[Patrick Barron]

9/29/2018 – Michigan 20, Northwestern 17 – 4-1, 2-0 Big Ten

On the one hand you look at the spread and things like "opponent loses to Akron" and you assume that Michigan will have a comfortable victory. On the other, you are playing the Northwestern Wildcats, so things are gonna get weird. Dave brought up the recent history of this series on the podcast, and other than a 38-0 blitzing in 2015 it is Hall of Fame weird:

• 2014: M00N
• 2013: The Dileo Power Slide field goal gets Michigan to overtime, and is possibly the only last-second clock-running scramble FG to ever go through the uprights.
• 2012: Michigan gets to overtime thanks to a Northwestern safety tipping the ball to Roy Roundtree with just seconds remaining.
• 2011: Fairly normal.
• 2008: The Fandom Endurance III game is played in conditions that are less sleet and more sideways ice knives.

That's the last decade of Michigan playing Northwestern. It is a nonstop barrage of Pat Fitzgerald pumping his fist until his head expands into a Thanksgiving Day balloon. Michigan scales the balloon to let the air out, sometimes gradually and sometimes all at once. In the post-game presser Fitzgerald's head keeps flopping to one side; he must testily re-seat it. His veins are inverted. He is not so much a hollow shell of a man but the very inverse of a human being, a creature of deflation. Nobody is to walk over to Pat Fitzgerald. Your space-time wavelength may intersect with his and cancel it out, leaving nothing but a ghostly jaw where once two people—one person and one deflation—were.

Nothing can cancel out Pat Fitzgerald's jaw.

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

I guess this season is all about mental calibration. Some way through the third quarter the Black Pit of Negative Expectations gave way to a feeling that stretches all the way back to Lloyd Carr: the Gray Pit of We're Probably Going To Win This Game Despite Starting Horribly Now Could We Please Hurry Up And Actually Do That. (Watch out for the GPoWPGTWTGDSHNCWPHUAADT t-shirt coming to a store near you.) This is a better feeling than the Very Black Pit of Oh God We're Going To Blow Another 18 Point Lead Aren't We.

Michigan did win the game, eventually. By the standards of Michigan-Northwestern it wasn't even that weird. Michigan outgained Northwestern ~4 to 1 after the initial blitzing and was only stopped by a boggling penalty and some boggling failures to use Ol' Murderface when short yardage loomed. Michigan ran into the line on first down and found itself in second and long; they converted that anyway. Nothing could be more traditional. Except also running into the line on second down, which Michigan did not do.

There were no last-second rescues by providence, no inexplicably organized portions of a Brady Hoke team pulling Michigan's ass out of the fire, no two-point conversions to finish our suffering either way. The only thing in question was whether Michigan was going to catch up before the clock ran out. Once they did things were more or less over; they could have played a second game immediately following the second and Northwestern would still be stuck on 17.

Squint and things look pretty good. Maybe that 20 looks like a 28. Michigan almost doubled up the opponent in total yardage (376 to 202) while blasting punts 50+ yards. You don't lose games like that unless you turn the ball over. I know Michigan almost did. We're squinting here.

Open your eyes back up and it's a three-point win over a team with previous ignominious demises at the hands of Duke and Akron. Your personal level of negative expectation will determine how much squinting you're going to do. I am at war with myself. On Monday two days removed I can look at the box score and Pat Fitzgerald's giant throbbing head and be relatively sanguine. Saturday, not so much. Future Saturdays will tend to slip into the black pit until such time as that decision is forcibly repudiated. At this point I don't think anyone has much control over it.

At least Michigan can inflict it, as well. When the game was ended, his quarterback in yet another heap of Michigan defenders surrounded by apologetic linemen, Fitzgerald spiked his headset into the ground and trundled across the field. Instead of a hand to shake he found a wall of Michigan players incidentally in his way. There was no way through. Eventually he veered to one side, disgusted, leaking helium from pin-pricks across his body. By the time he got to the locker room he was barely there at all.

