11/7/2020 – Michigan 21, Indiana 38 – 1-2 Big Ten

Some years back, Michael Weinreb had an odd sinecure. Every three months some publication would ask him to write the same article dumping on Michigan football, and he'd write it, and I'd roll my eyes and occasionally Yell On The Internet about it. We've got a tag and everything. It's only got one post in it, but I created it because I thought that six times was enough. Weinreb would write the same article about Michigan every few months until the sun baked the planet into lava. We needed a tag. Then he stopped.

These pieces were and are extremely bad. I mean:

Maybe, by essentially professionalizing the recruiting process, Harbaugh is dispensing with the pretense that college football is still an amateur sport.

In addition to making no sense, these arguments don't even dump on Michigan from the correct angle. The correct angle: Michigan does 95% of the things every other athletic department does and then sniffs its own butt about the other 5% while being dumped in a toilet by OSU. Weinreb's series of articles was so infuriating because he was the only person in the universe who could get paid to dump on Michigan for excessive rather than insufficient moral turpitude.

And yet I still remember a single ominous sentence from six years ago in his piece on the Harbaugh hire:

I would worry most of all that if Harbaugh somehow fails at Michigan, it will be the most definitive proof yet that no one can succeed in Ann Arbor anymore.

That's obviously overstated until you're staring down a 2-6, 3-5 kind of season in year six and the Black Pit Of Negative Expectations has signed a long-term lease in your head.

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I can't imagine Jim Harbaugh makes this work any more. Michigan jumped offsides against Michigan State twice. They went back to practice, watched some film, tried to self-correct, and jumped offsides five times in the first half based on nothing more than quarterback hand claps.

A fully operational recruiting setup brought Michigan this bounty of cornerbacks and defensive tackles. After a three-month-long fall camp Michigan still thought that these guys could play press man. It turns out Chris Partridge left for Ole Miss not to be DC, but to be an assistant to DJ Durkin, of all people. Michigan was down three scores in the fourth quarter and still strolling up to the line, content to blow thirty seconds on a running clock.

Michigan has disastrous recruiting at key spots, can't retain coaches, can't run tempo, can't get lined up against tempo, can't hang on to the same running approach for more than half a season. This is systemic and goes back to the head coach. We've seen most of these issues over the last few years. They were covered by a lot of talent. Now they're not. The usual flush-and-reset coordinators that buys you some more time has already happened.

The question, then: why would this get better? I mean "beat Ohio State" better, not "beat Indiana again" better. You can make a case for that based on the youth of the roster, COVID, Ambry Thomas exiting, etc. But we've seen good Michigan teams enter the Ohio State game. They were competitive when OSU was running JT Barrett out there. They have not been competitive after OSU switched from great runners and functional passers to NFL QBs throwing to a bunch of five-star WRs. They sure as shit aren't going to be competitive going forward with this group of corners.

But then you survey the situation and Michigan's specific brand of punching itself in the nuts because the hands of filthy outsiders are never to approach the hallowed scrotum…

Fwiw, source said this after I asked if Luke Fickell was at the top. I took it more to say that they wouldn’t consider a Buckeye than that a coach had to be a former Wolverine.

— Michael Spath (@MichaelSpathITH) November 9, 2020

…and you wonder what the point of replacing him would be.

I'm going to assume this is one gentleman talking out of his butt and that Warde Manuel is not going to find a Michigan Man to do Michigan Things like always lose to Ohio State. This is because there is literally no "Michigan Man" who is even 1% qualified for the job. Michigan's series of failed coaches has created literally no coaching tree. The most plausible Michigan-associated coach who isn't a million years old may literally be first-year Indiana offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan. Scot Loeffler, who is 3-10 at Bowling Green and has been in charge of some of the worst Power 5 offenses of the past decade, is the main (only?) competition unless you think John Harbaugh is achievable, which nope.

So there's where we are. The great hope is pretty much done, and if things have gone like they have over the past 15 years the program will either hire a deeply incompetent makeweight or try to go outside the family and eat the interloper at the first sign of weakness.

Anyway, hockey time! Moussa Diabate time! Why wallow?

[After the JUMP: Team Milton here]

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

you're the man now, dog

#1 Ronnie Bell. 149 receiving yards including one of those pogo-stick touchdowns we thought he might have in him but had not seen yet. Would have easily crested 200 if Milton hadn't overthrown him when he was wide open for a long TD. Also was so annoying that he induced an ejection from an Indiana defender after one (1) catch.

#2 Dax Hill. The worst thing about this defense is that Dax Hill is indeed the promised one who can run with you on your slot fades and also tackle you on crossing routes. He forced multiple Indiana punts in man coverage the rest of the defense can't run.

#3 Joe Milton. Michigan put it all on his shoulders and he performed beyond expectations even with the killer INT. (The second one, whatever.) Zero ground game, 10 YPA, many drops.

Honorable mention: Cornelius Johnson had a pretty DT and three other catches. Kwity Paye was again almost sacking the QB continually. Brad Robbins averaged 54 yards a kick and Indiana had just 5 return yards.

KFaTAotW Standings. (Scoring: 8 points for first, 5 for second, 3 for third, 1 for HM. Points from ties adjudicated by an ankylosaur named Sharon.)

