As anyone who has ever moderated a liveblog can tell you, the psychology of fans is a curious thing. Here are some submissions that seemed sane enough to publish in the first quarter (no usernames, that would be cruel):

• So what if we get pounded, we're still 2-0 against them the past 2 years
• our offense has been downgraded from AAA to "Greece".
• If Denard don't get his shit together next series, I would entertain the thought of putting Gardner in.
• How come ND bounced back from a couple sucky seasons so much faster than us?
• I would suggest Michigan drop ND from the schedule until the team gets better
• Good thing we didn't pay $300 a ticket for this, eh?
• Enough is enough. Denard needs to consider calling his own plays in open rebellion if that's what it takes to win.
• now we have a bad defense AND a bad offense
• ...we are completely overmatched. No getting around that.

Small samples. We jump in it. The feelings fans get in their guts is so strong they can’t help but make bold public proclamations after less than a quarter when they know it’s dangerous to read too much into the result of an entire game. Sometimes USC loses as a 41 point favorite and goes on to win everything else. Sometimes James Madison beats that season’s ACC champ. Sometimes The Horror, then Tebow Smash. Everyone knows this. It’s at least partially why Brian felt compelled to protest the strictures and conventions of sportswriting when making his prediction Friday.

As you might be able to tell from the title, this diary is a reaction to Denard After Dentist. The title choice is apt, at least in some ways. My buzz didn’t wear off until Sunday evening. Brian’s as big a Michigan fan as there is, and between the muppets and the “that happened” post, I’m sure he got a great glow himself. But Denard After Dentist came from a guy whose trip took him some places he’d rather not go. Don’t take my word for it:

But I hope I'm not the only one who felt a sense of foreboding in the midst of the joy and relief. We've seen this script the last two years, and never has it been as rickety.

Rodriguez was hired on the promise of bringing our offense into the space age. Zone left, run, run, pass on third and long: gone. Dreadlocks, speed, Barwisbeasts, fuse blowing scoreboards, modernity: in. That’s what we were promised. One of Bo’s players came back to lead the program and pretty soon Rodriguez was gone. Dan Mullen was quickly ruled out, and when Hoke was introduced at that press conference he conflated Michigan football primarily with toughness and that seemed like the day Dilithium died. 

Perhaps the most surprising element of Denard After Dentist wasn’t anything Brian wrote, but that no one in the comments challenged the central premise: that Dilithium is dying. Certainly, it feels that way, it has since January. But that’s not enough. Not on MGoBlog. This is a data driven place. Where’s the evidence? WHERE ARE THE CHARTS?

**

Again, this is silly. Drawing conclusions from one game is a fool’s errand. But last year’s offensive performance against Notre Dame sure doesn’t look as good as you remember it, does it? If Brian wants us to accept that our offense is worse than it was, it’s inconvenient that our offensive performance this year was actually much better. 

This is an aside, but here’s what Brian had to say about last year’s win:

I was going to let my skepticism overwhelm, to wait until it was obvious that 2010 was not going to be 2009, but I lasted two games. I'm in the tank again...

I've got an answer for the Courant now: Michigan is receivers blocking like tiny mountain goats 40 yards downfield because it matters, because if you set Denard free he'll go "AHHHH" at you afterwards. He'll smile and it will seem like the sun is poking through dark clouds, scattering colors in a circle all around you.

It’s a jarring contrast to the quote about the script never having been as rickety. And this:

All the reasons it left you with your finger between your teeth are reasons to wonder about the smoothness of this transition (not very), the repeatability of such miracles (even less).

Another aside: what a strange turn of phrase. Reasons to wonder? If Brian were wondering those parentheticals wouldn’t be there.

The smoothness of the transition is still an open question. As I showed above the statistics of the only real test so far this year don’t indicate anything is amiss. 

Turning to how repeatable our road to victory was***

I think any reasonable observer would answer that we got at least fairly lucky. But I don’t think we were as lucky as Brian seems to think or nearly lucky as last year. We had two big factors going for us last year that were not replicable with any sort of consistency.

First, if your recall, Notre Dame’s starting quarterback was knocked out of most of the first half (his backups and Brian Kelly’s ethics were of such quality that he returned and played for the second half with what was almost certainly a concussion).

Secondly, while this year we were the beneficiaries of two gift fumbles (certainly quite lucky), that’s outweighed by the fact last year we were +3 in turnover margin with a defense that was absolutely abysmal at creating turnovers and an offense and special teams that gave gifts freely.

Possible items that one might argue are not replicable from this year’s game:

• Denard completed a couple jump balls to Junior Hemingway, who has a knack for catching those sorts of things . I guess that’s kind of lucky, but not particularly when you consider he missed a couple long shots downfield too.
• Denard also threw a couple jump balls to Gallon. Both got completed in the end zone, but one to the other team. Tell me if I’m being cavalier in counting that as a wash.
• The Denard fumble recovery score- How lucky is something when it mainly cancels out catastrophic unluckiness? I guess it depends on your perspective, but, of course, it registers.
• Gallon being invisible isn’t any more lucky than the blown coverage we had that allowed the go-ahead score two plays before. 

Conclusions:

1. Making bold conclusions from a single quarter or game is silly (remind yourself)

2. We should be conscious that even minor failures in this year’s offense feed into our confirmation bias that a MANBALL head coach won’t hire someone who can handle Dilithium nearly as well as Rodriguez
3. Michigan’s offense performed significantly better against Notre Dame statistically than it did last year
4. (remind yourself of the first thing)
5. We were at least fairly lucky to win this year
6. We were luckier last year
7. BONUS: The luck we had last year didn’t suppress our optimism. Maybe it should have a little, but the idea that there’s a script and if we let optimism creep in we’re doomed to follow it is silly.

Footnotes

*It should be noted that the yardage numbers don’t include the net yardage changes incurred by penalties for/against the offense. Last year’s game featured a lot of drive killing penalties and Notre Dame’s defense incurred none. Whereas last year our offense had a net of 54 yards of penalties against it, this year the offense gained a net of 11 yards from penalties. Again these aren’t reflected in any other yardage numbers.

**Caveats: ND has 8 defensive starters back, it’s fair to assume they’re better defensively this year… Last year’s game featured two missed Brendan Gibbons field goals from 39 and 40 yards, take your wild guess as to what the chances are of either going in this year and adjust your assessment of the offense’s performance accordingly.

***Given that Brian’s preceding sentences gave examples from both sides of the ball, I’m fairly certain I’m on safe ground including defensive play in my response.