northwestern

'House. Jimmy Johns delivers coke so fast you'll freak*, and 'Bama is one scholarship closer to cramming everyone in the phone booth. Just like Saban planned. (Thanks to the dozen or so emailers on this... more email than I've received on a single topic in blog history, I think.)

I think I should revise my position here: Saban's managed to sluff off most of his roster deadweight on medical scholarships of dubious merit and it looks like there will be no outright cuts. So this is not PURE EVIL, as previously theorized. It is still KIND OF EVIL, a highly unethical way to game the system that makes Alabama hope something like 20 Fulmer Cup points happens. As the JCCW says:

...I doubt Lionel Mitchell probably thinks very much of the crunch. I have zero clue how severe his back injury might be, but either a) it's hella severe, career-threatening, painful as anything, and still even 'Bama fans are writing things like "If I had to wager, I would bet there's nothing wrong with his back" and believing he was just too crappy to keep his scholarship; b) it's not that severe, but rather than wait and see if he could come back from it and contribute, his coach has told him his career's over anyway. Neither seems like a scenario that would make Lionel Mitchell happy.

Second: I certainly don't blame 'Bama fans for not wanting to put the 2 of Lewis's surprise academic disqualification--which even OTS said was "dumbfound[ing]," "never made sense," and left him with "no clue"--and the 2 of "'Bama needs scholarships" together.

Word.

Also at the FanHouse: if you have Time Warner you may be getting good news about the Big Ten Network soon.

(HT: Pete Holiday.)

Vic Sprouse might want to buy a disguise kit. The West Virginia Record describes itself as "West Virginia's legal journal" and one Vic Sprouse comes down on Rich Rodriguez's side in the ongoing spat:

Looking at the RichRod saga now through the prism of knowledge of the utter disaster that is the Garrison administration, it is apparent that they ran Rich off.

I believe Rich is telling the truth when he said the entire relationship changed when Garrison took over. His relationship with Pastilong changed. His relationship with Garrison changed. And, before you know it, Garrison was wanting to show he was the new Sheriff in town and he wasn't going to accept ANY ADDITIONAL demands of Rich Rodriguez.

What a shame.

Michigan lucked out because West Virginia is the sort of backwards place where the governor can appoint an unqualified unversity president the entire faculty thinks is a dolt, and that president and his athletic director can poison their relationship with one of the best coaches in the country. Rodriguez fell into our laps just when we were going to start scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Tangent:

First, one thing I can't take is just how often Rich refers to himself in the third person. That is such a bad habit, someone needs to break him of it, it's tough to listen to him say "Rich Rodriguez" over and over.

Bob Palcic was in 'Nam!

I don't have as much revenue as the Big Ten, so I can only read a couple sentences from this Sports Business Journal article:

The Big Ten Conference generated more than $177 million in revenue during its 2006-07 fiscal year, according to documents filed this month with the Internal Revenue Service.

Anyone got the full monty on this? I assume it has interesting Big Ten Network details.

Worst. Comic. Ever. Andy Staples has an entertaining piece on the constant race to stay one step ahead of the NCAA's recruiting regulations. The real meat, though, is an honest-to-god recruiting tool used by Oregon to land Jonathan Stewart, who you may remember from such runs as "Aaargh," "Aaaargh not again," "I want to die," and "How many points do they have now?" It's a comic book. The worst comic book ever made. This is perhaps my favorite stupid part of many stupid parts:

Yes, son, at the moment of your glory the camera focuses on... Phil Knight!

The comic's "plot" consists of a kindly old grandfather telling his towheaded little brat all about the legend of "Snoop," AKA Jonathan Stewart. That grandfather is... familiar.

Ga na gon na ga that's right.

