10/21/2023 – Michigan 49, Michigan State 0 – 8-0, 5-0 Big Ten

Somewhere in this country there is a person making approximately minimum wage who is tasked with finding benign videos to put on scoreboards across the country. It is a hideously dull job and he or she spends most of their time at work staring blankly at a screen, half focused. When something useful shows up, it's bookmarked and put in a bin.

This person is not watching question #28 in a 40-question quiz that takes 16 minutes to get through. After the second question is "what are crayons made of" they put it in the Michigan State bin on the off chance it convinces Spartans to draw with the things instead of eating them*. Then they spend 15 minutes playing solitaire. Some weeks or months later, a jaunty Hitler shows up on the Spartan Stadium scoreboard next to an ad for Meijer.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh pic.twitter.com/DvNk6A3vn5

— Alexander Haenke (@aphaenke) October 21, 2023

That person did not have a bad day on Saturday. That person got fired, shrugged, and had an edible.

That person's boss had a bad day. And that person's boss, and that person's boss, and so forth and so on up the chain until we reach the Michigan State administrator who chewed out a person at Company X after being chewed out himself.

Having to type up "hitler apology.doc" while the team is losing 42-0 to its most despised rival is an actual sports info director nightmare

— Jason Kirk (jasonkirk.fyi on bluesky) (@JasonKirk_fyi) October 22, 2023

These people have living wages and car payments. Our quiz selector has… edibles. You can only lose something if you felt like you had something. The person at the bottom of the totem pole with a life of dull-eyed drudgery stretching out for eons in front of them feels nothing.

This is the bright side for Michigan State fans.

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

On the other side of the equation, Michigan dominated a rivalry game to an extent not seen since the 1950s. Every box was checked: abject humiliation, fancy QB stats, taking over the opponent's stadium in the first quarter, revenge for all the various offenses perpetrated.

In the aftermath, Michigan sang a very silly song at piercing volume…

Michigan postgame chants after stomping MSU pic.twitter.com/KNWXpOqXMe

— Ryan Zuke (@ryanzuke) October 22, 2023

…and Mike Sainristil took 12 seconds at the end of his NBC interview—12 seconds NBC did not want to give him—to say "real quick, hey, c'mere, c'mere—real quick."

At this point the interviewer interjects with "Mikey, thanks so much" because she has been directed from on high to get this back to the studio. Mike Sainristil says no, you will not do this, and then he grabs Ja'Den McBurrows and says "the adversity he went through, what happened last year in that tunnel, to come out and have game like he did tonight—an interception, three-four tackles—Ja'Den McBurrows! Stay tuned!"

As he is doing this, JJ McCarthy is putting the imaginary crown on McBurrows, like he does everyone who scores a touchdown, or blocks for a touchdown, or happens to be in the area when a touchdown happens. It feels like he is overjoyed that he can put a crown on someone on defense for once.

Here it is: Michigan does not forgive or forget. But the way they get revenge is to go about their business. Michigan didn't endanger anyone's health or safety outside the rule book Saturday, as the Michigan State athletic department ludicrously suggested they might. They treated Michigan State just like any other opponent… mostly.

It was in the back of their heads, the way a one-sided assault on two innocent players had been both-sided by the media, the way an as-yet unsubstantiated report has caused the college football media's various MSU/OSU partisans and Medill graduates to wishcast absurd punishments on the nation's most dominant team. McBurrows responded by coming after the beatdown had commenced and simply continuing it. Michigan put German Green, Gemon's twin brother, on the field for the last snap and he came up with a TFL.

There's no need for revenge. The fact that this is Michigan's team and that is Michigan State's team is revenge enough.

[Barron]

*[Quiz questions that get filed in the Michigan bin include "What was Erwin Rommel's fatal mistake during the Siege of Tobruk?" and "What is your most passionately held opinion you have absolutely no evidence to support?"]

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

[Barron]

you're the man now, dog

#1 JJ McCarthy. A confession: I do try to switch it up in the Known Friends and Trusted Agents to prevent the monotony of the same guy being at the top constantly. This is not really possible this year. Your new Heisman favorite was 21/27 for 287 yards and four TDs in 40 minutes of gametime. Agog.