14: Joe Milton (#1 Minnesota, #3 MSU, #3 Indiana)
10: Dax Hill (#2 MSU, #2 Indiana)
9: Ronnie Bell (HM Minnesota, #1 Indiana)
8: Giles Jackson(#1 MSU)
5: Kwity Paye(T2 Minnesota, HM MSU, HM Indiana)
3: Aidan Hutchinson(T2 Minnesota), Michael Barrett(#3 Minnesota)
2: Hassan Haskins(HM Minnesota, HM MSU)
1: Ben Mason (HM Minnesota), Jaylen Mayfield (HM Minnesota), Roman Wilson (HM MSU), Brad Robbins(HM Indiana), Cornelius Johnson(HM Indiana)

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

Joe Milton uncorks a deep ball to Cornelius Johnson; Johnson lays out for a purty touchdown.

Honorable mention: Several other Milton whang throws that looked like the rough outline of an NFL quarterback.

?MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

The second time Indiana scored a touchdown on a free play.

Honorable mention: The first time Indiana scored a touchdown on a free play. The other seventy-five times Michigan jumped offsides. Plays in man coverage. Plays in zone coverage. The backbreaking Milton INT.

OFFENSE

The one controversy, apparently. A tweet:

Milton's made mistakes but he's being asked to score 39 points by himself https://t.co/E1rPmgHSMD

— mgoblog (@mgoblog) November 7, 2020

This got a bunch of replies split about 50/50 between resigned agreement and guys demanding excellence because he missed Bell on a woulda-coulda touchdown and threw a bad interception. The latter folks are wrong and in their feelings because the football team sucks.

Milton averaged 10 yards an attempt despite suffering a spate of drops. He had guys in his face all day because the line can't pick up stunts and was continually facing down third and long because Michigan's ground game was nonexistent. If he was not the only functioning part of the team he would be good enough to win. But he's a redshirt sophomore who entered as a massive project. He's not ready to put a team on his back.

Milton is about the only guy on the team who is meeting expectations aside from the defensive ends. You can see it coming.

A note on the first interception. That was not a bad read, necessarily, but a bad throw. Indiana is in cover two and Johnson was sitting down in the hole. The cover 2 hole:

On the skycam replay you can see Johnson start to retreat upfield once he reads the ball coming out of Milton's hand, because it's winged probably five yards upfield and on a line. If it's accurate it's another ball that zings past a defender, IMO.

That's the kind of throw you don't want to discourage too much because it's the whole reason having a cannon arm is real nice.

The nonexistent ground game. Haskins had one 11-yard run. The other 12 carries from RB/WRs went for 11 yards. I get to find out exactly what happened later but I'll tell you what I suspect now: Indiana has a defense that blitzes from everywhere, particularly off the corner, and every time this happened Michigan failed to adapt.

Michigan's OL blew it against an MSU defense that was running basic T/E twists; Indiana's approach was always going to cause problems, especially with the starting tackles out and a true freshman in the starting lineup.

The inexplicable. Milton had two runs. IIRC one of them was a scramble. On approximately all of the handoffs Milton was not looking at an end to option him off, but turning his back to the line of scrimmage. So the offense neither had a meaningful amount of QB run game nor any attempt to even up numbers in the box by using Milton as a threat to keep.

I rather think the idea of keeping your quarterback healthy goes out the window when you're down three scores to Indiana, so that fails as an explanation. So this is the second straight year where Michigan's ground game is being seriously harmed by a lack of QB runs. This one happens after Milton looked great against Minnesota—patient, fast, hard to bring down.

I cannot fathom what is going on here.

DEFENSE

Furk. Hutchinson headed for surgery:

Jim Harbaugh: "Aidan (Hutchinson) is going to require surgery for his leg. A fracture"

— Sam Webb (@SamWebb77) November 9, 2020

Chris, Aidan's father, said that they expect him to be out four months. Deleting the best player from the defense is bad, IMO.

Can't zone either. I don't think anyone's surprised that Michigan tried a bunch of zone in this game and continually left big pockets in it.

LB #40 to top

VanSumeren leaves with the TE and mesh still works. That's not necessarily on BVS since someone needs to cover the tight end and neither safety seems inclined, but it is a demonstration of what happens when you're a man press team suddenly required to run a ton of zone. Have they practiced it? Yes. Have they practiced it like Iowa? No.

As a result. For the second straight week there were a ton of plays where Michigan was to the quarterback about as fast as possible and got nothing for their troubles. Penix's third and long shot between three defenders was one as Paye was around at eight and into Penix's back. That throw was a tip-your-cap moment where he had a small window and nailed it under pressure.

In the area. Vincent Gray did improve from a week ago, as he was generally in the area when balls came to his man. He had a nice PBU. But also Indiana dunked on him repeatedly and there were more panic flags. Gemon Green got hit on the first free-play TD but it looked like he got a hand on the ball at the peak and just couldn't quite rake it out. I'll take that given, you know, everything.

I don't have a lot else to say? The corners aren't good in man and their zone isn't practiced enough to be good. The end.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Nice punting, guy! Brad Robbins really socked it to 'em. Netting 53 yards a kick is wild.

MISCELLANEOUS

I mean. Tom Allen would not be the worst idea if there is a coaching changeover. He's made chicken salad out of Indiana's available defensive parts and seems like a cultural fit. He's got Sheridan and Hart on his staff.

ELSEWHERE

The only thing you need to see this week is the Mood:

I CANT STOP CRYING

LIVE ON FRENCH TELEVSION SKNHDJKJSBCJpic.twitter.com/Xopzx7fyyl

— ???am7 ? (@BTSOriented) November 7, 2020

They found the fromage guy.