Penn State things: Preview, FFFF Offense (chart), FFFF Defense (chart), Podcast

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

Thanksgiving is a time of traditions. And one of the most enduring traditions is the debate over Thanksgiving food.

Growing up, I assumed everyone else liked roasted turkey and sweet potato casserole. What I came to discover as an adult, though, was that the table full of “mmmmmmmmmm, that’s good”s actually represented an armistice. A temporary truce. A starchy, carbohydrate-rich détente. Everyone has simply agreed to love the food that hits the table on the fourth Thursday in November, even if they really, really didn’t.

[After THE JUMP: Jello salad]

Some people genuinely and unapologetically LOVE classic Thanksgiving food. If it wasn’t so much effort, they would eat turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and pecan pie twice a week all year long. Others do not, and believe the reason Thanksgiving food is a once-per-year menu is the same reason you don’t go back in March and June for additional flu shots. I did it, I’m good for the year, you can’t make me.

But Thanksgiving is a holiday of sitting down and talking with family and old friends, which is a dicey situation under the best of circumstances. You’ve got a political debate just waiting to explode between your brother-in-law and your uncle. You’ve got a great-aunt who thinks your cousin is a “trollop” for attending a coed college without the decency to even PRETEND to be looking for a husband, and you have to explain to your grandfather several times why he can’t use that word, or that word, or DEFINITELY that word.

Let’s add some booze to that mix. And the heat of a kitchen where the oven and stovetops have both been running at full blast since Monday. And the Detroit Lions. Yeah, we decided decades ago that the Detroit Lions needed to be a part of this. Somehow this did not tip us off to the idea that some of this was a bad idea.

So when everyone gathers around the table, there was no reason to hurt anyone’s feelings about the food they so clearly took pride in. Also, the absolute last thing anyone is going to do is to risk setting the table ablaze without good cause. The entire extended family is at DEFCON 2, so no one is going to risk massive retaliation that could be provoked by questioning The Menu. I don’t care if you’re Gordon f***ing Ramsey, STEVE, Aunt Gladys worked very hard on her signature Jello salad, THANKYOUVERYMUCH, and just because you scammed your way into this family by getting Lisa pregnant OUT OF WEDLOCK ten years ago doesn’t mean you get to start having opinions at this table.

Oh shit someone brought up the election TALK ABOUT THE TURKEY EVERYONE FOCUS ON THE TURKEY LOOK AT THAT BEAUTIFUL BIRD RIGHT THERE

This year was obviously very different. Most Thanksgiving plans were pared back to close family, if not eliminated altogether. And while this was difficult for many of us on a personal level, one silver lining was that it allowed us to take a step back and really evaluate what we really wanted out of Thanksgiving, and what had simply been an inextricable part. In other words, we all got to ask, “what do you want to eat for Thanksgiving?”

For Michigan fans, this self-examination extends to the college football schedule. For many years now, part of the Thanksgiving weekend experience has been getting kicked in the junk by our most hated rival. Black Friday? Buddy, wait until you hear about Saturday. It isn’t that we like the tradition. Or even that we dislike it. But it is a tradition, and Michigan fans fought tooth and nail to preserve it during the various conference realignments and schedule machinations of the past decade. Even though The Game is stale, dry, and cloyingly bitter.

This year, though, we get Penn State. And not just any Penn State. We get 0-5 Penn State, a Penn State that Michigan has never experienced before, because it has never existed before.

I don’t know that we’ll like it more. As has been said recently, it is typically a mistake to experiment on Thanksgiving. And there is something lost when we lose traditions, even if those in charge of the traditions have no idea what to bring to the table anymore.

Bird just went in! Family and friends in route. It is going to be a great day! pic.twitter.com/cxYWTEdBfP

— Tom Rodgers (@TomRodgersNews) November 26, 2015

Don Brown has really spiced up his defensive playbook this year

Still, a chance for an easier, tastier meal is really appetizing. Penn State is our Thanksgiving taco and chili bar. Unfortunately there wasn’t anything we could do about the Lions.

Michigan 35, Penn State 24

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COUNTERPUNT

By Internet Raj
@internetraj

On 26 February 2015, a photograph of “The Dress” became a viral internet sensation when it was posted to Facebook. Within a week, tens of millions of commenters were heatedly debating the color of the dress and, almost immediately, the internet split into two separate camps--those who perceived the dress as white and gold and those who saw it as blue and black. The only thing that both sides agreed on was that the other was wrong.

Once regarded history’s greatest optical illusion, only to be surpassed by Michigan-Minnesota 2020.

Neuroscientists are still unsure as to why the optical illusion of “The Dress” elicited such disparate color perceptions among viewers and, to this day, no other artificially created image has been able to replicate the effect to the same degree as the original image. It appears that the photo’s overexposure and dim lighting conspired under the absolute perfect conditions to hijack and subvert our brain’s ability to accurately process what was in front of us. No matter what side you were on—blue and black or white and gold—you were convinced that you had to be right and that anyone could conceivably disagree was an all-out assault on objective reality and your very sanity.

“Confused and Scared” is also the title of Don Brown’s playbook

I’m not here to tell you that “The Dress” holds any profound insights into the human condition, society at large or Michigan football. It was strictly a meaningless, dumbass debate about a dumbass dress where dumbass people made dumbass arguments on dumbass social networking sites about dumbass colors that their dumbass brains couldn’t process.

Yeah, I guess I could say that Michigan’s gunslinging redshirt freshman QB, Cade McNamara, is an apt metaphor for “The Dress” in that he has succeeded in dividing the fanbase into one side that is convinced he is thoroughly better than Joe Milton and another side that is skeptical because he appears to have benefitted from better play-calling, fewer drops, and playing against a Rutgers defense that did not scheme against him.

Or maybe I could say that Michigan football itself is a distillation of “The Dress”, a program that has become an optical illusion tricking our brains year after year into thinking it’s something that it isn’t, be it a spectacular dumpster fire or an actual title contender (lol).

Maybe I could say that this entire college football season is a manifestation of “The Dress”, given that half of the country probably thinks it was an absolutely stupid decision to play through a global pandemic and the other half of the country is sitting with mouth slightly agape, dripping with drool and mumbling “football make my dopamine receptors go brrrrrrr” (for the record, I shamefully count myself as a member in the latter camp).

But I’m not going to say any of that. Why? Because, like “The Dress”, these are all just dumbass arguments about a meaningless, dumbass season. Penn State is 0-5? Ohio State has to cancel a game due to an outbreak of a deadly virus, potentially jeopardizing its Big Ten championship and College Football Playoff hopes? Indiana is actually good? Northwestern might go undefeated and make the CFP after beating Indiana in the Big Ten Championship Game?

Not what I thought when they said, “We’re going to hang a 100 on ‘em”

No, this is all just so stupid. Blue and black? White and gold? Who knows, because every neuroreceptor in my brain has been fried to a crisp by watching Michigan football in 2020.

Please, let’s just mercifully end this debacle.

Michigan 17, Penn State 20