#2(T) AJ Barner and Colston Loveland. Harbaugh probably thought the rapture was going on as Michigan beat MSU 49-0 and his top two tight ends combined for 178 receiving yards and three touchdowns—and it would have been four but for a Donovan Edwards flinch at the end of the half. Barner mostly shed whatever reputation he might have had as a blocking tight end with a bevy of downfield catches, some contested and others difficult. Barner continues to turn in improbable YAC events. Loveland, meanwhile, is pure death whenever he gets a LB assignment. Five points each; they deserve it.

#3 Ja'Den McBurrows. Had an interception and a TFL; had a couple more good tackles in space; dominated a slant route and only failed to get a PBU on it because the ball was wide. Given the dispersion of defensive snaps—he tied for fourth in tackles!—this is only kinda sorta about last year. Dude looked like a worthy replacement for Sainristil. As the man himself said, stay tuned.

Honorable mention: Mike Sainristil had an admittedly free pick six and, more importantly for this section, demanded that NBC not cut away until he could shout out McBurrows. Junior Colson was everywhere; Derrick Moore had a thunderous sack and only missed a second by a bare margin. Kris Jenkins and Mason Graham were entirely unblockable.

KFaTAotW Standings.

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

43: JJ McCarthy (#1 ECU, #1 UNLV, #2 Rutgers, HM Nebraska, #2 Minn, #1 IU, #1 MSU)
23: Kris Jenkins (HM ECU, T2 UNLV, #1 BGSU, HM Rutgers, #1 Neb, HM MSU)
15: Mason Graham (HM ECU, T2 UNLV, #1 Minn, HM IU, HM MSU)
13: Mike Sainristil (T3 ECU, HM BGSU, #1 Rutgers, HM IU, HM MSU)
10: Blake Corum (HM ECU, HM UNLV, #2 BGSU, HM Rutgers, HM Neb, HM IU), AJ Barner (HM BGSU, HM Neb, HM Minn, T3 IU, T2 MSU)
9: Roman Wilson (T2 ECU, HM UNLV, HM BGSU, #3 Nebraska)
8: Mike Barrett (HM UNLV, T3 Rutgers, #2 IU), Colston Loveland (HM Rutgers, T3 IU, T2 MSU)
7: Braiden McGregor(T3 UNLV, #2 Nebraska), Cornelius Johnson (T2 ECU, HM UNLV, HM BGSU, HM Minn)
6: Kenneth Grant (T3 ECU, T2 UNLV), Junior Colson (#3 BGSU, T3 Rutgers, HM MSU)
4: Ernest Hausmann (T3 ECU, T3 Rutgers), Max Bredeson (HM Rutgers, HM Neb, T3 IU), Derrick Moore (T3 UNLV, HM Neb, HM MSU)
3: Will Johnson(#3 Minn), Jaylen Harrell (HM UNLV, HM BGSU, HM IU)
2:  Josh Wallace (T3 ECU)
1: Tommy Doman (HM ECU), Donovan Edwards (HM ECU), Tyler Morris (HM UNLV), Semaj Morgan (HM Rutgers),Quinten Johnson (HM Rutgers), Kalel Mullings (HM Minn), The Offensive Line (HM Minn), Keon Sabb (HM Minn), Josiah Stewart (HM Minn), Ben Hall (HM IU)

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

JJ McCarthy gets set up with a third and thirteen on Michigan's first drive, gets late pressure, moves out of the pocket, and calmly nails AJ Barner to convert. In itself, not incredible. As an emblem of JJ McCarthy in this game, ah yup.

Honorable mention:  uh… everything else.

MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK: SPECIAL EDITION

Since literally one thing of import went wrong AND MSU center Nick Samac deployed the double bird IN HIS OWN STADIUM, IN THE THIRD QUARTER, this section is dedicated to birds, not bad things that happened. About a dozen people @'d me on Twitter about this even before I asked, and there was a lot of discussion about replacing Marcus Hall with Samac.

I don't want to do this, because Marcus Hall got ejected from a Michigan-Ohio State game that Ohio State won; his birds were a roar of defiance. Say what you want about Ohio State but they're not ankle biters. I feel like having the bad things about a game represented by Hall is fine. My man did some dumb shit and went out on his own terms. There's a level of respect in this section.

