illinois

It all started so well.

Yes, it did, but then.

But then.

Yes.

Chart?

Chart.

As always, the Threetsheridammit chart legend.

STEVEN THREET

Another day that was about par for Threet's current course: intermittently good with sustained bursts of inaccuracy or indecision or both.

As the weeks go on I get more optimistic Threet can be an acceptable long-term solution. This is the third straight week he's been at least mediocre, and he again showed Northwestern QB-level mobility.

You expect that the freshman moments will recede as he gathers experience, reducing the extracurricular BR-TA-BA section of the chart and funneling that into DO and CA; my main concern long term is that IN column. Is accuracy something you can develop? Eh… I don't know. I'd feel more confident in that if Loeffler was still around. I do buy that at least some of the issues have to do with inexperience on the part of the wideouts and that even if Threet were to remain static we'd see some modest gains as clues begin to perpetrate themselves within the heads of the youngsters.

The screens—a bugaboo so far this year—were better, with six CAs to no INs, but I think Michigan's reluctance to exploit what looked like an extremely favorable matchup (at times—at other times the bubble screen was a non-issue) stemmed from Threet's earlier issues with the simplest throws available. They didn't want to push it.

That's a lot of "PR"—pressure—isn't it?

Uh, yeah. That thing I said yesterday about Michigan being better at pass blocking than run blocking? Against Illinois…

PROTECTION METRIC: 30/47. Ortmann –6, Dorrestein –4, Molk –2, Team –2, Shaw –2, Schilling –1, Moosman –1.

…holy pants they were bad. Ortmann's move inside exposed him to a wide array of stunts and slants he was unprepared to deal with and led to those guys smacking Threet in the face. Dorrestein conspired; the left side of the line was confused and often responsible for getting Threet hamsandwiched. No wonder the rotating left guard will rotate once again against Toledo.

I still think they're more physically capable of pass blocking; I haven't seen them consistently dominated like Molk and a couple others have been against tough opponents.

Is there any hope for this offensive line?

I don't see much of one. It's clear there are some irreparable deficiencies. Michigan's going to be rotating through their fourth attempt at left guard this week. It's disturbing that LG is the big problem when the center is often lifted by the scruff of his neck and gently placed in the running back's chest.

And the blitz pickups are wonky and the options outside of the starters are 1) a defensive tackle, 2) a redshirt freshman Michigan snatched from the MAC two years ago, and 3) the guy they hate at LG so much they yanked him for the defensive tackle and then replaced him with Ortmann and then when Ortmann flopped decided to replace him with Schilling and move Ortmann and thus move Dorrestein and basically you get the impression that the last thing anyone on the coaching staff ever wants to see again is Tim McAvoy on the field. Which is weird because I didn't think he was doing that bad.

The best thing to hope for is that this Schilling thing works out and they can do the thing where they gel and cohere and adhere and all that stuff, and gradually step away from the suck as the year progresses.

BONUS weird biographical note I just stumbled across: David Moosman was born in Amsterdam. Johnny Sears is so jealous.

And the wideouts?

The receiverchart:

There was, of course, the mindboggling Savoy drop along the sideline that turned a first and goal into a punt. Other than that it was fine. There was one meaningless Odoms drop on what would have been a two-yard catch.

It's obvious by now that Mathews and Odoms are the two main targets, especially in the absence of Hemingway and Stonum. Stonum should get back into the action in the near future; those three are your starters.

Unfortunately, I think it's telling that even down two receivers Clemons was largely overlooked. It didn't help that he whiffed his few opportunities to block and caused an ineligible man downfield penalty  by lining up wrong. As the season moves along and he continues to languish on the bench the chances he ever ends up contributing sink alarmingly.

So… Koger is a new guy. How is he doing?

You remember both of the times he's been thrown the ball since both were touchdowns—the second one was called back—and that's about all he's done so far. His blocking is iffy, which is why they're moving Moundros around a lot more.

Speaking of Moundros: boom? Tough actin' foot remedy?

Moundros is slowly growing into the Owen Schmitt role minus any of the ball-carrying business. They even shot him out to the backside of the play on fourth and goal, getting an easy touchdown out of it; this was highly reminiscent of Schmitt last year.