HIGHLIGHTS

AWARDS

Known Friends And Trusted Agents Of The Week

[Patrick Barron]

you're the man now, dog

#1 Chase Winovich. Everywhere. His sack was a gift; his other two TFLs were +3s where he scythed through guys trying to block him and solo TFL'd in the backfield. Now the national leader in TFLs. Also living up to meme potential in pre-game.

#2(T) Mike Dwumfour, Kwity Paye, Josh Uche. Michigan's fresh-faced crew of sackists thrived in the absence of Gary and Aidan Hutchinson. Dwumfour forced more of the play than his teammates, creating both of Paye's sacks and getting one of his own, but also got blown out a couple times against the run. Uche ended he game with a textbook dip around the corner that looked like the offseason hype sounded. I like 'em both, and the other one too. One point each because the points are made up and don't matter.

#3 Will Hart. Last week: "Will Hart is gonna get on the board if Michigan ever punts six times in a game." This week: Michigan punts six times. Hart averages 51 yards a kick. Here you go, Will Hart.

Honorable mention:

KFaTAotW Standings.

7: Chase Winovich (#1 ND, #3 SMU, #1 NW)
4: Devin Bush(#3 ND, #1 Nebraska), Rashan Gary(#2 WMU, #2 Nebraska), Karan Higdon (#1 WMU, #3 Nebraska)
2: Ambry Thomas (#2 ND), Rashan Gary(#2 WMU), Donovan Peoples-Jones(T1 SMU), Zach Gentry(T1 SMU), Josh Metellus(#2 SMU).
1: Shea Patterson(#3 WMU), Will Hart (#3 NW), Mike Dwumfour (T2 NW), Kwity Paye (T2 NW), Josh Uche (T2 NW).

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

Michigan scores to take the lead. Leading is good.

Honorable mention: A-gap Higdon gashes. Gentry sets up the final TD with a ball that just squeezes inside a DB. Will Hart punts! Various sacks.

​MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

Has to be the Worst Holding Call In The History Of Football:

This was called holding on Karan Higdon and erased a long Shea Patterson run for first down. pic.twitter.com/eGNaojXLAa

— Scott Bell (@sbell021) September 29, 2018

That call caused one of just two three-and-outs after Michigan got it together and erased a Michigan first and ten from about the Northwestern 40 in the midst of four different scoring drives.

Honorable mention: Various failures to Mason. The entire first quarter.

[After THE JUMP: CSI: TOUCHDOWN]

OFFENSE

went as well as could be hoped [Fuller]

The! Tackles! Survived! The only sack Michigan gave up was a third-and-seven coverage sack where JBB got a chip, forced his guy ten yards upfield and only then allowed him to spin back. Patterson didn't have to start moving until 4-5 seconds elapsed. Occasional pressures followed, but the onslaught we were fearing never materialized.

In fact, Patterson's timer seemed to be going off too early on a lot of snaps where he exited a clean pocket. No sane person could blame him for this. It was still a bit frustrating. I kept expecting Patterson to rip off the inevitable deep ball to an open guy that almost never came. There was one deep shot to Collins and that was it. Instead Patterson would frequently start moving around a beat before that deep ball might get uncorked.

There will be few caveats issued even in this space. Gaziano had a couple of nice plays that occurred when Michigan didn't put a helmet on him immediately, which will happen. Straight up one on one losses were rare. Michigan is forced to give their guys a lot of help, which limits the number of routes Michigan can get downfield and might explain some of Patterson's hesitancy; anyone who wouldn't take that and run after the ND game is crazy.

Patterson's frustrating day. Shea Patterson was emoting so heavily during the game that I half-expected him to show up in my Twitter mentions, and man did I feel that. Seemingly every big gain was called back by penalty—raise your hand if you uttered an expletive when the FLAG popped up on Higdon's big run outside the tackles and then you were still kinda mad when it was on Northwestern. McKeon dropped a 20-yard corner route in his chest. And for whatever reason Patterson couldn't find any gaps in the Northwestern zone.

At first I thought this was a Patterson issue but it really seems like the Wildcats had everyone covered, more or less, all day. Even Michigan's second half shots to tight ends were inches away from PBUs. Patterson hit Eubanks on the Mitch Leidner-patented Back Shoulder Corner route, which does not exist; Montre Hartage flashed in front of Zach Gentry on the pass that got Michigan's winning drive down to the five. My rough first take on the many and varied TAs Patterson is going to suffer in UFR is that he really didn't have anyone on most of them.

