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Dear Diary,
My financial consultant generally is pretty good about predicting markets, knowing when to buy, when to hold, etc., so I invited him to join Misopogal and I as we hopped from tailgate to tailgate in our quest to procure tickets for Michigan vs. Michigan State.
On the way up, my consultant and I had agreed on a plan: We would spend pre-game trying to run into people we know, asking if they had singles with them. If not, we would wait until just after kickoff, when sellers were cursing their greed and desperate to pocket something before heading in. We had another ride lined up just in case not everyone got a ticket, our pockets were full of $10s and $5s, and we were ready – just in case – to bail for my consultant's 62-inch HDTV, where the DVR was running. I trusted this plan; my consultant has a degree in economics from Michigan State University, which I hear is a pretty good school.
At 1:30 p.m. my consultant started getting jittery. He wasn't accepting beers. He was muttering. At 2:00 p.m. he made a call: "We're not going to find tickets," and started toward the car.
I had dreamt of a Great Denardening, the exorcising of rebuilding demons against a pesky in-state rival, a victory to mark the nadir of the Dantonio era and give the local papers the loss they need to expose the program that put Glenn Winston back on the field.
Instead, I found myself in a lightless basement in front of a Matt Millen broadcast, muttering about "execution" in a room full of eight people educated by Mike Valenti, and my financial consultant - my little brother - calmly denying that holding ever occurs at Michigan State because Dantonio coaches them so well.
Whatever tickets actually cost outside the stadium at 3:35 p.m. yesterday, I would have paid it to be there instead of surrounded by people bent on extracting every juicy drop of Schadenfreude.* Sigh. Perhaps in two years…
Though not so on purpose, there were an awful lot of bad prognosticators out there, as MGoDiarists spent most of the week predicting scores for the Michigan State game. Most thought it would be Michigan by 3 or 4 with scores in the 30s, suggesting we probably thought MSU was a slightly better Indiana. See:
In Chart:
|
Diary |
Author |
Method |
Prediction |
| Week #5 National Rankings, Fremeau Efficiency Index, and Sagarin Predictor for MSU | Enjoy Life | Sagarin, FEI, etc. | M, 30-22 |
| Over/Under: Michigan State at Michigan | jamiemac | betting savvy | MSU to cover 5 |
| Michigan St Preview: Now with more charts! | The Mathlete | PAN | M, 35-32 |
| Anxiety Time Machine | Meeechigan Dan | "Résumé" | M Wins |
| Tempo-Free Defense Points Per Posession Update: Includes Offense PPP as well | bigmc6000 | Pts.-per-Poss. | M, 38-35 |
| Our Defense Their Offense - tipping point! | mistersuits | Normalized PPG | M, 42-38 |
| Denard/UM Offense Effect: Factored out of Opponents Past | myrtlebeachmaizenblue | Rush/Pass Stats | "Run all over Sparty" |
| Scouting the MSU Offense (vs. WIS) | AAL | Scoutin' v Wis. | MSU is predictable |
| Say What? Defensive Optimism | Meeechigan Dan | Score/Possession | Sparty won't score 40 |
| Fear and Paranoia in Ann Arbor | Ryano | Fear, Paranoia and Desperation | F/P was 6/10 ftr. |
| Preview: Michigan State 2010 | Brian | tingly bits | 35-30 |
There's little more I can add to BlueSeoul's epic picture-pages journey through the Indiana game, since Brian has used shots from it on virtually every front-page post this week. If you haven't read the whole thing yet, do so, because it's the one with lots of this:
And this:
On this play Roh is in a more traditional stack look.
But he doesn't see Doss coming in motion.
And because he doesn't go with Doss, it makes for an easy blocking assignment for the bubble screen.
Blueseoul has already won the Internet for this post, but he may now add Diarist of the Week honors. Also: now accepting ideas for Diarist of the Week trophies, preferably not something you probably picked up at Forwards in West Branch.