Samac's birds were pathetic. MSU was down a billion, Michigan fans had taken over his home stadium, and per Seth's reckoning the Michigan fans' response was to sing "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow" at him. I'm not dumping Hall for this joker. Just compare the two screenshots we have. Hall is out there with it; Samac seems embarrassed, because he should be.

What I am doing: NICK SAMAC PATHETIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK. I'm not going to issue this after every game, only ones in which something unsporting, cowardly, incredibly stupid, infuriating, unethical, or downright-not-right happens. I'm guessing it'll be about a third of Michigan games and 100% of Michigan-Michigan State games.

Honorable mention: The illegal motion at the end of the half takes a touchdown off the board.

NICK SAMAC PATHETIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK

Spencer Brown gets ejected for a an ultra-targeting on Braiden McGregor:

I'd say suspend him but it's probably meaner to let him play.

Dishonorable mention: Nick Samac issues double birds to Michigan fans that have taken over Spartan Stadium up 42-0 in the third quarter. MSU takes three personal fouls in two plays in the third quarter. A cheap shot on Alex Orji gives Michigan a shot at a seventh touchdown that they take. The replay official in Iowa-Minnesota takes a Cooper DeJean punt return TD off the board for a ticky-tack invalid fair catch signal.

OFFENSE

A youtube feature. Got a note from a guy who wanted to see the embedded plays multiple times, which is not as easy as hitting the "again" button when it's a subclip from a larger video. Solution: the left arrow button will take you back five seconds.

[Fuller]

Why even rush? For a second consecutive week, JJ McCarthy was beyond lethal when allowed to leave the pocket. Defenses are going to have to make a Hobson's choice between keeping him contained but letting him have time to pick apart zones and getting this on their faces:

Neither of these choices prevents McCarthy from wrecking you.

Note that the OL does have a role in making this happen, because when they give up a pressure it is almost always just one guy. In this example the DT who stunts outside gets put on the ground by Zinter. That gives McCarthy the room to WOOP the looper, and then it's game over. Many quarterbacks can avoid one guy (not Drew Allar) and make something productive happen afterwards (not Drew Allar). When I charted the defense I often said something like you need two pressures to sack a QB unless you get a +3 from someone; when Michigan gives up a pressure it is almost always just one guy, and it's almost never a +3 kind of rush.

Updated JJ under pressure stats: 64% completions, 11.6 YPA. His YPA when kept clean is 10.4. Pressuring JJ McCarthy is worse for your defense.

The Loveland strikes. Both of Colston Loveland's touchdowns were "oh my god" throws. The second is just obvious:

If you're wondering what a +3 UFR throw is: it's that.

The first, though, appears to be McCarthy reading that Angelo Grose is going to have to flip his hips around to get back to Loveland; the ball is out as soon as McCarthy sees the lateral separation between Loveland and Grose and is there before Grose can get all the way around and get even a desperate poke at the ball. Stay for the replays:

That was indeed a free play—Noah Eagle's call there was confusing—so maybe McCarthy is incentivized to make a riskier throw, but that's not risky. It's deadly.

The one JJ nit. For the second straight week we've got a completion that is a bit of a hair-raising experience:

This is a bit different than last week's against Indiana. That one looked like McCarthy did not see a robber and may have been fortunate to throw a ball behind Cornelius Johnson. This one is just late. Ideally the ball is out when Barner comes out of his break but there's a couple beats before McCarthy gets there. Also if this ball is off the likely outcome is a PBU, not an INT.

I'm not too concerned about this since McCarthy is doing this approximately once per game. PFF has him for 5 turnover worthy throws on the year, three of which came against BGSU. That's two(2) in the other seven games.

[Fuller]

An Edwards thing. Michigan converted a third and thirteen on an Edwards flare screen:

I think Wilson might get away with that in the charting because the reason he gets blown back is the MSU defensive back gets over-aggressive and ends up falling as a result. Anyway: this is a very good Edwards use because he is stupid fast and going all speed in space is likely to be productive. Given the way they're able to use their tight ends I'd like to see versions of this play with Loveland and Barner out there; those guys aren't screen tips when lined up out wide.

