10/1/2022 – Michigan 27, Iowa 14 – 5-0, 2-0 Big Ten

On the podcast this week we had a conversation about whether we were nervous. At any point, in a game against Iowa at Kinnick, did we feel the cold hand of death creep over us? Answers varied, with the Sklar Brothers on team "disaster may befall us at any moment" but the rest of the podcast crew fairly relaxed, with the occasional twinge of worry.

In Alex's case this is easily explained: he is twenty-three and has not had time in which to develop a truly deep-seated mania. A rat exposed to weird mistreatment may recover if negative external stimulus is replaced with fluffy rabbits in time. Alex was five when the Long Dark started, and presumably was more interested in fire trucks and ninja-kicking his (hypothetical?) sister than contemplating why the universe was an Akron teenager's NCAA Football save.

When Alex says the universe is not that and is instead an ever-expanding void filled with the occasional particle; when he says that events are not shaped around causing maximum misery to people who attended school in a particular bucolic Midwestern city; when he says that there is not a malevolent entity wholeheartedly dedicated to causing myself and people like me unreasonable pain… well, that is the naïveté of youth speaking. Hopeless, bountiful optimism. He is a child skipping through a field of dandelions, oblivious to life's cruel realities.

It is only we, his elders and betters, who know that all events are twisted around a fiendish core dedicated to nothing other than our mental dissolution and eventual destruction. So the question is: what is wrong with Seth and I?

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The story of the last 20 years of being a Michigan fan is gradually getting the arrogance beaten out of you. I remember being in the stands for that Northwestern game against Darnell Autry and the rest of those guys, the Rose Bowl Northwestern team. Northwestern had the lead, and I was irritated, because it would look bad for the voters on Monday. Northwestern still had the lead later, and there was the slight twinge of concern that if Michigan didn't get their butts in gear that they could actually lose. Then they lost, and it was incomprehensible.

Somehow that incomprehensibility-in-the-moment lasted and lasted and lasted even though Michigan kept playing games like this against their purported lessers. They had a special kink for losing 18-point leads under Carr. Michigan State started being a thing. Ohio State stopped being a Jon Cooper joint. And even through all that you thought to yourself "surely, this one can't be like that. This is Michigan."

But when things flipped, things flipped. That perpetual wave of ignorant optimism was replaced by a belief that as soon as one thing went wrong the avalanche was loosed. This space called it the Black Pit of Negative Expectations after a particularly dispiriting season-opening loss to Notre Dame:

The BPONE is a state of mind in which no part of a football game is enjoyable because it is merely a prelude to some pratfall made more embarrassing and or painful by whatever minimal, temporary successes are experienced prior to the pratfall. Thus a kick return touchdown—that rarest butterfly, one the game is steadily trying to erase—during which your author's only reaction was internal and, I quote, "whoop-de-damn-do." …

The flaw in BPONE operations is of course the impossibility of mining any enjoyment out of your experience. BPONE sufferers assume a football game is a negative emotional event and spread those negative emotions out more broadly. Only if the team should actually come back and win will any regret be felt, and pffffffffft. I'm in the pit, baby! I know for a stone cold fact that a punt snap will somehow lodge itself in the facemask of the punter. I feel it in my bones that the one time we jump a route in this game the ensuing interception will bang off the defensive back's hands and lodge itself in the facemask of the opposition 50 yards downfield.

Every season started with a guillotine at the end of it; the previous eleven games were merely a Cardassian trial where we discovered what the crimes that justified the sentence were.

And then, last year.

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Turns out it only takes one counter-example to flip that switch back. Maybe not all the way to considering the rest of the Big Ten to be useless peons, but back to watching a football game with some level of rationality. Back to watching Michigan fumble it backwards to their own two and thinking "wow, good thing Donovan Edwards was paying attention" instead of "oh God, here it comes."

Maybe this has to do with the density of mistakes prior. Michigan opened this game with an immaculate 10-play touchdown drive against SP+'s #1 defense, and prior to that event the only reason they hadn't scored on a drive against that defense was an offensive lineman stepping on the quarterback's foot. (Another event that could have caused a reality-breaking cascade in different circumstances.) Goobery pratfall type events were limited to that and one (1) delay of game penalty.

