Maryland 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

Some time in the early 19th century, Stuff was invented. Before that, the manmade items in the world consisted entirely of food, swords, farming implements, pantaloons, and scrolls. But Stuff was great. Early Stuff was fine by modern standards, but was COMPLETELY NUTS by the standards of the day: fancy hats and sewing machines and bicycles with gigantic wheels for some reason. And as time passed, more and more Stuff came into existence. And everyone was happy.

By the 1960s, though, a problem had arisen. With the creation of the interstate highway system and improvements in modern infrastructure and technology, transportation had evolved to the point where people could now order Stuff from places other than their local Stuff Purveyor. They could order Distant Stuff. But the modern Stuff was becoming more advanced, and therefore more breakable. So how could we ship Stuff great distances without it breaking?

But then in 1962, a Dow Chemical employee named Robert Holden took some time away from his company’s… uh… problematic research to do something positive for humanity. And while messing around with some polystyrene, he came up with a brilliant solution: the packing peanut.

[After THE JUMP: Jim Delany adds Elsa and the snowman]

Packing peanuts were great. They weighed almost nothing, so they didn’t increase the cost of shipping a given Stuff. But they protected Stuff, which could now be jostled and cajoled by dock workers and delivery men without consequence. And they were a loose fill product that didn’t have to be specially created for a given Stuff; it could just be poured into the empty spaces after you’d loaded the good stuff. Win-win.

Except that, while they were a win for Dow and for Stuff manufacturers everywhere, packing peanuts were also awful. They were TERRIBLE for the environment. They took up huge amounts of space in landfills. They leeched chemicals into everything, especially when burned. They floated and didn’t biodegrade, so they were a massive threat to waterways. It also didn’t help that the polystyrene manufacturing process back then was basically “mix all the carcinogens together and add pink.”

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In 2013, the Big Ten faced a similar problem. The college football world was realigning itself in new and crazy ways. And somehow, and for some reason, the Big Ten decided that the only way that it would be able to deliver a quality product was to add something. I wish I could explain this, but 2013 was a crazy time. It was a year of Frozen and Frozen soundtracks and Frozen parodies, and warehouses of Frozen Stuff being shipped all over the country. It was a weird time.

Pictured: six possible additions more interesting, and possibly more competitive, than Rutgers or Maryland

But while they knew they needed to throw something else in the box, they were happy with the weight distribution as it stood. So instead of adding to the product, they added filler. They added two schools, Rutgers and Maryland, that took up space without really DOING anything other than allowing everything else to remain securely where it sat. Hell, the entire point of Rutgers was to be able to deliver the Big Ten Network more easily to more eyeballs.

But now, after Rutgers and Maryland effectively delivered us beyond the Great Realignment, we’re just stuck with a bunch of packing peanuts. And while the real shipping industry has moved on to new, innovative solutions like bubble wrap and air cushions and biodegradable fillers, the Big Ten is stuck with its old-school, won’t-go-away, non-biodegradable, awful-for-the-football environment short term solution. The trash truck won’t take it. The recycling center sure as hell won’t take them. They’re just… here.

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Now, you may be saying to yourself, “sure, they’re annoying to have around, but are packing peanuts actually harmful?” And of course, unless you’re, like, a fish or a polystyrene manufacturing employee or someone who lives near land or water, probably not. You’re probably safe from the actual peanuts. But I say “probably” because I once saw packing peanuts attack and nearly kill a man.

This was two decades ago, but I remember it as clear as day. It took place in Midland, Michigan (the home of Dow Chemical). This poor gentleman was turning out of a parking lot onto a busy road, and he had a box of packing peanuts, in his back seat. He also had two open car windows. And as he turned out onto Eastman Avenue and gunned the engine to get up to speed, the air flow in the car caught the packing peanuts just right and caused them to become airborne. In a matter of possibly two seconds, my man went from having a regular day to driving 40 miles per hour in the middle of a Honda Snowglobe. I could barely see the driver behind the swirling cloud of packing materials.

That man ⁠— the nameless soul whose ten-ish seconds of Three Stooges cosplay has been seared into my brain ⁠— survived his run-in with pillowy near-death, as will Michigan. But there may be some pointing and laughing from the local bystanders.

Michigan 27, Maryland 23

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COUNTERPUNT

By Internet Raj
@internetraj

As I’m writing this, I’m on Singapore Airlines Flight SQ23, currently the World's longest non-stop flight, operated from Singapore to New York. The flight is about 19 hours. I’m overcome by a delirious cocktail of mixed emotions.

On the one hand, I’m taking this flight with my wife and 21-month-old son to see my family for the first time in over two years. This reunion will be particularly emotional because they will be meeting our son for the very first time. The global pandemic only compounded the already gaping geographic gulf between the US and Singapore, driving a seemingly immovable and eternal wedge between me and my wife and our families back in the US.

On the other hand, I’m on literally the World’s longest non-stop flight with a 21-month-old. That needs no further elocution. I’m convinced, though, that the split-second moment my parents get to actually hold their grandson in the flesh and talk to him free from the cold constraints of FaceTime’s glass barriers will dwarf the relative trivial inconvenience of a 19-hour flight. In that sense, it’s overwhelmingly worth it.

Here is my journal of events.

*************************

T+0 minutes: My wife, son and I board the Singapore Air flight. There’s a palpable buzz in the air and I can’t help but feel carried away by unbridled excitement. Two years of lockdowns, social distancing, quarantines and travel restrictions have ruthlessly and methodically dulled certain emotions for me over time. Those same emotions are now pouring out.

T+2 minutes: My son is inconsolably crying because I took away his goldfish crackers so he could be buckled in. I look at my watch. We’re still 15 minutes from taking off. The grim reality of the challenge ahead slowly begins to set in.

T+17 minutes: We just took off 2 minutes ago. I settle into my chair and allow my mind to drift to what movie I might watch if things go super smoothly. My thoughts are rudely interrupted by my wife poking me between my ribs and forcefully whispering “he just shat himself.” My son hasn’t pooped in two days due to constipation. Of course it happens 2 minutes after take-off. I lug him to the airplane bathroom, my fantastical daydreams of watching Dune while sipping a glass of champagne an already fading, distant memory of a life long past.

T+20 minutes through T+19 hours: I black out. I remember nothing. The flight is over and we all deplane. I entered that airplane one man. I left that airplane another man. My glassy eyes drift into a thousand-yard stare while the baggage carousel vomits all sorts of different colored Samsonites before me. Fragments of memories come back to me here and there. Painful visions of tears, tantrums, and what has to be 17 pounds of ground-up Cheerio dust somehow overflowing every single nook and cranny of my airplane seat. But it’s okay. It’s all over now.

Now’s the fun part. Now’s the happy part.

*************************

Michigan is playing Maryland today. I’m not going to patronize you by faking any emotions or feelings or actual Serious Thoughts about this game. I don’t care about this game. I just want it to be over. Because after this game is The Game.

This next week is going to be a non-stop 19-hour flight with a toddler in tow. It’s going to be hell, sure, but the only thing that’s important is getting through it. Because then we have the Buckeyes and it’s going to be for all the marbles.

That’s definitely the fun part. Time will tell if it’s the happy part.

Michigan 45 Maryland 24