omg shirtless

THE ESSENTIALS

WHAT	#49 Michigan (4-4, 0-0)   vs #69 Indiana (6-1, 1-0)
WHERE	Crisler Arena Ann Arbor, MI
WHEN	9 PM
THE LINE	Kenpom: M-6 Torvik: M-4
TELEVISION	Peacock (stream)

THE OVERVIEW

I guarantee in twelve weeks from now somebody looking at the Big Ten standings is going to turn to his friend and ask "When do we play Indiana" and she's going to be like "Did we already?" and someone will finally seek the Enlightenment of the Great and Powerful Internet and declare "I guess we did?"

Yes, dear people of the future, Michigan and Indiana did (do) meet once this year. It is at 9 o'clock at night on a Tuesday with half the town still comatose from three months of football punctuated by aggressive bullshit whack-a-mole on the internet. Michigan's basketball team has also shown signs of arguing with Twitter trolls into the wee hours. Dug McDaniel's hot afternoon beyond the arc kept them alive for a golden opportunity to steal what would have looked like an impressive victory in Oregon. Alas, the late out-of-bounds review gods were wroth, as were the free throw gods in the single-bonus, and Oregon managed to tie and win in overtime. Michigan limps home to begin the tiny December portion of Big Ten play at 4-4, still desperately seeking a defense and scoring options other than Dug Go Zoom.

Indiana's record looks comparatively pristine, but their Kenpom rating is down in the mid-major tier thanks to an early season schedule of Gulf Coast (243), Army (352), Wright State (129), Louisville (161), Harvard (147) and Maryland (70). There's also a loss in there to #4 UConn that wasn't remotely competitive. The FGC, Army, and Wright State games, on the other hand, were actually contested. This will be their first road game of the season, and their only meeting with Michigan unless we see them in the BTT again.

[After THE JUMP: New team, still no spacing]

Two or three receivers are earning a lot of praise. One defender is maybe the best football player in America. There's no way you're going to guess who they're talking about.

Offense in General

What we want to hear: More confirmation that Gattis is in charge and they're practicing the things they're going to do this year.

What we're hearing: BTN made their Michigan stop and as expected there was barely anything interesting from it. The one thing we noticed in the video is that Michigan uses two balls to practice triple-options so they don't have two guys running around doing nothing.

Michigan using 2 balls in mesh group to maximize reps on read and speed option/pitch relationship. #spreadoffense pic.twitter.com/HN9V1uK7CU

— SpreadOffense.com (@SpreadOffense) August 14, 2019

There's also been plenty of Gattis being Gattis. Twas he who told the press that they won't ever use a six-man OL, that the fullback position doesn't exist because all of their running backs have to block and catch and run. Numerous mentions from Jansen to Harbaugh note they're not a huddling team anymore. But it was Nua who gave us the strongest indication yet that they're serious about RPOs this time, noting "Our offense runs them a lot" in explaining how much they're practicing converting pass rush to pursuit.

What it means: #SpeedInSpace

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

Quarterback

Et tu, dieu? [Bryan Fuller]

What we want to hear: Deepest group of quarterbacks since…uh…

What we're hearing: QB coach Ben McDaniels met with the media, and user NeverPunt kindly typed it up for us. Not a lot there: Shea's doing a good job of "staying clean" mentally, skillsets of the QBs is similar. McCaffrey would start at "a ton" (Lorenz) or most (Shea Patterson) programs depending whom you ask.

Shea was on Jansen's podcast and explained the "golf" comments from last week. The short of it is he likes to golf. If you need to scrounge for a reason this will make him a better football player, he says he practices his focus. Really though he just likes to golf. Via a couple of practice observers (and in ITF this week($)) Shea was finding guys every time when he broke the pocket, has been super locked in this fall. Milton's way behind the other two but preparing like he isn't.

What it means: Shea's got the job, but they're not kidding about McCaffrey, who's doing enough that you have to talk about him.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the roundup]

10/31/2015 – Michigan 29, Minnesota 26 – 6-2, 3-1 Big Ten

[Patrick Barron]

ONE. We've got a radio show now so I've been listening to sports talk radio even when Sam and Ira aren't on. I do it to compare and maybe get better and maybe draw confidence from the fact that a lot of sports talk radio is outrageously bad. The parts that aren't are often outrageously robotic. WTKA has a bunch of NFL stuff now that they switched to CBS, and it's on when I go to and from our podcast on Sunday; sometimes I catch it on a Thursday.