It may in fact be rational to expect Michigan to soldier through one mistake or three, because they no longer feel like a rickety wagon held together by the odd five-star, but rather a team that goes about its business efficiently. This is college football, so that feeling is an illusion that may well get blown up by, like, Illinois or something. But when this happens I will be surprised again, at long last.

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

mmm flat person [Barron]

you're the man now, dog

#1 Mike Morris. An important part of a Michigan defense that strangled the Iowa ground game and despite limited opportunities turned in an eye-popping pass-rush line with two sacks and two QB hurries, three of them generated by beating blockers—just one stunt loop. A palpable blip as Michigan looks for organic pass rush in the back half of the season.

#2 Blake Corum. 29 carries, 133 yards, one All-American linebacker dusted and done on one of the few opportunities he had to do something without Iowa's passive umbrella of a defense coming down to prevent fancy long runs. Added to short-yardage/YAC reel considerably. Also caught a couple of passes.

#3 The offensive line. The steady drumbeat of advancement was made possible by Michigan controlling, and sometimes crumpling, a veteran, very good Iowa defensive line. Aside from a couple of what looked like Trente Jones missed assignments the pass protection was excellent, as well.

Honorable mention: Eyabi Okie was the other half of Michigan's obliterating pass rush on the four-and-out Iowa desperation drive; he also turned in a couple plays against the run earlier in the game. JJ McCarthy didn't put up big numbers but didn't put anything in harm's way and made the occasional capital-P Play. Mazi Smith, Kris Jenkins, and Mason Graham won pretty decisively against the Iowa IOL. Luke Schoonmaker was again Michigan's leading receiver and continued his string of excellent blocking performances.

KFaTAotW Standings.

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

23: Blake Corum (#2 CSU, #2 Hawaii, HM UConn, #1 Maryland, #2 Iowa)
15: JJ McCarthy (#1 Hawaii, #2 UConn, HM Maryland, HM Iowa)
12: Mazi Smith (#1 CSU, T3 Hawaii, HM Maryland, HM Iowa)
11: Mike Morris (T3 Hawaii, HM Maryland, #1 Iowa)
10: Ronnie Bell (HM CSU, HM Hawaii, #1 UConn)
6: Gemon Green (HM UConn, T2 Maryland), Kris Jenkins (#3 UConn, T3 Hawaii, HM Iowa)
5: DJ Turner (T2 Maryland)
4: Junior Colson (#3 CSU, HM UConn)
3: Luke Schoonmaker (T3 Maryland, HM Iowa), The Offensive Line (#3 Iowa).
2: Roman Wilson (HM CSU, HM Hawaii), Max Bredeson (T3 Maryland), Joel Honigford (T3 Maryland), Eyabi Okie (HM CSU, HM Iowa), Mason Graham (HM Hawaii, HM Iowa)
1: Braiden McGregor (HM CSU), Derrick Moore (HM CSU), Jaylen Harrell (HM CSU), Rod Moore (HM CSU), Makari Paige (HM Hawaii), Rayshaun Benny (HM Hawaii), Cornelius Johnson (HM Hawaii), Donovan Edwards (HM Hawaii), AJ Henning (HM UConn),  Caden Kolesar (HM UConn), Mike Sainristil (HM Maryland), RJ Moten (HM Maryland).

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

Michigan's first drive is a clockwork marvel of bending and then breaking the Iowa defense.

Honorable mention: Iowa's last meaningful drive is two sacks and two not-quite sacks. Blake Corum dusts Iowa's star MLB for a cherry-on-top touchdown.

?MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

A missed assignment from Jones gets McCarthy lit up and causes a backward pass that 1) is Iowa's most threatening play of the game at that point and 2) sets up a failed drive and short punt that puts Iowa on the field in plus territory and sets up the touchdown drive that puts us in too-close-to-gloat territory.