Patterson did have an uncharacteristic number of poor throws. He's not going to hit the mid-to-high 70s DSR he's had in his Michigan career to date. And I prefer some YOLO when you've got Nico Collins, Zach Gentry, and Donovan Peoples-Jones, all certified Very Tall Persons once DPJ's leaping ability comes into play.

[Barron]

Yes, this was a productive ground game. Northwestern is a very good run defense. Now modify Michigan's rushing output by deleting a sack, the Worst Holding Call In The History Of Football, and the six runs on Michigan's four-minute drill* and Michigan gets up to 5.6 YPC. That's considerably better than the national sack-adjusted average of 5.1, and that's without any super-long runs that tend to distort things. (Michigan's long was 30.) Add the four minute drill back in and they're still at 5.2.

Meanwhile that four-minute drill grabbed a first down and gave Northwestern about 40 seconds left via which to attempt a final drive. That makes it Michigan's most successful four-minute drill in a while.

Patterson did have a couple scrambles in addition to some called runs that help prop things up a bit. I'll still take it. I got just as frustrated as anybody when Michigan kept ending up in second and nine on their game-winning drive but there were a couple of opportunities that Higdon didn't quite see in time.

I try not to be That Guy, but here's a That Guy section. At crucial junctures in this game Michigan's playcalling was abject. Two different two-play sequences stand out:

• Michigan has a third and two nearing field goal range. On third down Patterson throws a WR screen to Nico Collins that gets one yard because Northwestern's CBs are five yards off. On fourth down Michigan runs a slow-developing power play featuring Mike Onwenu pulling into Paddy Fisher, the #1 run-stuff guy in the country last year. Fisher blows Onwenu up in the backfield, turnover on downs.
• With second and goal from the three Michigan runs split zone from the gun; a Northwestern DE dives underneath the split block and Higdon gets stuffed two yards in the backfield. On third and goal Michigan runs a fade to Grant Perry, who is not 6'8", or 6'6", or 6'5".

The right side of Michigan's OL goes 330, 350*, 330 and Ben Mason is 260 pounds of anger nicknamed "Bench". Northwestern's DTs are okay but not the kind of bulls that hold up that well against wedge blocking—see Mason's two successful conversions in this game. There seems to be no reason at all to do anything other than FB dive in the above situations until it doesn't work. Otherwise why did you recruit the Big Big Boys?

Especially if you're just going to run it up the middle anyway, as Michigan did on the goal-to-go sequence. This is almost entirely a tactical issue, with a DE running unblocked directly into the lane:

If you're under center and mauling forward he doesn't have a shot to do that.

A-gap iso. Michigan repaired some of its run issues by deploying a variant of the Down G play they killed Nebraska with. It wasn't the trap that they showed against Northwestern but a pure iso right up the middle where they'd pave a DT and Mason would go one-on-one with Fisher. With Northwestern's LBs not prepped for that action there was no one to fill in for Fisher and Michigan got a chunk run with Higdon; Michigan's first half touchdown was another easy A-gap iso.

Seth mentioned pregame that NW tends to spread their DTs wider than teams usually do because they had faith in Fisher to make it good; Mason crumpled him on both of these plays.

go straight young man [Fuller]

Collins after the catch. Nico Collins is Michigan's designated flash screen guy, which is a little weird but seems to be working out okay because he is very large and falls forward and can run through some tackles. His yards after the catch were less positive after a couple of downfield catches. On both he tried to pop outside a defensive back trying to keep leverage and failed to do so. If he'd gone straight upfield he would have either converted first downs or put Michigan in a better position on fourth down.

The same thing that makes Collins a good flash screen guy means he shouldn't try to bust it outside a DB: he's a big guy with a lot of momentum. He's not Steve Breaston. This is fine as long as he gets vertical after the catch as fast as possible. An Area For Improvement.

And as long as we're critiquing Collins, he jumped for a ball at the end of the first half that hit him in the chest; Northwestern's DB was able to hit him OOB before he got back down. Aaaand he didn't reach up for an in route on the goal line. I don't know if he thought it was for DPJ? It looked fine to me.

