(I wrote two this week. Second, longer one will post tomorrow)

Whether Michigan was correct to go for two to make it an 18-point game with over 20 minutes to play against an opponent with a top-15 offense is an argument best left for people who care if a team runs up the score.

HOW Michigan got its two-point conversion however is much more of mystery, thanks to ESPN's director failing to capture the play until a second after the snap, or show a review. I thought it highly unfair that Ryan Day gets the all-22 of this while Michigan fans never get to find out what happened. So I watched it a lot. And I'm pretty sure here's what happened:

Michigan used the old swinging gate tactic, caught at least one IU player (the WLB) napping, and ran a QB sprint option with the snapper as pitch-man and a travel pass option (plus two pick routes).

[After THE JUMP: How it worked, and how is it legal?]

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How is this Legal?

In college football, dating back to when going out of bounds meant you had to snap it from the sideline, there is no rule about which lineman has to snap the ball. You see teams go unbalanced all the time. The rules are you must have seven guys on the line of scrimmage, with the two outermost included among the eligible receivers.

Michigan's formation isn't the most conventional, but it's legal. The snapper and the kicker (I'm pretty sure) were on the line of scrimmage and as eligible to handle the ball in play or go downfield as any tight end or wide receiver. It's hard to know for sure because we never got to see the snap, but this play only makes sense out of one formation:

How Did it Work?

It starts with McCaffrey looking over at Quinn Nordin, who presumably would get a pass if the defense doesn't have its players over there. But that's probably a fake to get the WLB, #7 in the middle, and any other key defenders to shift their weight to their right before the play sprints left.

Once it's sprinting, Michigan has numbers because #7 is too far behind the play to do anything but chase. He sets up for contain; he's done.

Meanwhile you can see two of the tight ends—Schoonmaker on our left and Nick Eubanks one over—are running routes. These are picks, meant to block their men more than get open. It's possible the defense won't cover them and McCaffrey can flip a pass to the end zone, but it's a win for the offense if they all just cancel their defenders out.

The last tight end, Sean McKeon, is really blocking down, for now. His route has to make dead certain that the guy who was lined up over the snapper, Camaron Cheeseman, can't shoot into the backfield and muck this up. We are going to need Cheeseman and McCaffrey both shortly.

Note that the cornerback over Schoonmaker (guy at the bottom of the 'A') has come all the way down with him. Ideally Schoonmaker would be picking off the safety as well, but this is fine. More than fine: Schoonmaker's guy was the edge defense, and now there is none. That safety, #5, the same guy who just took a bad angle on a Nico Collins slant to give up the 76-yard touchdown, gets to be the goat again unless he can reestablish some sort of edge AND hem in McCaffrey.

Of course, Dylan isn't alone.

The guy who got "blocked" into the endzone by McKeon (#8, guy on the goal line just to the left of the goalpost) has now given up on McKeon and started chasing the run he let get that wide of him in the first place. McCaffrey has made his cut at the front of the 'N'.

Note that he is still well behind the line of scrimmage, which was the three-yard line. If #5 leaves Cheeseman we get a long snapper score. If he somehow manages to bottle up Cheeseman AND get in position to tackle McCaffrey, well…

McKeon is a good plan B. Not that he's needed. While #5 did all he could to set something like an edge and be somewhere where he could maybe redirect McCaffrey back to the pursuit, it ain't happening in the next four yards.

Thirty-two. Watch in most of its glory: