This isn’t going to be a long diary.  A blowout on at 7:30 pm AND daylight savings AND one dragged out even further with completely unnecessary commercial breaks is a recipe for me to pull and ESPN recruit review and fire-and-forget.  I promise PSU next week will be more enlightening.

Best:  Daylight Savings Time

On its face, Daylight Savings Time doesn’t make a ton of sense.  Its mostly a social construct designed around “optimizing” the number of daylight hours available to citizens and countries that reside within certain latitudinal bands on the globe, gaining more popularity during the early part of the 20th century due to various political, business, and lifestyle shifts in the world’s population, even though its initial agrarian-focused benefits have faded due to the global industrialization movement.  At its core it’s still pretty arbitrary, and the fact that two states in the US (Hawaii and Arizona) don’t adhere to it yet haven’t broken out into Mad Max-esque hellscapes further diminishes its value as a way to regulate commerce and human activity effectively.  It seems to mostly exists as a way to screw up parents of young children who still wake up at their normal time and then spend 5-10 minutes stumbling around in a pitch-black house on a Sunday wondering why it still seems like nighttime and why the clock in their room is broken before forcing their parents to convince them about the temporal abnormality and guide them not-so-quietly back to bed.  And yet, every year people across the country (and the world) dutifully turn their clocks back or forward a month, “losing” or “gaining” an hour as if they’ve collectively Superman’d  the Earth’s rotation.  In a lot of ways, it feels a bit like a tax return from the IRS, where you are reflexively excited about getting back money you “loaned” interest-free to the state and federal governments for the past year.  Honestly, one of the best uses of DST (as the cool kids call it) I’ve seen is as a plot device in the National Treasure movie:

But we as a society have largely tolerated its existence, if perhaps not its utility, as a rite of seasonal change, yet another reminder that the days will be getting colder and darker (or warmer and brighter depending on the time of year) and we should prepare accordingly.  And around the Big 10, early November is typically when the tone of the season shifts, as the best and worst teams have largely separated themselves and readjust their goals.  For some, like Indiana, what started off as promising campaign to grow on a program-defining season has mutated into a quest for their first conference win and a death march to the offseason, hoping to stay out of the East cellar in the process.  Michigan, by comparison, has bounced back from a depressing 2020 campaign to once again sport a top-ten ranking and a sparkling 8-1 record, blemished only by a close loss to MSU last weekend.  They’re the ones with dominant defensive players, a bruising running game, and a team that plays with cohesiveness and confidence that has been perhaps lacking in recent vintages.  As the calendar turns to November their remain challenging trips to PSU and Maryland before ending against the Buckeyes at home, but compared to a year ago this game, this season feels like the schedules of old, for good and for bad. 

Meh:  Average

For a couple of weeks leading up to the MSU game the story on Cade McNamara was that he was a low-risk, low-reward QB who wouldn’t put his team in a bad spot but who relied heavily on a couple of deep balls to really move the offense.  When he hit those throws earlier in the year he put up respectable numbers and when he didn’t he was more pedestrian.  Then against MSU he had a fantastic performance, throwing to all levels and really taxing the MSU defense all day.  In this game he played a more limited role, completing 10/18 passes for 168 yards, 2 TDs while “working through something” that saw him trade drives with McCarthy at various points.  He looked fine, mind you, and was let down a couple of times by his receivers dropping catchable passes.  But this was a game where his one big throw was caught by Johnson and so he averaged 9.3 ypa; throw that out and he’s a more pedestrian 6.9 ypa.  Both results are fine but highlights how the raw numbers can sometimes mute an effective game or pump up an okay one.  Cade did show more willingness to run in this game, especially when IU’s multitude of aggressive defensive playcalls opened up lanes, and I’m not worried he won’t be ready against the rest of the schedule.  But this is a game where you could tell Michigan knew they were in the driver’s seat early on and weren’t going to push any envelopes unless they had to.  McNamara did his job and that’s all you can expect, but I do wonder if people would be overreacting to it had he not had a great game against MSU.

