gong show

1 hour and 52 minutes

The Sponsors

This show is presented by UGP & The Bo Store, and if it wasn’t for Rishi and Ryan nobody would get our jokes. Our other sponsors are also key to all of this: HomeSure Lending, Peak Wealth Management, Ann Arbor Elder Law, the Residence Inn Ann Arbor Downtown, the University of Michigan Alumni Association, Michigan Law Grad,Human Element, and Lantana Hummus

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1. The Offense

starts at 1:00

IU’s dirty play: The O’Neill crew has got to go! Shea came down a little from his Rutgers game level, Michigan did NOT want to run him but had to due to circumstances. Running game didn’t get big plays, protection issues resurfaced with Steuber. Showed some new things, left a lot in the bag.

2. The Defense

starts at 32:20

The DTs are, after all, just guys. DeBord brings out the tempo and gets his 17 first half points, then gets 3 after the adjustment. The adjustment: another guy in the box. Ramsey runs were all different but annoying events. He was also quite good at running away and throwing away (or just throwing it away and not getting flagged, which led to their field goal).

3. Special Teams/Feelingsball

starts at 53:16

Breaking down the ten(?) deadly sins of the end of the first half, just one of which wasn’t on Michigan. IU fake punt was at the dumbest part of the field AND tried to edge Devin Bush (how did that work out for you?). Moody, Moody, Moody, Moody, Moody, Moody.

4. Around the Big Ten with Jamie Mac

Starts at 1:14:31

Iowa-Illinois: blerp. Wisconsin-Purdue: low-scoring affair becomes a humdinger in the 4th and overtime. Purdue is an in-season disappointment. Penn State-Rutgers was a Rutger but PSU is back to the salt mines—Frames Janklin is punting from the Rutgers 37 on 4th and 4. State loses 9-6 to Nebraska on a Sparty No! All the sharps were betting Minnesota over Northwestern, who’s warming up shirtless and channeling the MSU DISRESPEKT. And the Maryland-OSU gongshow. McFarland got hurt or else he gets the Biakabutuka. Haskins has to run the things they saved for Michigan. Jamie’s done with Tom Allen. Ohio State can’t fix this defense in a week. Long discussion on The Game. Get this one or you’ll never get anything. OSU won all six of their coin flip games this year. Football Armageddon II: Let’s go kill ‘em!

MUSIC

  • "The Last of Us 2 Trailer Song"—Shawn James
  • "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch"—Thurl Ravenscroft, MGM Studio Orchestra
  • "Can't Turn You Loose"-Blues Brothers
  • “Across 110th Street”

THE USUAL LINKS

The hoody-doody, I hope they run that next week.

No Twitterverse this week. Instead, we shall plumb the depths of our collective sadness.

We live in some the headiest of times of modern Michigan fandom. The basketball team is coming off a NCAA runner-up season and it is bringing in another bumper crop of highly-ranked recruits. Brady Hoke and Greg Mattison are in the early stages of assembling some sort of Megazord. Michigan’s facilities are new and shiny and fantastic. But to move to the future, it is important to understand the pain of the past.

So, with a few weeks before anything actually happens in the sports world, this seems like a good time to try to answer a simple, cathartic question: what was the worst moment to be a Michigan fan?

Like the Highlander, there can be only one. So I guess this is our search for the Lowlander. Use whatever criteria you wish, but bear in mind what we’re trying to determine. We’re limiting the competition to the 1990’s and on. Obviously crappy things happened before that, but many of us can’t remember too much farther back. The events in question have been divided into four regions:

  • The Daggers Region: It was there. It was so close. WE COULDA HAD HIM, MAN. And then... lightning bolt blue screen of death.
  • The What-Could-Have-Been Region: The quantum mechanical gateway to an alternate universe in which we were showered with glory and the heavens rained Pop-Tarts and pleasing music played throughout the land.
  • The Well-That-Was-Thoroughly-Unenjoyable Region: These were the games or events that hurt your soul from start to finish. Nothing about them was pleasant. Hope was crushed consistently and repeatedly, and then The Fates really went to work on you.
  • The General FML Region: Generic embarrassments. A catch-all for the stuff over the years that still has you saying, "ugh, don't even get me started on ______"

We’ll cover the first two regions this week, and the other two soon enough.

I’ve included some concise arguments for and against the thing in question being the worst thing ever. As a palate cleanser, for each entry I’ve also included a comparable event that went Michigan’s way. The wonderful Yang to the craptastic Yin, if you will. When you’re done reading, Vote HERE: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/99RQK2Y.

Again: read. THEN VOTE. Then cry a little.

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Are you ready for this? I mean, we’re gonna pick at some serious wounds here. Okay. Let’s do this. (after the jump)

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