Honorable mention: Zinter steps on McCarthy's foot to hamstring Michigan's second drive. Caden Kolesar gets hurt covering a punt. Mike Sainristil gets lost on third and twenty-two.

OFFENSE

made a play [Barron]

Obligatory McCarthy fretting/hope/overanalysis. I mean… pretty good, right? Iowa asked Michigan to drive the field most of the game and McCarthy said "ok." They did not have a drive shorter than eight plays until there were five minutes left in the third quarter, at which point going maximum turtle was 1) wildly frustrating and 2) indisputably the correct approach. McCarthy did not put a single pass in a spot where an Iowa defender could deflect it, let alone intercept it. His biggest sins were missing Wilson by a yard on the one deep shot they took and being a hair late on a couple of throws.

He was able to make up for the lateness on the first drive by throwing a quasi-back-shoulder pass to Wilson…

…and the results of the second late throw weren't horrible. Luke Schoonmaker took a hit from a safety as the ball arrived and it was incomplete. No Iowa player touched it.

When McCarthy did get pressure he had one instance where he avoided it and improvised a touchdown and a second where he got annihilated and ended up throwing a backwards pass. The latter instance was obviously very damaging but I don't know if there was anything he could have done better there. His arm was going forward so if the ball doesn't actually go backwards it's incomplete, and he's coming off a read opposite the DE who is crunching him unblocked.

Bend but don't break. Iowa took this maxim to the extreme in this game. If you were baffled at the ease at which Michigan ripped off good—but never great—gains, look no further than Iowa's formations. Until circumstances demanded it in the second half Iowa vastly preferred letting Michigan run against even boxes. This is a five man box on second and six on Michigan's opening drive:

In the circumstances Michigan just had to get stalemates along the OL and provide one crack anywhere, because there was no free hitter.

OOB [Barron]

McCarthy bubble wrapped. There were three incidents in this game where McCarthy had the ball in his hands with a run in the offing. Two saw him prioritize getting out of bounds to a seemingly ludicrous extent and the third was the speed option everyone hated. Here's the first McCarthy run event in an image:

This ended up going outside of Luke Schoonmaker. Michigan got six yards. If McCarthy runs straight upfield they're getting at least double that and maybe more because McCarthy is going direct to the safety who is the last line of defense. 

Meanwhile, that speed option:

Look at the inclination of the MLB. He is tearing right for the running back, and the whole Iowa defense is out there. If you actually option this guy this play is "cash money," as the kids say. McCarthy does not attempt to draw in or fool the MLB at all. One of two things is true: 1) this is not a real option and is therefore a terrible play and RPS –3, or 2) McCarthy is supposed to fake this pitch and then go direct to safety.

This inevitably descends into philosophical debates about whether you should expose your quarterback to hits. Some people want to put McCarthy in bubble wrap until the Ohio State game. I don't. This is the first half of a game against a real team and a great defense. The leverage of this play is huge—put up another TD on this drive and you're a long way towards winning. And if you really insist on safety first your QB can get down before the safety gets to him.

Combined with a couple of missed reads against Maryland this feels like McCarthy is being coached to not expose himself to a tackle instead of coached to make the right decision. On one level this makes some sense, but on another level Blake Corum is probably just as critical to the season and he has 59 carries the past two weeks.

Ruck time. Yes I expect to be struck down by the malevolent entities mentioned above the fold whenever I reference this but I mean woot woot all aboard the Hart but fast train:

Blake Corum spent the offseason squatting until he went through rhabdo and came out the other side.

[Barron]

Backstreet's back all right. Michigan's yo-yo end around from the Hawaii game reappeared to get Bell the first touchdown of the day, and Lord was that easy:

It looks like power, you're obviously keying on split flow from the tight end, and then your eyes go to which OL is coming out on you as Schoonmaker goes zip-zap-zonk out the other side. Delectable.

One ping only. Michigan took very few shots downfield largely because they didn't have to. I did enjoy the one hole shot taken by McCarthy:

[Barron]

Not sure his fake to the flat did a whole lot to confuse the Iowa cornerback but he laid that in perfectly. Big chunk play to the field, on a line, in the right spot to keep things away from the zone. Yee-haw.