This week they moved him from the backfield to tight end/h-back and used him to authoritatively thump a few guys on successful runs. I think you'll see him get more time as Michigan tries to eke whatever they can out of the run game. As far as blockers go, he's the best Michigan has at any position.

Heroes?

Odoms got open a ton, caught everything that came his way, and made some yards out of nothing. Moundros provided some mmm good blockin', and Mathews was solid when involved.

Goats?

The left side of the offensive line was harrowing this week, more so than usual.

What does it mean for Toledo and the future?

Well, we should be able to move the ball on the Rockets. God help us if we can't.

At this point, the offense seems half functional. Threet's not good but he's not as bad as it seemed earlier in the year. He's able to move the team down the field in fits and starts. Mathews and Odoms are a decent 1-2 punch at receiver; if Stonum gets right that's an acceptable to good trio for the next couple years. Koger needs to get Barwisized, but he's looked good so far.

The line? Will be a major problem the rest of the year. Look for incremental improvement and try not to hope for more.

Wonder what Jimmah Clausen did on his bye week? Wonder no more!

Taser ends emu scamper on Pennsylvania Turnpike

It’s not fall if college football players aren’t getting tasered in hilarious places. Listen not to suggestions this was a “bird native to Australia” that got loose. It’s a all a diabolical coverup, I say.

Aw, come on now. Marcus Witherspoon isn’t going to play for Michigan because of Clearinghouse issues he claimed he did not have. This is irritating, but there’s little Michigan can do in this situation; it’s down to the high school and the NCAA.

So I would normally find this dubious:

Looks like Spoon might have got a raw deal. He didn't find out about his ineligibilty until July 28 - although it's not uncommon for the NCAA Clearinghouse to take until mid-August sometimes to determine if a student-athlete can compete.

The way Spoon's father talks, it looks like Michigan dropped the ball and something could have been done a lot sooner.

…except last year we found out that Artis Chambers was ineligible four games into the season and the kid had to sit out the rest of the year because someone in Michigan’s athletic department screwed up. This year, Michigan loses a highly-rated player who could have been the edge-rushing defensive end they badly need.  What’s going on?

Practicing. Five minutes of stuff from practice:

Not useful or anything, but I watched it. For some reason it’s deeply interesting.

Ach nae goot. Guy comes to America from Scotland, falls in love with college football, compares it to Eurosport:

There is, in that sense, permanence to college football that is comparable to European soccer or rugby. True, sports teams in Europe have owners, but their sides are held in trust, beholden to the supporters and the communities that hold them dear. It is all but unthinkable that their teams could be moved as a result of an owner’s whim. Even in an age in which sport has become big business, there’s an identity and belonging that endures, rooted in a keen sense of place. College fans know this feeling, because it is their feeling too.

I’ve suggested this before during my periodic justifications for my (largely international) soccer fandom, and co-sign with this guy. BONUS: He misspells “Weis” as “Weiss”!

DOUBLE BONUS: Awesome comment in the, uh, comments:

It's no surprise that a Scotsman took to college football. It's as close as spectator sports gets to highland clan warfare.

I’ll take that as a compliment, thanks.

Buried in a must-read piece by Orson on the decrepit glory that is Miami is a paragraph I found bizarrely relevant:

To someone like us, watching this from any number of houses in stops around the Sun Belt, Miami was a truly compelling beast: a program seemingly carved from nothing and featuring players recruited from what we now know as some of the poorest, most violent, and dead-end neighborhoods in Florida: Pahokee, Belle Glade, Liberty City..even when they beat Florida, and oh holy hell, have they beaten Florida in numerous, painful variations, it was impossible not to respect the anger, the rage, the bone-shattering violence their football teams played with: Ray Lewis, who played football to erase the records of his absent father; Warren Sapp, who barreled his way out of BFE Apopka to the U; Michael Irvin, who before he was a punchline was an indestructible receiver across the middle who came from the bowels of Fort Lauderdale and was one of 17 children; Ed Reed, who came from St. Rose, Louisiana, who put his heart in this shit, man.

Pahokee and Apopka have contributed four players to Rodriguez’s first two recruiting classes: Martavious Odoms, Brandin Hawthorne, Vincent Smith, and Jeremy Gallon. Three of those players are lightning dwarves, the fourth an outside linebacker.

