10/31/2020 – Michigan 24, Michigan State 27, 1-1

At some point over the weekend I was hungry and not in the mood to do something that required time, so I smeared some cream cheese on a heel of bread. When I bit into it, it was vastly more stale than I expected. But it is what I had signed up for. So I ate it.

It was unpleasant, but eventually it was over. And then I did something else. Silver lining: column theme.

I appear to be over it. This is not a decision I've undertaken, it's just what happened after the game: not much. I have become the popular internet meme.

We're at the Final Season Of Battlestar Galactica stage of Michigan football. (Spoilers for the aughts reboot of Battlestar Galactica follow.) Things really started to go off the rails for Battlestar when the season four finale dramatically revealed five main characters as secret Cylons without any setup, explanation, or plan. They just heard "The Joker and The Thief"—a song that does not exist in their society—and were suddenly activated. Then Starbuck blew up in a plane and mysteriously returned, again without explanation.

I kept watching, but my previous enthusiasm for the show waned. Eventually I was just watching out of habit and hoping against hope that somehow the people writing this suddenly absurd show could pull a rabbit out of their butt. Instead there's like a mystical piano(?) Starbuck plays that leads them to a prehistoric Earth. Then she pops out of existence. Literally! One minute she's talking to Edward James Olmos and then she says some sort of koan and disappears.

There were some poignant moments in there but when it was over I experienced relief that I didn't have to pay attention to it any more. I groaned "oh, come on!" on a weekly basis. This analogy is airtight.

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

So the Black Pit Of Negative Expectations was ephemeral. Mad during game; as soon as it was over* apathy set in. This is for the best.

We're in year six of Jim Harbaugh, who has done well enough that no one would ever fire him lest the Curse of Frank Solich descend upon them as it has Nebraska. Harbaugh has done progressively worse against Ohio State, getting nuked the last two years, and is now set to go up against Justin Fields and a zillion five star receivers with one decent cornerback and four guys who run like Wario. He just lost to MSU as a more than three-touchdown favorite. Damning stats follow him around. This was a new one I saw this week: 1-9 in the final two games of the season.

People can talk about firing coordinators or even the head coach. The former won't matter; the latter won't happen. I picked the GIF version of the meme above because it repeats infinitely, one reset after another, an endless weary parade of going again.

*[Actually it turns out before it was over: I turned the game off after MSU recovered the onside kick because I thought Michigan had two timeouts and there were 37 seconds left. It turns out Michigan got bailed out of their initial timeout by the officials? This was not explained, and the chyron said two timeouts.]

[After THE JUMP: press cover defense with nobody who can run]

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

you're the man now, dog

#1 Giles Jackson. Just 58 yards on his seven catches but had a lot of tough ones in their, none more than the third down conversion where he got lit up. Also had a kickoff return almost to midfield. Just eight targets. Established himself as a receiver in this one.

#2 Dax Hill. This isn't about Hill's statistical impact but the impact of Jayden Reed, who had one catch. Reed looked like MSU's most dangerous receiver by some distance against Rutgers, and the few times MSU tested Hill he was up to the task.

#3 Joe Milton. I guess? Milton had his issues but Michigan put it all on his plate when their run game checked in nonexistent; he was able to zip in a bunch of slants in tight windows and dealt with a lot of pressure.

Honorable mention: I had a hard time coming up with three. Roman Wilson, Kwity Paye, and Hassan Haskins poked  their noses out.

KFaTAotW Standings. (Scoring: 8 points for first, 5 for second, 3 for third, 1 for HM. Points from ties adjudicated by an ankylosaur named Sharon.)

11: Joe Milton (#1 Minnesota, #3 MSU)
8: Giles Jackson(#1 MSU)
5: Dax Hill (#2 MSU)
4: Kwity Paye(T2 Minnesota, HM MSU)
3: Aidan Hutchinson(T2 Minnesota), Michael Barrett(#3 Minnesota)
2: Hassan Haskins(HM Minnesota, HM MSU)
1: Ben Mason (HM Minnesota), Jaylen Mayfield (HM Minnesota), Ronnie Bell(HM Minnesota), Roman Wilson (HM MSU)

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

Made pancakes before the game. Seriously, folks, Kenji Lopez-Alt's pancake recipe is the truth. Yes you gotta whisk the egg whites. I didn't do it, and then I did, and I was mad that he was right. You can skip that step. I did it for you. (Mostly: you can get away with soft peaks.)

Honorable mention: Michigan never led against a three-touchdown underdog. So no.

?MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

A rich symphony to choose from but this space takes the deep bomb on a double move that Gray didn't even bite on.

Honorable mention: several other bombs on which Michigan could not contest. Several other passes, many of them into the sideline, on which their interference was undeniable.

OFFENSE

Fool's gold. A sense of foreboding descended as Maryland eviscerated Minnesota to the tune of 675 yards on Friday night. Maryland put up 3 points on Northwestern. They put up 45 on Minnesota and it should have been worse. And then.

Filiaga did not pass off his guy and also got knocked over by him

So much for the pickups. MSU repeatedly got pressure on basic DE/DT twists. These led to a discussion on the broadcast about how MSU was nerfing attempted Milton QB draws, but to my eye those were Milton bugging out because he got pressure immediately. He went up the middle, probably because those DE/DT twists were driving the guards back so far that exiting left or right was not an option.

This is a thing I have to sit down with in more detail before making a proclamation but this is likely to be a straight-up protection disaster.

Meanwhile on the ground Michigan was constantly blowing run IDs, doubling DEs who were plunging inside and allowing linebackers free reign. I'm at a loss. MSU being able to hold up better is one thing. Michigan being unprepared for the obvious response to their approach in week one is another.

Milton: limited. Joel Klatt was on point when he said that everything Milton throws is driven. That's why Michigan's offense is currently so slant-dependent. He's had two downfield attempts this year. Both were posts that were literally 10-20 yards off. He has not thrown a lofted fly route. There was a downfield zing to Wilson, but this too is driven:

Once MSU figured out he wasn't going to go downfield they started playing a compressed cover three that made his windows extremely tight. He was able to whistle it by a few linebackers, but all the easy stuff from last week was suddenly throwing into NFL level windows.

threading the needle

Unless Milton shows that he can hit the deep sideline that's going to be the rest of his year.

You have a wildcat quarterback, he is your quarterback. Michigan got too cute by half when they went wildcat on two goal-to-go snaps in the second quarter. The second was a throw that Antjuan Simmons got a hand on; Carter Selzer was open in the back of the endzone but Haskins threw it too flat. Because he's a running back.

Michigan did not run Joe Milton until a third of the game was gone, and I'm not sure they had more than one or two pure QB runs in the game. They played off the pin and pull by giving a touch pass to Mason going the other way and throwing slants off that action; they never actually ran Milton. You don't have to run pin and pull that they've prepped for, there are other things to do.

Haskins and Corum looked good, at least. Neither was given a ton of opportunities because of the blocking and Michigan's platooning but Corum dusted a guy on the edge—this was not repeated—and Haskins ran through some guys authoritatively.

The five minute drill! Michigan got the ball back down ten with 5 minutes left. They took over four of those scoring one (one) touchdown and were forced into an onside kick. Milton kept checking down. This was not entirely his fault because his protection was bad, but at some point you have to unleash the dragon, man. This more than anything else makes me think Milton is hesitant to throw deep because he keeps missing.

This continues a theme under Harbaugh: deeply incompetent clock management. They didn't screw it up last week against Minnesota, but I mean… we now know some more things about Minnesota.

DEFENSE

You run a press man defense and haven't recruited corners who can run for three years. 80% of the loss right there. Michigan's corner recruiting has been abominable and Michigan just reaped the whirlwind. Selected highlights from the recruiting profiles of folks in the conversation this offseason:

• VINCENT GRAY: "Gray's ability to run is in some question. Upward mobility in the rankings was all but impossible after a 4.76 40 at an Opening regional last April."
• JALEN PERRY: "UGA wouldn't let Perry enroll early and wanted him to play safety … Lacks top-end speed and agility to be a cover CB at the next level." (There were a couple of more positive takes from earlier in his recruitment cycle; the overall picture was not "unquestioned burner.")
• SAMMY FAUSTIN: "… doesn’t have great makeup speed. He doesn’t seem to be a difference-maker from an athletic perspective at the next level … He is not the most explosive kid and can work on his flexibility"
• DJ TURNER: "ESPN's listed combine numbers for him are solidly in the "meh" department, with a 4.63 40 and several other numbers that were middling for cornerbacks .. Even [his] top 20 SPARQ at the Opening didn't see Turner get out of the 4.6s in his 40."

The one exception? Gemon Green:

… makes up ground in a hurry and plays the ball well. … Because he is so athletic, he's been known to overreact and overcommit to well-run routes .. He can also get on the hip and stay with the fast receivers on long routes.

