Unverified Voracity Eulogizes Troll Comment Count

Brian

So... how did that happen? Ohio State lost to Penn State over the weekend. You may not be aware of this so I will pause for your chortling.

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All right. Done? No?

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how bout now nvm

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cumong man

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cumong

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Okay. Now we can proceed. While OSU losing to Penn State, a team Michigan beat 49-10, has caused no end of merriment in the Michigan fan base*, there was an awful lot of flukiness in the PSU win. OSU outgained PSU by a wide margin, held them to under 300 yards of offense, and had a 64% win expectancy per S&P+. PSU made up the deficit with two huge special teams plays, the first a blocked punt that set up a field goal to pull them within four, the second a kick-six that turned an potential 7-point OSU lead into the three point deficit they'd lose by.

Normally I'd write those off as flukes not applicable to the Game, but Michigan has already blocked six kicks this year and has Jabrill Peppers sitting back there for any teams who want to get overly concerned about getting the punt off. Advantage: Michigan.

Meanwhile, PFF's evaluation contains some shocking stats about the OSU OL:

...the entire unit struggled in pass protection, surrendering a staggering 34 pressures between them, with RT Isaiah Prince accounting for almost half of those by himself. The spark of Curtis Samuel’s untouched 74-yard touchdown run and Marcus Baugh’s tackle-breaking exploits in the first quarter weren’t repeated in the final 25 minutes of the game.

And it could have been worse for OSU. Star Nittany Lion DE Garrett Sickels sat out the first half. This did not prevent him from racking up 2.5 sacks. A different PFF article has a different pressure number but it's still boggling: 28 pressures on 53 dropbacks. Taco Charlton and Chris Wormley are likely to do similar work. PSU's 28th in adjusted sack rate. Michigan is 4th.

A second major issue was an inability to get to Saquon Barkley near the line of scrimmage:

the Penn State offensive line set up Barkley with 41 of his 99 rushing yards before contact, and Barkley didn’t have to break any tackles while coming up just a yard shy of a 100-yard game. The star on the offensive line for the third straight week was RT Brendan Mahon, who dominated the Ohio State front on the ground, combining particularly well on double teams to blow the Buckeyes’ defensive tackles out of the middle of the play and disrupt the linebackers behind them.

Later in that piece PFF will advocate for OSU's backup DTs to play over the starters after PSU and Wisconsin gashed OSU up the gut repeatedly. I will repeat: PSU—THE Penn State University—gashed Ohio State up the gut. Penn State. That one. That team. The one with Paris Palmer in the starting lineup again. They got 8.2 yards per carry between the tackles. (Why on Earth they only gave Barkley 12 carries is completely inexplic—oh right James Franklin.)

OSU's run D looks fine statistically, but that's largely due to 4 TEAM rushes for a total of –43 yards. Those were three kneels from the gun and a yakety snap over the punter's head. Remove those and Penn State rushed for an even 5 yards a carry without a single broken tackle from Barkley.

Michigan looks like they have a significant advantage on both lines. I can't believe I'm saying that but here we are.

*[My favorite thing is OSU fans saying it was a ROAD NIGHT GAME since Vegas is now offering 40 points for home field advantage.]

In other OSU issues. Land Grant Holy Land notes that OSU doesn't get many explosive plays. It's Curtis Samuel and that's it. In a very James Franklin twist, Samuel had two carries for 71 yards against PSU. And as always, I recommend Ross Fulton's OSU breakdown.

Meanwhile in this week's matchup. It doesn't look good for MSU:

How is Michigan State going to move the football?
I'm not sure how else to headline this bullet point. If you look at the numbers -- what Michigan's done on defense and what Michigan State's done on offense -- you get a pretty simple result. Michigan State will have to completely change the way it runs offense, overnight, and Michigan's defense will have to take a massive step backward for the Spartans to move the ball with consistency.

For the year, 22.2 percent of MSU's offensive possession have reached the red zone (No. 117 nationally). Michigan's defense, meanwhile, has allowed offenses to reach the red zone on just 6.7 percent of their possessions. That's No. 1 nationally. Michigan State also ranks near the bottom nationally in number of possessions per game at 12.6 and near the bottom in average field position. MSU is No. 91 nationally in rush yards per game, Michigan's No. 4 nationally in rush defense. If numbers hold, this could be a great day for Michigan's defense and a long one for MSU's offense.

MSU's gotta hope that some long bombs get completed and LJ Scott can conjure something up himself.

Bill Connelly gets to talk about his numbers too. We've been doing it all year, and he joins the "holy crap, Michigan's defense in S&P+" brigade:

Def. S&P+ is presented in an adjusted points-per-game figure and is created from an opponent-adjusted mix of efficiency, explosiveness, finishing drives, turnover factors, and field position factors. Here are its top five defenses in the country:

5. Wisconsin (12.4 Adj. PPG)
4. Alabama (11.9)
3. Florida (11.3)
2. Clemson (11.0)
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1. Michigan (0.8)

0.8!

Yes, these numbers are adjusted for garbage time, so Jim Harbaugh’s general ruthlessnessisn’t giving the Wolverines an added statistical advantage.

