9/16/2023 – Michigan 31, Bowling Green 6 – 3-0

Somewhere in the Michigan fandom there is a person holding a monkey's paw with two curled fingers who said at some point in the last week "I wish Michigan could run the ball like they did last year." I want to be very clear this was NOT me. I did NOT hold a monkey's paw and ask for something more interesting to write about. I was perfectly content to write another column about JJ McCarthy surgically dismembering another overmatched secondary. If circumstances required I would have done so fifteen straight times.

No, our manhunt must look elsewhere. The perpetrator is now on the lam, evading anything vaguely resembling a block M. This is a problem, because you can go to the middle of Tajikistan and the local goatherd will be mechanical engineering class of '82. The paw possessor's life is now one of furtive escapes and elaborate wigs, at least until 1) they put the paw down and walk away or 2) JJ McCarthy recovers from the worst game of his career, eviscerates Rutgers, and everyone immediately forgets about this game against… Opponent. Yes, probably Opponent. 

If you're reading this, oh Michigan fan in possession of a dire artifact, at least you can take some solace in the fact that your Sparty brother-in-law briefly stole it and said "I wish Mark Dantonio was back on the sideline." Please mail the dire artifact to Urban Meyer posthaste. Just send it to any Hooters in Ohio. Meyer will turn up eventually.

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

So anyway, yes: JJ McCarthy threw three interceptions against Bowling Green and also missed a wide open Tyler Morris, bringing and end to his bravura start to the season with a thudding crisis. In times like these it can be useful to look at some stats, as a sanity check. Our pets' heads are falling off, but on a down-to-down basis, eh, it was fine:

Did We Really Get Beat That Bad?
Net Success Rates in Week 3 pic.twitter.com/6na3EYkrnI

— parker fleming (@statsowar) September 18, 2023

While I don't think success rates are always the best lens via which to evaluate a football game—see last year's OSU game—when you're trying to figure out how alarmed you should be after an indifferent performance in nonconference bodybag game #3 they provide a good baseline. And the baseline is more or less what you'd expect.

The only reason this game ended up like it did is because of the interceptions and a fumble by a fullback on a kickoff return. If that sounds like Ryan Day saying "it was just five plays," there's a difference. The infamous Five Plays were a natural consequence of the way Ohio State was playing Michigan. It is an established football thing that if you are playing hyper aggressive you are vulnerable to big plays. They're literally called "safeties."

The turnovers in this game are not—at least not yet—anything similar. We have an entire season of data on McCarthy in which his turnover worthy play rate is about 3%, in line with guys like Caleb Williams. We have shift our priors some after this game, but in all likelihood this is not the vanguard of a sudden regression. McCarthy's going to show up against Rutgers on Saturday, put up nice numbers en route to a comfortable win because this time Michigan's going to take the 3-0 Cable Subscribers somewhat seriously.

Yeah. That's happening. I'm not nervous and you're not nervous. Yeah. But if you see someone looking furtive, tackle them for me, would you? We cannot be sure the paw has left us until Urban Meyer is on the Spartan Stadium sideline yelling at 14 scholarship players and a frisbee dog.

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

different [Barron]

you're the man now, dog

#1 Kris Jenkins. Interception, near touchdown, rescued second half from potential sphincter time. Also had a TFL, and provided his usual diet of obliterated OL that made it easy for his teammates to clean up.

#2 Blake Corum. Crested 100 yards on just 12 carries and looked a lot more like 2022 Blake Corum than he had in the first two games.

#3 Junior Colson. Not a lot statistically—seven tackles and no other box score events—but this was a game where rallying to tackle on the outside after a dink was pretty much the whole deal and Colson showed why NFL types are interested.

Honorable mention: Cornelius Johnson bailed McCarthy out on a questionable flea-flicker throw; Roman Wilson is constantly open; AJ Barner had another good day as a blocker. Mike Sainristil had a sack when he danced around a running back and would have had a PBU but for bloody fate. Cam Goode had a sack(!); Jaylen Harrell had a strip sack.

KFaTAotW Standings.

(points: #1: 8, #2: 5, #3: 3, HMs one each. Ties result in somewhat arbitrary assignments.)

16: JJ McCarthy (#1 ECU, #1 UNLV)
13: Kris Jenkins (HM ECU, T2 UNLV, #1 BGSU)
7: Blake Corum (HM ECU, HM UNLV, #2 BGSU)
6: Kenneth Grant (T3 ECU, T2 UNLV), Roman Wilson (T2 ECU, HM UNLV, HM BGSU), Cornelius Johnson (T2 ECU, HM UNLV, HM BGSU)
5: Mason Graham (HM ECU, T2 UNLV), 
3: Junior Colson (#3 BGSU)
2: Ernest Hausmann (T3 ECU), Mike Sainristil (T3 ECU), Josh Wallace (T3 ECU), Braiden McGregor(T3 UNLV), Derrick Moore (T3 UNLV), Jaylen Harrell (HM UNLV, HM BGSU)
1: Tommy Doman (HM ECU), Donovan Edwards (HM ECU), Tyler Morris (HM UNLV), Mike Barrett (HM UNLV), AJ Barner (HM BGSU), Mike Sainristil (HM BGSU)

Who's Got It Better Than Us(?) Of The Week

Kris Jenkins turns the second half from an annoying and terrifying "they couldn't… could they" into a merely annoying "they cannot but we're playing like butt" by intercepting a screen pass and nearly scoring; Michigan would punch it in to make it 21-6 and more or less end the competitive portion of the game.