Screens have never been a major part of a Harbaugh offense at Michigan, even when the offensive coordinator arrived proclaiming that his offense was going to literally be "speed in space," and this year isn't much different. Amongst QBs with at least 100 attempts McCarthy is 126th of 150 qualifiers in screen rate. (Gavin Wimsatt, of all people, is dead last; Joe Milton, of all people, is #1.) I'm not saying this is wrong when they score touchdown after touchdown, but it does feel like a couple more Edwards screens a game would be productive.

Michigan potentially had a second lined up when they went to a very weird formation where all three guys to the trips side lined up on the LOS but whatever read they had on indicated a give to Corum, who picked up five.

[Fuller]

A Barner thing. Barner is oddly good at getting YAC. In this game he had one catch where he was able to extend himself another couple yards to convert a second and ten, and then there was this near the end of the half:

Alex was right when he suggested Barner could be an All Big Ten tight end. I'm not sure I'd trade him for anyone in the country right now. Brock Bowers is incredible but on this team I'm taking the guy who is an elite blocker and can do stuff like that downfield as a treat.

Another Morgan blip. Hard-earned experience about little slot dudes makes me skeptical they're going to have an impact unless they get targeted downfield, so I'm more intrigued by this Tuttle dart to Semaj Morgan than the preceding tunnel screen jaunt:

That's two tough catches downfield for Morgan, and another indicator he's going to be a guy.

The other cheap shot. No replay of this on the broadcast but just watch Orji on this play:

The final touchdown was richly deserved.

DEFENSE

[Barron]

The stuff. MSU's first drive ended on a fourth and two that went nowhere; unfortunately the video does not show Michigan's line shift before the play but:

You have Braiden McGregor moving down to become a four-tech and on the other side of the line Jaylen Harrell will back out into the flat. A twist on the frontside gets Jenkins through, erasing those gaps, and forces Carter to an overloaded backside where Rod Moore and either Colson or Barrett are unblocked.

Later in the game MSU attempted third and short that saw them make a quick pitch to the boundary; Michigan had this same thing on and Harrell backed into the flat, cutting off the outside and letting Hausmann get a TFL.

When motion lies. Loved this disguise from Minter. Slot moves across the formation, Sainristil goes with him. Presnap assumption is man coverage, and it is… except for Wallace running trap two:

We're getting more of these whoopsie throws as the season goes along and Minter mixes in coverages that defeat the little hitches and outs that were annoyances against Rutgers.

[Barron]

Playin' a few weird guys. This was exactly the thing you'd expect when Michigan played Yet Another Overmatched Offense, so maybe the most interesting thing on this side of the ball were early cameos from DJ Waller and Amorion Walker. Waller was in position to intercept on a corner route that ended up wide and short because of pressure; Walker got the PBU you see above on an out route.

Early in the year Keshaun Harris was starting in Will Johnson's stead and we were hoping that maybe Jyaire Hill would come on late. It's unclear whether Hill is still hurt (he wasn't on the injury report but it's possible Michigan doesn't put guys who didn't travel on the report), but Waller and Walker getting first-half snaps seems to indicate that they've climbed up the depth chart to be CBs 3 and 4. In Walker's case especially that seems like a good sign for next year. He's the highest-upside option in the CB room.

Switching it up. Michigan's DT rotations have generally been Graham and Jenkins together with two of Benny/Goode/Grant in unit two. In this game Michigan played a lot of snaps with Graham or Jenkins, which is kind of like when you break up your top line on a hockey team. I'm still hoping we get a preponderance of Graham/Jenkins in the closing stretch. Rotation is good but I'd rather see more 70/30 than 50/50.

I'm still not sure Michigan has a dominant DE, but… PFF charted Michigan with 20 pressures on 29 pass drops. Nobody had more than 3 individually because no one rushed the passer more than 16 times. And PFF's grading is kind of nuts in this department.

• Derrick Moore: 89 grade, 20% win rate
• Jaylen Harrell: 88 grade, 19% win rate
• Mason Graham: 80 grade, 15% win rate
• Josiah Stewart, 79 grade, 25% win rate
• Braiden McGregor: 74 grade, 17% win rate

This is a spot where performance is extremely dependent on level of opposition, so judgment should still be withheld. MSU's offensive line is not great but neither is it outright bad; this was a step towards belief that this will continue against PSU and OSU.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Nah. Not relevant. Seems like Tyler Morris won the full time punt return job.

