helmet stickers

11/17/2018 – Michigan 31, Indiana 20 – 10-1, 8-0 Big Ten

Indiana was defeated. It was annoying, as per usual. The method was different this time. 

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It's here, again. Football Armageddon. The last time I called a game Football Armageddon it was 12 years ago, when Michigan and Ohio State were both undefeated. Michigan ripped off a slick touchdown drive to start things off, and in the Ohio State student section I thought to myself "we're a third of the way home."

This was incorrect. Michigan's defense played three inside linebackers the whole game against Troy Smith, gave up 500 yards and 42 points, and blew an opportunity to get the ball back when Shawn Crable hit Smith in the helmet on a scramble. The 2006 defense featured Alan Branch, Lamarr Woodley, Leon Hall, David Harris, four guys with decade-long NFL careers. They whooped up on everyone, but within were the seeds of the past decade of Michigan football. Michigan had one cornerback: Hall. Morgan Trent couldn't change direction with a sail and a headwind, and when the starters got pulled against Ball State two weeks prior the Cardinals mounted a comeback that ended in Michigan's redzone down only 8.

The two corners who came in against Ball State were Chris Richards, the defensive coordinator's godson, and Johnny Sears, a kid from Fresno who'd never played a varsity game when Michigan offered him. They saw him at practice. (Practice! We're talking about practice!) Eight months later Michigan would field Sears as a starter in The Horror, in which a cut-rate Troy Smith exploited the same tactical naivete Smith had to hand Michigan the worst upset of all time.

Football Armageddon really was Armageddon for Michigan, not because of anything Ohio State did to them in that one game but because they'd fallen behind the curve out of their own arrogance. Michigan's recruiting was increasingly lazy, dependent on guys who bothered to come to camp and random, uninformed guesses about players based on not enough scouting. They'd get about half a class of well-regarded and then pluck random dudes out of the ether for the rest. They'd singularly failed to adapt to the prevalence of the spread across college football, kicking off the Ohio State dominance that extends to the modern day.

When Lloyd Carr retired he asked the athletic director to interview the two sturdiest branches on his coaching tree: his coordinators. One, Ron English, had never been a head coach and was the architect of the Horror. The other, Mike DeBord, was 12-34 at Central Michigan before quitting because he wasn't a head coach. These were the options to keep it in the family.

2006 Michigan was Indiana Jones on a rope bridge. Ohio State was the guy with the machete leering from the safety of land, but it didn't create the situation.

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Incredibly, improbably, amazingly: Ohio State looks like it might be on a bridge of its own devising. Michigan's culture caught up to them in a slow-motion avalanche that took half a decade. OSU's got blown up in a week by Brett McMurphy and Urban Meyer's callous disregard for anything but winning.

Since Zach Smith was exposed, Ohio State's house has morphed from bricks to cards. Every week (except Michigan State) brings a new sordid depth to their defensive issues. With JT Barrett off to pick up YAC in the Estonian league, the offense frequently fails to convert buckets of yards into points. There was a fourth and goal wide receiver screen against Purdue. Not incidentally, a 5-6 Purdue team that's going into the Bucket game looking for a bowl berth boatraced OSU 49-20.

The nature of the series with Michigan has already changed in the post-Durkin landscape. Michigan lost by a literal inch the last time they were in Columbus despite Wilton Speight fumbling on the goal line and throwing two miserable interceptions. Last's game was 21 Michigan players outplaying the opposition and the third-string quarterback tossing up a 14.3 QBR. This isn't Michigan scrapping and clawing because "throw the records out" and we'll go for two at the end of the game because we know what's what. It's Michigan getting hit by a red shell rounding the last corner.

They're there. They're good enough. They're legitimately elite by any metric you want to poke. Now they just have to do the damn thing. The consequences of failure do not bear thinking about. It's armageddon, again. Ohio State is a rope over an abyss. Sharpen your knives.

AWARDS

[Fuller]

you're the man now, dog

#1 Devin Bush. Michigan lined him up next to Gary for a blitz and that seemed unfair and also please continue doing that forever. Twelve tackles, one of them to destroy a fake punt, and one critical fourth down PBU. Run issues were mostly things he was trying to mitigate and not things that could be plausibly put on him. Update: still good.

#2 Shea Patterson. Another game of almost ten yards an attempt. There were some hiccups, but the interception was an open guy on an RPO and it sailed because he got clobbered. The Gentry throw in the endzone… not so much. But the one after escaping the pocket, yeah buddy. Also chipped in 68 yards rushing. Which is a lot of yards.

