kickoffs

9/16/2023 – Michigan 31, Bowling Green 6 – 3-0

Somewhere in the Michigan fandom there is a person holding a monkey's paw with two curled fingers who said at some point in the last week "I wish Michigan could run the ball like they did last year." I want to be very clear this was NOT me. I did NOT hold a monkey's paw and ask for something more interesting to write about. I was perfectly content to write another column about JJ McCarthy surgically dismembering another overmatched secondary. If circumstances required I would have done so fifteen straight times.

No, our manhunt must look elsewhere. The perpetrator is now on the lam, evading anything vaguely resembling a block M. This is a problem, because you can go to the middle of Tajikistan and the local goatherd will be mechanical engineering class of '82. The paw possessor's life is now one of furtive escapes and elaborate wigs, at least until 1) they put the paw down and walk away or 2) JJ McCarthy recovers from the worst game of his career, eviscerates Rutgers, and everyone immediately forgets about this game against… Opponent. Yes, probably Opponent. 

If you're reading this, oh Michigan fan in possession of a dire artifact, at least you can take some solace in the fact that your Sparty brother-in-law briefly stole it and said "I wish Mark Dantonio was back on the sideline." Please mail the dire artifact to Urban Meyer posthaste. Just send it to any Hooters in Ohio. Meyer will turn up eventually.

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So anyway, yes: JJ McCarthy threw three interceptions against Bowling Green and also missed a wide open Tyler Morris, bringing and end to his bravura start to the season with a thudding crisis. In times like these it can be useful to look at some stats, as a sanity check. Our pets' heads are falling off, but on a down-to-down basis, eh, it was fine:

Did We Really Get Beat That Bad?
Net Success Rates in Week 3 pic.twitter.com/6na3EYkrnI

— parker fleming (@statsowar) September 18, 2023

While I don't think success rates are always the best lens via which to evaluate a football game—see last year's OSU game—when you're trying to figure out how alarmed you should be after an indifferent performance in nonconference bodybag game #3 they provide a good baseline. And the baseline is more or less what you'd expect.

The only reason this game ended up like it did is because of the interceptions and a fumble by a fullback on a kickoff return. If that sounds like Ryan Day saying "it was just five plays," there's a difference. The infamous Five Plays were a natural consequence of the way Ohio State was playing Michigan. It is an established football thing that if you are playing hyper aggressive you are vulnerable to big plays. They're literally called "safeties."

The turnovers in this game are not—at least not yet—anything similar. We have an entire season of data on McCarthy in which his turnover worthy play rate is about 3%, in line with guys like Caleb Williams. We have shift our priors some after this game, but in all likelihood this is not the vanguard of a sudden regression. McCarthy's going to show up against Rutgers on Saturday, put up nice numbers en route to a comfortable win because this time Michigan's going to take the 3-0 Cable Subscribers somewhat seriously.

Yeah. That's happening. I'm not nervous and you're not nervous. Yeah. But if you see someone looking furtive, tackle them for me, would you? We cannot be sure the paw has left us until Urban Meyer is on the Spartan Stadium sideline yelling at 14 scholarship players and a frisbee dog.

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

different [Barron]

you're the man now, dog

#1 Kris Jenkins. Interception, near touchdown, rescued second half from potential sphincter time. Also had a TFL, and provided his usual diet of obliterated OL that made it easy for his teammates to clean up.

#2 Blake Corum. Crested 100 yards on just 12 carries and looked a lot more like 2022 Blake Corum than he had in the first two games.

#3 Junior Colson. Not a lot statistically—seven tackles and no other box score events—but this was a game where rallying to tackle on the outside after a dink was pretty much the whole deal and Colson showed why NFL types are interested.

Honorable mention: Cornelius Johnson bailed McCarthy out on a questionable flea-flicker throw; Roman Wilson is constantly open; AJ Barner had another good day as a blocker. Mike Sainristil had a sack when he danced around a running back and would have had a PBU but for bloody fate. Cam Goode had a sack(!); Jaylen Harrell had a strip sack.

KFaTAotW Standings.

