Hawai'i Links: Preview, The Podcast, FFFF Offense (chart), FFFF Defense (chart)

Something's been missing from Michigan gamedays since the free programs ceased being economically viable: scientific gameday predictions that are not at all preordained by the strictures of a column in which one writer takes a positive tack and the other a negative one… something like Punt-Counterpunt.

PUNT

By Bryan MacKenzie
@Bry_Mac

Parenting is hard.

Even if you aren’t a parent, you already knew this. Television, movies and, like, any conversation you’ve ever had with a parent will make it perfectly clear for you. Parenting is HARD. Parenting is loud, sweaty, smelly, and world-consuming. You don’t need me to list the challenges, but they are plentiful. And while many of them ⁠— especially those involving the intersection of sleep and poop ⁠— are obvious, the day-to-day challenge of parenting contains a million little things you NEVER thought you would have to deal with. My one regret from my time as a parent is that I really wish I had started documenting, from Day One, the number of things I never, EVER thought would have to address, but which I have found myself addressing to the point where it barely even registers as odd. You find yourself casually saying things like, “no, we don’t put our private parts in our food” and “no, we don’t draw on the baby with a marker” without a second thought.

And that, son, is how a Rutgers joins the Big Ten

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

Still, there are some advantages to parenting. And not just the ‘general emotional fulfillment’ stuff. Watching kids grow and develop and improve and struggle and overcome is great, but that’s not all you get. No, there are real, tangible benefits. Stuff you either couldn’t or wouldn’t get to do, or that it would not be socially acceptable to do, without a kid by your side:

• Kid food. The average diet of a parent of a child between the ages of 2 and 8 is comprised 60% of kid food leftovers, and kids have, without a doubt, some of the best foods. My house has a seemingly endless supply of fruit snacks. We have frozen Eggo Cinnamon Toast Mini waffles on a constant loop in the toaster. Mac and Cheese. Capri Suns. Flavor Ices. Frozen French fries. The list goes on.
• Cartoons. Yes, you claim to enjoy prestige television shows and big adult scary movies. But cartoons are awesome. Bluey is the best show on television, and you can’t convince me otherwise.
• Games. You can’t ask an adult to play Hungry Hungry Hippos. You will sound like a maniac. But Hungry Hungry Hippos is amazing. You will never bust out Mario Kart Wii at a dinner party, which is stupid because it would make any dinner party better.

One other advantage, which is, I suppose, the reason we are here, is in the realm of sports. Yes, playing sports with kids is fun. Playing catch, shooting around in the driveway, and kicking a ball around the yard are rites of passage dating back for generations. I spent a couple of years coaching Little League, and I highly recommend it. It’s an excellent bonding opportunity, and watching kids gain skills and confidence is very rewarding. But that’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about the really fun moments. The moments when you allow yourself the privilege of going full out, for the briefest of moments, against an opponent who is nowhere near your physical equal. Throwing down a monster dunk on an 8-foot rim against a 4-foot tall defender. Swatting a jumper thirty feet into the neighbor’s yard. Nutmegging a five-year-old. Hitting a wiffle ball with your best Barry Bonds swing and flipping your bat like you’re in the Korean Baseball Organization.

The catharsis is hard to express. Parents spend so much of their time, talent, and treasure nurturing, guiding, and nourishing their children’s development. You go easy on kids most of the time, because they are kids. But sometimes you get to cry havoc and put an elementary schooler in a blender.

Is this *GOOD* parenting? I mean, who’s to say? Maybe? It’s important to teach kids that they can always strive to improve. It’s good to give them new feats to inspire and challenge them. They need to learn humility. They need to learn respect and appreciation for their elders, and to see their parents as real people with real skills who can teach them valuable lessons.

It’s also good to teach kids not to bring that weak-ass shit. Quit bringing that weak-ass shit, kid, because this is what happens when you bring that weak-ass shit.

College football is hard. These players work hard. The coaches work hard. Often that hard work is not rewarded, or even if it is rewarded, the journey makes you wonder whether it was worth it. Being a college football fan, while certainly nowhere near as hard, is often challenging. Fans spend unreasonable amounts of time, money, and emotional energy on this stupid game. We juggle weekend schedules (especially when the kids have activities), we read game previews looking for comfort and finding only danger, and we drum our fingers nervously regardless of the likelihood of an outcome.

But Hawai’i isn’t most teams. They aren’t even most bad teams. Colorado State was bad, but if you are anything like me, you had the butterflies prior to kickoff, and you made a “nnnnggggghhhh” sound when Michigan went 3-and-out on the first series. There is ALWAYS risk in college football. But not this week. Hawai’i is a cupcake’s cupcake. A tomato can within a tomato can within a tomato can, like a Russian Nesting Doll of football ineptitude. This is a rare chance for a risk-free, drama-free Thunderdunking.

