Best: Blank Check

My favorite podcast (sorry MGoBlog, you lost the pole position when the "rueful laughter per episode" counter broke sometime during 2017) is Blank Check with Griffin & David. The two hosts are David Sims (film critic for The Atlantic) and Griffin Newman, oft-harried assistant in movies and, most recently, Arthur on the Amazon version of The Tick. While the original premise of the podcast was a sometimes-insane analysis of the Star Wars prequels, for most of its run it has focused on exploring the legacy of various movie directors. Or, as the opening spiel for each podcast goes:

It's a podcast about filmographies; director's who have had massive success and are then given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they bounce...baby.

 

They've covered a broad spectrum of directors, from M. Night Shyamalan and Christopher Nolan to Nancy Meyers and Michael Mann. Each week they watch a film from that mini-series's director and discuss, in depth, the technical, thematic, and cultural significance of the movie, how it fits into the director's oeuvre, and its lasting impact. Some directors, like Hayao Miyazaki, James Cameron, and Nolan really don't have a fallow period, producing great works both commercially and critically while maintaining an every-evolving vision. Others, like Kathryn Bigelow, Ang Lee, and Paul Verhoeven have some hits and misses but are always pushing the envelope technically or culturally. And some, like Cameron Crowe and Tim Burton started out with a bang but seemingly never evolved, settling into a routine product with diminishing returns.

While some directors start out the gate on fire (such as Shyamalan with The Sixth Sense or Tim Burton with Pee-Wee's Big Adventure through Edward Scissorshands), most have a beginning, middle, and end to their careers that mirrors a normal distribution when graphed out; your classic Gaussian/Bell curve. In the beginning, you don't have a ton of experience but you do have a ton of potential, and as you work on your craft your success rises until it peaks. For successful directors, that's typically when the "blank checks" kick in, when you've proven yourself with a surprise hit or two and studios turn to you to tackle a larger, more high-profile project that, they hope, turns into box office gold. At that point, you're usually "in the pocket" with the zeitgeist, either tapped into it (or in some cases creating it) and bringing that connection to the screen. If you're lucky, you also take home a couple of trophies along the way. But with few exceptions, at some point a director loses this connection with his or her audience and his/her output diminishes. With guys like Lee and Burton (and to some extent Cameron, though he keeps pumping out hits) they became seduced by technology and the control it gives them over their films, losing the thread of humanity that makes their movies relatable and instead replacing them with visual wizardry and shallow stories. Others, like Crowe and Meyers, just keep banging out the same material but find their audience shrinking, the victims of the fickle nature of pop culture. And some, like Verhoeven and Wachowskis keep making their weird stuff and seemingly don't care if anyone buys a ticket to see them. But in all cases, directors rarely know when they've reached the end of the road, and even if the do notice that nagging voice in the back of their head they probably assume it's temporary.

I wanted to find some meme of Mark Dantonio holding a boombox above his head as he waits outside of Glenn Winston's cell or dressed like Willy Wonka and surrounded by Oompa Loompas he's trying to recruit away from various MAC teams because his first-choice guys would rather walk-on somewhere else. But the internet failed me, as it rarely does. So this is the next-best thing.

Mark Dantonio took Michigan State to untold heights early in his career; they won 10 or more games 6 out of 8 years, winning BCS bowls and laying legitimate claim to being one of the best teams of the 2010's. He's the winningest coach in the school's history and probably in their top 2, depending on how favorably you look upon the Biggie Munn era. While his ability to "coach up" lower-rated guys was perhaps a bit overstated, he absolutely out-performed his recruiting rankings on the field for a significant chunk of his tenure, as witnessed by the fact he only recruiting one top-20 class (and that class had...um...some issues) and was always behind 4-5 schools in the conference. He played an aggressive quarters defense that produced consistently vicious defenses that absolutely bamboozled opponents. He preached toughness, the galvanizing power of real and fabricated sleights, and the Spartan family. He made fun of a college athlete, talked about pride this time of the year, and created a culture at MSU that wasn't John L. Smith being a meme before that was a thing. And yes, his tenure was marked by various transgressions off the field that were overlooked when times were good but now look like a Ponzi scheme with the Devil that came due.