Eubanks. Eubanks got more playing time than he usually does for whatever reason and had a mixed day. He made a couple nice catches; I think he had a couple of run game biffs. The Joe Gaziano TFL in the second half saw Eubanks go to the second level immediately and Owneu get run by because he could get there in time; I don't think that's on Onwenu, but rather Michigan not blocking a first level defender.

What is the line of scrimmage anyway? An existential journey. Either the refs are big fans of Inside the Crooked Blue Line featuring Steve Lorenz, or Michigan had a couple of plays from that quads set where they were illegally formed, or we've just decided that lining up well off the line of scrimmage is lining up on the line of scrimmage. I've been told by people who should know that Michigan's formation was legal, but I look at it and it absolutely isn't? I don't know.

Let's just let people line up wherever the hell they want. OL are ineligible and have to be on the LOS. Everyone else, whatever.

DEFENSE

It went as expected... eventually. A strange game with seventeen points and 145 yards ceded on the three opening drives and then zero and 57 for the rest of the game. Michigan was a bit unfortunate to give up as many points as they did, like a pitcher who gives up a bunch of runs in one inning vs one who scatters hits across six. Usually 200 yards doesn't equal 17 points because you give up some 20 yard drives and they peter out and then one or two scoring drives.

I'm assuming that some of the early issues were a bye-week script thing where Northwestern broke a lot of tendencies—Seth would probably be able to tell you better since he scouted them—and WOO LET'S GO PUMP IT UP stuff from a team that's JACKED ON LIFE. Some of it was the usual level of breakdowns and errors Michigan's defense usually has all packed into three drives.

[Fuller]

Introducing Assorted Pass Rushers. Three different guys announced themselves against the Northwestern offensive line:

• With Gary limited Michigan turned to a lot of Kwity Paye, who collected two sacks. Those were cleanup action after others forced the QB to move but one of them showcased Paye's impressive acceleration off the edge.
• Mike Dwumfour forced about 1.5 sacks by surging up the middle and finished one of his own.
• Josh Uche threatened consistently on limited snaps and had an exclamation-point rush on the final snap.

That latter induced an astounding meme that only weirdos will get and won't go anywhere but by God the MGoStaff appreciated it:

pic.twitter.com/3zrJm9rnUh

— Christopher Reade (@CWReade) September 30, 2018

But anyway the sheer rush output of three backups was critical. All three guys came in for a fair bit of preseason hype and then disappointed to varying levels—Paye possibly excluded—before turning in encouraging performances Saturday.

Dwumfour did get blown out on Northwestern's second touchdown; he got hammered so badly that Gary couldn't make up the lateral distance despite Michigan slanting him to the play.

Gary: uh-oh. Rashan Gary left for most of a competitive game. At one point after his initial absence he returned wearing a big shoulder brace. This is probably the same injury he had last year. It has the same pattern: Gary is able to play but often comes out. Last year he was clearly holding his right arm with his left as he exited. Now that right shoulder has the brace. I don't know if that's a recurrence or just the same thing lingering; maybe they thought it would go away with an offseason to heal up and were wrong about it.

Slants got better. Michigan successfully adapted to slant-mania in this game. That doesn't mean they intercepted every single one; it does mean that they were regularly challenged and broken up enough that they ceased being an easy source of yards. Even though this is complete I can live with it:

If you challenge slants like that consistently you're going to get PBUs and force drops and turn them into mediocre plays.

Kinnel issues. Tyree Kinnel has been a lot better this year about flying in willy-nilly and missing tackles but Northwestern's first touchdown was significantly aided by a bad fill from him. NW had successfully tunnel screened their way to a first down at the 30; Kinnel got on the same side of a blocker already hammering Gil and didn't delay the WR at all; pursuit couldn't catch up and Northwestern was down to the one.

uh, yep [Fuller]

Rubbin's racin' and sometimes you get flagged. Michigan's two PI flags (one was holding, yes) were indisputable, and that's the continuation of a trend. Part of that trend is the goofy officiating in the SMU game. Part of it is Michigan getting beat a worrying percentage of the time and having to pull the ripcord. Hill's holding flag was a good idea after Nagel broke to a slot fade when he was sitting on a slant.

