commercials

UFR GLOSSARY is here. Note: "Amoeba" means they drop a DE.

FORMATION NOTES: I did my best but the BTN camera work is the worst, and Michigan was doing a lot of pre-snap shifting off-screen so the secondary looks are not going to be accurate. Michigan had a safety high and one teasing the box which isn't new but I'm going to start labeling 1.5. The front is a 5-1 with one of their ILBs on the edge, which they used a lot, occasionally shifting to something else right before the snap.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: Much tighter rotation. Grant started for Graham, same rotation on the DL otherwise. Hausmann got a third of the snaps at WLB and a series at MLB. Will Johnson went most of the way; Wallace moved to nickel late and Harris came in, with DJ Waller getting a few reps at the very end. Rod Moore and Quinten Johnson actually split snaps evenly; Moore returned for the drive after The Disaster, and got the 3rd quarter. Q-Jo got the 2nd and 4th quarters. We'll discuss this below.

[After THE JUMP: Gonna run Cov3 until morale improves.]

9/23/2023 – Michigan 31, Rutgers 7 – 4-0, 1-0 Big Ten

On Saturday I looked at my watch halfway through the fourth quarter and said "what?" It was 2:50 PM. Michigan would strangle out the last seven minutes with a series of punishing Kalel Mullings runs and go home in an NFL time window. Which is nice, I guess, if the alternative is the networks finding a way to stick in another 10 minutes of commercials in there. It's also nice if you have to do a UFR. But it's not so nice if you're used to a certain amount of football and then there's far less of that.

Michigan's approach to the first third of the season has been to land some body blows and then get the heck out of dodge. This tweet is a week out of date now but that means it it overstates how many plays per minute Michigan is getting in after Michigan and Rutgers combined for 105 in 60 minutes, a play rate of 1.75:

Who plays fast and who plays slow in college football? Here's an updated look at the plays per minute data through Week 3:

1. Tennessee - 3.06
2. TCU - 2.82
3. South Florida - 2.81

131. Michigan - 1.91
132. Rice - 1.77
133. Air Force - 1.77https://t.co/Inp8DhJ7Mu

— Chris Hummer (@chris_hummer) September 21, 2023

The average FBS team is averaging 2.3 plays per minute, so the Rutgers game, in its entirety, was just the first three quarters of an average FBS game. It was barely more than half your average Tennessee game.

This fact combines with the second straight year of cupcake nonconference scheduling and Michigan's tendency to pull anyone with so much as a hangnail to lend the season an air of unreality. Michigan feels like they're simming this season until the Penn State game. We have not left yet the preseason portion of the schedule.

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Various members of the media have issued condescending little pieces about how the new clock rules aren't making a major impact and that commercial time hasn't increased. The argument appears to be that commercial breaks are only as intolerable as they were last year, when they were completely intolerable. Hooray?

The Alabama-Texas game officially lasted three hours and 24 minutes, of which approximately 45 minutes (not including halftime) were commercials. We compared that broadcast with three 2022 SEC games on ESPN. They followed the same format and averaged between 45 and 46 minutes. No noticeable change from last year.

This article then goes on to detail how the networks have eight commercial breaks per half of football, which is the same number of breaks an entire college basketball game has and eight more than any soccer game ever broadcast. Then were are expected to feel grateful, somehow, that there are the same number of commercial breaks being inserted into less football. I'm not sure why the authors of these pieces can't divide.

Meanwhile I've watched halftime shows in back-to-back weeks in which 1) BGSU brought their band for a full halftime and 2) Michigan had their extended homecoming halftime show; both of those events ended with 8 minutes on the halftime clock. If they wanted to cut time they could easily have adopted the same 15-minute halftime that the NFL does. But if a TV exec calls up a sports journalist these folks jump at the opportunity.