DEFENSE

[Barron]

Things were done. This is not the end of the world. Iowa's offense is so bad that it is somewhat legitimate to question whether seven points off a short field before garbage time qualifies as an acceptable performance. Every time Spencer Petras hit a tight end or Iowa managed to rip off a chunk it felt disproportionately bad.

I am of two minds here. One is that no football team without a Artur Sitkowski-level disaster at quarterback is actually as bad at offense as Iowa's first few games implied. (Say what you want about Petras, but he's nowhere close to a worst-case scenario.) I mention this on the Friday podcast: Iowa will get some things, they will move the ball a bit, it is a football game.

The flipside is that this was a game that seemed to expose at least one hole in the defense, and maybe a couple more. It seems clear this is not the kind of D that is going to throttle the opposition. It has some pieces, it does not have a single dominant player who can clean up for a lot of messes elsewhere.

Eyes emoji. Iowa spent the whole game doing Iowa things, which means avoiding obvious dropbacks as much as possible. As soon as they got forced into obvious dropbacks, Michigan got two sacks and two near-sacks. The second sack was wild because Eyabi Okie is lined up in an insanely wide spot presnap and dips around the corner like peak Uche:

Ok. Expectations have been revised upwards. Okie also made a couple plays against the run here and seems like the guy out of the McGregor/Okie/Moore trio who's emerging fastest, despite being the oldest guy.

The bracket. Michigan did a great job of anticipating throws to LaPorta and deleting them. Iowa's first third down saw Eyabi Okie drop into a passing lane for a quick out; later Makari Paige jumped an in route to disrupt any chance of a conversion. You kind of feel for Petras here as he has five guys in this route and approximately zero of them are open:

Also Mazi Smith runs him over. That is high on my list of things to avoid in 2022.

Petras missed a chunk play here with Colson way out of the picture [Barron]

In the middle. I think we've got enough evidence to declare the linebacker level a problem. Junior Colson, the one clear starter, had a rough game. That chunk hit to the TE was Colson sucking up on not-at-all convincing play action and then covering grass instead of a player:

MLB #25

Colson was also the most likely culprit on the chunk play to the fullback out of the backfield. He then got lost on the drag route that got Iowa inside the ten but got bailed out by a personal foul.

Meanwhile waggle frustrations were spread out across the LB corps and often resulted in that little flat route being a good option. Barrett, Colson, and Mullings were alternately victimized.

Our perfect position-switch punctured. Mike Sainristil had a bit of a rough outing. It's very strange that he was completely fine covering Rakim Jarrett but had a couple issues dealing with Iowa's wide receivers, most notably on the third and twenty-two that got converted:

Woof, gotta know where your help is.

hiccups at the safety level too [Barron]

Not a linebacker. RJ Moten had a number of issues in run support; he got stuck in the endzone on the first Iowa TD instead of coming up to contain the edge, and on the subsequent Iowa drive he buried himself in the LOS instead of waiting for the Iowa RB to pick a gap, allowing the Hawkeyes to convert third and seven on the ground. In his defense on the second, he is not a linebacker.

Argh, almost. Another key moment that didn't quite go Michigan's way: DJ Turner jumps an out route and is this close to a pick-six, but alas. That was actually trap coverage, a Don Brown favorite that looks like man until you try to hit that exact route against it and get it jumped.

In which I offer a tepid defense of Brian Ferentz. I know, I know, but: that fourth and two play everyone derided for being short of the sticks would have converted and probably scored if Petras hadn't turfed a throw in the flat. Still would have come back for OPI, about which more later, but hitting your best player two yards downfield on fourth and two is not the worst idea in the world. It's just that Petras is not good and is bad. Those are the two things that are the problem on that play.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Oddly for a Michigan-Iowa game, not consequential. Tory Taylor outdid Brad Robbins in gross yardage but put a punt in the endzone and gave back some of that advantage on a 13-yard AJ Henning return—pretty close to a push. Moody hit both his field goals from reasonable range. Kickoffs didn't matter. The end.