Dantonio's record against Michigan is currently 8-5; it's unlikely Michigan will get 3 more cracks at him to even that number up. He's 63 years old, has the conference's 10th-best recruiting class coming in, and is staring down a deposition that will undoubtedly touch on his handling of sexual assaults and other transgressions by his former players. His reshuffling of the offensive staff over the summer has been a barely-mitigated nightmare, his much-vaunted defense came into the game having given up at least 28 points in 5 straight games, and he doesn't seem particularly introspective about the possibility of changes. Regardless of the cause, college football is no longer buying the Dantonio brand, and it's unlikely that he's got a 3rd or 4th act in him to reset the narrative. Could he chug along a year or two more, living off past successes and the promise of a return to form? Sure - there's a Beetlejuice 2 in works, apparently. But if I'm an MSU fan, I'm not expecting to see another blockbuster season without a change in the director's chair.

Best: Don Brown Slipped

First off, before you all attack me in the comments for being a homer, I have to point out that Don Brown's defense really underperformed compared to the last time he played MSU. I mean, MSU more than doubled their yardage and yards-per-play from last year's game and scored on multiple 50+ yard drives early in each half. Again, maybe this is just an overreaction in the heat of the moment, but...I mean...

via GIPHY

But given this TOTALLY SERIOUS and COHERENT complaint, Michigan's defense still had a banner day against MSU. I think we've passed the era of MSU saving up all the "good stuff" for this game, but they still had some good plays drawn up to take advantage of Michigan's aggressiveness, especially at the linebacker level. Cody White and Elijah Collins are decent players and MSU's offensive line held up better than I expected considering they were starting a couple of guys who should have still been hooked up to a Donut Hell machine in a perhaps-vain attempt to reach a reasonable mass. But other than the two aforementioned UNACCEPTABLE drives, MSU got absolutely nothing going offensively during the semi-competitive portion of the game. Both Lavert Hill and Ambry Thomas swallowed up MSU's receivers, each picking up an interception, a PBU, and in Hill's case, a flex. Brian Lewerke, as has been a theme this year, looked lost for long stretches out there as MSU's offensive gameplan alternated between semi-competent stretches and plays somewhere between "dorf" and "ugh". For the game MSU's offense had 2 9-play drives, one of which ended in a TD and the other netting 26 yards and a punt, and one 13-play drive that ended in a 35-yard FG (!) when they were down 24-7 (!!).  Everything else was either a turnover or a drive that barely got off the ground.

And each of these drives just looked like a slog, similar to those Rich Rod/Hoke-led Michigan teams trying to move the ball against the once-vaunted MSU defenses. In a lot of ways, MSU has the problem a lot of those UM teams had; they've got a punch and maybe one counter-punch, but once a defense has figured them out there aren't a ton of wrinkles. Without two of their four leading receivers and behind maybe the worst non-Rutgers offensive line in the conference, MSU rarely tried to stretch the field vertically, and good luck trying to dink-and-dunk your way against Don Brown. In a game where you always hear about one team wanting to be tough in the trenches, MSU got more first-downs by penalty (5) than they did on the ground (3).

I'm sure the UFR will go into much more detail, but watching it live and in the condensed 60-minute BTN breakdown, the defense just played great at every level. Mike Danna has been a great addition for this one year, a consistent force both against the run as well as on the pass rush, and he led the team's linemen in tackles on the day. Glasgow and Metellus were sure tacklers, keeping any positive play to a minimum, and Metellus added at least two big hits. The corners I already discussed but they were omnipresent; as Detroit natives you could tell both Hill and Thomas took shutting down MSU's passing game as a personal quest. The lack of big counting, havoc-y stats (Michigan only had 3 sacks and 5 TFLs) was mostly due to MSU's gameplan of "just not in the face". Everything was short, or on the run, or designed to minimize the potential for a doctor to have to check on the health of anyone in green and white.

Listen, I want to have some deeper take on the defense's performance but, much like when Michigan played Army, Maryland, or Iowa (all offenses demonstrably better per SP+ than MSU's coming into the game), at some point it doesn't really matter how much gasoline you added to the burning trash fire because that baby was burning fine well before you showed up.

Best: Hudson Hawk

Khaleke Hudson had an underwhelming junior year, in some part due to shifts in duties that required him to play more like a traditional linebacker (e.g. trying to hold up against Wisconsin's ground game or trying to cover WRs) and less like his natural Viper position. He wasn't bad or anything, but after a record-setting sophomore campaign 2018 was a step back.

But in one of the more pleasant surprises of the season for the defense, Hudson has largely returned to his previous destructive self, even if the counting stats aren't quite there. Yes, he's still not great when asked to be your classic linebacker and can get a bit lost in coverage, but as a guy who can attack from the edge and keep runs tamped down, he's been great. And his blocked punt in this game (the 5th of his career), effectively ended the competitive part of the game for MSU; the doors sorta blew off when Michigan scored on the subsequent play. His presence will be missed next season, even if there are a number of viable options to fill the gap.