Green got hit with one bomb but on that play he got a hand in on the ball. Gray… did not. And nobody else on the roster is likely to be better except for Andre Seldon. Darion Green-Warren is a top 200 corner who also has a bunch of people dumping on his athleticism.

Jeff Hecklinski, the Hoke-era WR coach infamous for saying "speed can be taught", may as well have put together the corner room.

So they grabbed. Klatt spent much of the game questioning the calls Michigan was picking up in the secondary. He is correct that Michigan is very grabby and that normally they get away with a lot of it. He was incorrect that the kind of grabbing Michigan was doing against MSU was similar to the grabbing they've done in previous seasons. There are grabs you can get away with, like Delano Hill against BYU:

subtle, crafty [Bryan Fuller]

Michigan's penalty issues in this game came because they were making arms-extended yanks that are not shielded from view. They were not tools being deployed by a craftsman who knows how to get an extra edge. Most were full-on panic. Green reached over the shoulder of a WR and pulled him back in full view of a side judge. At one point Gray attempted to yank a WR's arm out of the socket on a ball that sailed.

(No, it wasn't  uncatchable enough to be ruled uncatchable. If there's a chance the Charles Woodson MSU interception might happen they don't call it uncatchable. That ball lands inbounds.)

My reaction to almost all penalties was outrage, replay, "ah, shit."*

The one outrage on the day was on Mike Sainristil, who got mugged on third down without a call. That was neither subtle nor crafty, but it didn't get called. Ah, shit.

*[Entertaining subplot: when I tweeted something about none of the calls being borderline some of the internet's best and brightest told me I should stop complaining about the officials.]

The 3-3-5 still doesn't work as a run defense. The Florida game where Michigan first broke out the 3-3-5 was the first game of the 2017 season. Don Brown has had three full seasons to observe the performance of his 3-3-5 on standard downs and is still running it out there. Here a converted fullback gets his blitz picked up and gets ejected across the formation:

This didn't work last year when your SAM was Josh Uche and the DT situation was much more dire. Continuing now is stubbornness completely unconnected from hundreds of snaps of reality.

Meanwhile in pickups. On the other side of the stunt pickups: Michigan barely got through against a team down its starting center and, eventually, a guard. Michigan's DEs went from supermen against Minnesota to anonymous. I have not seen a clear hold on either, just a lot of borderline stuff that almost never gets called.

Much of the rest of the stuff that happened in this game is extremely disappointing but at least makes sense. We knew corner was an issue; we knew there were a lot of new starters on the OL; we knew Milton was going to have some issues. Kwity Paye and Aidan Hutchinson getting shut off by Michigan State's OL is bizarre. Absurd. Despicable. I'm going full Jackie Chiles about it.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Well? Giles Jackson had a 38-yard kick return and a 32-yard punt return? Caveat: that 32-yard punt return was fielded at the two, briefly entered the endzone, and was almost down at the three. Good job, never do that again.

The only other thing of note was a big gap in raw average between the punters. Bryce Baringer averaged 54 yards a kick; Michigan split duties between Hart and Robbins, apparently using the latter as a pooch punter, and got about 40 total. Robbins (and Jake McCurry) did drop one at the two.

MISCELLANEOUS

Some weird decisions in this one. This game was one play—a review of that third down conversion or a missed 51-yard field goal—from being in overtime, or even a Michigan win, and at that point several bizarre decisions by Mel Tucker get a lot more scrutiny: setting up a fourth and two by running on third and six and then attempting a 40 yard field goal, which missed. Doing that a second time. Running on third and long when Michigan's corners are a walking PI/holding flag.

The signals were disconcerting. The "MOVE" gambit from the Army game last year got flagged. You can hear McGrone bark something very close to "HUT" as Michigan's line shifts:

Michigan is clearly hoping this happens—there is immediate we-got-em clapping. McGrone tries to play it off; the intent is clear, and that's a flag.

Blindside block calls are out of control. This MSU screen got called back because the WR blocking down on Ross catches him unaware and puts him on the ground:

LB #12 to top

That's a good block. It's not the WR's fault that Ross's awareness is poor on this play. This isn't the kind of violent cheapshot that this rule was initially supposed to address. Those feature two guys running full bore, usually on special teams. This is a WR hitting a stationary linebacker.

Michigan was the beneficiary of a similarly iffy call against Minnesota. I understand the intent of the rule but it's expanded past protecting players from dangerous hits.

ELSEWHERE

As is tradition after crushing losses I haven't been on the internet, so we'll try to wrap some links into UV tomorrow.