In Michigan's case, the way they play their games exacerbates the clock issues. Teams that have four-play scoring drives are seeing a bit of time roll off the clock before it stops for a touchdown or an incomplete pass or whatever. Michigan's tendency to go on long, grinding marches means there are more instances where the clock is running when it otherwise would have been stopped. This effect was even more pronounced in the Ohio State-Notre Dame game, which was largely bereft of explosive plays but featured a lot of first downs. Those teams racked up 129 plays, barely over two per minute. There were 39 first downs in that game; if 30 of them saw the clock run when it otherwise would not the new clock rules lopped the last five minutes off that game. Five minutes are reputed to be forever late in games, so while we're being told that the new rules aren't really doing anything, you could be forgiven for feeling like they're having an absolutely massive impact.

In Michigan's case this can be spun as a good thing since guys are less likely to get hurt… except apparently they're getting hurt in practice a bunch. If most of your hitting occurs when you're getting ready for the game, then the injury benefits of fewer plays are marginal. Personally, I'd like to see more things happen and fewer insurance commercials, but maybe someone who went to Medill can tell me why that's wrong.

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

zing a zang zoop [Barron]

you're the man now, dog

#1 Mike Sainristil. Jumped a tunnel screen(!) for an interception. Then flipped Junior Colson over his head, kept his balance, burst out of the pack, and ran for a 71-yard touchdown. He even switched the ball to the appropriate arm. Also had two QB hurries, bringing his pass rush win rate up to 36% this year. Took the blame for the Rutgers touchdown even though he was responsible for maybe 15 of those yards because he's a captain.

#2 JJ McCarthy. It says something about how distorted our expectations got after the first two weeks when I thought McCarthy had kind of a rough day and then the box score says he averaged 10 YPA and ran for 60 yards. After a couple hiccups early he was locked in.

#3 Junior Colson, Ernest Haussman, and Michael Barrett. Each of Michigan's linebackers came in for an eyepopping play; my favorite was Barrett shooting up into a free-releasing OL and then ripping him to the ground. Hausmann got to the sideline on an early lead stretch and blasted the RB back into Wimsatt; Colson was again ably tackling in space. Two points each.

Honorable mention: Quinten Johnson had a third-down stick and a PBU. Blake Corum was doing Blake Corum things. Max Bredeson continues to thump linebackers. Colston Loveland had a buttzone catch down the seam and several other catches besides. Semaj Morgan got a tunnel screen early and a back-shoulder TD late. Kris Jenkins blew up two short yardage conversions, though the first was called back for a false start.

KFaTAotW Standings.

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

21: JJ McCarthy (#1 ECU, #1 UNLV, #2 Rutgers)
14: Kris Jenkins (HM ECU, T2 UNLV, #1 BGSU, HM Rutgers)
11: Mike Sainristil (T3 ECU, HM BGSU, #1 Rutgers)
8: Blake Corum (HM ECU, HM UNLV, #2 BGSU, HM Rutgers)
6: Kenneth Grant (T3 ECU, T2 UNLV), Roman Wilson (T2 ECU, HM UNLV, HM BGSU), Cornelius Johnson (T2 ECU, HM UNLV, HM BGSU)
5: Mason Graham (HM ECU, T2 UNLV), Junior Colson (#3 BGSU, T3 Rutgers)
4: Ernest Hausmann (T3 ECU, T3 Rutgers)
3: Mike Barrett (HM UNLV, T3 Rutgers)
2:  Josh Wallace (T3 ECU), Braiden McGregor(T3 UNLV), Derrick Moore (T3 UNLV), Jaylen Harrell (HM UNLV, HM BGSU)
1: Tommy Doman (HM ECU), Donovan Edwards (HM ECU), Tyler Morris (HM UNLV), AJ Barner (HM BGSU), Semaj Morgan (HM Rutgers), Max Bredeson (HM Rutgers), Colston Loveland (HM Rutgers), Quinten Johnson (HM Rutgers)

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

Sainristil's weaving pick-six closes the door on any reasonable chance of a Rutgers comeback.

Honorable mention: Colston Loveland grabs a seam route, demonstrating the Ups. Michigan stuffs a fourth down emphatically, even if it didn't count.

MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

Rod Moore misses a tackle to stake Rutgers to an early lead.

