NIU Links: The 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

One of the first rules of modern society is that, each and every day, the Internet has a main character, and that the goal is to not be that main character.

Back in the day, your average Joe in small town middle America could do something spectacularly dumb or racist or incompetent or whatever, and the few people around him would know. If it was REALLY special, maybe some folks in the next town over would hear of your drunken exploits. But now, thanks to social media and cell phone cameras, we all get to enjoy (or lament) the Main Character of the Day.

We’ve had Bean Dad and Dog Shampoo Guy and Guy Who Dropped a Tree onto a House Guy and the Two Llamas and Racist Dog Walker Lady and various Wife Guys and Karens of all shapes and sizes. Some are sad. Some are infuriating. And some are hilarious. But one thing is for sure: you never want to be that character.

But on March 23, 2021, we got a main character that surpassed them all.

The Ever Given ⁠— a 200,000 ton, quarter mile long, wider-than-a-football-field super mega ultra-deluxe with cheese cargo ship ⁠— ran aground in the Suez Canal. Well, not IN the Suez Canal so much as ACROSS the Suez Canal. And it didn’t just bump into the sides; sumbitch embedded itself into the shore.

It blocked global shipping traffic for six days, but it made an even bigger dent in productivity in offices across the world. How were we supposed to pay attention to Zoom calls and TPS reports when there was a hunk of steel bigger than the Empire State Building attempting the worst Tokyo Drift in recorded history?

Well there’s your problem.

[After THE JUMP: Will Raj be the Twitter Main Character of the day?]

We all saw something different in the Ever Given. We saw a metaphor for 2020 and early 2021. We recalled our own worst public mistakes we’d ever made, and felt better that we hadn’t done *THAT*. We cackled at the futility of (comparatively) tiny backhoes trying to solve this billion dollar whoopie. We marveled at the concept of an “elite salvage team.” Mostly, we gazed upon a situation that everyone agreed must be fixed, but for which any proposed solution seemed hilariously inadequate or completely impractical.

And, in that, I saw Michigan Football.

Pictured: Doug Nussmeier solving the offense’s problems (2014 file photo)

Michigan ran aground in 2020. With vigor. And for anyone who wasn’t wearing maize and blue, it was doubtless amusing as hell. Because blue blood college football programs don’t just sink. They aren’t allowed to slip peacefully beneath the waves as strains of Nearer My God To Thee echo out. No, they have to sit there to be gawked at. And Very Important People have to set about the Very Important Task of simultaneously (a) fixing the massive glaring problem, and (b) minimizing the laughter as they attempt to fix the massive glaring problem.

These kinds of implosions can ruin programs for years. It’s been 12 years, and Tennessee still hasn’t recovered from Lane Kiffin’s single year in Knoxville. Golden Boy Scott Frost hasn’t been able to salvage the Wreck of the S.S. Mike Riley. So when you look at a program like Michigan, if Jim Harbaugh can’t make it work, you start to worry that the damn thing might just stay stuck.

But eventually, to everyone’s combined relief and dismay, the salvage crews eventually re-floated the Ever Given. The canal returned to normal, and the ship sailed along its merry way. And in August of this year, it made another voyage through the Suez Canal without incident. It’s back to being another ship on the ocean.

Michigan is still the butt of jokes, because history shows that the Main Character remains a topic of discussion long after the day of its Main Characterness. People still ask, “what color is the dress?” And we still bring up Notre Dame’s 4-8 season in 2016 (as people are prone to forget that Notre Dame went 4-8 in 2016) and the time Michigan beat Rutgers 78-0. But the last two weeks have shown Michigan to be, if nothing else, seaworthy. At least for the moment.

This week, Michigan takes on the nautical equivalent of some choppy waters. A slight breeze has kicked up the kind of waves that would make a kayaker take notice, but which pose no threat to any but the most damaged and dysfunctional of major vessels. Plenty of questions remain, but for the moment, there is smooth sailing ahead. Michigan 40, NIU 9.

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

COUNTERPUNT

By Internet Raj
@internetraj

I don’t have many bullets in the chamber when it comes to watching Michigan football these days. Four years ago, I moved to Singapore, meaning that a standard 12:00 noon EST kickoff is a 12:00 midnight kickoff local time. For the first three years, that wasn’t a big issue. I’d just casually stay up until 4am every gameday, order late night pizzas, knock back a couple bourbons, and sleep it all off on a lazy Sunday.

And then I had a kid.

The thing is there’s no such thing as a “lazy Sunday” for a new parent. Believe me, I tried, but somewhere between the day a faint pink line materialized on a pregnancy test and 9 months later when I found myself nervously cradling a living, breathing, screaming, crying sack of organs, sleep became more than just a prized commodity to me: it was simultaneously the elusive branch of juicy fruit forever inches from my starved grasp and the cold, refreshing water up to my chin, just mere hairs away from my parched mouth.

Me but with REM cycles

So, these days, I have to pick and choose my spots. Sure, I’ll stay up all night for big games, the MSUs, the OSUs, the PSUs, the ranked opponents when stakes are high. But then there’s the Rutgers-es, Western Michigans, and all the other creampuff doormats, where I hope we’re up by 14+ points at halftime so I can confidently saunter off to bed at a somewhat reasonable hour.

I don’t have many bullets in the chamber and today’s game against Northern Illinois is most certainly firing a blank. But here’s the thing about being a passionate Michigan fan who now routinely skips the second half of football games: that first 5 minutes when you wake up is a surreally jarring experience. First, I’ll check the score, half expecting to be shocked by a miraculous comeback by the underdogs who staged an agonizing upset of Michigan. Then, after breathing a sigh of relief, I’ll open Twitter and scroll through the prior evening’s posts, reliving memorable plays and moments through a chaotic smattering of nonchronological musings completely untethered from the underlying context on which they were based. After that, I spend the morning with the family and let my imagination fill in the gaps and move on from the game. It’s a truly bizarre way to consume an event that, in a prior lifetime, I would voraciously consume every second of and then spend hours reading and listening to detailed breakdowns and analyses.

So, what’s going to happen today against Northern Illinois? In all likelihood, a blowout win. At least that’s what I hope. But I’ll be in bed by halftime in a peaceful slumber, hoping that my blissful repose isn’t rocked by a nightmare. Hoping that I don’t roll over in bed to my iPhone, bleary eyed as I navigate to the ESPN college football scoreboard to see an epic collapse. Hoping that I don’t see a big picture of a smiling Rocky Lombardi triumphant after scoring 42 unanswered points on 6 straight Hail Marys to Ricky White, who somehow managed to transfer to Northern Illinois at halftime. Hoping I don’t have to search for and delete all my old tweets about how Michigan should have re-signed Jim Harbaugh instead of pursuing Matt Campbell.

Thus far, I’ve been lucky. Every time I’ve turned off the game early, Michigan is either being blown out or comfortably ahead. And thus far, I’ve woken up to no nasty surprises. But that’s the thing about routine outcomes. They’re routine until they’re not. One of these mornings is going to be a nasty shock to the system. All I can hope for is it won’t be this time.

Michigan 41 Northern Illinois 42 (after 42 unanswered points when Raj is asleep.)