Best: They Warned Us

Back in early October, after scraping by Iowa 10-3, Jim Harbaugh commented that he thought the offense was 'very close' to turning the corner. Everyone sorta scoffed at the notion; I was admittedly a bit more optimistic because I really did think they looked far more competent than in previous weeks (and Iowa turned out to be pretty good defensively), but it certainly didn't feel like the floodgates were opening. Michigan's offense was scuttling along at 66th in the country and weren't particularly good at anything other than turning the ball over in ever-more spectacular ways. And yet, as of this morning Michigan's offense is now 34th in the country, a bit worse than last year's 25th-place finish but trending in the right direction, having scored 30+ points in every game since save PSU, where they still nearly pulled off a pretty impressive comeback despite facing a solid defense and an even solid-er officiating crew's attempts to rewrite the rules of pass interference.

Now, Michigan State's defense absolutely helped out this game; the Spartans are middle-of-the-pack in league play, giving up about 5 yards per play (for comparison purposes, Michigan gives up a shade over 4 ypp) and aren't great against the run or the pass. I thought Patterson controlled the offense well and made a lot of solid throws and reads, but 11.6 ypa is Rutgers-level passing efficiency and a solid 3 yards better than he's thrown against any other conference foe this season. Whether it be DPJ, Bell, McKeon, or Collins, Michigan's receivers were finding massive holes in MSU's secondary all day, and it should come as no surprise that this was by 100 yards his best passing day of his career as a Wolverine and his best ever against P5 opponents. And it was a game with little potential for back-breaking mistakes; he didn't see a linebacker on a ball to Collins in the endzone that was batted away but otherwise he didn't throw into bad coverage, fumble, or really take any bad penalties. After being sacked on the first drive because rather inexplicably there was nobody short, the other 2 of his 3 sacks came on one drive midway through the third, and even then one of them was caused by him tripping as he ran out of the pocket. Otherwise, this was probably his most complete game of the year and a nice comeback from two down-ish games. Nobody really wants to say anything, but if this game kicks off a Rudock-esque awakening these final 3 games I won't complain.

The star through the air was undoubtedly Ronnie Bell, who picked up 150 yards on 9 catches and consistently shredded whomever MSU put on him. And he clearly has a thing for sequels, as he victimized Tre Person with almost the same play as DPJ did last year, down to the flailing helplessly as the receiver raced past him. I've said this a couple of times already, but Bell maybe being the best/most complete receiver on the team isn't some indictment of his more lauded teammates; he's just really good. The fact he somehow leads the team in receptions but doesn't have a TD yet feels like one of those weird bugs the developers need to fix.

As for the rest of the receivers, Collins had a nice TD grab right after the blocked punt and was his usual matchup nightmare; he picked up another obvious DPI in the endzone on Michigan's second scoring drive and probably should have gotten a couple more. DPJ scored on what I believe was the first pass out of an Orbit Motion of the year (I'll admit to not being an expert on formations), sailing over the pylon and then breaking out his signature taunt. Black got dinged for double-arm flexing after a first down but so be it; I don't see how it's demonstrably different than every time a corner waves his arm around after an incompletion. Still, and I want to stress I'm not getting my hopes up, but this passing offense looks REALLY scary and sustainable in a way that won't look like Oklahoma or LSU but should still put fear into opponents.

Throw out kneel-downs and Patterson's 3 sacks and the running game eked out 101 yards on 25 carries, a tidy 4 yards per carry that isn't going to move mountains but still about a yard more per carry than MSU has allowed this year. Yes MSU has been lit up by OSU and Wisconsin this season but considering this team struggled to get 3 yards against Army, I'll take 4 in a game where Michigan didn't really have to break out anything beyond Patterson sometimes keeping in order to score 44 points.

Worst: What Could Have Been

I think the move to Josh Gattis as OC will, ultimately, pay massive dividends for Michigan. While (as we've seen) they probably threw out too much of last year's perfectly-cromulent rushing attack to start the year, the ceiling for this offense still feels higher than it would have under Pep Hamilton or Tim Drevno. I'm sorta done with a couple of the gimmicks (stop trying to make the throwback to Dylan McCaffrey happen), but otherwise it feels like a team that can smash opponents on the ground or in the air, and we've seen a marked increase in leveraging athleticism and speed in recent matchups. I don't think the "chuck it to Nico Collins all the time" (even in non-hyperbolic terms) works because it's reliant on college refs to call obvious pass interferences consistently, but there are multiple guys on this team who can get you chunk plays against good defenses. My guess is that when the dust settles, Michigan will have a top 25-ish offense per SP+, even if OSU looms as a rather formidable roadblock.