#3 Rashan Gary. Had half that sack mentioned above plus a thunderous speed to power rush; 7 other tackles besides when Michigan really needed DL to step up.

Honorable mention: Zach Gentry had two big receptions and got interfered with twice… but maybe probably should have grabbed that ball in the endzone. Higdon had a workmanlike performance with some key broken tackles on short stuff.

KFaTAotW Standings.

10: Chase Winovich (#1 ND, #3 SMU, #1 NW, T2 MSU, T1 PSU), Shea Patterson (#3 WMU, #1 Maryland, #3 PSU, #1 Rutgers, #2 Indiana).
7: Devin Bush(#3 ND, #1 Nebraska, #1 Indiana).
5: Karan Higdon (#1 WMU, #3 Nebraska, #3 Wisconsin), Donovan Peoples-Jones(T1 SMU, #3 MSU, #2 Rutgers), Rashan Gary(#2 WMU, #2 Nebraska, #3 Indiana).
4: David Long(#2 Wisconsin, T1 Michigan State), Josh Uche (T2 NW, T2 MSU, T1 PSU), Jon Runyan Jr (T1 Wisconsin, T2 PSU), Zach Gentry(T1 SMU, #2 Maryland, T3 Rutgers).
3:  Juwann Bushell-Beatty(T1 Wisconsin), Jon Runyan Jr(T1 Wisconsin).
2: Ambry Thomas (#2 ND), Josh Metellus(#2 SMU), Brandon Watson(T1 MSU), Lavert Hill(T1 MSU).
1: Will Hart (#3 NW), Mike Dwumfour (T2 NW), Kwity Paye (T2 NW), Khaleke Hudson(#3 Maryland), Ben Bredeson(T2 PSU), Nico Collins(T3 Rutgers).

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

Nick Eubanks scores his first touchdown at Michigan. An important moment in the game, sure. But his reaction afterward was a prayer to his late mom.

Honorable mention: Post-game news about Edwards and Winovich is positive. Moody hits a field goal X6. Rashan Gary stops Indiana's last drive before it starts.

​MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

Berkeley Edwards suffers the scariest injury in Michigan Stadium in living memory after a cheap targeting hit on a kickoff return. Edwards is probably going to be fine, per Braylon, and he's tweeting, so… that's a mixed blessing. But mostly good!

Honorable mention: Chase Winovich is knocked out after a different cheap shot and is maybe unavailable for next week. The end of half debacle.

[After THE JUMP: cheap shots, other]

[COOL NEWS: MGoBlog will be at WTKA this Thursday, July 13, starting at 8:30 a.m. The first hour we’ll have Billy Taylor, Fritz Seyferth, Dr. Sap, and possibly Jim Brandstatter and Larry Cipa on to talk about BT’s TD and the early Bo years. Afterward Ace and Brian and I will talk about the stuff in HTTV, which is basically this football season.]

Coach Hanlon deserves a helmet sticker for this one. [Dr Sap]

In this year’s edition of Hail to the Victors (now sold in our online store, at Ann Arbor Underground Printing locations, at Literati, and on Kindle) Michigan historian Steve “Dr. Sap” Sapardanis—known to many of you as the author of Dr. Sap’s Decals—spoke with all the key guys involved in Billy Taylor’s 1971 game-winning touchdown on Ohio State. If you, like me, weren’t even a glimmer in some miscreant college students’ eyes at the time, here’s that play.

Coach Jerry Hanlon, Bo’s right hand man and definitively untitled guy who happened to do a lot of offensive coordination, was kind enough to go over the playcall with Dr. Sap for his article. The short version is it was a crack option sweep that they had prepared in case Ohio State showed an 8-man (goal line) front. The playbook—which Coach shared with us—had the exact eventuality planned and practiced. In fact the notes from Hanlon’s copy explicitly called for his quarterback to check—“Recognition 8 call possiblity”—into this if Ohio State went to a goal line.

Always prepared.

That is exactly what (backup) QB Larry Cipa did. So to all you UFR scorers at home, this play is definitely some kind of RPS. But there’s an older scoring system. Coach Hanlon was also the guy responsible for giving out helmet decals. So Dr. Sap asked who got one for this play, and after joking everybody did, Coach realized the kindly answer simply wouldn’t do. Not at Bo’s Schembechler’s Michigan. No, we demanded the actual scoring system. He unsurprisingly didn’t remember exactly, so Coach went over every guy’s assignment and re-scored it for us.