Yes, these numbers are adjusted for opponent, though while Michigan’s schedule was supposedto be awful, it really hasn’t been; among Wolverine victims, Wisconsin is 10th in overall S&P+, Penn State is 16th, and Colorado is 17th.

29782633160_5e92a015cb_z

[Eric Upchurch]

Jim Harbaugh is crazy part infinity. SBN notes that Harbaugh does things without knowing what the score is. Deadspin gets into Harbaugh's inability to let that fourth-quarter spot go, and I make note of the latter mostly to highlight a couple of comments. One:

When Tomsula wouldn’t let anything go, you called him a hoarder and impounded his car.

Two:

He was my daughter’s micro-soccer coach when she and his kid were 4 years old. He couldn’t have been nicer, more mellow, or better liked by the kids. He adapts to every situation to be great at whatever it is.

I almost don't want to believe the latter.

Baumgardner pokes the bear. Cumong man:

No disrespect, Michigan State, but Michigan's focused on bigger things for 2016

That's probably worth a field goal, that headline.

Harbaugh is worth it. Financially, things are going swimmingly:

U-M's overall revenue in spectator admissions increased to $45.1 million during the 2016 fiscal year, compared to $41.9 million in 2015. The $3.2 million increase was primarily due to an increase in football ticket demand, according to the financial analysis, which was approved by the U-M Board of Regents on Thursday, Oct. 20.

In comparison, spectator admissions decreased $8.3 million in 2015 due to a decrease in football, men's basketball and ice hockey admissions.

Overall, the athletic department saw an increase of $7.8 million to its net position for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2016, which is up from 2015's $1 million overall increase.

He literally pays for himself, and that's before various other application/donation things get factored in.

RIP Drew Sharp, troll. People should memorialize the dead as they knew them. Much of the Detroit media has done so in the case of Drew Sharp, who passed away at 56 this Friday. Those who knew him say he was a great and funny guy whose button-pushing writing shouldn't define the man, and I won't dispute that.

However, much of the memorializing has bothered me because it skips straight over the lasting fact of Drew Sharp's career: he was an unrepentant troll. There is a certain genre of newspaper columnist or radio talking head that is relentlessly negative because that's the only thing he can do that gets a reaction, and Sharp was Detroit's version. (There's one in every city.) He didn't have readers. He had marks.

His cynicism was breathtaking, and this was never more clear than in the immediate aftermath of Michigan signing Demar Dorsey. Sharp correctly diagnosed that circus as desperation on the part of Rich Rodriguez, but for the wrong reason. Dorsey was nowhere close to qualifying and never came close, spending his career at various vagabond stops en route to a brief Arena League career. It's a sad story about kids who come up rough and can't make it out.

Or, if you're Drew Sharp, it's an opportunity to bash a teenager who ended up in trouble:

MATT SHEPARD: "He was timed with a 4.4—"
SHARP: "Avoiding police."

SHEPARD: "That happened when he was 16 and he was acquitted.
SHARP: "I wonder if that was because he was a high profile recruit. Hmm. I wonder. … OJ got acquitted. Being acquitted doesn't mean you're innocent."

That's the only thing he ever did that made me legitimately angry; the rest of it was eye-rolling at his transparent attempts to troll people. I only knew his writing, so I knew him as a man with contempt for everything and an utter lack of empathy.

Meanwhile his writing level and banter was barely above every message board's worst poster. Deadspin got its hands on a couple of his Brandon-esque emails some years back, and since those come through without the benefit of seven layers of editing they're the clearest picture of his talent as a writer.

WAAAAAH! WAAAAAH!
Does the little baby need a pacifier?
Yeah, Detroit needs writers that makes excuses for the city and simply tell the idiots in this town just want to hear.
They've been doing that for 30 years in this town and that's a big reason why Detroit is swirling down the toilet.
Oh, I'm sorry...that's not a "happy feel good story" is it?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

He had none. Drew Sharp's death is a loss to those who knew him. His career is his career, though, and shouldn't be viewed through sepia-tinged glasses. It says something that most of the newspaper obits start with "if you look past the thing he did every day for the last 30 years, he was a great guy." Mmmhmm.

Etc.: Nebraska regent reacts to players' kneeling protest badly. Nobody on the NTDP is a first round lock this year but two Michigan commits are candidates. Hockey also picked up a commit from D Mike Vukojevic, a potential first round OHL draft pick. Brendan Quinn on Xavier Simpson.  Kill 'em with kindness. Also your DL.

Comments

FreddieMercuryHayes

October 25th, 2016 at 1:02 PM ^

My main concern with OSU losing is now, just like last year, they'll figure out what they did wrong in their loss and have the perfect game plan for UM. The single best argument for wanting an undefeated OSU in The Game is that they may have merrily gone along not addressing their flaws and UM could exploit them. I guess against UM, OSU has 10 non-Barrett, non-Samuel touches.




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BornInAA

October 25th, 2016 at 1:32 PM ^

Don't think anything Meyer is going to do will work - it's a personnel issue. They have never run a tricky offense or defense. 

But last year - they were deep, experienced, healthy and had a boatload of NFL talent.