Now, is this a way to raise Michigan Football into a fine upstanding young football program? No. There is very little actual value to this. But just because Capri Suns only contain like 7% real juice doesn’t mean it isn’t still tasty. Michigan 68, Hawai’i 9

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

COUNTERPUNT

By Internet Raj
@internetraj

Time travel is an immensely popular science fiction trope and for good reason. It’s a versatile plot device that fulfills a universal fantasy, one that transcends differences in language, culture and status: conquering fate, rewriting history, unlocking endless new branches of the tree of possibility, and—most meaningfully—setting things right that had once gone horribly wrong. Almost everyone indulges in the enthralling thought experiment of what they would do if they could time travel. Of course, it’s easy to be seduced by the low-hanging fruit of temporal traipsing—averting monumental tragedies (“Look Mr. Archduke, all I’m saying is you may want to beef up your bodyguards today.”), profiteering from knowledge of the future (“Hey Bill, why are you working out of your garage? Why don’t you let me invest in your company for a small equity stake.”) or clarifying history’s greatest mysteries (“Can someone point me towards a grassy knoll?”).

But it can be even more fun to dispense with the weightier implications of time travel in favor of exploring some of history’s less consequential waypoints. At least, that’s what I like to do.

So what if I had a time machine?

* * *

My first stop is the morning of September 4, 2000. It’s the first day of 8th grade and I’m in my bathroom getting ready for school. The air is thick, a viscous and probably carcinogenic cloud of Axe Body Spray and LA Looks hairspray. I’m admiring myself in the mirror as I greedily squeeze yet another glob of hair gel into my hands, which I expertly use to spike the very front of my hair into a hardened, crunchy, perfectly straight wall. Now content with my preposterously aerodynamic hair style, my gaze lowers to the mustard yellow polo with the extra-large Express logo (so everyone knows it’s from Express, obviously). My face scrunches up. Something is amiss. I pop the collar straight up. There we go. Almost ready. I tighten the skater belt through the loops of my artificially distressed jeans and the look is complete. Before throwing my devil sticks into my Jansport, I’m suddenly worried the Axe isn’t enough. I douse myself in a couple extra spritzes of the imitation Davidoff Cool Water I begged my mom to buy me from Sav-On Drugs.

A Russian Nesting Doll of Douchebaggery

I travel here so I can look my 8th grade self in the eye and marvel at how far man come in life to redeem himself from his sins of yesteryear. And also to give myself the biggest wedgie of all time.

* * *

My next stop is to exactly 1 month ago. My wife and I are about to board a plane with our 2-year-old-son, who has been suffering from chronic constipation. His doctor prescribed daily gummy laxatives but they still haven’t taken effect after 2 days. The flight is only 90 minutes, so what are the chances they suddenly work now? I take the risk and am about to give him his daily dose before boarding. Out of nowhere, though, my time-travelling self smacks that gummy out of my own hand, my frenzied eyes animated by the PTSD of a diaper bursting with 6 days’ worth of payload that tested the very limits of Pampers’ “No Leak!” marketing guarantee. Me, opening that diaper in a tiny airplane bathroom at the precise moment turbulence hit. My hands and shirt, a corn-studded tribute Jackson Pollock. A dark (brown) timeline is averted.

* * *

My next series of stops are probably miscellaneous interventions during my college years including, without limitation: (1) explaining to freshman-year-me, very slowly and very carefully, what the “151” means in “Bacardi 151”; (2) tempering my bubbling excitement about the Shavodrick Beaver Era of Michigan football; and (3) encouraging myself to eat at China Gate even more (RIP China Gate).

Breaking the space-time continuum for one last taste of that sweet Lo Mein.

* * *

Eventually, the time travelling gets more focused on Michigan football. Sneaking on to the sidelines and surreptitiously squirting Gorilla Glue onto Blake O’Neill’s hands on a crisp October day in 2015. Stealing Mary Sue Coleman’s phone and blocking Dave Brandon’s number. Dropping an even bigger duffel bag than the one from Tuscaloosa at Najee Harris’ doorstep. You know, the usual.

But what about to the magical 2021 football season? What about re-writing a history that was great, but not perfect? Do you let that timeline stand still? Or do you tinker with greatness in the pursuit of perfection? What if you could go back in time and cajole Jim Harbaugh into starting JJ McCarthy the entire season? Do the Wolverines lose games they otherwise win, including the cathartic release of beating Ohio State and winning a Big Ten Championship? Or is that change exactly what you need to win it all and beat the Georgia’s of the world?

Today, we step into that time machine. Not a visit to the past but a glimpse at the future. Michigan fans are collectively holding their breath that JJ McCarthy is indeed that bright future. A game against a hapless Hawaii squad won’t be the most instructive data point, but it’s a datapoint nonetheless – and I can’t wait to jump into that time portal.

Michigan 42, Hawaii 17*

*The strictures of Punt Counterpunt demand that one author takes an “optimistic” view and the other author takes the “pessimistic” view. This is about as pessimistic as I can get because, well, Hawaii.