The flipside:

Michigan is first in yards per pass attempt allowed. That is sack-inclusive and not directly attributable to the defensive backs; it also does not ding Michigan for what has to be a significantly larger than average number of PI-and-related flags. But it's still clearly an approach that works even if they're giving up a couple first downs per game because they get too aggressive.

SPECIAL TEAMS

It is possible DPJ shouldn't be jumping as much on punt returns. He's getting crushed fairly frequently when he does this.

[Barron]

I think we've got enough evidence now. Hart's performance noted above still doesn't qualify him for national leaderboards—he's one punt short. If he did he'd be third nationally behind Braden Mann of Texas A&M and Brandon Wright of Georgia State. He's also had two bombs that didn't count because of penalties. ~20 punts is 40% of a season. This is the new normal.

Michigan did give up 46 return yards on those punts, which brings Hart's net down to 43.3. That's still really good, and Michigan's punt coverage style contributes to return yardage ceded. (This is no longer a complaint after Michigan started blocking a ton of spread punts, but it is a fact.) Hart even spun one down at the five; a second punt went into the endzone but probably could have been stopped prior if the gunner hadn't been 15 yards away checking the punt returner and his false fair catch signal.

Pop up kickoffs: not a trend. No matter how the rules change if there are kickoffs there will be men scheming to get the tiniest edges available. Northwestern demonstrated this by popping up a couple of kickoffs around the 15 or 20; Brad Hawkins wasn't ready for the first one and let it bounce, resulting in bad field position. He was ready for the second and got it out over the thirty. A good trade for Northwestern but one that seems unlikely to catch on, since its efficacy drops as soon as anyone sees it.

Block in the back. I didn't see one? If there was one it felt like those PI calls where an underthrown ball causes a WR to stop and the DB runs into him; I dislike those calls because they reward incompetence. If you're running downfield and someone changes direction into you that should be their problem.

MISCELLANEOUS

Ye gods. Our valiant boycott of college football advertisers has not yet seen results, comrades. Twice in this game FOX went commercial-kickoff-commercial-play-injury-commercial.

Let's be really sure about this one. One of my favorite refereeing ticks is the absurdly delayed touchdown call on a run up the middle from the one.

[Barron]

Clayton Thorson's entire body is in the endzone. He's been down since you started running in from the sidelines. I'm pretty sure he scored and that you don't have forensically examine the scene. They are not going to cast you next to Ray Liotta in CSI: Touchdown. I mean, maybe if you were BEEF REF. You are not beef ref.

Diverse and sundry sack celebrations. You had quite a menu. Paye goes with Wakanda Forever:

[Barron]

Dwumfour the point at the sky:

[Fuller]

And Uche a simple fist.

[Barron]

The later is impressively nonchalant for ending a game.

HERE

Best and Worst gets the annoying thing about Pat Fitzgerald so correct:

Northwestern seems like the type of program I SHOULD root for. You may quibble about the relative excellence of their academics, but it's a damn-fine school that actually seems to care about the "student" part of student-athlete. Pat Fitzgerald is the hometown boy who was a great college player and, once he decided to get into coaching, stepped into a tough spot after Randy Walker's unexpected death to bring some stability to the Wildcats. Over the years, he turned them into a perfectly competent P5 program that wins games at a far greater rate than their historical performance. Plus, with a few scattered exceptions, he's kept the program pretty clean while getting guys to the NFL at a solid rate. He's not perfect, but he seems like a decent guy and Northwestern, while sometimes boring as dirt to watch, still "feels" like a more fun program than most of it's Western division brethren.

And yet...this is the image that pops in my head whenever I hear his name.

For those of you who don't know, that's Fitzgerald excitedly celebrating a personal foul by Michigan on the sideline that set up what looked like Northwestern's go-ahead scoring drive in 2012.

There are many worse things to be as a head football coach, as the entire Big Ten is trying to demonstrate this year. But still! I mean! Cumong man. Show some decorum. This is the most Michigan fan criticism of all time.