Tom Brady was on. Jim Gray actually asked him a lot of pointed questions about the upcoming game against the Colts and whether he had a desire to rain unholy fire upon those bastards. Brady responded with the passion of an accountant. I would chalk this up to Brady's flat affect, but I've seen player after player descend into this anodyne non-existence. This is a a league that spent most of the offseason discussing the Ideal Gas Law, after all—even if they didn't know they were doing so. It's just a thing. Colleges teach it but it doesn't take all the way. The NFL perfects it, along with the slant.

TWO. Minnesota has not been good for literally 50 years. Their blips to the positive aren't even Illinois blips. Every decade Illinois will show up in a BCS-level game; the Minnesota coach with the best winning percentage since 1944 is one Glen Mason, who the Gophers fired so they could hire Tim Brewster.

THREE. In 2005 I was pretty mad after a weird game where the Michigan Stadium scoreboards fritzed out and Jim Herrmann called a blitz on which Prescott Burgess, a 230-pound linebacker, was tasked with two-gapping a 270-pound monster TE. When I get mad I tend to be mad about everything, but when Lawrence Maroney rushed out to midfield and planted the biggest damn Minnesota flag in existence I was just like "yeah, go ahead, you earned that."

Sixty-plus Gopher players stormed across that field to reclaim the Jug without considering decorum, sanity, or sportsmanship. Michigan had just lost a game mostly because they called a blitz so telegraphed that a petrified backup QB could check them into a 50-yard run and I had enough non-hate in my heart to genuinely enjoy the fervor with which the Gophers reclaimed Fielding Yost's 30-cent chunk of crockery.

FOUR. Last year the Little Brown Jug went on a tour of the state of Minnesota.

This was a good idea.

FIVE. Jerry Kill retired last week because he could no longer control the seizures his cancer had bestowed upon him. Jerry Kill talks like a NASCAR driver. He comes by his coachspeak honestly, and when Tracy Claeys was again thrust into a role he probably never thought he'd be in—Kill tends to buy and hold assistants until the end of time—he sounded 100% like Jerry Kill.

It was awkward. It was stilted. It was genuine as hell. He told his kids not to play with emotion because emotion evaporates but to play with passion because passion sticks and I was just like YOU MAY BE SAYING THIS LIKE TOM BRADY SAYS THINGS BUT I KNOW THAT FEEL.

SIX. Junior Hemingway, just shouting and weeping after the Sugar Bowl.

SEVEN. Jerry Kill.

EIGHT. Michigan won a football game that often doubled as an exercise in hilarious improbability. Michigan gave up a 52-yard touchdown after Jeremy Clark executed the platonic ideal of coverage against a corner route. With 19 seconds left in a football game, Minnesota spent 17 seconds on a series of elaborate motions on first and goal from the half-yard line.

Football is weird and terrible and sometimes it gets you to within a half-yard of a cathartic, wonderful victory and then says "nah." Sometimes when you're 2-and-a-billion after always being good your walk-on QB dials up a bunch of incredible throws and you go grab the Little Brown Jug with a newfound respect for its importance. Football, above all, is cruel.

NINE. If you are a Minnesota fan on a bitter Monday indeed, here is the equivalent of Lawrence Maroney planting a flag. It is Jon Falk, the recently retired and legendary Michigan equipment manager, welcoming his favorite 30-cent crockery back home.

It hurts, but that means something. That is a thing that is real. It is a reflection of Jerry Kill killing himself to be in this game and dying because he has to leave it.

TEN. I've always hated THIS IS MICHIGAN a bit because it reminds me of going to Penn State in 2006 and having their chintzy-ass scoreboards proclaim WE'RE PENN STATE… AND THEY'RE NOT. It's not necessarily as bad, but sometimes it tends to AND THEY'RE NOT. I'm not a huge fan of Michigan's excellently-executed James Earl Jones intro video this year because it claims a bunch of things that should be gestured at instead.

