The State Of Our Open Threads: After Michigan State

I said it last night, but I will say this again because this weekend has taught all of us a life lesson which I believe far too many people overlook. 

No matter how low you might feel at any given time, no matter how grim the outlook at a given moment, you did not lose 49-0 to your in-state rival, and you certainly did not have to issue an apology for having an image of Adolf Hitler on your scoreboard during pregame crowd entertainment. No matter how bad you might feel, you didn't have the evening that Michigan State - the team and the institution - had last night. It almost makes on feel fortunate even if they feel that they've no reason to feel so. 

Indeed, if you're a Michigan fan, you probably feel fucking great at the moment, and we should, and given the data from the open thread, the only regret might have been that we didn't score more, and maybe some of the idiocy from the refs on the odd weak call (Edwards not being set, so they say, the late hit which was really a failure to cease momentum, etc...). It's all certainly a departure from how this game has made us feel in the past, at least at various points. Here, for example, is a history of fucks given for Michigan State in the Harbaugh era to date: 

Buried in that chart, of course, is a certain snap, a driving rain, a season that was brief and forgettable, and Kenneth Walker, but also so many smaller frustrations. Buried in it are some highlights as well, of course, including "Defeated With Dignity" and last night, which was "Defeated Without Mercy, As It Should Be". 

Even so, 135 fucks given was our highest total of the season so far, and as you might guess, MSU has traditionally been one of the highest in seasons past, generally being in the top three among fucks given. First, of course, is OSU almost always, so whenever a Spartan fan tries to discount that rivalry and tout theirs as the most important to us, well, they don't know and the data isn't there either. 

There were also 47 shits given, but like almost everything else about last night, very few if any in the form of a complaint. This would also be true of "fire" and "suck", which saw 34 and 25 mentions respectively, and virtually all of it directed at the rather questionable calls which started to roll in late, the Edwards thing, the officials, the broadcast (which did not do the art of a 49-0 drubbing justice) and some other things. Nothing complaint-driven on a grand scale, as some of the games mentioned earlier saw. 

The serenity of the season continues, as a result:

Last night saw the largest thread to date, as you might assume - 2,234 posts as the clock ran down to zero, and 743 instances of tracked words, which makes for an overall efficiency rating of 3.01, which sits on the lower end of what is historically the "comfortable win" range. As you may have guessed, the lower the number, the less engaged we were by this metric - the assumption being that we are simply not going to give as many fucks, shits, etc...when we are in a positive mood, even though we do give them in positive ways. The data bears it out over time, and 2023 has been our most calming season of the Harbaugh era so far.

When you look at normalized values for certain words:

It's an interesting picture - relatively speaking, we haven't been too worried about either offense or defense since Rutgers, and then only for a moment or two, the OOC schedule faded into memory quickly, and the only thing driving "fire" and "suck" during the Indiana game was the first quarter, and "suck" during MSU was actually mostly about....MSU, because they do indeed suck at the moment. 

Beyond that, the data on other metrics right now just points to a season that has everyone pleased or mostly pleased because it is not unreasonable to think that this team could be it, at least not at 1 PM on Sunday, 22 October 2023. 

So, now we face a welcome bye week, then Purdue, then an interesting three weeks. That could be a fun ride, or a stressful one, or both. In any case, we'll keep plugging along with this analysis.