MISCELLANEOUS

Obligatory photo of an Iowa fan stanning the punter. This has a Hawkeye logo on it! It is official merchandise!

[Barron]

WHAT ARE YOU DOING BRIAN (NOT THE COMPETENT BRIAN (WHO, TO BE CLEAR, IS ME))? Iowa's whiz-bang trick play in this one was a fake kneel(?) at the end of the first half that gained seven yards:

The Mathlete pointed out that Tulane managed to get a field goal out of a fake kneel in 2019, but that play 1) came with 18 seconds on the clock, and 2) was something other than a general slodge towards the first down sticks.

get flagged you boner [Barron]

An officiating evaluation. There were a large number of critical calls in this game, and Joel Klatt made them a talking point. After going over things:

• Holding on Rod Moore for watching a guy fall down. Refs –2. Outrageous! Not that big of a deal since Iowa punted shortly thereafter.
• Holding brings back a long Iowa zone stretch run. My brother in Christ, you had your arms on the outside of Rayshaun Benny's shoulder pads as he lunged at the ballcarrier, barely missing him. Eat a bag of flags.
• That clipping call. Uhhhhh, refs +3.
• Pass interference on the Bell slant. Obvious. Dude had both arms wrapped around the receiver. Klatt owes us all an abject apology. Repent, sinner!
• Personal foul on OL burying Mike Sainristil. Ball is gone downfield and that OL rode Sainristil about ten yards across the field before jumping on him as the WR was being tackled near the goal line. Really looked like the back judge was yelling at said OL to stop. Frustrating for Iowa since it was irrelevant to the outcome of the play. Still probably correct?
• OPI on the fourth down. Extremely tenuous. The WR is shoving the DB back but the DB is engaged with him, does he not have a right to fight through that? He didn't even impact the play.

The clip was real bad. Other than that, things seemed about even.

About the turtling. Michigan plays by drive: 11, 8, 13, 13, 10, 3, 3, 3, 3. The first three and out was the fumble and short punt, so when Michigan got the ball back it was 20-7 at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Iowa showed pure zero coverage on third and one and stuffed Blake Corum on short yardage. Running directly into the teeth of the defense was probably the right call, even if the way it played out was extremely frustrating. Iowa was not going to drive the field twice in that amount of time. Sometimes Lloydball is the right way to play—when your opponent is terrible on offense. I sincerely hope we don't see the same approach the rest of the year, though.

HERE

GIFs:

Best and Worst:

Michigan’s win probability never dropped below 91% in the second half because even when Iowa did score they had still ceded 20 points and nearly 300 yards of total offense.  Iowa’s offensive “explosion” relied heavily on Petras completing a 28-yard throw in 3rd-and-22 that required a UM defender to fall down 4 yard before the sticks, a 34-yard completion to Luke Lachey as Junior Colson was draped over him, a 9-yard run on 3rd-and-6 that required 3 broken tackles including both DTs, and various other chicanery.  That isn’t to say Iowa didn’t perform well during those drives but it looked like a phenomenon we’ve seen especially playing West division teams wherein they are inefficient holistically on offense but can bunch together their bouts of productivity to maximal effect – latter years Paul Crist Wisconsin jumps to mind.  On the day Iowa had 11 plays that went over 9 yards from scrimmage…and 5 of them occurred during that briefly-annoying stretch in the 4th quarter and 3 more occurred on the utterly meaningless last TD drive.

State of our Open Threads:

Overall, there were 136 fucks given, which is down somewhat from the 153 given against Maryland. Last year, the second conference game was Wisconsin, and fucks given actually increased from 176 against Rutgers to 190 that week, so it's a reversal of last season's trend so far, although two data points isn't exactly a trend (the season is short, however, so be fair, right?). There were also 93 shits given, down from Maryland's 118, which is also a reversal of what happened from the first to second conference game last year.

It is interesting to note that these have trended with each other so far, in a way that they really haven't in the past, now that I think about it, although I should probably go through the historical data to confirm that suspicion.