Ohio State 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

Michigan is going to win this football game.

I’m sorry, that was abrupt. It needed a lede. That’s how this column works. We warm up with an analogy or a metaphor or a parable or an anecdote. Something to explain, or couch, or caveat, or hedge, before we gently ease into a prediction. Hell, I made you read about my literal actual nuts before I would give you my Rutgers prediction last year. And that was Rutgers!

We always say that this column is not about predicting who will win. It’s a thought exercise. A real-world Schrodinger’s Cat, where Raj and I explain that the cat is both alive and dead, and how both can be true at the same time. But today, I come to you without stipulations. I throw caution to the wind. I’m eschewing my better judgment, and I’m leading with my chin.

Michigan is going to win this football game.

[After THE JUMP: Blockhead.]

I understand this statement causes some significant angst for some of you. Some will accuse me of being an idiot, which… fair. Some will accuse me of providing bulletin board material to the Buckeyes, as if Michigan’s mere existence is not sufficient, and as if destroying Michigan isn’t like 84% of Ohio State’s raison d'être. But above all, I’m guessing the overriding reaction among Michigan fans is “why, you poor fool, would you get your hopes up?”

I get it. I’m an idiot, but I’m not naïve. Like Eminem at the end of 8 Mile, I know everything you’re about to say against me. I have seen all of your evidence. I’ve watched every second of the last two decades of The Games. I saw 2002’s heartbreak. And 2006’s heartbreak. And 2008’s massacre. And 2013’s heartbreak. And 2015’s massacre. And 2016’s heartbreak. And 2017’s heartbreak. And 2018’s heartbreak/massacre. And 2019’s… whatever that was.

And yes, I have also watched 2021 Ohio State. I’ve seen them eviscerate good teams and trebuchefenestrate* bad teams. I’ve seen them average 8 yards per play and 47 points per game. I saw their defense take a photon torpedo to the thermal exhaust port against Oregon, get blown the hell up, and then somehow rebuild itself mid-flight with a new-and-improved design featuring a protective cover over said thermal exhaust port. Something to let the heat out, but while preventing stuff like photon torpedoes from falling inside. I’m basically describing the metal grate/register things that cover the floor vents in your house. Why they didn’t have those to begin with, I do not know and cannot explain. Anyway the defense is fixed and the offense is a rolling screaming ball of death.

And I’m still standing here screaming “Michigan is going to win this football game.”

*tre·bu·che·fen·es·trate (trebyəˈSHēˈfenəˌstrāt) – verb – to defenestrate via trebuchet.

Your hesitation is understandable. Truth be told, it’s probably the appropriate reaction. If evolution teaches us to be once bitten and twice shy, being bitten this many times would elicit a Pavlovian defense mechanism in even the strongest of optimists. Hope is a dangerous thing; hope can drive a man insane. And as a result, we have become cynical. We’ve come to expect the other shoe to drop even while the first shoe is kicking ass. We’ve come to anticipate the worst, with any bad news taken as irrefutable proof of the pending collapse, and any good news being treated as the Fates’ attempt to get us to drop our gloves and unshield our groins.

But while were sulking in the corner, look what we’ve missed. Michigan is 10-1. They clobbered likely Big Ten West champion Wisconsin on the road, a place Michigan hadn’t won since Bill Clinton was president. They won fourth quarter comebacks on the road at Nebraska (where Michigan had never won) and Penn State (where Michigan was 1-5 since Lloyd retired). They’re the #4 team in the country in SP+ and FEI and FPI. They’re #5 in the College Football Playoff rankings. They have the best pass rush tandem in the country. Michigan is really, really good.

And they are going to win this football game.

I fear we have learned the wrong lesson from Charlie Brown. Because the lesson of Lucy and Charlie Brown isn’t that Charlie Brown wants to kick the football but can’t. Because he could. Charlie Brown could kick the football at any point if he wanted to. If he stood firmly next to the ball and flicked his foot at it, there’s no way Lucy could move it in time. He could squib it a few feet, declare victory, and move on with is day. He also could have approached the ball cautiously, and at the first sign of hijinks, he could have aborted his run and saved himself the embarrassment.

But Charlie Brown didn’t want to kick the football. Charlie Brown wanted to boot the everloving shit out of the football. He wanted to send that ball through the back of the end zone and break a window across the street. That’s the feeling he wanted. He didn’t want a fluky, hollow victory. He wanted to see that sumbitch fly. And that’s how he approached the ball; with reckless, joyful abandon. Clear eyes, full heart, bald head, can’t lose.

If I were an outside observer, I would place my money on Michigan ending up on their backs muttering “good grief” once again. Lucy always moves the football. It’s probably ⁠— no, almost certainly ⁠— folly to expect otherwise. But some day, she won’t. Someday, Lucy is going to keep that football right where it is. Maybe she won’t be paying proper attention, or she’ll get distracted, or she’ll just decide to let Charlie Brown have one. But eventually the leather will be there when the toe arrives. And when it does, I want to be swinging my leg as hard as humanly possible.

Hardening your heart is the safe approach for August, or October, or even mid-November. But there is nothing left to be gained by hedging. For today, if only for today, join me in foolish optimism. In expecting that which we dare not expect. Set yourself up to fall.