Follow up. Lake The Posts landed an interview with the Northwestern sign-stealing guy that's worth a read. There's this on Payne's tendencies -- the Luther Van Dam bit:

As I broke down the film of Michigan's offense in '95 I thought there was a possible tendency with the center's non-snapping hand. I went back and checked every snap and sure enough the tendency was about 95% that when his hand was on the ground it was run and when he had it on his thigh it was pass. This was not signal stealing, this was just a tendency found way before the game was even played. But it was a GREAT help for our defense. (As a GA I was in the coaching booth for games and was not stealing signals.) This is not exactly unfair tactics on our part but more of an error on their part. Either they coached the center to do the hand thing or the kid was doing it himself and their coaches never noticed. Either way it was their own fault.

That speaks to a certain complacency, I think. I wonder how many other teams noticed?

Etc.: normally I am a Michael Rosenberg fan but I have to agree with BSD and their fisking of his BTN-Comcast column. Said column made no sense. Vijay's trying to figure out if ESPN's any better at ranking players. Autumn Thunder makes a triumphant return. More pictures of stuff, this the football practice facility.

A day after I trash the Free Press for focusing on things like Tae Bo instead of information, Mark Snyder puts out an interesting piece about the '97 championship and the ballboys that saved it. This is literally the headline: "How 2 ballboys stopped opponent's signal stealing, saved UM's 1997 title."

The story: two student managers ferret out that Northwestern has somehow stolen Michigan's offensive signals, and run over to the other side of the field at half time to urge Lloyd Carr and company to change things up. After being bottled up in the first half, scoring thirteen points, Michigan explodes for... uh... ten in the second. Without the student manager's contribution, Michigan could have lost to Northwestern by negative one touchdown. The final score was 23-6.

Okay, so the story is oversold. It's still pretty interesting as a tall tale from the past, and you should read it if you've got a few minutes. My take-home message was vastly different from what was intended, I think.

Sitcom football

Some key passages:

"There was a guy on their sideline that day, and he had our signals down pat," Datz said. "Every time, he would scream into the defense what we're going to do -- pass or run -- and he was almost always right. ...

"They were blowing up draws, calling our counters and destroying our screen passes -- all a big part of our plays that year. I was just screaming mad. Youtan and I are thinking to ourselves, 'This guy has us.' "

Raise your hand if you think you could predict with 80% certainty whether a Michigan play would be a run or pass. It is possible they just co-opted a cranky 50-something Michigan fan.

Anyway, the kids run across the field and tell Carr early in the third quarter. This is the result:

"I absolutely remember that," Carr said recently. "The reason I do remember it is I don't ever remember anybody else offering advice or information during a game.

"Those are all bright guys that get into those positions. But that's the only time I remember one telling me something."

But that still wasn't enough for the coaches to change their signal calling. So later in the quarter, Datz said he ran around the field to repeat the message to Magnus.

The play that finally sold the U-M coaches on the need to adjust came on a third-and-25 with less than three minutes left in the third quarter. That's when U-M tailback Clarence Williams ran a sweep -- an odd call for that down and distance -- and two Wildcats grabbed him behind the line of scrimmage.

It's only after this play that Michigan grabs Jason Kapsner and starts sending in multiple sets of signals. But this is the kicker:

In 1995 and '96, Hansburg said, all he had to do was watch U-M center Rod Payne, a one-handed snapper who apparently placed his opposite hand on the ground for a running play and on his thigh for a passing play.

This was the plot of an episode of Coach. When the Minnesota State Screaming Eagles play for the national championship in the Pioneer Bowl, ditzy assistant coach Luther Van Dam (Jerry Van Dyke) gets concussed and has to watch from the hospital, where he notices one offensive lineman has totally different stances for run and pass. He calls in the tip and Hayden Fox gets a Gatorade bath. I was 14, and 14 years later I remember this clear as day.

Reading Johnny's piece yesterday was the love side of my love-hate relationship with Lloyd Carr. This is the hate side. ONE: Michigan didn't bother employing multiple signal-callers -- a zero-cost activity -- from day one. TWO: It took them a full quarter and a second prodding to actually act on the information provided by the student managers when the cost of listening was zero. THREE: They ran a sweep on third and twenty-five. FOUR: Michigan football was outsmarted by Jerry Van Dyke.

Silver spoon, coal spoon

None of this should surprise you. This was a program that would run 95% of the time it lifted its starting wide receivers. Lloyd Carr thought deception and trickery had their place in football, and that place was Northwestern.

When you are at a place like Michigan and you have been inculcated in the culture of the program for the vast majority of your coaching career, I think you take certain things for granted. One of them is the belief that a paramount focus on execution is enough. That if you motivate and educate and drill better than the other team, you will win. It did very well for Bo until he got to Pasadena, and it did pretty well for Carr until Tressel showed up (and, it must be said, Carr had a real run of rotten luck re: actually getting to use his senior quarterbacks), but it was always giving something away. You have a limited amount of time with your charges every week; there is always time to work on your poker skills. Michigan's been bad at poker forever.

Rich Rodriguez focuses on execution and motivation -- see Barwis -- but he also makes deception his stock-in-trade, creating a modern version of the triple option that has intricate variations and one end result: linebacker confetti. In a way, the spread 'n' shred is terribly predictable. They run, they run, they run. But you do not run more than all but five other teams and finish top five in YPC three years running unless you know when to bluff and when to raise.

Rodriguez comes from a wholly different background than Carr, coming up through the ranks at NAIA schools and Tulane and Clemson and West Virginia. Until Pat White showed up he never had a significant talent advantage agaginst the vast majority of opponents. He never, ever had the luxury of lying back and thinking to himself "if we out-execute the opponent we will win," and it shows. He invented a whole new offense and used it to exploit inefficiencies in recruiting. To seal the Sugar Bowl against Georgia he called a fake punt, exploiting inefficiencies in fourth-down playcalling. For the past seven years he has played Moneyball at West Virginia.

To me, the exciting thing about Rodriguez is not necessarily his system but his mindset. He's looking to squeeze out every ounce of expectation, make every resource stretch as far as he can, and now he's been provided resources few other coaches have. When Moneyball moved to Boston in the personage of Theo Epstein, Pedro Martinez got a hat:

Hats! Hats for all! And to all a good night!

no video; sorry.

Aiigh 300 yard first half burn!

We should really look at the chart.

B... burn?

No.

Ch... chart?

Chchart it is.

Are you high? We gave up 300 first half yards to a team that lost to Duke and ran for six inches against Ohio State and you hand out pluses like it's ecstasy at a rave?

Uh. Right, this was my impression as things progressed: "why are all these numbers so high?" It's like I'm suddenly dependent on assistant coaches for the information I receive. Some possible explanations:

• 64 of Northwestern's yards (ok, 56, we can give them an eight-yard out there) came on that fluky he's-down-no-he-isn't opening play. I didn't assign blame here.
• Michigan came out in this funky 3-3-5 that was not what reader DanK suggested in that guest post about slowing down the spread running attack. (More on this later.) Then they stunted out of this thing; several times when they did this Northwestern played paper (hey, no fair!) and Michigan was screwed from the snap. Several gashing runs have no minuses, the occasional five-yarder has a plus, etc. This is a sign you got outcoached. Maybe I should start tracking some RPS stats. I should.
• The D forced five turnovers. This tends to inflate numbers.
• Bacher had a weird day where he was either throwing something horribly behind his intended receiver or feathering a beauty sideline pass. A couple completions actually came coupled with pluses: the slant Harrison jumped that he deflected to a Wildcat, the sideline completion against Warren that was hugely difficult for both WR and QB, a few short throws that were snuffed out immediately upon the catch.

So... yeah. I think the defensive line and secondary both had excellent days. The linebackers, no so much, but whatever.

Speaking of that sideline completion late in the first half...

Right, we challenged it, and I'm totally on board with that.

The addition of the challenge has been mostly superfluous in college. Since every play is reviewed (and referees have apparently taken to standing over the ball waiting for the booth to get a look after potentially controversial game-changing plays, a change I am totally in favor of) anyway, the coaches' challenge usually sits unloved on the sideline, deployed as often as Notre Dame scores a touchdown. I believe this is the first time that Michigan has ever deployed a challenge, and it was a good use of the resource. 1) We were highly unlikely to use it in the second half. See the previous couple sentences. 2) We didn't need the timeout for anything else. 3) It was a close play.

So what about this 3-3-5 thing?

That was ugly, especially since this space ran (and endorsed) a guest post claiming that a 3-3-5 would be a more effective run defense against the spread option that shredded us so in the first couple games. A recap: since defensive ends usually run themselves upfield in a 4-2, you're asking both DTs to have two-gap responsibility. This is kind of tough. A formation like this:

Gives you a better shot at stopping a spread run game, or at least that's how the theory goes. An embarrassing instance of being wrong, wrong, wrong? Maybe. But...

...this is a snapshot from the 49-yard touchdown run. Note the splits between the DT and the DEs. In our diagram above, the DEs are lined up between the guard and tackle. This is 3-technique (I believe, correct me if I'm wrong). Here the DEs are lined up outside of the tackles, which is 5-technique. This is basically a 4-2 with one DT lined up over the center. Also one of the DEs is Shawn Crable and the DT is John Ferrara (I think). This is not what is suggested above. We stunt off this, slanting Crable inside and looping Graham around...

...Crable gets ridden out of the play and Graham gets picked off by the pulling tackle; Conteh into the second level...

...and from there Jamar Adams misses a tackle and he's off. This was the most disastrous instance, but several other times we lined up in this on second and long and got burned by it. You can't have one guy between the tackles and expect to defend anyone's run game.

Yeah, what is the deal with all the stunting and looping and stuff?

I don't know. It seems too cute, especially on downs the offense can run against. We did this frequently against Appalachian State and paid for it. (Oregon, I believe, was more conventional but against a really fantastic trio of runners.) Meanwhile, whenever Taylor is in the game he's playing Gabe Watson and driving someone's ass into Bacher. Like... line up and out-execute them.

You did not just say that.

I did.

Hypocrite.

Well... I was being sort of ironic. What I don't like from the defense is its slight case of Weis-itis. The 3-3-5 with canyon splits on second and long. The third and ten from NW's one on which we assumed they would run and gave up a long conversion. The stunting around an Appalachian State line that should have spent the day eating Taylor's facemask five yards in the backfield.

There is one aspect of this I do like: when Michigan has gotten its opponents in situations that have no threat of a run, they have been deadly. See either NW drive where they trailed late, the final PSU drive, and the entire Notre Dame game. When permitted to tee off on an opponent that can't threaten a run, Crable and Jamison and BGraham have been dominant, often because of the stunting.

My problem with the defensive playcalling is game theory based. Sev
eral times in this game Michigan put Northwestern in a second and long. In this situation you want to lower variance, since most second and longs result in a punt. Michigan frequently deployed that 3-3-5 with huge splits and stunted; this is a high variance strategy that either results in an unblocked guy or two or a gaping hole. Similarly, on third and ten from the one you want a low-variance play call that results in fourth down from the one or the five or the nine... just fourth down. Instead, Michigan puts eight in the box and bites on play action, leaving Ross Lane open for a twenty-yard conversion.

(Note that you want to avoid predictability here, too, so the occasional unexpected/"wrong" sort of call is okay. No one call can be wrong, like no one raise can be wrong in poker, but over time exploitable patterns emerge.)

Goats?

Adams was the big culprit on the long touchdown run. As per usual, Michigan got little production from the linebackers. Chris Graham is an opponent big play waiting to happen.

Heroes?

Crable, obviously, but also Taylor -- finally as dominant as we expected -- and Harrison. I thought the coverage in the secondary was very good all around; hopefully that signals improvement and not merely "we played Northwestern."

What does it mean for Eastern or, more likely, Purdue?

We will get an immediate check to see whether or not the secondary is actually getting better with the Boilers rolling into town. They're like an upgraded version of Northwestern: scatter-shot QB in a spread offense that's more pass than run. Except Purdue has a better RB with Sutton out, way better receivers, and probably a better offensive line. We'll know lots more after this weekend versus Ohio State.

sorry about the video; had to do it myself this week and it's taken directly from a 480x480 source, so the aspect ratio is a little wonky. if you're viewing in a good player you can change it to 4:3.

Can you express my seething rage via the medium of embeddable flash video?

Yes.

Can you express my seething rage in a numerical fashion?

Sure!

• Average yards on first down passes: 8.7.
• Average yards on first down runs: 1.6.
• Number of first down passes: 14.
• Number of first down runs: 16.

(Note that a holding penalty against Tim MacAvoy was counted against the runs; remove that and the average skyrockets to 2.4. The last drive was not included in these numbers; they are not distorted by time considerations.) For the record, Mallett's average yards on first down: 10.5.

So is Mike Debord retarded or what?

Basically. Mallett's one successful drive was the one in which they gave him multiple shots at testing the Northwestern secondary. The thing about Mallett's performance so far is that, while it's not good, he will blow a down doing general freshman things and then do something badass. If you run it for four yards the first two downs, his freshman down means punt. If you give him some margin for error against possibly the worst secondary on the planet, he moves the team. Not as effectively or efficiently as Henne, but better than one first down in four drives.

But the most frustrating thing is that Debord has shown the ability to be at least average and maybe even good at his job. Against Penn State last year we opened up with something like 17 of 21 passes. Against OSU our first drive was a beautifully executed touchdown march; we broke out a couple of successful Arrington wheel routes; we scored 39 points. There is a clear indication that when Debord/Carr/Michigan respects and fears an opponent we get the full toolkit. When we don't we get the first half against Northwestern. And usually this leads to a win. But the arrogance behind the strategy was a major reason for The Horror ending up a loss instead of an uncomfortably close game we win 45-34. And as they say, we must Never Forget. Whenever you see someone wearing an Appalachian State shirt, think back to our two-deep zone against a team we didn't even bother to scout. Think back to Hart riding a bike through most of the second and third quarters. All vestiges of the mentality that permitted The Horror must be seen for what they are and purged.

This game could easily have become The Horror II; no forgiveness is offered to the coaching staff that learned nothing from the most humiliating loss in NCAA history.

Why are we so predictable?

This is not noted above, but the return of Laterryal Savoy has also brought with it the return of the Jermaine Gonzalez/Carl Tabb Memorial Wide Nonreceiver Package. Several times in the game Michigan lifted the actual receivers for Savoy and Hemingway. Every time this was a run. There is, of course, the run left on every starting play of every game. There is the mindboggling decision to offset Mike Hart on second and six on Mallett's second drive. We're running except when we have no other option, it's a potential run down, and we come out and tell them we're passing. We spit on you, deception.

A quick review of the plays above should reveal one startling thing: the letters "PA" appear nowhere. Michigan ran play action zero times. (They attempted to run a waggle once; Henne fumbled the snap.) Hell, we ran exactly one misdirection play, an end-around to Manningham, the entire game. Whenever our offensive line starts moving to one side or the other, defenders can sell out to stop a zone play and be right 95% of the time.