We were younger, had many injuries.

These roles are reversed this year. They are young, NFL talent gone, inexperienced.

Now Michigan is deep, experienced, healthy and had a boatload of NFL talent.

That said, we must remain healthy or the advantage will slip away - so I hope we have more blowouts so the starters get 1/3 of the game off.

 

Night_King

October 25th, 2016 at 1:02 PM ^

Serious question - Why did Curtis Samuel only get 2 carries vs PSU? Mike Weber clearly was ineffective the entire game. I love how OSU finds a way to screw that one up. 

evenyoubrutus

October 25th, 2016 at 1:09 PM ^

I gave up getting mad at people like Drew Sharp and others. I realized that they are basically entrepreneurs. They see an opportunity to invade a market with a specific product that nobody else offers but many are willing to buy, and they sell it. Drew Sharp and others exist because of the readers and listeners who somehow take what they're saying seriously. It's like what George Carlin said. Think of how dumb the average person is, and know that half of all people are dumber than that.

andys

October 25th, 2016 at 1:10 PM ^

I never read Drew Sharp, never needed to since I always knew what he was going write.  If Michigan lost well that just confirmed that Michigan sucks, if Michigan won well "every squirl finds a nut", and Michigan still sucks. 

His columns were probably written before the season, with alternate endings depending on the actual game outcome.  He never seemed to have an insight into what just happened just a narative that he stuck with.  Boring.

WolverineHistorian

October 25th, 2016 at 1:23 PM ^

I stopped paying any attention to him long ago. I do remember having to pick my mouth up off the floor when I found out he was a Michigan alum, though.

Did he ever troll anyone else? Like MSU? The Lions?....well, that's a bad example since Lions fans troll the Lions. But were there any fan bases outside UM that was subject of his "journalism?"




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robpollard

October 25th, 2016 at 1:38 PM ^

The Lions were his number 1 target. If he didn't originate "SOL" (Same 'Ol Lions), he certainly popularized it.



But as Brian pointed out, being negative -- when deserved -- is not bad. For example, the Lions typically deserved it. But he took great pleasure in trying to find the negative angle, regardless of Detroit-area team.

Hemlock Philosopher

October 25th, 2016 at 1:13 PM ^

Bravo on the Sharp eulogy. He may have been a nice guy to a small circle of people, but to the rest of us he was an unempatheitc jerk. 

To better things (although just as macbre): Sparty gon Die.

Lee Everett

October 25th, 2016 at 1:16 PM ^

It's always disingenous for people to glorify people who just died.

If I didnt' like you when you were living, I'm not going to pretend that I'm going to *miss* you now that you're gone.

Asking for anything else is a demand that we falsify our memories of a person or betray our true feelings.

He was an incessant, negative troll of a writer and I will not miss his writings or his work as a radio personality, and his opinion on sports was the only reason and manner in which I knew him.

To someone else, he may have been a father and a son and a brother and a husband, but to me, he was a professional nuisance, and he didn't have to be.  

 

Jeff09

October 25th, 2016 at 1:24 PM ^

On the strength of schedule I'm sick and tired of hearing how we've played a soft schedule. Colorado, PSU, and Wisconsin are all very good teams. Meanwhile teams like LSU get tons of credit for beating ole miss, the greatest 3-4 team in the history of sport.

And agree re: Sharp. Sorry to his family / friends, especially if he was privately a good dude. But I hated his work and hated some of the things he said about the university I love dearly.

mgobaran

October 26th, 2016 at 9:02 AM ^

I mean, we had a middling schedule, on the light side for a P5 team for sure. Colorado, PSU, Wisconsin are all better than we thought. MSU is wayyy down. Iowa is mediocre. I mean, I was expecting that, but the national perception was that would be a tough one. 

The problem is our three best wins so far were all at home. 3 of our 4 road games were, should be cake walks. SOS will top out as average. I don't think it will hurt us. But it certainly won't help. 

The thing is, that it just doesn't matter at all. We lose to the Buckeyes and we are out (unless OSU racks up another L). Two teams from the same conference will make the 4 team CoFoPoff when pigs fly. And even if the porkers get airborne, you know it will be 2 SEC teams. So control your destiny, go undefeated, and SOS could be dead last for all I care.

ST3

October 25th, 2016 at 1:26 PM ^

If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Which is why I've remained silent about Drew Sharp's passing.

jmdblue

October 25th, 2016 at 1:33 PM ^

keep him around? Certain writers drive sales (albom, Duffy, Royko, many others) Or clicks now 'days. Most fill their portion of the fish wrap with material that will be read or not regardless of quality due strictly to the readership's interest (or lack thereof. Sharp wrote badly and was thoroughly obnoxious. People read him anyway cause they read about their teams. Sharp's space could easily have been filled with something that at least made sense. The freep shamed itself by publishing his poor work - for decades.

Erik_in_Dayton

October 25th, 2016 at 1:38 PM ^

I'd never seen that Drew Sharp comment before.  To compare a kid who was accused of burglary (or was it illegal entry?) when he was sixteen years old to OJ was...well, I don't need to finish the thought.