So, this is your assignment in the few hours before kickoff: say the words out loud. Say “Michigan is going to win this football game.” Tell a family member. Text a friend. Tweet it to me. Open your front door and yell to no one in particular. But say it. And when you say it, try to believe it. And then hold onto that feeling for as long Lucy holds that football. She’ll probably move it. But today might be the day when she doesn’t. And if so, let it fly.

Michigan is going to win this football game.

Michigan 31, Ohio State 30.

 

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COUNTERPUNT

By Internet Raj
@internetraj

Sucker. Rube. Mark. Every con has one and as Matt Damon’s poker-obsessed character Mike McDermott says in Rounders, “If you can't spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker.”

A con, short for confidence trick, is a scheme to defraud a person, or the “mark,” after first gaining the mark’s trust and then ruthlessly exploiting one of their personal weaknesses, whether it’s naivete, vanity or plain greed. Bernie Madoff preyed on investors whose greed blinded them to the fact that it was incomprehensible to be earning returns that so consistently beat general market indices. Elizabeth Holmes manipulated large swaths of Silicon Valley, including several powerful figures known for their supposed investing acumen, that were desperate for a chance to get in on the ground floor of the next revolutionary medical breakthrough. Mel Tucker tricked a couple of billionaire donors into a ten year contract.

The term “mark” actually has its roots in carnivals, where scrupulous game operators used to literally mark the hands of particularly gullible players with chalk so that other game operators could easily identify rubes ripe for the picking. To this day, carnival games have not been able to fully shake their reputations for being a hotbed of shady scams and rigged shenanigans and, in certain cases, for good reason. Carnival games can be broadly classified into three categories, each occupying a distinct position on the spectrum of fairness and equity.

First, there’s “games of chance.” In a game of chance, a completely random outcome gives all players a predetermined chance of winning a prize. One example of a game of chance is the Floating Rubber Ducks game. This game features a stream of water littered with various rubber ducks, each of which has a prize written on the bottom. The rules are simple: each player simply picks a rubber duck at random and wins the prize indicated on the bottom. For obvious reasons, shrewd game operators will ensure that the probability of selecting a duck with a high value prize is much smaller than that of a duck with a small prize.

Second, there’s “games of skill.” In a game of skill, it is a player’s aptitude—whether physical or mental—at a certain task that is correlative to winning or losing. One example of a game of skill is the Ring the Bell game, in which each player heaves a comically large mallet at a lever on the ground. If the lever is struck with sufficient force, it shoots a puck up an enjoined tower and hit a bell suspended at the top, resulting in a win for the player.

And, finally, there’s “rigged games,” the games that exploit their marks. Carnival games can be rigged in all sorts of manners, such as a “Ring Toss” game where the rings are smaller than the bottles at which they are tossed or a “Balloon Dart” game where the balloons are deflated and the darts are dulled in such a manner that successfully popping a balloon is impossible. In a rigged game, the rules and mechanics of the game are bent in ever so subtle ways in the operator’s favor, so that you always feel one more attempt away from winning, crooked outcomes have the appearance of being straight-and-narrow and the constant losing is merely the byproduct of the universe cruelly conspiring against you.

* * * * *

When I was a young child, I was enamored with carnival games, especially the Claw Machine. I did not win that game a single time, yet I loved that thing. I still have visceral memories of guiding the jerky, sputtering path of the pneumatic claw with a joystick that had the precision of a Joe Milton deep ball. I can still remember the heightened anticipation as the claw would settle over a graveyard of enticing prizes. Would I get the stuffed Pokémon? The crappy keychain I’d never once think to buy with my own money but now had me in a hypnotic trance to spend 10x its retail value in an attempt to (unsuccessfully) win it? Or, dare I hope, the holy grail of all holy grails: the brand new Game Boy, still undisturbed in its original box and shrink-wrap.

When I look back and interrogate why I loved the Claw Machine so much, it very clearly had zero to do with winning prizes because, well, I never did that. It was the split second before my inevitable failure, when the claw was jerking around over a seemingly endless amount of possibilities. Those precious, fleeting moments of anticipation where the claw would descend, its outstretched robotic talons clenching on its intended prey. That feeling that this time will be different, that this time I’ll win the Dukes of Hazzard-branded Zippo lighter or some other prize with similarly questionable utility for a 7-year-old. I imagine this is not too dissimilar to the gambler in the pulse-pounding moment before the spinning wheels of a casino slot machine come to rest or the lotto player in the dopamine-drenched seconds it takes to scratch off the ticket.

* * * * *

For 17 years, Michigan football fans have been playing what by all objective accounts has to be a rigged carnival game against Ohio State. It just has to be. There is no other credible explanation for the toil and torture we have been subjugated to. Sure, we were spared our usual bleak fate in 2011 but that game has the feeling of a malfunctioning Claw Machine, where through some comedic manufacturing error, the claw accidently snagged a prize we never deserved.

16 losses out of 17 tries.

That’s not a game of luck or a game of skill. That’s a cruel, rigged game. That’s the Universe dulling our darts and deflating our balloons. For us Michigan fans, no chalk is necessary -- our maize and blue regalia is all this game operator needs to know to find its mark.

But guess what? The game hasn’t kicked off yet.

The spinning slot machine is still whirring.

The lotto ticket is still only half scratched off.

The claw is still hovering over that dastardly plush Buckeye.

Enjoy this moment because if the past is any indication, it’s all we’ll have.

Michigan 17 Ohio State 31