Last night, we definitely gained some insight into one very important aspect of football fandom that is studied far too little, in my opinion, and that is what a game with two very distinct halves can do to the psyche of those watching from afar, although some of you may very well have watched from mere feet away as we do have many NY / NJ people here.

Indeed, let's start with something different, something which was enormously affected by a forgettable half of football played against - oh, bother - Rutgers:

While "suck" seems to be slowly stabilizing again, as a group of people posting in a thread for a game we were all watching, we certainly were not happy - at all really - with certain details. Indeed, there were 81 instances of "fire" in that thread, with 66 of them being in the portion which covered the first half. Mostly, the ire was directed at Moore and Weiss, but a fair amount was also tossed at Minter, and even one or two people asked for Jim's head, which would probably be a bit much, but then I think some are so caught up in the moment that the larger picture fades away. 

Keep in mind that the season average for "fire" is 32 instances, and during the entire MSU thread, we only went there 24 times. Much like last year's game against Rutgers, it was troubling for some, although unlike last year's game, we also scored 38 unanswered points in the second half, and suddenly, a good deal of the anger seemed to dissolve. 

Fucks given increased only slightly from last week, from 219 to 224, although the season average is 128 instances, so the last two weeks have been a bit more stressful for everybody and it shows in our choice of words in the open thread. Shits given, however, actually fell from 91 to 77, but then historically, sometimes when "shit" fails people, they go straight for "fuck". There is actually a fairly stable ratio that exists between these two, but now and again, sometimes, it's just "fuck". I am sure I let a few fly last night, especially on the blocked punt. 

Even so, if you prefer to judge things by "fuck" and "shit" - and a fair number of people in daily life probably do - then Indiana still stands as our most prolific performance. As many of us grow old, we grow jaded, and some things affect us in less dramatic ways. As Michigan fans, we will likely always be flustered - even enraged - by the haphazard ability to cope with tempo. 

"Defense" and "offense" mentions have been interesting in the last couple weeks because these were nearly even in quite a few games, and now we have: 

The overall trend since Maryland has been down for each of these, which I would have expected because we learn more about what Michigan is this year each week, but as you can see, the concerns about the offense are now starting to outweigh any talk of the defense. During the MSU game, it was the RZ offense, but last night, a lot of the talk shifted to the slow start and McCarthy's relationship with the deep ball as well as WR drops. As OSU looms, these are getting talked about quite a bit now, and as shithouse OCs, our job is to solve these problems for the team, which will in turn slam the door in our face and demand that we leave the premises, of course. Such is the life of a fan. 

As you have come to expect, there's not really a "QB Battle", but there was a fairly substantial uptick in the J.J. talk last night and a slight uptick in the otherwise scant mentions of Cade:

The increasing mentions of J.J. do correspond somewhat to growing concerns about the offense, as I sort of mentioned. The uptick in mentions of Cade, strangely enough, was largely people making comparisons and trying to theorize what Cade would be able to do in some of the situations faced last night. I guess my answer is "not running, and this is why you want McCarthy in there, taking a guy out of the play most of the time". 

Normalized values for some words took a bit of a turn after last night:

We now have a conference game, as we accumulate more data, that is reaching the relative serenity of the UConn game, and that is Penn State. Indiana is still the most generally stressful game, with values on all six of the words charted in this particular graph being above the mean. Last night was probably the most acutely upset we've been merely based in the "fire" metric alone. No matter, as OSU usually makes the rest of the season seem a treat on this chart. 

Engagement has been almost completely stable this year, even declining a bit in the last few weeks: 

There were 894 instances of tracked words across 2,414 posts, which makes for an overall efficiency of 2.56, which again corresponds to most relatively easy wins in the Harbaugh era, although obviously it didn't seem like it would be all that east for two quarters. The second half, I would say, put this number back on its course for the year, and the second half kept most of the other metrics from spiraling into record territory. 

Only two teams stand between us and Ohio State now, and we get Nebraska next.