iowa

Essentials

WHAT	#2 Michigan (12-0) vs #18 Iowa(10-2)
WHERE	Sharon's Heating and Cooling Stadium Indianapolis, IN
WHEN	8:17 Saturday
THE LINE	M –21.5 (Vegas) M –23 (Bill C)
TELEVISION	FOX PBP: Gus Johnson Color: Joel Klatt
TICKETS	from $60
WEATHER	no

Overview

Well, it's Iowa again. Except this time they're the Most Iowa. They are not content with being regular Iowa, a very good defensive team with a plodding offense. No. They're going to get their starting quarterback injured. And then they're going to get their top two tight ends injured. They're going to have the #1 defense in America, per SP+, and the #124 offense. And they're going to win ten games by exactly three points each when they get a punt return touchdown with four seconds left on the clock.

This game will either be a slow-motion blowout, a la Penn State, or a deeply annoying meatgrinder that terrifies you to within an inch of your life. Probably the former.

[AFTER THE JUMP: "no"]

9/30/2023 – Michigan 45, Nebraska 7 – 5-0, 2-0 Big Ten

This column is about being grateful but first a digression into obscure lexicography, as the readership demands. Despite an Atlantic article that accidentally implies that the noun "fantods" was a neologism sprouted from David Foster Wallace's mother, Merriam Webster asserts that Charles Fredrick Briggs deployed in 1839; indeed, it actually found its way in to Huckleberry Finn:

"They was all nice pictures, I reckon, but I didn't somehow seem to take to them, because … they always give me the fantods."

I think it is probable that DFW's mother is the originator of the phrase "howling fantods," which does feel like a temple erected on top of a previous religion's foundation. Fantods are one thing. When they howl, wow. Buddy. I mean. It's not good.

I was put in this frame of mind in the midst of Michigan's comprehensive dismantling of Nebraska because whilst I was enjoying myself, many other sports fans were not. I was particularly affected by two morose persons in particular. One was Robert Rosenthal, who goes by @alioneye on Twitter and is very likely the world's most dedicated Illinois fan. Illinois is coming off a promising season, and as directed by the laws of Illinois football that means they must immediately descend into the Earth's mantle. Ryan Walters, until recently the Illinois defensive coordinator, provided that via means of a 44-19 hamblasting at the hands of Purdue. Here is a place I have been:

Found it: https://t.co/7g5yifZnba

— Robert Rosenthal (@ALionEye) September 30, 2023

I have been in the Place Of Cheese, except it was more like, you know, alcohol. At some point in the Rodriguez era I responded to news of Troy Woolfolk's injury with a burst of tweets that resulted in this exchange…

@mgoblog you are a grown man drinking tea at 9pm - things are looking VERY down

— TigerCub33 (@Tigercub33) August 18, 2010

…and me hurriedly explaining that yes I was drinking tea but, like Fred Jackson, I was also drinking several other things that may or may not kill me and that I was not entirely certain which outcome I was hoping for. After the JT Was (Probably Not) Short game I poured a double of Lagavulin 16 and wandered around in the wooded area behind my home for 45 minutes before returning to reality. Did it help? Absolutely. Enough? No.

-------------------------

Depressed sports fan number two was Roger Bennett of Men In Blazers, who is apparently a fan of both Everton and the Chicago Bears. If you responded to this information with a sort of low, keening, sympathetic howl you know more about the EPL and NFL than I do but I saw this from Roger this weekend and thought "I literally wrote this except it was a 600-word column":

Sports fandom meant to be a joy. A diversion. An alternate universe rife with wonder. Not the teams I support. Peddlers only of misery, self-loathing, and pain. A stark reminder only of the truth: Life has no meaning and we are all going to Die pic.twitter.com/XJIjfDw76U

— roger bennett (@rogbennett) October 1, 2023

I first ran across Bennett during the 2014 World Cup, when Men In Blazers was a sort of late-night World Cup recap show on ESPN, and loved their general exuberance about things. To see Bennett brought so low by the things he loves is a grim reminder that two years ago I was declaring Michigan football the least fun program in the whole of sports. And… I mean… it kind of was.

Now that we are not beset by howling fantods about sports we should take a minute to appreciate that this team is not only good but also very fun. After JJ McCarthy scrambled for a 20-yard touchdown, FOX's mics picked him up saying "thank you so much boys" to his offensive line after demanding pretend corn. After Corum walked in later he pretended to salt the OL's corn. Jim Harbaugh reached unprecedented levels of football dad in the locker room after the game:

Jim Harbaugh: “It just came to me that we ought to sing ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’ to Kenneth Grant for that amazing play that he made. … First time I’ve ever asked a team to sing, ‘For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow.’ It just came over us. The guys liked it. I think it’s a…

— Alejandro Zúñiga (@ByAZuniga) October 1, 2023

The levels of dad Harbaugh is reaching are potentially dangerous, but if there's a fanbase in the country who can adapt and survive it's this one:

This is why @CoachJim4UM is the perfect coach for Michigan, and Michigan is the perfect place for Coach Harbaugh:

Since @ByAZuniga posted this, I've received 2 emails about it, both from Michigan fans explaining the origin of the song at a French battle in the early 1700s. https://t.co/9RnthAEe9z

— Jordan Acker (@JordanAckerMI) October 2, 2023

I don't know where this season is going to end up but I'm delighted that I get to spend some time with these guys every Saturday.