The problem is that Michigan didn't quite work this all out beforehand, and so they probably took a loss they shouldn't have in the process. I'm not sure Wisconsin turns out much different except the score's a bit closer; when Jack Coan is 13/16 and rushing for 2 TDs, it's probably just not your day. But Penn State has quietly had one of those seasons where they win a ton of close games (4-1 in 1-score games) and have a slightly-lucky turnover margin at +6, and those teams are probably a bit worse than their record indicates. By comparison, Michigan is about average nationally in turnover margin (+2 on the year) and 2-1 in 1-score games. Save for some awful officiating early on and some bad luck late, they probably win that game even then, and the offensively-dynamic version of Michigan we see now likely wins that game going away.

Do I think Michigan can beat OSU this year? Sure - we live in a world where Illinois is likely to finish the season with 7 or more wins. Even the most complete teams in the country can have a misstep, and OSU has played exactly 0 teams with a pulse on the road this year. But that still feels like a loss. But Michigan spent a lot of time this year getting to the start line, and it would have been nice had they not given other teams that head start.

Best: Ronnie "For Whom The Bell Tolls"

Yeah, nicknames are hit and miss, but Ronnie Bell deserves...something. Yeah, all the "Bell" nicknames are sorta corny at this point (and no Michigan player will likely have one better than "Well Dressed" Armani Toomer), but he's playing great and we live in a world where everyone's got multiple nicknames. Hopefully he'll keep it up and Gus Johnson will come up with something against OSU.

Worst: Siblings

So Gus Johnson let slip a "Little Brother" reference as Michigan put the finishing touches on the game. During the week, Ambry Thomas posited that MSU would be exposed as a "little sister" with a loss. There are people who will zealously defend this characterization as good-natured trash talk and faux-wokeness if you disagree; if you're one of those people then feel free to skip ahead. But if I could Quantum Leap into someone's body in recent Michigan history, it'd be Mike Hart and stop him from calling MSU "Little Brother". It was a dumb insult at the moment, it somehow is even dumber now, and has devolved to the point where grown men and women treat being characterized as a small female child as a worthy insult. It's (at best) lazy and uncreative, at worst needlessly misogynistic, and if pointing that out makes me some PC goof so be it; I'd rather be called that than be the man or woman who calls other grown men and women little children as if that's fucking cutting.

Quick Hits

• The refereeing to start the game was...annoyingly inconsistent. Or bad. Things got better, frankly, once the referees realized MSU wasn't really going to keep it close and their job shifted to "let's not have an amateur version of Myles Garrett break out".
• To that end, other than a couple of taunting penalties and your now-standard "MSU guy just trying to hurt someone" ejection, it was a reasonably docile game. Michigan's players definitely let their disdain for MSU shine through, but Michigan is clearly at another level football-wise than MSU, and at some point you don't want to lose a guy for a half or even a full game because some goober on the other team is looking to start a fight.
• If you want a microcosm of how times have changed, MSU went from 4th-and-1 during a semi-competitive part of the game, to a false start penalty, to a punt that was blocked, to a touchdown in 3 plays to start the 4th quarter. MSU used to be the recipient of those mental breakdowns, when teams just did dumb shit because they couldn't figure out how to break through the Spartans. Now, it's been a season of Sparty No! and that's unlikely to change.

Next Week

Yeah, I could write more about MSU, but why? They're a middling conference opponent trending downwards; I put a time limit on my Maryland diary and I'd argue they have a brighter future. So on to Indiana, who played...fine...in a loss to Penn State. Peyton Ramsey had a good game and while I still think Penix is their best QB, their passing game is no joke and Stevie Scott has recovered from early-season struggles to be yet another annoying IU back. Indiana is due to win one of these and it wouldn't shock me if they did so at home. At the same time, this Michigan team is playing at another level than we've seen for most of the year and, frankly, I don't see them breaking out anything too unique. It'll be annoying to watch I'm sure, but Michigan's defense has shown a flexibility to match what an opponent wants to do this year, and that's a shift from past seasons when IU could prey on inconsistencies. And assuming Michigan wins this game...well, 10 wins are still on the table.