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

Imagine it's last Saturday, and you're Sherrone Moore.

Six years ago today, you were the Tight Ends coach for Central Michigan University, and you were preparing for a Tuesday night #MACtion game at Kent State in front of 5,580 people. Three years ago, you were the Tight Ends coach for a 1-2 Michigan team coming off Michigan's first loss to Indiana since the invention of the color Crimson, and you were probably polishing your resume on the not-so-off-chance your boss got fired. And yesterday, you were Michigan's Offensive Coordinator.

But five hours ago, you were told, "you are now the head coach of the University of Michigan football team, effective as of RIGHT NOW." I know you've done this exactly once before, at home, against Bowling Green, with several weeks advance notice. But Michigan takes the field in State College, Pennsylvania today in front of 110,000 loud, angry people. This season—THE season—is in your hands. There is no elder statesman on the staff to guide you. It's all on you. Kickoff is in 90 minutes."

"Go."

[After THE JUMP: The players.]

Pictured: A man who absolute cannot be a Frames today. [Patrick Barron]

That's already an insane amount of pressure. But then the real test happens. Because at some point during the first half, you came to the realization that your best course of action would be to run the football for the last 36 minutes of a Top 10 matchup. Which is, technically speaking, ballsy as hell. No one would have faulted you if you just sorta carried out the normal gameplan. You had a Heisman frontrunner behind center and one of the most efficient passing attacks in all of college football at your disposal. And that passing attack had been pretty productive thus far, to the tune of 87.5% completion rate and 7.5 yards per attempt. But you said, without knowing what your boss would think, "I'm gonna trust my gut and do this kinda crazy thing."

And then it worked.

A lot of pundits took Moore's weeping, cursing post-game interview as a melodramatic statement about Jim Harbaugh's tribulations, and about the slings and arrows of outrageous Petitti bullshit. Either those pundits are dumb, or they have never been handed a valuable, breakable object and been told "don't break it."

We forget sometimes, with all the grandeur and pomp and circumstance and Dr. Pepper Scholarship Tosses, that football remains fundamentally a human endeavor. We make a caricature of Big Game James Franklin, but the truth underlying it is that these guys aren't just kindly caretakers sitting at the helm of a grand vessel gently directing it with broad strokes. They're making tactical and strategic decisions in the moment. And some are just better at making those decisions than others. And you never know whether a guy has 'it' until the moment arises.

Imagine having to find out whether you're one of those guys in front of 9.1 million people. I'm amazed he was able to make his mouth say anything that WASN'T an F-bomb. The fact that his shirt and pants stayed on is a testament to his self-restraint.

And this is my concern for today.

You often hear stuff like, "fans are looking ahead to next week, but the team is locked in and focused on this week's matchup with Assorted Inferior Team." But you know that isn't always the case. These guys aren't automatons. They KNOW. They're online. They can do math. They know the stakes for today's game are essentially non-existent. Lose to Maryland, beat Ohio State and Iowa, and every single one of their goals remains intact.

And that would have been true before the last eight days happened. Thanks to the (alleged) decision by a staffer to try to conduct a slow-motion coup d'état via iPhone, and the (alleged) decision of a booster to help him accomplish that, and the (alleged) decision by an assistant coach to try to cover that up, and the (I am obligated to say 'alleged,' but... yeah so there you go, I said 'alleged') decision of Ohio State's head coach to take the "tip off the lunch lady" approach to winning a playground fight, Michigan is now down a head coach, an assistant coach, and a sign stealer. Their accomplishments have been challenged, their honor questioned, and their talent besmirched. 

Sir. Sir. Sir! Sir, I do not make the weather. Sir, I need you to sit down. [Patrick Barron]

These are humans. Better, stronger, tougher, faster, more talented humans than your author... but humans nonetheless. And humans have limits. All humans. Even Blake Corum, a guy who was forged by the Football Gods for the sole purpose of punching limits in the spleen, has limits.

It'll be asking a lot for this team to be 100% seven days from today, but it's not impossible. Whatever distraction this may have caused might just be offset by the added level of righteous indignation. These are the bastards who started all of this. They're the reason Jim Harbaugh had to watch MIchigan's 1000th win from a Ramada or his brother's house. They thought they'd found a cheat code to beat Michigan. Aight Bet, things of that nature.