Michigan's great. I love Michigan. I love it all, though. I've been to Georgia and Auburn and Penn State and Ohio State and Minnesota and the feeling of college football is something else. Minnesota hasn't done anything Colin Cowherd would note for 50 years. You could maybe compare them to the Lions, who no one should ever be a fan of.

Except no. Tell me that doesn't matter. Tell me This Is Minnesota doesn't mean anything. We took the Jug and we mostly earned it and that matters to me. It matters to Jabrill Peppers and Jon Falk and Jim Harbaugh and Greg Dooley. It matters because it's college fucking football, and Minnesota means something.

To Michigan, it means the Jug. They got it back on Saturday by the skin of their teeth, and for a program that's had a bit of a rough go of late they'll take it any way they can get it.

HIGHLIGHTS

Column inspired by Dr. Sap digging up a post-game Bo speech after the 1987 Jug game:

A half hour version that must be most of the game from WD:

Parking God has a more reasonable length reel:

AWARDS

[Barron]

Known Friends And Trusted Agents Of The Week

you're the man now, dog

#1 Jabrill Peppers had a 40 yard KO return, a 40 yard punt return, two PBUs, a near pick-six, a rushing touchdown, a reverse set up by everyone fretting about Peppers, a pass interference call drawn—Peppers played nearly 100 snaps and was instrumental in all three phases of the game.

#2 Maurice Hurst didn't actually pop up in the box score much but he was frequently in Leidner's grill; on the final stand he blew up the pass protection on the first play and was one of a few different Wolverines whipping their dudes up front. Actually in the box score: he had a critical TFL that forced Minnesota to kick a short field goal.

#3 Drake Johnson didn't get many carries but was by far the most effective runner Michigan had; other guys had lanes but didn't take advantage of them. Hoping to see more of him going forward.

Honorable mention: Chesson and Darboh both had nice days. Glasgow again contributed to mostly good run defense.

KFaTAotW Standings.

9: Jourdan Lewis (#1 UNLV, #1 Northwestern, #1 MSU), Jabrill Peppers(#2 BYU, #2 Northwestern, #2 MSU, #1 Minnesota)
5: Chris Wormley(#2 Utah, #1 Oregon State)
4: Maurice Hurst (#2 Maryland, #2 Minnesota)
3: Jake Butt (#1 Utah), De'Veon Smith(#2 Oregon State, #3 BYU), Ryan Glasgow (#1 BYU), Desmond Morgan (#1 Maryland),
2: Ty Isaac(#2 UNLV), Willie Henry(#3 Utah, #3 MSU).
1: AJ Williams (#3 Oregon State), Channing Stribling(#3 UNLV), Blake O'Neill(#3 Maryland), Jake Rudock(#3 Northwestern), Drake Johnson(#3 Minnesota)

Who's Got It Better Than Us Of The Week

This week's best thing ever.

Form a f-ing wall.

#FAFW pic.twitter.com/xWGkS1Fjqi

— Ace Anbender (@AceAnbender) November 1, 2015

Honorable mention: Speight throws the go-ahead touchdown and then converts for two; Peppers has the ball in his hands.

WGIBTUs Past.

Utah: Crazy #buttdown.
Oregon State: #tacopunts.
UNLV: Ty Isaac's 76 yard touchdown.
BYU: De'Veon Smith's illicit teleporter run.
Maryland: Jehu Chesson jet sweeps past you.
Northwestern: Chesson opening KO TD.
MSU: the bit where they won until they didn't.
Minnesota: form a f-ing wall.

MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

This week's worst thing ever.

Channing Stribling gets beat over the top for what seems like the game-winning touchdown, until it was not.

Honorable mention: Mitch Leidner hurling the ball downfield on throws that are very bad ideas only for those to be complete anyway. Rudock underthrows another deep ball by 20 yards.

PREVIOUS EDBs

Utah: circle route pick six.
Oregon State: Rudock fumbles after blitz bust.
UNLV: Rudock matches 2014 INT total in game 3.
BYU: BYU manages to get to triple digit yards in the last minutes of the game.
Maryland: Slog extended by deflected interception at Houma.
Northwestern: KLINSMANN OUT
MSU: Obvious.
Minnesota: The bit where the lost it until they didn't.

[After THE JUMP: fluky fluky fluky.]