Our resident logoist (and sometime interviewer) Six Zero offered a new shirt design this week, honoring Phil Brabbs' fight against Multiple Myeloma (and his fight against Washington). How cool is it? LaMarr Woodley was seen in the stands yesterday with one of these bad boys on.
MGoCoach steve sharik also made pretty pictures for us this week. These break down the zone read "midline" play, which should have been useful against Michigan State (I thought I saw it twice, one on the dropped TD by Rountree, but I'm notoriously bad at picking this stuff out so don't trust me.).
Some 4-3 teams like to put their 3-technique away from the back. If they do this, then the Mike is the backside B-gap defender.
If the defense puts the 3-technique to the back, then the 3-tech is the backside B-gap defender.
We also have some bad news in the picture department. monuMental's awesome (e.g. the now-I-can't-show-you Denard Action Figure) weekly backgrounds have had to cease because U-M and the Heisman Trust have lawyers on retainer with too little to do (that's just my opinion, not the blog's). This ends your weekly scheduled wallpaper for the foreseeable future. If, dear diary, your daddy was one of those stacks of legal papers used to shut down all things that don't make money, then I totally apologize, and please put (non-harmful) soap in his coffee.
Meanwhile, Communist Football won a great victory for the proletariat over the evil capitalist empire, by ripping various offensive records from hoarding private databases, and sharing them in one common, Denard-celebrating central repository. Read it now before the numbers get updated with MSU stats and everything (note: not everything) goes to shit.
Rushing Yards by a QB, Single-Season
Denard currently has 905 rushing yards in 5 games. This projects to 2,172 over a 12-game schedule (yes, I am aware that stiffer competition is ahead). He has already destroyed the previous Michigan record for QB rushing yards in a season: 674 by Steve Smith in 1981.
...
And if you think Smith's 674 yards are shabby, at 56.2 yards per game—back in the days before Communist Football—keep in mind that Comrade Pryor, the second-most-heralded dual-threat QB in the country today, has rushed for 373 yards, or 74.6 yards per game. Denard is at 181.0 yards per game.
The Big Ten record is 1,270 by Antwaan Randle El of Indiana in 2000; the NCAA FBS record is 1,494 by Beau Morgan of Air Force in 1996. Both of these records are easily within reach. Denard only has to average 84.2 rushing yards a game over the rest of the regular season to break the NCAA FBS record.
The Mathlete was at it again with his PAN, trying to soothe our fears about this year being like last year (gee, why should I have such fears?). The Mathlete says that Michigan's offense is a lot better this year than it was last year. How much? I make chart, in PAN:
| Land | Air | Total | |
| 2009 | 3 | 5 | 8 |
| 2010 | 8 | 7 | 15 |
Based on the sets of numbers, Michigan initially has been 7 to 11 points-per-game better than year’s offensive unit. This represents a very high level of play.
The Mathlete won't go there, so I will: if Michigan's 2010 offense replaced last year's kind-of-capable offense, here's our 2009 season with 9 points more offense per game:
| Score | Score Adj. | Record | |
| WMU | 31-7 | 40-7 | 1-0 |
| ND | 38-34 | 47-34 | 2-0 |
| EMU | 45-17 | 54-17 | 3-0 |
| Indiana | 36-33 | 45-33 | 4-0 |
| MSU | 20-26 | 29-26 | 5-0 |
| Iowa | 28-30 | 37-30 | 6-0 |
| Del St. | 63-6 | 72-6 | 7-0 |
| PSU | 10-35 | 19-35 | 7-1 |
| Illinois | 13-38 | 22-38 | 7-2 |
| Purdue | 36-38 | 45-38 | 8-2 |
| Wisconsin | 24-45 | 33-45 | 8-3 |
| OSU | 10-21 | 19-21 | 8-4 |
Ed (Miso): Woo 8-4! Thanks comments section for the catch.
This exercise is fruitless, but The Mathlete's really is not.