But Maryland? And NOVEMBER Maryland at that? A 6-4 Maryland with losses to Illinois and Northwestern? A team that hasn't beaten Michigan since 2014? The team that has probably been the least competitive against Michigan in the brief history of the Big Ten East? In a stadium where Michigan is 4-0 with an average margin of 31 points (and never fewer than 25 points)? AND a Maryland team that apparently HASN'T been at the forefront of Operation Doughboy Reclamation? Can you imagine a baking soda less likely to interact with Michigan's current vinegar?

Michigan wins because Michigan is still that much better, and because they'd probably be sufficiently pissed off at anyone who lined up across from them at this point to Hulk Smash their way to victory. But next week is for vengeance. This week is about getting in, getting out, and getting home. Michigan 21, Maryland 17

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

COUNTERPUNT

By Internet Raj
@internetraj

This past week, the focus on Michigan football has been on anything but the Maryland Terrapins, and for good reason. Journalists across the country have enthusiastically plumbed the depths of their cliché bags, sprinkling deliciously dramatic garnishes like “storm clouds brewing”, “the tip of the iceberg” and “fall from grace” into their columns. Meanwhile, on TV, if you look close enough, you can see the titillated excitement flickering in the eyes of college football reporters like Heather Dinich and Pete Thamel as they lower their voices a few octaves to the Serious Zone™, and gravely report the latest details on the Michigan sign-stealing saga with a solemn cadence usually reserved for the frontlines in far-away lands.

And, to be honest, I can’t blame them for seizing the opportunity. Michigan has mired itself in a scandal of its own making and each increasingly ludicrous twist and turn of the story has assuredly cemented “Sign-Gate” into the already well-established pantheon of college football conspiracies. Michigan’s full-throated legal attack crumbling in the face of “Uncle T” and Chris Partridge (allegedly) destroying evidence amid an NCAA investigation is just the latest bizarre development for America’s Team Soap Opera. I’m sure it won’t be the last.

So, what now? Well, there’s really nothing to do but sit tight and wait. In the meantime, Michigan has a game this weekend. Today has all the hallmarks of a dicey, close, and even catastrophic game. An offensive coordinator suddenly thrust into the role of head coach. The fact that mental bandwidth may very well be more preoccupied with The Game immediately following this one. Distracted players spending the week alternating between practice and NCAA interrogations. If Michigan were to walk into College Park and stumble and fall right on their faces, there would be no shortage of excuses to pick from as to what tripped them up. And, if this were a randomly selected, median college football team, I’d be tempted to say they would succumb to the seductive siren call of the Trap Game.

But this is no typical, median college football team.

This is the team that went to Happy Valley and grinded a top-10 Penn State team to dust with 32 straight run plays. This is a team led by an unflappable, team-first quarterback whose pregame ritual is literal meditation. This is a team led by a blunt force of an object running back whose post-game battle scars look like a Def Jam album cover. This is a team led by an overwhelmed but not overmatched interim head coach whose explosion of emotions in last week’s postgame interview were emblematic of his sheer desire to win and unflagging commitment to his players. No matter which way you look at it, no matter how you slice it, no matter how you dice it: I just cannot see this team take a tumble before the nuclear finish line that will be next week. Believe me, it doesn’t take a vivid imagination (or a sketchy link to the Dark Web) to figure out how a boa constrictor versus a terrapin would end.

Bloodied, but not beaten.

When all the loose odds and ends of sign-gate are eventually tied up and the dust settles, a lot of the adults will shoulder the blame. Whether it was a rogue booster, whether it was a power-drunk prosecutorial commissioner, whether it was an ignoramus university administration, whether it was coaches who should have known better – it will almost certainly be a failure of the adults in the proverbial room. And that means we’re left with the players, who have done nothing but come in week after week and put on a spectacular show for the Michigan fan base despite the storm clouds swirling around them (see, I can do clichés, too). There’s a popular refrain in Michigan lore, “The Team, The Team, The Team.” I think we can adapt that for present times: “The Players, The Players, The Players.” They have more than earned our full-throated support and they deserve, now more than ever.

Michigan 41, Maryland 10