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Here’s the criteria the coaches used back in the day to award decals to each of their position players:

1) Was the correct assignment carried out by the player?
2) Did the player execute the proper technique?
3) Did the player follow-through on his assignment?
4) Did the player “get” his man?

If you scored 3 or higher, you were awarded a helmet sticker, but if you didn’t “get” your man, “NO STICKER FOR YOU!”

Here is the play (click to open in a different window to read):

And here are the position assignments for play 58/59:

Back-Side TE (Paul Seal): Release shallow along Line of Scrimmage; Throw and Roll 3 times.

Back-Side tackle (Jim Coode): Lead inside #2 cross-field; Peel or Turn upfield.

Back-Side Guard (Reggie McKenzie): Lead block to play-side; Head up middle guard if exposed.

Center (Guy Murdock): Lead Block “0” in odd defense; Lead with front foot to front-side; scramble and sustain; Seal backside. Even defense – lead front-side gap and pick up back-side linebacker.

Front-Side Guard (Tom Coyle): Lead block ready to pick up angle in tackle when #1 is LB; Fire hard with head up; Do not get body turned; Sustain.

Front-Side Tackle (Jim Brandstatter): Lead block #2; Get head and arms beyond; Scramble and sustain; Keep long axis of body upfield; Be ready to pick up LB on angle in.

Front-Side Tight End (Paul Seymour): Seal man in tackle area; If not needed, seal LB; Release deeper; Ready to block man crossing your face; Prevent penetration; Block #3(DE) if #4(CB) is on Line of Scrimmage.

Front-Side Split-Out (Bo Rather): Use Rooster or Crack block; On corner coverage, bump corner.

Quarterback (Larry Cipa): Open and sprint to the end; Option End; Pitch ball whenever possible. Look pitch to tailback.

Fullback (Fritz Seyferth): Sprint to play-side gaining one yard to end-of-line area; Do not turn up too soon; Sprint to widest defender and overthrow on him; Block any defender who crosses your path.

Tailback (Billy Taylor): Sprint to play-side; Keeping phase (4 yards away) on FB; Keep eyes on QB; Look ball in on pitch; Cut off the FB’s block (never cut upfield until FB blocks).

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So without further ado, here’s how he’d score it:

Seal: “Released inside. Not a great block. Made contact. Changed course of defender. (3)”

Coode: “Led inside, but did not get upfield. Don’t really want to give him a two…(reluctant 2)”

McKenzie: “4”

Murdock: “4”

Coyle: “4”

Brandstatter: “Led technically on 2-Call. Did not “get” man, changed his course enough…(2, borderline 3)”

Seymour: “Did not sustain, but did seal inside. (3)”

Rather: “Good position & technique. Should have followed-through more. (4)”

Cipa: “Pretty good optioning of end, but does end up blocking him. (4)”

Seyferth: “Great open-field block. Just a wonderful block. (4)”

Taylor: “4”

The Question:

Color changes, helmet stickers, rawk/band ratio, production: what was better/worse/different this time about the stadium experience?

The Responses:

Adam: What was better and worse and different was people going to the game. The neighborhood I normally park in had lots of people tailgating and throwing footballs around outside, and the tailgates that used to exist closer to State Street were back as well. It was nice to see people outside enjoying a game day in Ann Arbor, especially considering how tail gates disbanded more and more often as last season wore on.

The downside of attendance numbers that actually pass the eye test is traffic. Last season I got stuck once, and that was after the Penn State night game. Usually people were cleared out by the time I finished with the postgame presser and walked back to my car. The last thing I expected was to get stuck on Main Street after a game that entered garbage time early in the fourth quarter, but that's what happened. People care again, man. They stuck around.

As far as in-stadium stuff goes, I'm hoping the block M and end zones get repainted to match the uniforms soon. I think the darker maize on the uniforms is perfect. I don't really care who the apparel manufacturer is as long as the maize and blue we saw on the field Saturday are the maize and blue they use.

Sticking with uniforms, I was initially lukewarm on helmet stickers but have come around after seeing them in action. I can understand people's concern over a helmet that appears cluttered, but I think they look great. It's hard for me to argue with a uniform change that results in something that appeals to Harbaugh and appealed to Bo and not illegible maize letters or oddly placed stripes.

[After the jump: WE ARE WINNING AT THIS!]