Michigan isn’t going to turn into Miami—none but Miami can be Miami—but you’re kidding yourself if you don’t think the culture of the program is changing. Whether for good or bad is yet to be seen; it’ll probably be both.

Orson brought up Pahokee and the Muck earlier this year when US Sugar sold the land to the government and pulled up stakes, stripping the already poverty-stricken region of its primary industry, claiming that people would drift away and football in the Muck would lose it’s heritage.

A couple days ago I brought this up to a guy who covers high school football in the area, and he dismissed it, saying “they’re too poor to move.” Culture shock ho. Odoms, at least, seems to be fitting in well enough to tell his former teammates to go north, you men.

It was ugly, but we’ll take it. Wolverine Historian recaps last year’s Illinois game:

Here’s to ugly victories. May there be several this year.

Etc.: MVictors has a different take on Rodriguez from Larry Lage, the AP guy who got to go all-access before the season; games are shorter this year; the effect is about half of the 2006 rules.

Video trouble? Try VLC.

Well?

So I think the potential disconnect between myself and some readers is this: I say "we only won that game because of many, many Illinois mistakes" and the response is "but you did not consider our mistakes!" But, uh... aren't our mistakes sort of the point? Michigan only has control over what it does; in this game it did a lot of bad: turnovers, sacks, fumbled snaps, dropped balls, etc. The point is less "we should have lost to Illinois" and more "this game reinforces my dark side that believes this team is going to end up 8-4 or 9-3 and is not likely to win a bowl game."

That said, there were positives to take out of this game I didn't see from the Memorial Stadium endzone. Henne was very good. Both Brown and Minor showed some indication they will be decent to good Big Ten runners next year. A large portion of the offensive suck was Mallett related and hopefully not something that will extend into the last three games of the season.

Say something nice.

Full credit to the coaching staff for deciding to place boot upon trachea on the last drive, taking the opportunity offered by Illinois' petrified corner on the last second down charted to set up a makeable field goal. The drag route that set Michigan up was a bit fortunate -- a missed tackle turned a seven yard gain into twenty -- but at least they were throwing the ball a bit. The reward was a clinching score and a relatively safe last four minutes.

Charts?

Charts.

(Hennemallettchart Legend)

First, Mallett: he was really, really bad. In addition to the numbers above he fumbled two snaps (Henne also fumbled one), losing one, and a few of the CAs were marginal throws behind receivers that allowed Illinois defensive backs to make a play on the ball. The idea of crediting him for the two pass interference penalties he picked up doesn't hold water, as one a short cross thrown behind the receiver, giving the DB a chance to make a play that he did not, and the other was an underthrown bomb that was an easy touchdown if accurate.

It's just a third of a game that Mallett was yanked in and out of and not worth panicking over, but let's not sugarcoat things: he was bad, bad, bad.

Aren't the coaches putting him in a position to fail?

To some extent yes, but at this point it's something of a chicken-and-egg problem. Does Mallett often perform poorly because the only times he's suffered to throw downfield are when there is no other options? Is he suffered to throw only on obvious throwing downs because he performs poorly? Given how bad he was and how that Michigan rumbled down the field on Mallett's final drive before he threw a killer interception at the five, it's hard to criticize.

But... still.... Mallett's first and second down play breakdowns:

One fumbled snap on first down was not charted. That's a lot of runs, and the pass was one of those little flickouts to Butler behind the LOS. At this point, don't you have to try loosening things up a bit?

The only non-ND Mallett touchdown drive -- as opposed to Morelli gift -- was the one against Penn State where Michigan opened up, got the ball out to Manningham a couple times on first down, and staked itself to an eight-point lead it would not relinquish. Mallett's best drive against Northwestern was mostly passing. The rest? Bupkis. Though Michigan did have the one long ground-based drive against Illinois and a shorter one that ended in a field goal, the overall efficacy rate of Mallett's training wheels offense is minuscule... and that's not all on him. Except in this game.

And Henne?

I may have been a little generous with the DOs, but there they are; they are unlikely to be a result of win-based ecstasy. One inaccurate pass was the horrible interception; a couple others could plausibly be credited to his half-ending injury and should be looked upon in context. Another very strong outing for him.

Protection: 48/59. Not a good day. Culprits: Schilling -5, Ciulla -2, Butler -2, Minor -1, Kraus -1.

