Listen, you loblollies. That song is called "Temptation." It is the "one" of "you can't have one without the other". When Michigan's defense forces a fourth down, the Michigan Marching Band will play this song, because our fancy endzone is just there on the other side of our defense, and they will not get the ball there. Temptation.

When they play this you may sway your arms to motion the ball going to the other side. You may make a Wolverine Claw. You may sing the lyrics if you know them. If you don't know them you may make up lyrics:

You drove, to your 39.
Your blocking was fine
your passes not really.

You now, should punt away.
Ignore what they say
4th and 1 is "punt" clearly.

You may not call it the "You Suck cheer!" Just stop saying "You Suck" at the end of it. MMB's tradition is clever. If you don't get the joke just pretend like you do. There are rules. Speaking of rules:

compliance.

I love Four Plays. I've told you how much I love Four Plays. I love Four Plays.

Contemporary offenses have added one final modern wrinkle to counter the slow-developing nature of these toss sweeps: the crack block.  By aligning two blockers to the outside and having them crack-back to seal the playside linebacker and defensive end, the sweep hits much more quickly and gives the pulling linemen favorable blocking matchups—usually against defensive backs.  And while the outside blockers—usually tight ends and wide receivers—are usually much smaller than the opponents they are tasked with blocking, this size disadvantage is compensated for by “leverage”—that is, favorable angles for the offensive players to make those blocks.

The question after last week regarding Michigan's offense was what is Michigan going to do when the opponent is stacking the middle and we're NOT content to run into that anyway because UNLV is bad at football. This is exactly the sort of thing I would guess is coming. And we've seen some motions to set this up already, although with Chesson the crack-man, not Darboh.

Will it work? I'm not counting on it unless the defense is heavily cheating inside. Michigan's receivers have missed blocks, Mason Cole is not good in open space yet, and Sione Houma is not the blocker Kerridge is. Any one of those blocks going badly will end this play in the backfield.

That's my only disagreement. I love Four Plays.

[After the jump, punts flyin, Rutgers cryin', Mud Bowl dyin', bloggers fryin', ]

Lytle

It's Rob Lytle week. His son Kelly wrote a book that I should have finished by now but it's about his dad and well… Anyway it's Rob Lytle week:

Celebrating Rob Lytle tonight at the 1975 Reunion. Congrats to the Lytle Family on joining the College Football HOF. pic.twitter.com/TuLsIl8L0E

— Coach Harbaugh (@CoachJim4UM) September 25, 2015

This is a good punting conference. LSA charted offense and defense too but the conference punting stood out to me:

You're looking at average net. If he hadn't shanked one Blake O'Neill would lead this but still, three teams averaging over 40 yards per punt NET is very good punting. Here I point out I drafted Minnesota's guy. Big Ten: good at punting. Also time I point out he's lapsing on the cats.

Opponent Stocks:

Following up on his previews alum96 has been updating his weekly stock watch on Michigan's schedule, including a degree of difficulty rankings chart. I figured I'd do the same with the HTTV predictions:

Minnesota and Northwestern have defenses capable of keeping them in any game, and Northwestern's OL isn't as bad as we made it out to be. Penn State's is worse. Rutgers is a tire fire. And Ohio State is down from "best team ever assembled" to "probably still deserves to be #1 this year." Maryland I said was pretty bad but even that oversold the defense. UNLV and BYU are onto backup QBs.

Etc. Lanyard Program is retired so MGoCustom has picked up the ball. Color version by cdycus. If you guys want those FFFF charts I make for the backside I'd be happy to send a PDF version of them to you. IBB and B&W were covered in the preview.

Best of the Board

WHAT'S UP WITH THE MUD BOWL?

You heard right: the 82-year-old tradition could not happen this year because the longtime hosts are not a fraternity anymore.

So, disclosure: I was in a fraternity in college. No, it wasn't a great fit—I joined a smallish, poverty-wracked chapter of snarky intellectuals, most of whom were upperclassmen; by the time I disengaged it was a bigger house, everybody could afford their dues, and the new breed had no use for a sports-obsessed, guitar-playing awkward fat guy who talks to girls about evolution. But I did get to drink, have fun, meet girls, and learn songs, for example the one that made fun of the big fraternities on campus. That song called SAE the "boy scouts" and said they aimed to please the "deans and little ladies." From what I knew of SAE at that time, like every other frat, they were no such thing.

Nor were they four years ago when they took hazing far, far further than I got it in 1998, the last semester before hazing at Michigan stopped being 'Nam. When the details of the SAE hazing came out, the chapter was suspended by the UM Greek organization (IFC) and then more recently got disavowed by SAE's national organization right when they were apparently about to be reinstated by IFC.

Since the alumni of that chapter own the house they've let some dudes keep living there as a "rogue" fraternity, which is for all intents and purposes the same chapter, albeit without every single dude involved in the 2011 thing. IFC hates rouges, and punishes other frats who have anything to do with them. The national organization claims it owns whatever traditions that used to be associated with that chapter.

What sucks is that the Mud Bowl, and the $20k it raised annually for Motts, is caught up in all of this. The rogue chapter wants to host it anyway. IFC is waving a stick at any non-rogue who comes near it. The national SAEs are claiming the event is theirs. People who like to wag fingers at fraternities are wagging furiously:

No Bando it's about playing football in the mud, and that's all it really has to be for it to be the Mud Bowl. Fraternities, as Brandywine said, are for drinking, having fun, and meeting girls. Find me a guy who says differently and I'll find you one who says the NCAA is non-profit. As long as they pleased the deans I didn't care if SAE ran the thing, but there's no reason they have to. When unscrupulous player-coaches got football players killed, the university presidents took it out of their hands. The game survived.

There are so many ways to keep this tradition alive, and other commenters have suggested a few: Have it be the IFC IM tournament championship and have IFC take on liability. Have the historic opponent, Phi Delta Theta (who were kicked off campus for a very good reason when I was there), take over. I'd take it out of the Greek System entirely and have it be a scrimmage between this year's IM champs and alumni of past IM champs.

Harmless traditions are worth saving, both from the past and from the future. We should all be able to agree that some dudes playing football in a mud pit every year is fun and worth having.

THE MAGNUM OPUS

This was a thread, not a diary, but it might as well have gone above. Alum96 decided to get into the Tanner Magnum story, and then starts previewing his game. A good read for one of the more intriguing quarterbacks Michigan will face this year. The rule is keep him in the pocket.

THE READERS WANT TO TAILGATE TOGETHER

The MGoStaff all have our things. Brian has the Cook family tailgate with a sign and an RV. Ace and Adam and the photographers have to head into the stadium early. I park at my cousin's and walk by Brian.

But a bunch of MGoBloggers are going to be out at Pioneer doing a BYOB/BYOF thing. I will try to stop by early tomorrow.

Etc. Yes we're MC'ing the Alumni Association's official homecoming.

Your Moment of Zen

The first Replay of the year that ended up with that other BYU game.