denard robinson is made of dilithium

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WITH SPECIAL GUEST DENARD ROBINSON. FOR THE WHOLE THING! Big thanks to Bryan Fuller for setting that up. Please listen to Part 1 first if you haven't already.

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Previously: 1879, 1901, 1918, 1925, 1932, 1940, 1947, 1950, 1964, 1973, 1976, 1980, 1985 p.1& p.2, 1988, 1991, 1999, 2011 p.1

Special Guests: Craig Roh, author of The Pass Rush Bible and Denard Robinson

[Writeup and player after THE JUMP]

press correspondent heiko had a pretty, pretty good view at the end [Heiko Yang]

Previously: Krushed By Stauskas (Illinois 2014), Introducing #ChaosTeam (Indiana 2009), Revenge is Terrifying (Colorado 1996), Four Games In September I (Boston College 1991), Four Games In September II (Boston College 1994), Four Games In September III (Boston College 1995), Four Games In September IV (Boston College 1996), Pac Ten After Dark Parts One and Two (UCLA 1989), Harbaugh's Grand Return Parts One and Two (Notre Dame 1985), Deceptive Speed Parts One and Two (Purdue 1999)

Week One: 1993 Washington Part OnePart Two2002 Washington Twitch stream

This Game: Condensed gameWH highlightsbox scoreMGoPreviewDenard After DentistOffense UFRDefense UFRa Notre Dame fan's live blog

Part One: Click here

REMINDER: WE WILL BE STREAMING THIS GAME WITH COMMENTARY AT NOON EASTERN TOMORROW ON TWITCH, THERE WILL BE A POST ON THE FRONT PAGE

Michigan is down 17-7 at halftime and without a couple Tommy Rees interceptions it could be much worse. David Pollock says the Wolverines have "gotta go sandlot" in the second half, which every M partisan agrees with wholeheartedly. ESPN airs highlights set to "Something to Believe In" by Parachute, a band not memorable enough to place this game in its time from the segment alone.

To make matters worse, Notre Dame receives the second-half kickoff and immediately reestablish two themes from the first half. Michael Floyd gets a quick first down, prompting Kirk Herbstreit to state "he’s a tough matchup for any secondary but especially this Michigan secondary," which isn't particularly subtle. Then Cierre Wood bursts for another chunk gain as Mike Martin and Ryan Van Bergen are clubbed out of the hole. Brent Musburger notes ND is now leading in total yardage 298 to 90.

Following back-to-back short completions to Floyd, though, Van Bergen breaks through for a third-down TFL. Brian Kelly chooses to punt on fourth-and-three from Michigan's 43, a conservative call that nearly backfires in two ways: punter Ben Turk salvages a bouncing snap and bobbles it just long enough that he technically isn't down while he picks it up. Instead of Michigan getting the ball near midfield, Jeremy Gallon fair catches the ball at the ten.

Denard Robinson immediately picks up 39 yards on a zone read keeper—of sorts, since Al Borges has his offensive line block both defense ends, so the read is more a hope that Manti Te'o will choose the wrong gap, and he obliges.

"So the Irish better get ready," says Musburger. "Here comes number 16."

[After THE JUMP: Here comes number 16.]

Go on, argue. [Eric Upchurch]

A series covering Michigan's 2010s. Previously: TEs, FBs, and OL, best blocks, the aughts.

Methodology: The staff decided these together and split the writeups. Considering individual years but a player can only be nominated once.

QUARTERBACK

DENARD ROBINSON (2010)

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one shining moment [Bryan Fuller]

A decade after the 2010 season, Denard Robinson is still the NCAA Football cover guy. This is in part because the NCAA would rather have no money than share some of it with its players, but it also speaks to the hold Robinson had on college football's imagination. Robinson's career started with a near-literal bang and blossomed into a minor national obsession; it ended with Robinson playing running back in the Outback Bowl because his elbow didn't work anymore.

With some exceptions* NCAA Football cover guys were coming off either legendary team successes (Tim Tebow), legendary individual seasons (Charles Woodson), or both. Denard is the only guy on the cover who ended his final season injury-riddled in a bowl that is so barely New Year's Day that Northwestern's played in it. And when it was announced everyone went "obviously."

That's because Robinson was a video game quarterback brought to life. If you don't know what you're doing you pick the team with the fastest quarterback. You might mistake the snap button for the pitch button on the first snap. Might put the ball on the ground. And then it might not matter at all.

That was Robinson in 2009. In 2010 he won the starting job from Tate Forcier, nuked UConn, and then had one of the greatest individual games in Michigan history against Notre Dame: 24/40 passing, 244 yards, 1 TD, 0 INTs, and 258 yards rushing at 9.2 yards a pop. I am pretty sure the happiest I've ever been after a football game was sitting in the Notre Dame Stadium stands longer than I'd ever sat in the stands before:

When the band marched out, we thought that was our cue. I grabbed one of the souvenir mugs as we exited. When I got home I crudely carved "28-24" on it with a steak knife. It's in the closet. Our walk back was half-accompanied by the band. We met a goodly chunk of my family walking the other way, exchanged excited greetings, and then went about the business of getting out of town. We got to the Chili's just as the adrenaline wore off and the stomach reasserted itself.

A few minutes before everyone filed out Denard Robinson zinged a skinny post to Roy Roundtree on third down and finished the job himself. In the first half Robinson had snuck through a crease in the line, found Patrick Omameh turning Manti Te'o into a safety-destroying weapon, and ran directly at me until he ran out of yards.

He knelt down to give thanks, and that felt inverted.

He broke the NCAA record for rushing yards by a quarterback with 1702 yards at 6.6 YPC(!!!) and completed 63% of his passes for 8.8 YPA, 18 TDs and 11 interceptions. He didn't tie his shoes and he smiled all the time. He showed up to basketball games with Roy Roundtree like he was any other student.

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standing in the back next to Roy, Kenny Demens, and JB Fitzgerald [Eric Upchurch]

It didn't last—couldn't last. Rich Rodriguez managed to parlay the #2 S&P offense into a mostly deserved firing, Brady Hoke and Al Borges had no idea what to do with him, and Robinson's ulnar nerve started its slow decline. The "what if Rich Rodriguez didn't have the worst defense in Michigan history at the same time he had Denard Robinson" question is the decade's greatest counterfactual.

There are no other real contenders for this spot. The only other Michigan QB to get drafted this decade was Jake Rudock, who went in the sixth round after a one-year grad-transfer cameo. Shea Patterson does not look set to join them. And there's your decade in a nutshell: the best QB season was the first one, and then pro-style ruined everything.

-Brian

*[There was a two year period where EA had a different cover for every platform they made the game for, which led to guys like Utah QB Brian Johnson and WVU fullback Owen Schmitt on the cover. Most ignominiously of all, the 2009 wii version of the game had Sparty on the cover. The mascot. Also one year they put Boise State QB Jared Zabransky on the cover, presumably for the same reason Gameday occasionally visits Colgate or wherever.]

[After THE JUMP: Okay, we're not writing up this much again. Except maybe for the 4th place receiver as payback for not making him 1st string]