Best:  Big Ten Back

One of the the starkest differences between the haves and the have-nots in college football is quality depth, the ability to weather an injury or two to key spots with competent players who can step into those roles with minimal degradation of quality.  Teams like Alabama, Georgia, and OSU are so terrifying precisely because behind every highly-regarded starter is (usually) another highly-regarded player who would be a key contributor and all but a handful of other teams in FBS.  Michigan occupies a step below that level where an injury or two to a particular spot would be a mortal blow to a unit, but they’re still typically able to patch over the hole with talent at other spots and maybe a shift in focus.  But then you reach teams like Indiana, who last year had a breakthrough season in no small part because they were able to field a veteran, healthy squad, have struggled this year because of a raft of injuries to key spots, from losing their top 2 QBs to nagging injuries with their secondary.  In this game IU also lost Stephen Carr, their lead back, as well as the only offensive lineman Alex thought was “alright at his job” in Luke Haggard early on, further putting the Hoosiers deep in a hole they didn’t come close to escaping.  Because while IU’s starters are probably in the top-half of the league in terms of overall talent, they lack the depth to really weather any sustained absences or, in the case of Michael Penix at QB, extended bouts of inefficiency.  And that’s how you have a team return virtually all of their key contributors from last year and go from 6-2 to 2-7 (and counting). 

Not to be outdone, Michigan entered the game down their leading receiver in Erick All, a major blow to a passing offense that came to life last weekend against MSU, as well as exciting freshman Donovan Edwards.  Roman Wilson was back after a couple of weeks but was sporting the type of hand cast that typically screams “this receiver has 1.5 functional hands so end arounds it’ll be”, and the  Blake Corum, the team’s leading rusher and #3 receiver, was felled early on and later spotted with a walking boot on (though reports point to it being a non-serious injury).  Furthermore, guys like Gemon Green, Andrel Anthony, A.J. Henning, and Cade McNamara spent time being looked at, though in the latter’s case came back and looked fine at the end of the game.  Still, the line outside the medical tent was pretty significant and led Seth to quip that perhaps the team should adopt a grade-school teacher’s approach to queue management to speed up service and limit disruptions:

https://twitter.com/Misopogon/status/1457166749812420613

And yet, despite all of these injuries and absences Michigan was able to rack up 411 yards of total offense on only 66 plays, a healthy 6.2 ypp, and 29 points on 6 of 10 meaningful-ish drives all game.  Yes there were still 3 FGs in the redzone but it was still an offensive performance where Michigan generally marched up and down the field against an aggressive, perfectly-competent defense that loves to mess with reads and coverages.  Over UM’s 19 first downs 9 came on passing and 9 more came on rushing, and had Michigan had slightly better luck on 3rd down (3/12) it likely would have been even more a paving.  By comparison, Indiana didn’t even crack 200 yards of total offense (they topped out at 195), with 75 yards of that coming on IU’s only scoring drive in the middle of the 2nd quarter.  The Hoosiers barely cracked 100 yards rushing and were absolutely awful throwing the ball (88 yards) despite still having guys like Ty Fryfogle and Peyton Hendershot coming into the game averaging 9 catches and 110 yards per game combined.  In this game they only picked up 3 catches for 34 yards, with Fryfogle held without a catch for the first time in years. 

The big reason why Michigan’s offense largely kept humming along while IU’s sputtered to its second-lowest output of the season was because Michigan had Hassan Haskins, the type of back who can be that effective feature back teams sometimes need when the weather gets colder and the defenses get stiffer.  He absorbed those carries that would usually go to Corum and Edwards and produced a career-high 168 yards and 1 TD on 27 carries, plus another 20 yards on a catch.  He flashed the usual repertoire of Haskins skills, from refusing to go down after 1st, 2nd, and 3rd contact to pushing human bodies out of the way for first downs to hurdling fools.  I really like Corum and he’s one of the more electric players in college football, but Haskins is the workhorse on this team, the guy you can heap more carries on and he’ll just get stronger and more like a piece of iron.  And that’s been the trend for Haskins since he’s been at Michigan; his best performances came when he could get into a groove and just grind teams down, especially later in the year. 

I said in my preseason prognostications that I thought Haskins would lead the team in rushing by a healthy margin, and while I didn’t see Corum exploding out of the gate the way he did Haskins has largely performed as I expected, carrying the ball 20+ times in 4 games, each well over 100 yards, and averaging over 5 ypc in those contests.  Indiana sold out to stop the run in this game and despite it all Haskins and the offensive line moved up and down the field with few issues and a lot of that success falls on Haskins just grinding down the good defenders like Micah McFadden.  With the uncertainty around Edwards and Corum, Haskins is likely to be featured even more as the main back in the offense these next couple of games, starting with PSU, and like the past couple of years Haskins will hopefully be up to the task.