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

16: JJ McCarthy (#1 ECU, #1 UNLV)
13: Kris Jenkins (HM ECU, T2 UNLV, #1 BGSU)
7: Blake Corum (HM ECU, HM UNLV, #2 BGSU)
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), 
3: Junior Colson (#3 BGSU)
2: Ernest Hausmann (T3 ECU), Mike Sainristil (T3 ECU), 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), Mike Barrett (HM UNLV), AJ Barner (HM BGSU), Mike Sainristil (HM BGSU)

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

Kris Jenkins turns the second half from an annoying and terrifying "they couldn't… could they" into a merely annoying "they cannot but we're playing like butt" by intercepting a screen pass and nearly scoring; Michigan would punch it in to make it 21-6 and more or less end the competitive portion of the game.

Honorable mention: Corum bursts off right tackle for a 54 yarder on Michigan's first snap; JJ lays in a touchdown to Wilson;

MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

Max Bredeson's fumble on the kickoff announces that it's One Of Those Games.

Honorable mention: McCarthy pick 1, McCarthy pick 2, McCarthy pick 3. McCarthy overthrows Morris for a sure TD.

It's back. Mmmm, Cheap Seats except tackling UFC 1. Which has Jim Brown doing color! Simultaneous thoughts: "why?" and "how did you get friggin' Jim Brown?"

The Sklars would appreciate a like on the video; this first episode is free to the world, future ones will be on UFC Fight Pass. Sign up, or deprive yourselves. I don't make the rules.

A large survey. ESPN surveyed "over 200 coaches, players, and administrators" about where college football is going. Upshots:

• A healthy majority (60%) of respondents think football should no longer be under the NCAA umbrella at all.
• A whopping 80% characterized NIL as a "black-market pay-for-play system that is being used to secure recruits and transfers," which means Michigan is in a small minority of naïve teams. Also it's a gray market—not explicitly prohibited but of murky validity.
• 75% say tampering is a problem that needs to be addressed, which is essentially impossible right now.
• A third of respondents favor a 12 team playoff model; another third favor eight teams, with other formats taking the remaining third.
• Only 15% endorsed lifting the one-time transfer restriction, about which more in the next bullet.
• Also relevant to next bullet: 88% of respondents believe direct player compensation is on the horizon, with a majority expecting it within five years.

What are you doing? As part of their deal with the devil, once a year Notre Dame has to abandon their classic blue and gold for colors that don't even exist:

Nothing is any of those colors except the helmet: urine when you're dehydrated. The helmet comes nowhere near anything else on the uniform. They've got as many design elements as you put on your rad-ass logo the first time you ever opened up your pirated copy of photoshop in seventh grade. Also:

2. "Authentic Irish Pub" in suburban upstate New York lookin' ass font. Guy who has never left his hometown but never shuts up about how Irish he is ass font. This font is so dumb, if you let your eyes lose focus, the letters automatically rearrange into "You know, the Guinness they have in Ireland is different and much better than here in the US."

These are the worst things Under Armour does annually.

I hesitate to suggest that Michigan won't do similar things under Harbaugh because not even he can stand against the tide by himself, but so far so good. Last year's all-white road uniforms were sharp and we haven't had uniformz announced or even rumored. It is possible. Texas, Alabama, and USC have largely or even entirely avoided uniforms that look like a wrestler's entrance video.

Harbaugh uptick. MLive covers how Michigan and MSU spend their money, albeit with poorly-axis'd graphs. The most interesting bit is a clear Harbaugh surge in spending on support staff:

This is spending on guys like Erik Campbell, TJ Weist, Bam Richards, Devin Bush Sr, etc. Michigan almost doubled its spending on support staff in Harbaugh's first year, hitting 2.7 million. The number they landed on doesn't seem like a coincidence:

In its 2013-14 NCAA financial report, Alabama reported spending $2.7 million on football support staff. … Clemson reported spending $2.5 million on football support staff in 2013-14, up from $480,000 about a decade ago.

Harbaugh asked and got the same budget as the two teams who played for the national title this year.

Michigan's recruiting expenses also saw an uptick, but I don't know if these numbers account for Satellite Camp World Tour 1.0 or not; either way the financial impact of those tours is going to be a slight increase in a number best described as "piddling."

Michigan was good at kickoffs. Michigan was 17th nationally in opponent drives following a kickoff that started at the 25 or worse and 16th when they tried to return kickoffs past the 25 themselves. That success rate was only 57% despite ranking in the top 20—so much of the value in a kick return is the 50 yards at the end that almost never happen but sometimes do.