So this Schilling-buffeting?

First, a whole host of caveats: Schilling showed up, got mono, missed most of his freshman year with an injury that prevented him from adding strength anywhere, then was injured and out for most of spring practice. In-season he's been batted from tackle to guard and back to tackle. He is playing over his head to even be a starter.

That said, he's not playing particularly well. The problems in pass protection have been matched with frequent issues in the run game. One sack and a dangerously batted pass were on him as he failed to contain Illinois DE Doug Pilcher. At the moment, the great hope of the 2007 offensive line, that Schilling and Boren would turn out to be better than the departed Bihl/Riley combo, has not come to fruition. It looks highly unlikely to get there any time this year.

Receiverchart:

A less effective game from the receivers, as Mathews and Manningham dropped a couple of makeable catches. Arrington laid out for one spectacular touchdown grab, though.

You mean obvious non-touchdown in the eyes of the replay official oops right?

Yeah, seriously. Everyone in the stadium expected that third down to be reviewed as soon as Arrington hit the ground, but Carr actually had to use his challenge to get the geriatric in the booth to put down his Werther's Originals and look at the play. WTF? The addition of the challenge seemed more a salve for outraged coaches in the aftermath of the fiasco that was the Alamo Bowl than a useful addition to the system. Michigan should never have been forced to use its challenge for an obviously close, critical play, especially given that Michigan let the play clock wind all the way down before making the challenge.

Heroes?

Henne, mostly. No one else stood out as particularly excellent on offense. Brown, maybe. Also, the Illinois punt and punt return teams. We love you guys. Especially #11.

There is no UFR for special teams, so special teams guys never get called out in these sections but we need a special shout out for Zoltan here. His 67-yard rocket changed the field position early in the game, and he allowed no returns, pinned opponents within the 20 whenever given the opportunity, dug out an extra point snap, and got himself roughed by #11. Yea, truly he is benevolent.

Also, KC Lopata: don't go changing.

Goats?

Schilling, as mentioned, had a very tough time with Pilcher and others. Mallett was real bad for the first time in his Michigan career.

What does it mean for Minnesota?

Since the Gophers just gave up 400 rushing yards to a I-AA team and are starting three true freshmen in the secondary, anything less than one million points will be disappointing.

Are you still Mr. Grumpypants?

A little, since visions of Chris Wells doing virtually the same thing Mendenhall did except 30 times instead of 18 dance through my head. Michigan did its share of good things in this game, but many of the Illinois drives were stopped because of the Illini's inherent Juice-ness (or McGee-ness) and can't really be credited to the Michigan defense. That's a logical strategy when you oppose Illinois, I suppose, but it's hard to get excited about it. At this point in the season I'm looking for reasons we will lose or win against Ohio State; this was sort of a non-event in that calculus.

Aw, come on.

Okay, okay. This game does represent a large step forward for the defense compared to the Appalachian State game, as one touchdown drive was a 30-yarder after a long kick return and there was no turnover blizzard to stop Illinois drives before fourth down rolled around. Michigan's safeties are playing at a level we haven't seen in a long time, the cornerbacks have progressed into a strength, and against teams with non-mobile quarterbacks Michigan has been a pass rushing terror. It's a pretty good defense at this point in the year; given Oregon's spectacular demolition of all comers only The Horror stands out as a bad outing. Ron English may be placed on his pedestal once again. Just ignore that ugly crack in the base.

Chart?

Chart.

It often happens that when Michigan is more concerned with a quarterback's legs than his arm the pressure suffers as blitzing is replaced with zone coverage and stunts are replaced with an emphasis on containment. It did pretty well.

Heroes?

Crable was all over the field. His speed at defensive end was extremely useful on zone reads, options, and just plain chasin'; against more dangerous running quarterbacks he never plunged inside on the zone read.

Also, Brandon Harrison was a key actor on the rare occasions Illinois ran the option, shooting into the backfield, but responsible like, on a number of plays that ended up as TFLs.

The secondary as a whole deserves credit for missing few tackles and registering a +5 coverage metric even though Illinois quarterbacks had a lot of time to throw.

Goats?

Our linebacker play is just not good. Ezeh, like Steve Schilling (who will come in for a tsk-tsk-ing in the offensive UFR), has the dual excuses of youth and position switches; Chris Graham does not. At this point it's not awful, but neither player beat a run block to make a play all game and there were only a couple instances where either one managed to avoid a block and make a play at or around the line of scrimmage. Michigan did an excellent job of containing the outside run with Harrison and Crable, leaving in the inside to the DTs and the LBs. Mendenhall won that battle more often than not and it was only excellent tackling by the secondary that kept him from having a truly prodigious day. (Colin has much more on this in his own niche UFR thing focusing on Ezeh and Graham.)

Also: Taylor and Johnson weren't much more effective against the zone read than they were in the first week of the season. Taylor did make a couple plays, but +2 is a weak day for a DT playing against a lot of interior run plays.

What does it mean for Minnesota?

Hopefully as little as anything else does against what may be the worst BCS team
in the country. Minnesota's offense has been decent so far this year and they run the dread spread, but their redshirt freshman quarterback has been an interception machine. The defenses they've opposed so far are Ohio State and a bunch of slack-jawed yokels; Michigan is closer to the former than the latter these days and should do better than the 20 Indiana gave up.

Site note: There appears to be a pattern and cause for the intermittent site issues for some viewers. The browser affected appears to be Firefox on a Mac. The cause is excessive youtube embedding. I'll cut back on the Wolverine Historian embeds and try to keep the flash down in the future. Also, sorry about the late and flimsy content. I am way behind this week and have to spend the day in intensive UFR mode to get them up tomorrow.

Thought you might find this interesting. I'm enjoying the ND losses so much I decided to plot the cumulative winning percentage of Michigan and Notre Dame over time.

(click for big)

Pretty sure it's accurate as I've compared my database with Stassen's at various times.

Mike

That margin looks small, but I believe it's at 6.5 games after this weekend's results. You can see the Bo bump in the early 70s and then a very slight upward trend since; Notre Dame has been in decline since the 60s with brief bursts of competence.

Many of yesterday's comments echoed this:

Brian

I read your blog daily and most of the time thoroughly enjoy it. Your in-depth coverage is entertaining and informative. However...

Your constant nit-picking and general negativity is wearing a little thin on me. A win is a win, and therewere extenuating circumstances that I believe make this a great, repeat, great Michigan victory. In a season filled with ridiculous results, I think it's time you opened your eyes a little and drank a bottle of perspective. You still seem hell-bent on writing off this season after the early losses. They lost two games. Get over it already and move on.

I however, am truly enjoying each and every game. Football is not a science. And it's not life or death. Relax a little and enjoy being a fan of Michigan football.

Respectfully yours,

Roger Greenspan

I admit being surprised at two things: the generally uncritical reaction to the shoddy nature of the win and the often extremely critical reaction to the game post yesterday, which I thought would be uncontroversial.

First: I am capable of independent thought even in the presence of other people with opinions, and if you are theorizing that the person adjacent to me poisoned my view of an excellent road win you must consider the possibility that Brent Musberger, a mobile hagiography, may have distorted your view of an ugly win against an incompetent team coached by a guy who many consider a dolt.

Second: Of course I am hung up on the first two games of the year. I would remind you that we went from national championship contenders to national laughingstocks in two quick weeks in the senior years of Jake Long, Chad Henne, and Mike Hart largely because the team was woefully ill-prepared to stop a I-AA team that could not throw. The horrendous coaching breakdowns that led to the parade of mistakes do continue to color my opinion of the team and the year and will do so until the sun expands and consumes the earth. Given Carr's well-established track record it would be silly to do otherwise.

Third: Was it really that negative? I mean:

This was slightly annoying. I, of course, still had my arms above my head, signaling touchdown, and Person Accompanying Me was busy criticizing impending victory moments after an audaciously successful trick play. She was basically right -- Illinois handed us the game, but only after we had attempted to hand it to them and then they had attempted to hand it back and then we had attempted to hand it back back -- but, like, come on now. Sure, this had all the beauty of the Soviet Bloc interior of Memorial Stadium, about which more later, but victory was likely ours. Eventually that counts for something.

After the thing had finally come to its disjointed end, a sense of relief filtered in. Michigan survived a potential minefield. It was ugly and sordid and dirty but it was a win, and now Michigan is going to play Ohio State for the Rose Bowl unless the roof caves in against both State and Wisconsin. This is a long way from 0-2 and being a national laughingstock; Carr has once again picked his charges up off the mat and driven them towards respectability. We can wish this peculiar talent of Carr's was less firmly established, but we should be thankful for it at the same time.

Let's try again: November 17th for all the marbles, at least in Bo's world, and a chance at a happy ending for Carr and Henne and Hart and Long and us.

In a nutshell: this is that Wisconsin game where a punt bounced off Brett Bell, it was ugly and let's get out of Dodge, I'm happy we won, let's go beat Ohio State. I am looking for the part where I lose touch with reality and turn into a crabby old man demanding cranberry juice and hating life.

Four: Please keep in mind that I was in the endzone and everything looked one missed tackle away from a touchdown. I reserve the right to change my mind in UFR.

Five: I withdraw the bullet about the Henne substitution. I was not aware of the situation. Also...

As for Hart, who traveled to Illinois and was on the sideline in sweat clothes, it appears it could be a game-time decision whether he can play.

!!!

Now to something we can all agree on:

"People better enjoy it now," he said, shortly after his team's latest new low, a 38-0 home loss to previously staggering USC. "Have their fun now."--Chuckles

Is this guy serious? They are now 1-9 over their last 10 losing by an average of 24pts and this is what he has to say? I know you get heat sometimes for talking about ND too much, but this has gotten out of control. I can't imagine ever having to go through that. Losing to App State does not come anywhere close to comparing to what is going on down there. And then this fat bastard has the stones to say that we all need to have our fun now, because they are going to become some juggernaut. Anyway, I can't get enough of seeing him flame out and seeing their program hit such a low level and was hoping these new quotes from CW would turn into an anti-ND post sometime soon.

I wish; during the season the day-to-day column-tuesday-UFR-UFR-preview thing really cuts down on available time to be mean. And I've said it all before. So little bashing except what hits a UV now and then.

Hey

The picture of J Leman is sweet and all, but have you checked out his profile on Illinois' site? Scroll down and check out the sidebar:

The Apostle Paul? Awesome!

Jake

J Leman is 100% pure Colombian awesome. That is all.

Brian,

You know who I'm talking about. [Email titled "James Laurinitius (sp)" -ed] I know you have previously taken the position that he was simply the beneficiary of the over-hype machine. Yes he had big turnover in big games, but his overall play was average at best to those of us who actually watched the games. I always felt the "sock puppets" simply wanted to anoint the next Big Kat, Hawk, Carpenter, etc. I haven't had the chance to watch much Ohio St. this season because their competition has been a joke so far. I've been reading a couple of mock drafts a
nd some mid-season all-American lists, and he is a constant. What am I missing? Has he really become a can't miss, above average linebacker?

Easy

This is not quite the position espoused here. Laurinaitis was on the All Big Ten team I put together last year, albeit on the second team, and in the Ohio State preview I recounted the Litany Against Laurinaitis, then made an allowance:

Depending on how much he improves he could warrant the breathless Musbergerisms he receives; I still would like to see it before believing it. My theory on Laurinaitis is that he's great in space but easy to block and my theory on the OSU DTs is adequacy at best -- no double-teams demanded here -- so I am compelled to predict a significant step backwards in Ohio State's run defense. Like... not awful or anything, but thorough averageness is a possibility.

It appears he has made this leap, though I haven't seen much of OSU yet and couldn't tell you for sure. The assertions about a potentially questionable OSU run defense appear to be wrong -- currently #2 nationally -- and he has something to do with that. Complaints about Laurinaitis being overrated belong to last year; I have no position on him yet this year.

10/20/2007 - Michigan 27, Illinois 17 - 6-2, 4-0 Big Ten

I've got this great idea
why don't we pitch it to the Franklin fuckin' Mint
fine pewter portraits of General Apathy and Major Boredom singing
whatever and ever, amen.

oh well, maybe not. I'll try again.

Greg Mathews was dragged down by his facemask; fifteen yards on what otherwise would have been fourth and long, another opportunity for Zoltan the Inconceivable to blow your mind with a 67 yard punt. A play later Mario Manningham was clubbed late out of bounds; first down at midfield. Michigan dutifully clunked its way to a fourth down and punted even though the refs kindly overlooked a blatant holding penalty. Zoltan lofted one to the ten as the Illinois returner settled under it, motioning for a fair catch. He dropped it.* Michigan recovered it. Two plays later Adrian Arrington took a reverse and threw into the endzone for the winning points. My hands shot skyward.

Not so impressed was the person accompanying me, a baseball enthusiast at her first football game with little tolerance for the ad-hoc and often arcane set of rules cobbled together to make the sport clatter along without imploding. (Attempting to explain what, exactly, constituted holding proved too baffling a concept for both explainer and explain-ee; eventually I just said it was like pornography -- I knew it when I saw it -- and left it at that.) To her, the whole series of events that had just transpired was sordid and cheap and wide receivers can throw the ball? So why don't they throw it always? And what's with the random events? Where is the storyline? Why is this so ugly? Etc etc etc.

This was slightly annoying. I, of course, still had my arms above my head, signaling touchdown, and Person Accompanying Me was busy criticizing impending victory moments after an audaciously successful trick play. She was basically right -- Illinois handed us the game, but only after we had attempted to hand it to them and then they had attempted to hand it back and then we had attempted to hand it back back -- but, like, come on now. Sure, this had all the beauty of the Soviet Bloc interior of Memorial Stadium, about which more later, but victory was likely ours. Eventually that counts for something.

After the thing had finally come to its disjointed end, a sense of relief filtered in. Michigan survived a potential minefield. It was ugly and sordid and dirty but it was a win, and now Michigan is going to play Ohio State for the Rose Bowl unless the roof caves in against both State and Wisconsin. This is a long way from 0-2 and being a national laughingstock; Carr has once again picked his charges up off the mat and driven them towards respectability. We can wish this peculiar talent of Carr's was less firmly established, but we should be thankful for it at the same time.

Let's try again: November 17th for all the marbles, at least in Bo's world, and a chance at a happy ending for Carr and Henne and Hart and Long and us.

*(MIND BULLETS!!!)

Bullets:

• Adding to the ugliness was the inside of Memorial Stadium, which looks like it was built in a Warsaw Pact country circa 1952, all concrete so gray the term "gray" seems insufficient to describe its grim colorlessness. The tenor of the place turned North Korean at halftime when the student section held up a series of placards that created various effects: block Ms and Is, goal posts, the ABC logo, "Zook" spelled out in orange and blue.
• The outside, it should be noted, is quite pretty.
• Are Illinois fans issued "Muck Fichigan" t-shirts upon matriculation? Seemingly 30% of the crowd had them, including several middle-aged men who looked otherwise respectable. Next year in the MGoStore look for shirts that just say "Nobody Cares About You," perfect for Illinois or Michigan State or, well... anybody on the schedule. Wooo 21st century scheduling.
• Watching from the endzone was a terrifying experience because without much of a vantage point -- the Memorial Stadium field is not sunken at all -- it looked like virtually every Illinois play was going for an 80 yard touchdown before Adams or Englemon came in to tackle. Don't know if its an artifact of the scheme or the spread, but the safeties had 18 tackles between them... our linebackers were not doing much of a job.
• I am starting to get concerned about Mallett. He should be better by now. The interception should never have been thrown, he fumbled two more snaps, his accuracy is lacking, and early he scrambled out of trouble, directed Greg Mathews to run a route away from the defender and inexplicably held onto the ball even though Mathews had broken wide open. He should be better than Clausen.
• At this point in his career, Steve Schilling is mediocre at best.
• When did Carson Butler get so ponderous?
• Is there any plausible explanation for the Henne-Mallett substitution pattern? Obviously they have no faith in Mallett and the offense turns into run run throw punt when he's in there; Henne was able to tough out his injury and return. Did the coaches really think a damaged Henne was worse than Mallett, and if so how does that square with their playcalling?
• Illinois fans have a bad rep amongst Michigan fans, but we had no problems. The guys directly in front of us were friendly; the third quarter was mostly spent having sarcastic chuckles at the ineptness of both teams.
• Why did we have to use a challenge on the Arrington touchdown? Credit to Lloyd for deploying it there, but how blind does the replay official have to be to not immediately signal for review? That's a crucial play that was eventually overturned... how can it not be close enough for another look?
• There is a place near campus called CO Daniel's. The floor there is just like the floor in hell.