Worst:  Now a Word From Our Sponsors

I recognize we exist in a capitalist society and that college football is near the top of the list when it comes to “television shows people will watch and just deal with commercials”.  I work for a company that has ads plastered across sporting events, and I’m able to sleep on top of a pile of money with (one) beautiful lady because of these ads.  But good lord, this was the second week in a row where Fox just aired 4 hours of commercials with short outbursts of football sprinkled in.  At one point in the 3rd quarter there was an injury timeout (that led to a full media timeout), a play that was followed by another injury (and media timeout), then a timeout on the ensuing play (that led to a media timeout) to a punt that then led to, you guessed it, a media timeout.  I didn’t quite clock it but I believe less than 15 seconds of actual game time elapsed but a full 15 minutes melted off my life.  I guess the (small) benefit is that in the event the game is tight at the end there will be fewer long delays due to commercials, but at some point seeing Matt Damon tell me that “Fortune favors the brave” as he hocks some shitty crypto app for the 10th time in a hour feels like a personal threat by the executives at Fox, and college football has to be careful because at some point even dinosaurs like me who pay for cable and want to see their teams play live will…just stop watching.  These constant delays make the game unbearably long, undoubtedly affect the tempo for the teams involved, and do little to incentivize me to purchase whatever products they’re trying to hock in between underpaid college athletes limping off the field due to injuries incurred for my enjoyment.

Best:  Defensive Dominance

I know Indiana came into this game with large swaths of their team decimated by injury and ineffectiveness.  The jokes about a broken Penix practically write themselves, but even when (relatively) healthy Nick Sheridan’s offense has been one of the worst in the P5 after finishing just inside the top 30 last year.  Down to their third QB who had focused on basketball before this year, it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that Michigan’s defense bounced back in a big way after last week’s struggles against MSU.  The Hoosiers weren’t really equipped to challenge UM’s issues up front or against tempo, and while McCulley was definitely a threat with his legs his severe deficiencies passing the ball (he finished 10/24 for 88 yards and, I’ll be honest, I’m not sure more than 3 of those completions went more than 3 yards past the line of scrimmage) limited even this concern.  Still, Michigan held the Hoosiers in check all day despite clearly being caught off guard with some of the, um, “creative” execution by their opponents.  Like, there were plays where Michigan defended very well and then McCulley would just pop-pass a ball to a RB 2 yards to his left and it would be enough for a first down.  It didn’t necessarily feel planned, more like a guy who was in HS last year realizing he can’t out-athlete his opposition and then just making illogical plays.  It’s analogous to blackjack or poker players making completely illogical calls compared to expectations and them sometimes paying out because of chance; you could see defenders almost get annoyed that some of these plays worked because there really isn’t a defensive look that considers “roll out shovel pass” as an option. 

And yet, despite these occasional hiccups Michigan only gave up 2 drives that were more than 5 plays during the “competitive” portion of the contest: an 11-play, 36 (!) yard punt on IU’s first possession and their one TD drive that last 10 plays.  Otherwise the Hoosiers went 3-and-out or first-down-and-out 7 times, picking up a total of 41 yards and coughing up a fumble by Ojabo.  IU didn’t get their first first-down of the second half until well into the 4th quarter, and in general looked completely lost once UM settled down a bit.  Hutchinson and Ojabo were their typical dominating selves against a clearly-overmatched IU line, and as noted above the secondary absolutely shut down IU’s passing attack.  DJ Turner and Vincent Gray took turns blanketing Fryfogle, and the couple of times IU ever tried to challenge Michigan downfield they were emphatically denied.  Michigan also threw in a couple of wrinkles to perhaps address substitution issues from last game by featuring Michael Barrett quite a bit more, with him contributing 4 tackles and generally showing the ability to come down against the run while still manning the middle of the field.  I don’t necessarily think MacDonald is going to bring back the Viper position but this could be a sign that the positional flexibility provided by Barrett will be used going forward against teams that might want to gain advantageous matchups via tempo.  Barrett is a bit of a square peg on the base defense but he’s still a plus athlete and has the size and speed that works against a lot of college offenses.