Laveranues did some analysis on something we brought up during the Indiana liveblog: when should Michigan try onside kicking? Answer: never? I get the feeling like this would be a great thing. Brian mentioned on the main page that he thinks there's 0% chance of this happening since the kickers have enough trouble just kicking field goals, but I'm with Laveranues: let's have one guy who practices nothing but perfectly placed onside kicks, and then do this 1/2 of the time.
If you're a chart fan, though, try out mistersuits's It means everything to them diary. We all agree that his "why" is baseless – Brian called him out too and you can see my response in the article - but the "what" is really interesting stuff about Michigan opponents and their tendency to go for it against us on 4th down.
After break, no more good Diary stuff, but you can read my bid for TWIS
For people whose job it is to exhort Schadenfreude, here's a list of Spartans who can't name eight members of their team, yet that will not stop them from haunting my life and my Facebook notification page for a third year in a row:
I love how on this list your wife falls behind the random neighbor drinking on his porch.
And actually, of all the folks on your list that cause me to give you my empathy, I think porch drinker is exempt. Actually, he sounds kind of awesome and I want to be his friend.
You wouldn't have liked to sit in my seats. Row 85 section 5 in front of 100 drunk ass sparty bros cheering for injuries and saying things like "kill him" and "bitches" every time Michigan got a kick off or sensed touched the ball
It could always be worse
Most prognosticators got the MSU score pretty close to right. What was WAY off was the Michigan score.
The main reason for was execution: Denard got things wrong that, until now, he was getting right. Three TD passes that were there for the taking were replaced by 1 FG — a result that any forecast based on past results could not have predicted.
State fans, of course, predicted a Denard implosion, but I don't give them any credit for great wisdom; they will predict a State victory every year, no matter the circumstances.
8-4
you beat me to it
On a side note, is it me or does MSU make a much bigger deal of that trophy than we do? I don't remember seeing our players ever hold that thing when we won, let alone parade it all over the place.
called act like you've been there? I don't know?
will disappear when things get back to normal. (They will, too, sooner or later. I think sooner.)
I live in Iowa City. I really only have to talk about football every five to seven years or so. I smile, take the abuse and remind them that we've been here before, and we'll be here again, but most years, they're the ones who don't want to talk about it.
I like the long view age gives. I'd rather have the speed youth has, though.
IA will be focusing on stopping our running game and DROB running the ball. I just hope the passing game is on next week, which will allow for more room for DROB and the running backs.
When this offense gets rolling nobody can stop them. This is why I'm still optimistic about this season even though the defense may have their problems.
That's it!
Except this girl is shorter has dark hair that's in her face all the time. Gibbler needs to give her lessons in scrunchies or something.
thought I had it bad. I work with some SEC fans, mainly Bama, MSU (NTMSU), Auburn and LSU and our dialouge is relatively well informed Michigan talking to the MSM/ They are all Saints fans and now they give me hell about the Lions. But whats worse are the non college football fans that will catch a headline and then want to talk football. But you man everyone that is near and dear are State fans this time of year must be hell, well for the last three years anyway. No advice just empathy Go Blue!!!
ABC(ESPN) showed the trophy case wherein Mr. Bunyan is normally esconsed, and noted that the label situated thereon said something like, "The Paul Bunyan trophy is temporarily located in East Lansing until next year." Next year? I expect that that label has already been modified to read "October 15, 2011." (Fail.)
It hurts me that Misopogon has met, married and shared a life with a woman who has not yet seen him glory (in an appropriately humble fashion) in a Michigan victory over MSU. Stay strong, M. She is testing you, and she will be graciously and truly excited when Michigan wins the MNC.
Why would the label be changed? 2011 is next year.
Either a) the trophy is there, hiding the label, or b) the trophy is not there and the label applies.
It's pretty clever, which means that we should expect to see similar comments in empty trophy cases all across this great land of ours. Imitating pissed-off athletic departments is the most sincere form of flattery.
and rip the F-ing label off.