Honorable mention: Corum bursts off right tackle for a 54 yarder on Michigan's first snap; JJ lays in a touchdown to Wilson;

MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

Max Bredeson's fumble on the kickoff announces that it's One Of Those Games.

Honorable mention: McCarthy pick 1, McCarthy pick 2, McCarthy pick 3. McCarthy overthrows Morris for a sure TD.

OFFENSE

Firstly. Demetrius Hardamon is going to be fine, per BGSU:

: pic.twitter.com/3zOaP0AV0b

— BGSU Football (@BG_Football) September 17, 2023

That's good because otherwise I would not be able to roast their tumblr-ass font choices. Demetrius Hardamon's injury is a 1990s slacker movie starring Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke.

Interception evaluation time. Obligatory. #1:

McCarthy does not have time to survey here because Barnhart is beat around the corner and if he doesn't get this out he will be sacked. He apparently doesn't see the BGSU DB who is screened by Barner, and neither the throw nor Wilsons route indicates there's any thought Wilson should stop his route against zone coverage. He should probably just throw it to Barner, who has a half-foot on a guy he can box out.

On the podcast there was some discussion about whether Barner's route needed to be shorter to remove the DB from the equation, but the suggestion there was Barner was a yard or two too deep. That adjustment just means the DB has to reach up to grab the ball instead of it hitting him in the chest.

#2:

When you have two guys running the same route and one guy is open you should throw it to that guy. Also this might be a bad route by Johnson? You can see Wilson bend his route earlier and more. But in any case you have a corner with inside leverage against Johnson and a safety with no leverage against Wilson. It seems like by this point this should be an easy presnap assumption: safety on Wilson is going to end with that guy eating Wilson's afterburners. McCarthy made that assumption on the next drive and hit Wilson for an easy 33 yard TD. 

#3 I don't actually mind:

The window there where you overthrow Loveland to the point where he can't deflect it and the safety can still catch it is tiny.

98.3% of the time this is complete or harmless.

[Wilcomes]

There you are, Peter. Watching Blake Corum send a safety to his knees and then bust through into the wild open fields brought a little tear to the corner of my eye. The last couple weeks he was just kind of there, doing decently but not Blake Freakin' Corum. This felt significantly closer to the real deal.

Shelved. Michigan ran outside zone once in the first half; it gained little and they dumped it out of the offense. I think the next time they ran was during the brief Orji cameo.

Shelved? After the first drive of the second half Michigan inserted LaDarius Henderson at left tackle and moved Karsen Barnhart to right tackle. I did notice Hinton getting up a little gimpy at some point so that may have been precautionary. I also noticed Hinton falling over untouched on a play towards the end of the first half… so it may not have been precautionary. The charts will be interesting this week.

Down G. They ran it on the goal line; Corum scored. I don't mind running constantly in the low red zone, I just don't want to run literally the same play over and over.

Wilson versus a safety. Briefly discussed above in the interception bits: it feels like if an opponent is trying to man up Wilson deep with a safety that should be the primary read most of the time, because it'll be a rare, rare safety who can keep up. He has been open virtually every time Michigan gets one on one, and with Michigan's ground game it's going to be extremely hard to provide a bracket while also loading the box.

DEFENSE

[Wilcomes]

Tradition. BGSU's first drive featured the Tommy Rees memorial Throw It Backwards For No Apparent Reason play. The aftermath is pictured above. You can always count on a Michigan man to honor tradition.

I'm going to struggle to come up with things to say here. Bowling Green hit a couple of improbable fades, threw some annoying short stuff, and spent the second half trying to go home as quickly as possible after their entire team started going down with injury. We've seen more or less this exact same script for every nonconference game the last two years, but this one was even moreso. I don't think effort levels for either team were particularly high in the second half; evaluating that stuff is pointless. This game was a nothing.

I want to go home now. Speaking of the "let's go home as quickly as possible," the change from Scot Loeffler's first half to his second was the single greatest philosophy shift I've ever seen. BGSU ran it between the tackles exactly once in the first half because they knew that was setting a down on fire. After Hardamon went down, Loeffler—already playing his third-string QB—said "screw it" and ran about 80% counter plays the rest of the game. This is an exaggeration, but only a small one.