PSU will pose a much bigger threat next weekend, even if Clifford is limited, as Jahan Dotson is coming off a career game and PSU’s offense resembled more the big-play machine they’ve had in Happy Valley the past couple of years than the one that limped through games against Iowa and Illinois.  But in a game where UM could have let IU hang around they slammed the door shut after that one score, and that’s what you like to see from a team after a rough outing. 

Quick Hits:

• With All out and guys like Henning and Anthony hobbled, Luke Schoonmaker and Cornelius Johnson stepped up to keep the offense moving along.  McNamara in particular really likes his tight ends and Schoonmaker, while still not a great blocker, is a good-sized target and McNamara found him for both of his touchdowns.  If All is out again this week expect that offensive connection to keep going.  And Johnson, after a rough game against MSU, had a 5-catch, 100-yard performance, highlighted by a 50-yard bomb from McNamara.  I still think he’s best suited for the 2nd/3rd receiver role, but his combination of size and speed does help this offense stretch the field and if McNamara is once again back to being a plus downfield passer Johnson should benefit.

• JJ McCarthy had an up-and-down game.  On the one hand he showcased his arm strength on a couple of nice throws into tight windows, including a first-down bullet in the 3rd quarter where the IU corner broke on the pass and still didn’t get to the sideline throw in time.  But he also threw a duck that probably should have been picked off after trying to high school a play out of thin air, and he consistently showed issues reading the IU coverages and finding the open man.  Now, that’s what IU’s secondary does and so that shouldn’t be a major area for concern, but it remains clear that he’s still got a long way to go and perhaps the “book” is out on him a bit that he’s inclined to run or try to rifle a ball into tight spaces when pressured so if you can force him to act quickly he’s likely to make a mistake.  Even that interception, which was more bad luck than anything else (the ball bounced high off his receiver’s hands) was thrown with way too much mustard and into tight coverage.  Again, not a major issue but just growing pains for a young kid.

• The fact Vincent Gray’s name almost never comes up anymore is a testament to his improvement this year; he’s got a ceiling but it’s clear at this this point teams aren’t having a great deal of success picking on him and if Turner really has taken that next step you’re looking at three (along with Green) above-average corners on this team.  Will that matter against OSU?  Probably not, and we’ll see how they handle Dotson and Washington next weekend, but it’s been encouraging nonetheless how Gray and the other corners have improved this year.

• Purdue beating MSU a week after the Spartans survived against Michigan was immensely predictable, as MSU had been living dangerously in one-score contests all year.   Their pass defense has relied heavily on pressuring QBs and when that hasn’t worked they’ve offered little resistance.  And perhaps more surprisingly their offense continued to struggle, picking up 150 yards less than Purdue and looking out of sorts for long stretches of the game.  They kept it tighter than expected because Purdue kicked a number of FGs in the red zone (shudders), but they couldn’t stop Purdue at the end of the game and left West Lafayette with their first loss of the season.  This result helped Michigan in their quest to win the Big East title and also perhaps points to a rough ending stretch for the Spartans, who still have to face Maryland, PSU, and OSU, all teams more than capable of throwing the ball against a passing defense that has given up nearly 950 yards over the past 2 weeks.

Next Week:  PSU

I have no idea what to make of PSU this year.  They looked terrifying to start the year, then lost 3 in a row but in games ranging from very acceptable ones to Iowa (after leading when Clifford went out) and OSU (in a pretty competitive affair) to a perhaps-now-comprehensible 9OT game to Illinois given what the Illini then did to Minnesota.  They did finally pick up a win against Maryland 31-14 but that was a tied game into the 4th quarter and wasn’t really over until an 87-yard pick-six with two and a half minutes left.  They still can’t run the ball to save their lives (they didn’t crack 100 yards against Maryland’s awful defense), and Michigan has been solid against the pass all year.  It’s a noon game and that should further help Michigan as the road team, but not knowing how many of these injuries are going to linger makes it hard to predict.  I do think McNamara will show up again in the air so it may just be a shootout.  I’m leaning toward UM pulling out a close one just because PSU’s offense is so one-dimensional but we’ll see.