MISCELLANEOUS

[Fuller]

Can we stop with the ultra-delayed touchdown signals? I'm not sure when this started happening but these days you can be lying on top of a teammate three yards in the endzone and the line judges will take five seconds to indicate that, yes, this event that is physically impossible to not be a touchdown is a touchdown. When you are a football paranoid like myself that five seconds is an interminable period of conspiracy-addled thinking. The Roman Wilson overturn against TCU has only made this worse. Won't someone think of the football paranoids?

The only Rutger. This game narrowly missed various Rutger events. For the second time this year Michigan scored exactly as many points as opposition rushing yards, and the Iowutger—more INT return yards than passing yards—didn't hold up. But we do have one unsurpassable Rutger: the Hitlutger, where you have more Hitlers on your scoreboard than points. Unless Michigan plays Liberty that's never being matched.

End of half discussion. On the one hand that was maybe the best two minute drill Michigan has run in Harbaugh's tenure. On the other, there were two critical mistakes. One was the six yard run that caused Michigan to take its final timeout. I don't mind that when you have multiple timeouts but for the very reason we saw, it is not worth the minor surprise of a run. Especially when your QB is a flamethrower.

The second mistake was McCarthy's; he dumped it down to Edwards once Michigan got to the ten yard line, causing the clock to run. This resulted in the scramble drill and the Edwards penalty.

That said, Michigan got off a play with twelve seconds and scored a touchdown; if that was incomplete they would have eight seconds, easily enough to throw it into the endzone on third and goal and still have a field goal attempt. So maybe it was all fine?

As far as the penalty goes: yes, I believe it was correct. You can go in motion backwards but the whole offense has to be set for one second and I don't think Edwards was. So they call a false start and it did look like the clock had just ticked down to ten seconds before the snap. Alas.

KINGS OF WIKIPEDIA. Shot:

"Michigan State put more Hitlers on the scoreboard than points" is quite the rivalry wikipedia entry

— Ryan Nanni (@celebrityhottub) October 22, 2023

Chaser:

I had to look and this is great pic.twitter.com/V0Cahz3Upm

— Xavier Ealy (@XavierEaly105) October 22, 2023

This has since been changed, but we can edit war it back. I believe in Michigan Wikipedia editors.

Larger view. The weekly occurrence:

Michigan's lead at the top of SP+ is now sort of terrifyingly large:

Georgia's season-ending gap over #2 Alabama was 6 points a year ago. Michigan is also #1 in Resume SP+, which is defined thusly:

It is a look at two things: (1) how the average SP+ top-five team would be projected to perform against your schedule (in terms of scoring margin), and (2) how your scoring margin compares to (1).

I'm much more interested in the predictive version of SP+ but it is interesting that the ain't played nobody accusations don't prevent computers from saying "gosh dang!" when presented with what Michigan has done to date. This weekend alone, Washington barely escaped against Arizona State; Oklahoma barely escaped UCF; Texas scraped by Houston. Consistently sending bad teams to Tartarus is the mark of a potential national champion.

Also, remember our relative consternation during the nonconference portion of the schedule and theories that Michigan was basically treating it like the preseason? Seems accurate:

Michigan has been No. 1 in SP+ for four games now and has exceeded projections by 19.3 points per game in that span -- SP+ knows the Wolverines are the best team in the country at the moment but hasn't caught up to how good they actually are yet. That's a scary thought.

The faffing about with the tackles and outside zone and massive defensive rotation is baked into those numbers and they're still those numbers.

A dollar to the headline man. Well done:

Michigan football steals all signs of hope from Spartans during emphatic shutout victory in rivalry game

NBC takes. I generally like the NBC broadcasts aside from the cringy use of Smashmouth Equivalent to open the game. There's more pregame and postgame frippery; the reviews are plentiful and useful; the camera is not zoomed in to a silly extent. One minor irritation from this game was a tendency to not show an injured player being treated, leaving one wondering just why in the hell we're looking at teams huddling on the sideline instead of playing football.