Until then, no whining.
What makes Michigan losing to MSU bearable for me, is that I grew up out of state, and moved back to NY after graduating, so I don't know any MSU fans or alumni. Don't know any OSU fans either for that matter.
I really like the Dear Diary section and I'm glad Brian has given you the rein to make this awesome!
Sad Panda after Saturday, but at least I am a little richer in the pocketbook as a result
We just dont have the defense to be quality favorites in Big 10 plays. Michigan is +3.5 right now against Iowa. I like them as an Underdog. I trust Denard to bounce back and cash in on red zone attempts.
Go Blue!!!
We walked by your tailgate a number of times but it was too nuts to try to find you. Whoever set up the blowup wolverine and sparty, Misopogal loved that!
Even with the added offensive points per game, I would like to see how this years defense would have compared to last years. If our D is giving up 7 more points a game this yearBut our O is hanging 9 extra thats only a difference of 2 pts a game...I would like to see those results. Is our schedule tougher or easier this year.
are bugging me about Sat.'s game. Well, a lot more than a couple but i'll limit it to two for now: One, why did Richrod go away from the running game? It was working! on our opening possession we drove down to what, the 20? then a pass and the pick. Why? why not run it with Denard and the running backs. That's what got us in the redzone in the first place. Two, a rule in college football i'd like to see changed: Sparty has a third and 10 and we stop them. But they false start and get another shot at it because we can't decline the penalty and have it be 4th and 10 instead of 3rd and 15? And lo and behold first down! There's more, lots more...
100% with bothMSU was starting to sit on the run though. And the passes Denard threw were open, he just trew bad balls. He still has some work to do. The false start thing does piss me off though.
I could hear echos of Keith Jackson's voice: Goodbyeeeeeeeeeee Heisman!
It made me sad.
Be careful betting steak dinners. I have been buying a steak dinner for a great friend of mine (unfortunate he was born in Canton,OH) for the last SIX YEARS! And it is true....Steak doesn't taste the same anymore. Bet something like a grilled cheese or vegemite sandwich......Don't ruin your taste for STEAK . Hopefully I will reacquire the flavor and get one soon..
GO BLUE !!
Thank you for another week of great stats and commentary on the game. I hope that the next time you will find the tickets you are looking for !
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Hey this is Misopogon's "financial consultant" (the good-lookin' kid on the right)
I have a few corrections, in the name of good journalism, to share with you all concerning the alleged "story" above.
First off, let it be known that my tv is 63 inches, and not the aforementioned 62.
Now we can get down to business.
On his $5s and $10s - I brought $20s and $100s.
calmly denying that holding ever occurs at Michigan State because Dantonio coaches them so well.
I simply stated that Michigan State is better at holding, because Dantonio coaches them so well. Anyone who played offensive line like I did in the glory days of high school [Ed-M: I played guitar] knows that "interior holding is part of the game." [Ed-M: He actually said "It's only holding if you get caught," but unfortunately I didn't DVR my little brother]
I tried seven different people, trying to buy tickets $350 for a pair, and got laughed at. And I did laugh at a guy who offered to sell me a ticket for $1,000.
I also want to address the....the gross generalizations of Spartan fans. While some of us do not necessarily know every player on the team, or even more than five, but that doesn't mean we're not fans. I grew up rooting for UofM, I went to Michigan State, I'm allowed to have pride in my alma mater. I'm disappointed in a lot of our fandom, but for someone like me who really enjoys watching football, I get really excited about this rivalry, especially because it runs so deep into the family. My best friend [Ed-M: that's me!] is a hardcore Michigan fan. I believe that you can be a fan, and not know every stat, every player, and remember every play.
Oh, and one more thing. I fully support removing Matt Millen from television, as he is an abomination to the game of football, and should be punished for what he did to the Lions. Fuck that guy.
The best part about the result of this game for my friendship with my brother, is I now get to root for Michigan to beat Ohio State (and send MSU to Pasadena!)