Honorable mention: JJ McCarthy's first two passes are not real great, leading to momentary doubt. Marcus Freeman doesn't put 11 guys on the field.

11/6/2021 – Michigan 29, Indiana 7 – 8-1, 5-1 Big Ten

One does not want to be too much of a mopey downer, so it was a relief when we were recording the podcast and Seth said that Saturday's game was boring. I had thought it was boring, too, but when I say things like that these days people are always like "oh man Brian is in a dark place." Okay but also he retains a shred of objective reality, right? Right? One can be bored and have that not be about other things but, oh, I don't know, a commercial break followed by zero plays before another commercial break? I thought maybe I was just being a mopey downer and other people were like "I found this pretty enjoyable."

Apparently not. I feel like this is reasonable.

But anyway, Seth was in the box, and I was in the stands. And Patrick was on the field:

Well, actually pic.twitter.com/HKEzZ8oND1

— Patrick Barron (@BlueBarronPhoto) November 8, 2021

In retrospect my fears that my opinion about the sporting event on Saturday night, November 6th were an outlier were ill-founded. In the cold light of morning a couple days on what's remarkable is how dead that stadium was for a Michigan Night Game(!!!). Michigan Night Games used to get fancy names and caused the normally placid Michigan fanbase to spontaneously combust. Aside from the steadily dropping temperatures, the atmosphere on Saturday was more "September MAC game" than "dismembering Notre Dame with bloodlust in your eyes."

It was hard not to be personally offended as the temperature dropped. Nor did I try. Saturday was a lovely, sunny fall day that would have been downright pleasant to experience a football game in. For reasons that remain unfathomable, FOX decided to move an obviously uncompetitive game between Michigan and the battered shell of a 2-6 Indiana to prime time. Then they proceeded to jam the FOX-usual number of commercials in. When they announced the final score of the hockey game, which started at the same time the football game did, there were nine minutes left in the third quarter. Vociferous booing of every announced FULL MEDIA TIMEOUT started shortly after.

It is for these reasons that I had a very hard time getting into the game. It was boring, and it was cold, and there were commercial breaks at almost literally every opportunity until even Flo said "lo, I am sated" like Vladimir Harkonnen pushing himself away from the table.

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I already wrote one of these columns a few years back, after Michigan played SMU in the opposite weather conditions:

The sequence that really, truly broke me was in the middle of the second quarter. For some reason, Sonny Dykes thought that if his team was prepared it could stop a Michigan fullback dive. So he called timeout. Then he saw Michigan had cannily lined up in the exact same way they had before the timeout. Sensing a trap, he called timeout again. This became the dreaded Full Media Timeout.

In the stands, I baked. Because Michigan has made no attempt to improve connectivity in the stadium I held up my phone as it told me it could not retrieve tweets. The clock ticked down.

Michigan took the field again and lined up in the exact same way, but Dykes could not respond—he'd used all his timeouts. Ben Mason scored from the one-inch line, extra point... Full Media Timeout.

I baked further. It sucked. It was hot and boring and also hot and also boring.

Nothing's changed since, unless it's gotten worse. (It has gotten worse.) This is in contrast to basketball, which has deleted some timeouts and is thinking about deleting more, and hockey, which shortened intermissions to 12 minutes and cut out a commercial break. Heck, I used to assume that any Michigan basketball game that was preceded by another game was going to be pre-empted, and now a game that doesn't end in the two-hour window is a surprise.

Those sports have the advantages of being 1) close to a neat and tidy length of time (in basketball's case) and 2) completely unable to sell existing ad inventory (in hockey's). Football faces none of these problems because games can go forever and there appears to be no national insurance company in the world that desires anything but to toss all of its marketing dollars on the pyre. So I don't think there's any sanity coming here.