Ethan Sears:

“When we were down, I looked each person in the eye, because I didn’t want the message to be dispelled,” Chase Winovich, who had nine tackles, three TFLs and a sack to his name, said. “I said, ‘This is the point where we’ve gotta double down on all the hard work that we’ve done, and the preparation that we’ve gone through. And they can’t take this from us.’ Even when we were losing I said that. It was our game.”

ELSEWHERE

Bring Your Champions, They're Our Meat:

The explosion of money in college sports is not unique to Northwestern.  It is part of a larger trend across campuses.  Part of it comes from men's basketball and football programs raking in enormous sums from television networks; this article shows that Michigan got a $50 million payout from the Big Ten Network for the 2018 season, which is evidently just raking it in from the farm implement and extra large men's pants commercials.  These fancy new buildings certainly seem like a fantastic way to spend money in any way other than giving it to athletes.  But the architectural spending fit with other goals.  One is a general mania for building that affects universities beyond their athletic fields; few universities would rather spend money on anything more than building a Ramrod "Rod" Yaarghdarrgh Facility For Business Technology Where Students Plug Their iPods into Bigger iPods.  Furthermore, fancy new facilities are a crucial part of advertising and branding-- every Northwestern football and basketball broadcast this season will feature a paean to the new facilities and arena, with awe-struck announcers saying things like "I took a tour of this stadium, Joe and let me tell you, it's really something" with B-roll of Pat Fitzgerald flying around on a personalized jetpack that he needs to Analyze and Facilitate the Development of Football Stratagems.

The Tactical Coaching Jetpack allows
coaches to soar high above practices while
top of the line communications technology
allows them relay real-time instructions like
"What the fuck is that Horseshit tackle there
what are you doing you asshole horseshit"

Harbaugh post-game about That:

“They called it on 22, they called it on Karan, so I asked the referee, ‘Go ask the side judge who he called it on just so it wasn’t some different explanation days from now,’ ” Harbaugh said after Michigan came back from a 17-point deficit to win, 20-17, Saturday at Ryan Field.

“So he came back and said it was on the running back holding the linebacker. The whole stadium saw that the linebacker tackled our running back. It was a zone read, faked it to the running back, their linebacker tackled him, and then Shea ran for 28 yards, and they tacked on 10 yards for holding. It was a phantom call.”

Did... did Wendy's write this?

What would it cost your employer in lost productivity if you had to call-in sick this week, Darren? #GoBlue 〽️ https://t.co/kpfWyq4Psg

— Michigan Athletics (@UMichAthletics) September 30, 2018

The above got Michigan a brief mention in Spencer's Top Whatever, so good job social media person.

Hoover Street Rag:

All of the consternation about yesterday comes back to "what does this mean for WisconsonMichiganStatePennStateOhioState????" and I understand that line of thinking.  The future is what we care about because it has yet to be written and we're trying to use what is happening in the present to be instructive.  If Michigan wins those games, then a game like this is the springboard to improvement and renewed focus.  If Michigan loses those games, then this was the harbinger of what happens when you start slowly and take foolish penalties.  We don't actually know anything, we won't really know anything until the games themselves are played.  I realize this is trite, I realize this is not useful, but attempting to extrapolate the future of a college football team is also very difficult.

Sap's Decals:

OFFENSIVE CHAMPION – In tight games, like this one was, you wanna put the ball in the hands of your playmakers. Saturday night, that playmaker was Shea Patterson. When a 3rd down conversion was needed to keep the drive (and game) alive, #2 kept moving the chains with his arm and/or his legs. He played a gutty game and willed his team to victory. A game like that will not only endear you to your teammates & coaches, but it will also earn you this title from yours truly: “The New Guts and Glue of the Maize and Blue is #2.”   Much like Ricky Leach gutted out key 3rd down conversions forty years ago, Patterson is starting to display that same kind of moxie. That’s good because that kind of grit will inspire, motivate and elevate the play of his teammates. Winning on the road in the B1G is tough, but when you get clutch QB play like Michigan got from Patterson, you can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Paye postgame. Daily on the new kids. Maize and Blue Nation. Maize and Go Blue.