? Nobody really knows, but Sam Webb says that there was a "miscommunication"($) and that Michigan won't actually take a commit from him. If that sounds weird… yeah, it's weird. You'd think by this point anyone coming in with a pulse who wants to commit would be greenlit.

Hopefully that's a sign that Signing Day is going to be fruitful. Michigan does have an option in its back pocket in case things go south and they want to pick up a three-star-ish WR: Brother Rice's Grant Perry, an Alex Malzone teammate currently committed to Northwestern.

WHAT. So… the Super Bowl. I understand the nation is aghast at the decision to throw the ball from the one on second and goal when you have Beast Mode, but let's not forget that Bill Belichick—indisputably the greatest coach of his generation—had two timeouts in his pocket and was content to take them to the locker room if that's what it came to. He was bailed out by a terrific play, but it truly boggles that there is literally no football team in the universe that would not be improved by importing a 14-year-old who plays Madden 16 hours a day to work clock strategy.

That is no longer hypothesis, but fact. Yeesh.

Looked pretty good though. Can't really blame Wilson for the decision.

What was bad was the placement: Wilson put the ball a yard behind his guy instead of a yard in front, allowing the DB to make a play on the ball. If the ball is out front the DB has zero chance at an INT no matter how well he reads the play. At best he breaks it up. But that's why not everybody is Tom Brady.

Not many options? Harbaugh's first game is against Utah, which is a much more interesting opener than they usually are. Utah underwent a spasm of turmoil last month, losing both coordinators and almost their head coach. They've found a new DC: Brent Pease, who's exiting retirement for the second time to take the job.

Hello: Partridge family. Michigan hires former Paramus Catholic head coach Chris Partridge for that job a previous UV speculated was right up his alley. Partridge was apparently in Ann Arbor interviewing for four days before getting officially hired. NJ DT Rashan Gary, by some accounts the #1 kid in the 2016 class, is currently at Paramus:

Paramus Catholic features one of the top recruits in the country next year in junior defensive tackle Rashan Gary.

Not surprisingly, Gary recently received a scholarship offer from Michigan.

“Chris would never steer him to a school,” Russo said. “Rashan is going to go visit places in the spring. He has a lot of things set up. At the end of the day, if Rashan’s mom and him and his support staff here at Paramus Catholic feel like [Michigan] is the best place for him, then it is. He will do great wherever he goes.”

Hopefully that's in Ann Arbor.

Tom Brady, 2000. Via Dr. Sap:

Etc.: Left Shark is today's internet fave-rave. Michigan was unlucky at acquiring TOs last year, so that should help Harbaugh unless it doesn't. Chris Webber interviewed about his film projects. Josh Gordon writes a reply to his critics. Werenski 8, Connor 13 in TSN's mock draft.

The Seahawks pulled no punches talking about the NCAA.