I do worry about the long term, apparently unlike the people actually running the sport. We're already in a world where being on the Michigan mailing list is somewhere between "doing Duolingo once" and being Stacey's ex:

Michigan's ticket office going full Duolingo on everyone's inboxes https://t.co/Vjl49RZtrr

— mgoblog (@mgoblog) July 13, 2021

I can't imagine anyone who went to that game emerged from it thinking that it was an advertisement to go to more. People started emptying out of there early in the third quarter, when the score was 20-7. And they were the sane ones. What happens when people like me, chained to their seats more out of a sense of momentum than anything, either drift away or up and die?

Maybe we'll have been replaced by badly-functioning AI robots by then. Then you can have the game whenever, and you can make viral posts about the crazy chants they came up with.

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

[Bryan Fuller]

you're the man now, dog

#1 Hassan Haskins. With Corum and Edwards largely sidelined, Haskins got true feature-back carries for the first time all year. With them he added another 168 yards to his total, hurdled another fool, and also picked up several blitzes with crunching authority. Truly a recruiting find.

#2 Aidan Hutchinson/David Ojabo. The inseparable duo of destruction. Hutchinson somehow came out of this game without getting a sack credited to him despite seeming to be in the quarterback's lap on any passing down; Ojabo got another sack-strip for a key turnover in the first half. Full points for both because why not?

#3 Cornelius Johnson. Displayed some route wizardry on his long catch, and probably would have added another 30 yards and a touchdown on another route where he turned his defender 360 degrees if JJ McCarthy didn't get lit up on the throw. As it was, 100 yards and six catches for him. Nice bounce-back after a couple of rough drops against MSU.

Honorable mention: Junior Colson flashed his sideline-to-sideline speed; Taylor Upshaw had a sack and another TFL; Cade McNamara had some misses but hit his deep ball and averaged 9.3 YPA.

KFaTAotW Standings.

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

36: Aidan Hutchinson (HM WMU, #2 Wash, #1 Rutgers, #1 Wisc, HM Neb, #2 NW, T3 MSU, T2 IU)
25: Hassan Haskins (HM WMU, T3 Wash, T2 NIU, #2 Neb, T1 NW, #1 IU)
18: The OL (#1 Wash, #1 NIU, HM Neb, HM NW)
17: Blake Corum (#2 WMU, T3 Wash, T2 NIU, HM Neb, T1 NW)
13: David Ojabo (#2 Wisc, T3 MSU, T2 IU),
9: Cade McNamara (#1 MSU, HM IU)
8: Ronnie Bell (#1 WMU), Brad Hawkins (#1 Neb),Dax Hill (#3 WMU, HM NIU, HM Rutgers, HM Wisc, HM Neb, HM MSU)
6: Nikhai Hill-Green(HM NIU, #2 Rutgers), Jake Moody (HM Wash, HM Wisc, #3 Neb, HM MSU)
Brad Robbins (HM Wash, #3 Rutgers, HM Wisc), Josh Ross (HM Wash, HM NIU, HM Rutgers, HM Neb, HM NW),
5: Cornelius Johnson(HM NIU, HM Wisc, #3 IU), Andrel Anthony (#2 MSU)
4: AJ Henning (HM WMU, #3 NIU)
3: Donovan Edwards(T2 NIU), Roman Wilson (#3 Wisc), DJ Turner (#3 NW)
2: Erick All (HM NW, HM MSU)
1: Andrew Vastardis (HM WMU),Mike Sainristil (HM WMU),  Mazi Smith (HM Wash), Gemon Green(HM NIU), Chris Hinton (HM Rutgers), Junior Colson (HM IU), Taylor Upshaw (HM IU)

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

Michigan responds to the IU TD drive to go up 17-7 and that's all she wrote.

Honorable mention: Uh, Haskins going for 60, Johnson going for 50, and Ojabo terrorizing McCulley.

​MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

Timeout, commercial, Michigan farts around on a fake fourth and one, timeout, commercial.

Honorable mention: IU's TD drive makes it 10-7 briefly and induces some Here We Go Again thoughts; JJ McCarthy runs around like he's in high school and chucks a bad idea throw; redzone breakdowns force another 3 short FG attempts.

[After THE JUMP: palpable routes]