Improbable fades. The first one at Keshaun Harris was a play where the offense gets to win. Harris was step for step; Hilaire had to make an outstanding diving catch that may or may not have survived contact with the ground—it was called incomplete on the field and then overturned. Nothing to do, or worry about, there.

#2 was Mike Sainristil losing contact with a slot fade, recovering to PBU it, and the deflected ball coming down into the hands of the prone receiver. File under It Happens; neither is any sort of long term concern.

Wallace also made the game less annoying. Josh Wallace was primarily responsible for stopping the two BGSU field goal drives where they stopped. First he got a stick in the flat to prevent a third and five conversion, then he beat a block to blow up an option that otherwise converts:

CB #12 to top

Wallace is the guy who got beat over the top on what should have been a Bowling Green touchdown, so his day had some bumps in it. But after the scouting on Wallace was relatively down on his tackling this was encouraging.

The power of the cyan. Seth dumps a cyan on Quinten Johnson, Johnson responds with an interception that coulda-shoulda set Michigan up for a touchdown late in the first half. I dare Seth to cyan JJ McCarthy, for the good of the program.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Ok he can do it [Wilcomes]

Matter of time. It seems like it's just a matter of time before Tyler Morris gets the full time punt return job. He's looked dangerous when he gets the ball and he seems like a natural at the catch-the-ball bits. His first opportunity saw the BGSU punter hit a line drive to him and he caught it like he'd catch a pass:

This seems like a good quality to have in a returner.

FEI explained. I wondered how a team could be so bad on kickoff efficiency without giving up a lot of return yards, and our answer appears to be constant kickoff pooching. This worked to BGSU's advantage when upbacks Max Bredeson and then Braiden McGregor fumbled, but if it didn't those drives were starting on the ~35. Doing that all the time will indeed put your kickoff team towards the bottom nationally.

Michigan upbacks are going to practice catching a lot of pop-ups this week.

Le boom. FWIW, Michigan put out Turner for one of the kickoffs late and he put it through the endzone. It's possible he's got more leg than his 1/6 record from 50+ entering the season would imply.

MISCELLANEOUS

[Wilcomes]

Dark. Our photographer reports that it is difficult to get celebration shots when the stadium turns the lights off when someone scores.

I was fairly amused in the stands whenever one of the interminable commercial breaks was met with the lights going off. The sixth time they did this there was still an audible 'ooooh' from the crowd. We humans are simple things.

Scot. Loeffler kicked field goals on fourth and two and fourth and one in the first half. You're a 40-point underdog! Grab life by the collar and shake it until it gives you quarters! What are we even doing here if we're not trying to win a football game?  

Commercials! This week's indignity was a commercial with 11 seconds left in a 31-6 game in which there was going to be one more play: a kneel-down. How long until the long-suffering college football fanbase kidnaps Flo?

HERE 

Best and Worst:

…sometimes weeks like this are when goofy things happen, as teams teetering on the cusp fall over while others simply look forward to stiffer competition.  Bill Connelly noted as much in his column:

In movie parlance, it's quiet ... too quiet. The longtime college football fan knows that the most unassuming slate can be the deadliest. Seven top-15 teams play on the road Saturday, and while they might all be favored, odds are always in our favor from an entertainment perspective. My SP+ ratings give the seven road teams only a 15% chance of going 7-0 between them. There's a 36% chance that one loses, a 32% chance that two lose and a 15% chance that three lose.

Ultimately two of those highly-ranked teams lost this past weekend: Kansas State lost on a record-breaking FG by Mizzou after the Tigers nearly bumbled the final seconds, and the Joe Milton-led Tennessee Vols turned back into a pumpkin a bit as they got thoroughly outplayed by Florida in the Swamp.  But a number of other highly-ranked squads nearly joined them in ignominious defeat.  Florida State was outgainned by over 100 yards at Boston College, with the Seminoles nearly blowing a 21-point lead and needing the Eagles to commit 18 penalties to escape with a 2-point win.  Georgia rallied in the second half at home to beat South Carolina.  Alabama ultimately pulled away to win against USF but struggled to run the ball against a bad Bulls front7.  Colorado needed multiple long TD drives, including a 98-yard one to send the game into OT, against a pretty hapless Colorado State team at home.  And Texas was tied 10-10 into the 4th quarter with Wyoming before pulling away.  And even games where the score was more lopsided that was a bit misleading, as for example PSU won at Illinois 30-13 but also got 5 turnovers by the Illini and barely outgained them in the process.

State of our Open Threads:

The rise in fucks given from UNLV to Bowling Green was rather impressive, to say the least, even if it was at our relatively deflated non-conference levels. Only 25 fucks were given in the UNLV thread, and last night, this blossomed to 104 fucks given. I probably don't need to review the primary driver - turnovers, generally annoying play on offense, etc..., but then the point is that we are an observant lot and we noticed.