I think they'll be good in both departments this year. Kenny Allen got good hang time and a lot of touchbacks, and whoever Michigan opts for as a returner is going to be fast and mean.

More expansion, hooray. If the Big 12 is going to expand they should just take BYU and Houston and be done with it. Houston doesn't make a whole lot of sense for the same reason Pitt was never seriously considered by the Big Ten—footprint rules everything around me—but when the other options are Cincinnati, Memphis, UConn, and directional Floridas, Houston starts to look mighty appealing anyway. So of course a former president of CBS sports recommends UConn:

For that reason, Pilson advised the Big 12 to take a page from the Big Ten’s playbook. Much as the Big Ten, a traditionally Midwestern league, recently added Rutgers and Maryland to plant its flag near several East Coast population centers, the Big 12, whose members reside in Great Plains states and Texas (and West Virginia), ought to invite Connecticut to join, Pilson said.

“Having Texas and Oklahoma and the other major Big 12 schools playing in the Northeast would create additional revenue opportunities and make it a more attractive conference in terms of new sponsors and a better linear television deal,” Pilson said.

That seems nuts to me. The Big 12 does not have a network and won't have one unless Texas gives the LHN up, which no. If Texas really wants exposure in a different part of the country they'll blow the Big 12 up.

Unless we can interest the Big 12 in some of our finest athletic departments?

Invite Purdue and Rutgers to join the Big 12 conference.

Yep, you heard me. Purdue University and Rutgers University would be great fits for your fledgling conference, since they really round out and diversify what the conference needs most. And to help you out, I even made a pro/con list for each school and why they'd work in the Big 12. …

Cons:

• There are no drawbacks to this move whatsoever

A compelling case from the Crimson Quarry.

There is a Big Ten angle here. 247's Bobby Burton notes that the Big 12 has a grant of rights agreement through 2025 and Texas is seriously considering an exit at that point:

The only assurance Texas, or any school for that matter, could truly give to any newcomer is the "grant of rights" to the league that is currently in place. That grant for Texas and all of teams of the Big 12 extends to 2025.

Yet I don't see an extension of the grant of rights occurring based on my discussion with a high-ranking Texas official this morning.

"I do not like any of the choices," the official said. "(I) want to watch to see if there is a move to extend the grant of TV rights. I will fight that tooth and nail."

Per Burton, Texas's president and chancellor both prefer the Big Ten to the Pac-12 or SEC. Oddly, he says "expect Texas to ask for an annual trip to Chicago and to either of the East Coast markets," which almost certainly can't happen without making the division structure insane. Chicago they can manage since the West division in that event is going to be Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Texas, Northwestern, Illinois, and whichever other Big 12 refugee hypothetically comes along.

By the way, at that point you're back down to playing the other division 25% of the time even with nine conference games. Hooray expansion.

Persons profiled. Angelique profiles Mo Hurst…

Hurst has been on the Uber clock this summer, logging miles and earning money, in addition to interning at Blue Lion Fitness in Ann Arbor.

“I’ve just done it for extra cash, pretty much that’s it,” the affable 6-foot-2, 282-pound lineman said. “I definitely like the flexibility. I can work whenever, which helps with my schedule with (football) workouts and working at Blue Lion Fitness.”

Once camp begins Aug. 8, however, Hurst’s Uber days will be over. But he’s enjoyed the experience, especially longer trips to the airport which net $22.

…and Dymonte Thomas:

“Jake [Butt] is a character. We talk trash every day. He likes to get better. He knows in the NFL there are going to be DBs who are quick and fast and strong, kind of like me, who are going to cover him, and he’s going to have to get open. That’s why he likes the competition. He’ll go against the linebacker, but he knows if he can get open on a DB, he can get open on a linebacker, so Jake and I go at it every day.”

Thomas offered a Butt scouting report as well:

“Jake’s going to be probably a first-round pick,” Thomas said. “Jake has got strides. It’s not like he’s super fast, but he has long strides that make him fast. He’s really good with his double moves and he’s really good at sticking, stopping and going. If you don’t slow him down, he will leave you. He’s sneaky fast.”

Etc.: This Harbaugh conspiracy theory is just crazy enough to consider. My take on the new apparel: it's definitely a shirt. Jordan Poole playing well in AAU. Fixing the schedule needs 7 B10 ADs to approve. Hugh Freeze has a future in politics. Moritz Wagner profiled.