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

box score shmocks score [Barron]

you're the man now, dog

#1 Kris Jenkins. Notched a total of two tackles; don't care. On review of the game he was never successfully blocked. Never. I'm sure Seth will find a couple of counter-examples but Jenkins was a primary reason Nebraska's somewhat vaunted ground game went exactly nowhere.

#2 Braiden McGregor. Very hard to pick out another defensive player for the usual reasons—no snaps, everyone does like one thing—but McGregor did three things in this game: he forced the interception with a batted pass that went sky-high, he shoved a tight end into Haarberg on Nebraska's failed fourth and one, and he (like many others) showed Tyler Corcoran his own intestines en route to a sack.

#3 Roman Wilson. You make that catch, you get to be a Known Friend and Trusted Agent.

Honorable mention: JJ McCarthy averaged nearly ten yards an attempt, scored a scramble TD, ate imaginary corn, thanked his linemen to a national television audience, and kissed his girl with twenty minutes left in the game. Only sixteen attempts, though? AJ Barner and Max Bredeson continue to mash faces. Derrick Moore had a strip-sack, a batted pass, and another hurry. Blake Corum weaved through dudes.

KFaTAotW Standings.

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

22: JJ McCarthy (#1 ECU, #1 UNLV, #2 Rutgers, HM Nebraska), Kris Jenkins (HM ECU, T2 UNLV, #1 BGSU, HM Rutgers, #1 Nebraska)
11: Mike Sainristil (T3 ECU, HM BGSU, #1 Rutgers)
9: Roman Wilson (T2 ECU, HM UNLV, HM BGSU, #3 Nebraska), Blake Corum (HM ECU, HM UNLV, #2 BGSU, HM Rutgers, HM Neb)
7: Braiden McGregor(T3 UNLV, #2 Nebraska)
6: Kenneth Grant (T3 ECU, T2 UNLV), 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), Derrick Moore (T3 UNLV), Jaylen Harrell (HM UNLV, HM BGSU), AJ Barner (HM BGSU, HM Neb), Max Bredeson (HM Rutgers, HM Neb)
1: Tommy Doman (HM ECU), Donovan Edwards (HM ECU), Tyler Morris (HM UNLV), Semaj Morgan (HM Rutgers), Colston Loveland (HM Rutgers), Quinten Johnson (HM Rutgers), Derrick Moore (HM Neb)

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

Roman Wilson provides his version of the Prothro.

[Barron]

Honorable mention: Kenneth Grant intercepts Nebraska's second play from scrimmage thanks to a McGregor bat; McCarthy rolls away from pressure and fires in a thirty-yard laser for another Wilson TD; Michigan coaches succumb to the clamoring of the internet and agree to call a flea flicker every game.

MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

Uh… Tyler Morris muffed a punt, which he then returned for 30 yards?

Honorable mention: A couple of long completions on slants are irritating.

The most Iowa thing ever. The Athletic has an article in which old coaches are interviewed abut their recruiting stories. It starts off by asking about the biggest recruiting wins these guys ever had, and it's a litany of names you know: Orlando Pace, Jadeveon Clowney, Ray Lewis, Champ Bailey. And then you get to former ISU head coach Dan McCarney, who was an assistant at Iowa:

the one that had as much to do with us turning the program around at Iowa was Reggie Roby. … It came down to Iowa vs. Wisconsin at midnight the night before signing day. …I felt at the time he might have as much to do with us turning that program around as anybody we could sign. In 1981, we had one of the best defenses in the country, and offense, that was OK. And we had Reggie Roby flipping the field like nobody had seen in decades. In my career, the two best punters I’d ever seen were Ray Guy and Reggie Roby.

A punter. Big Ten! Note that I'm not explicitly not making fun of this after RON COLUZZI IS A GOLDEN GOD cost Michigan a game in Iowa City. I post out of respect and fear.

In general, McCarney seems like a guy you'd like to be regaled by. On the "arms race" in CFB:

McCarney: (Laughs) I would have liked to have been in an arms race. The early days at Iowa, Wisconsin, Iowa State, I’d have loved to have been in an arms race.

On whether rules are being broken more now or more back in the day:

Now, guys go past the visit rule or the old bump rule, that thing was ridiculous. The bumps used to last half an hour to 45 minutes. Oh OK, I just bumped into you. Why were you in the room with the door shut for 45 minutes? That’s a long damn bump.

Put this man on TV with a gin spritzer.

[After THE JUMP: wacky football play]