HERE

I hope you're reading Best and Worst every week and I demand that you do this week, because bronxblue absolutely nails Michigan State's program in a diatribe I want to frame:

Up until about 4 days ago, the big story surrounding this game was what happened last year, where a number of mostly-former Spartan players attacked a couple of Michigan defenders in the tunnel after the game.  The video was pretty conclusive the order of operations, who was responsible, and how, frankly, dangerous it was and could have gotten.  To his credit, Mel Tucker did come out and condemn the actions of those players and the MSU athletic department suspended them, and at least one player faced criminal charges.  Yes, I’m giving credit to a millionaire and a major athletic department for acknowledging that smashing some players with helmets after a football game isn’t copacetic, but (gesticulates toward East Lansing), you know, take what you can get.  Now, that didn’t stop Sparty faithful in the media, from Graham Couch to something called a Jim Comparoni, to either (at best) both-sides the assault or (at worst) frame it as something Michigan “deserved”, and in general the MSU fans and the program took on a veneer of victimhood, that Michigan had instigated this issue by having a single tunnel and it was inevitable that this powder keg would go off a mere century later.  It always rang hollow, as a program that once talked about pride, toughness, and “60 minutes of unnecessary roughness” lacked the ability to now plead for temperance and composure exactly when they were no longer the bully on the block.

It escalates from there.

The State of Our Open Threads:

Indeed, if you're a Michigan fan, you probably feel fucking great at the moment, and we should, and given the data from the open thread, the only regret might have been that we didn't score more, and maybe some of the idiocy from the refs on the odd weak call (Edwards not being set, so they say, the late hit which was really a failure to cease momentum, etc...). It's all certainly a departure from how this game has made us feel in the past, at least at various points. Here, for example, is a history of fucks given for Michigan State in the Harbaugh era to date:

Buried in that chart, of course, is a certain snap, a driving rain, a season that was brief and forgettable, and Kenneth Walker, but also so many smaller frustrations. Buried in it are some highlights as well, of course, including "Defeated With Dignity" and last night, which was "Defeated Without Mercy, As It Should Be".

Even so, 135 fucks given was our highest total of the season so far, and as you might guess, MSU has traditionally been one of the highest in seasons past, generally being in the top three among fucks given. First, of course, is OSU almost always, so whenever a Spartan fan tries to discount that rivalry and tout theirs as the most important to us, well, they don't know and the data isn't there either.

Iowatch!

One-Phase Football

No ranking changes from last week. Iowa’s defensive SP+ rating actually improved this week…and their offensive SP+ rating…did the opposite of that.

As a casual fan of Greek Tragedies, I often wonder about causality: does Iowa have the best defense in the country because they play some of the worst offenses in the country, or does Iowa’s defense make their opponents’ offenses so bad? I’m honestly leaning towards the former, but there IS a tipping point; Wisconsin came into last week’s game with a pretty decent 38th ranking in SP+ offense, and Iowa shut them down hard.

Stats/Takes:

A NEW HEISMAN FRONTRUNNER

I was pretty pessimistic last week that J.J. McCarthy’s absurd efficiency could win out over Michael Penix Jr.’s absurd volume and nearly-as-absurd efficiency. Then, Penix posted a poo-poo (65.9% completions; 6.7 Y/A; zero TDs; two INTs) against Arizona State (who people point to being poo-poo, but they actually have a solid pass defense [26th in adjusted EPA against the pass] which is worth mentioning) and now McCarthy is Vegas’ betting favorite to win the Heisman. Below is a table with the five players (all QBs) with odds of +1200 or better on FanDuel.

LSU fans will probably be clawing up the walls if we don’t address the fact that, yes, Jayden Daniels has better rushing numbers than McCarthy, or, should we say, more rushing numbers. He has 624 yards and five TDs on the season to McCarthy’s 219 yards and three TDs, but McCarthy bests him in Y/C (8.4 to 8.2), in missed tackles forced per carry (0.43 to 0.37), in 10+ yard runs per carry (0.31 to 0.28), and in PFF’s elusiveness score (112.1 to 98.4). Especially considering what Oklahoma did against UCF this week, this case is closed until further notice.