There are a lot of reasons for this. Some of it is truly the coaches being arrogant/stupid/whatever, like the WR package thing. There is no possible justification for it. Other things appear to be systemic flaws in the zone running game we've adopted. For whatever reason, the only play action we can run off of it is the waggle, which exposes the quarterback to a charging defensive end and is ill-suited for deep balls, at least as it is currently conceived. And our counter options are limited, I guess, though we do have a couple that just aren't being deployed. But the primary motivation goes back to Bo. This is the mentality of the program:

"Now I have to admit – since I'm being as honest as I can be here – there was a time when I doubted if fundamentals were still enough to produce top-notch football teams. I even wondered if the game had passed me by.

This crisis of confidence occurred after our infamous 1984 season, when we finished 6-6. In the off-season I went to one of these national coaching conferences with a few hundred other coaches, and they had some hotshot young high school coach from California explain his new whiz-bang system of defense.

He had zones two deep, three deep, man-to-man, and combinations of the two. That really caught my eye. I'm thinking, Maybe you've got to do all those things to win these days. Maybe our approach at Michigan is just too simple too succeed in the modern eara. Boy, that was an awful feeling.

But after this guys finishes his slide show, someone in the audience raises his hand asks, "If your defensive schemes are so great, then why did your team give up 400 yards a game last season?"

Well I wanted to hear this! The hotshot replied – and I will never forgot this – "We were just a poor tackling team."

Well, hell! That tells you all you need to know! Throw out 50 percent of that fancy stuff and spend fifeeen more minutes every day practicing the most basic thing in football: TACKLING, that's all...I walked out of that auditorium and I knew what were going to do: Get back to basics! Get back to Michigan football! And I was determined we were going to do it better than anyone else...

Want the whole thing in a nutshell? Just talk to Bubba Paris. It's midseason, 1981, we're ranked sixth in the nation and we're playing an unranked Michigan State squad. We're ahead maybe 14-0, and we drive down the field again, bang, bang, bang – until we're looking at first-and-goal on their three-yard line.

We get in the huddle and call our play – but Smiley Creswell, State's defensive tackle, thinks he's got our signals figured out, so he starts yelling to his teammates "Off-tackle right! Off-tackle right!"

Now, on this 1981 team we have a front line of Ed Muransky, Kurt Becker, George Lilja, and Bubba Paris – every one of them an All-American. This is not a line you want to be messing with. Bubba hears all this commotion coming from the Spartans, but he just saunters up to the line as only Bubba could do – he was 6-5, 310 – and calmly gets down in his stance. Then he looks across the line at Smiley Creswell and says, "That's right. It's an off-tackle play. It's coming right over you. And there's nothing you can do about it."

Three seconds later Bubba flattens Creswell. Our tailback just walks through the hole Bubba made, and he's in the Spartan end zone, untouched
, handing the ball to the referee, Michigan-style. Touchdown!

We didn't fool 'em. We just beat em!

Now that is execution! That is confidence! THAT IS MICHIGAN FOOTBALL."

That's from Bo's Lasting Lessons, and it definitely worked in 1969 and 1979 and 1985. Obviously, it no longer does in an era of 85 scholarships and transfers and the increased profile and desire to win across the country. No longer can Michigan expect to out-work and out-execute its foes without getting any help from the men calling the plays.

Charts?

Charts. Hennemallettchart:

(Legend for this one.)

Henne outperformed the freshman, as you might expect. But the thing is to look at the negative categories forced by the opponent: just seven instances against 35 plays that the NW defense did not seriously impact. Compare that to Penn State: 12 instances against 21 other plays. Clearly, the NW pass defense is way behind just about everyone on the schedule, and there's no reason the coaching staff wouldn't see that coming -- see the Duke QB's numbers -- and no reason not to start off exploiting the big flashing weakness, especially when NW was loading up against the run.

Receiverchart:

(brief legend:

• 0 == totally uncatchable.
• 1 == very difficult catch requiring circus-like propeties.
• 2 == tough but makable
• 3 == routine.

)

Another fine day for the receivers. I am thinking about softening my expectations here, since it doesn't make much sense to have one category that's "impossible to catch" and another that is being caught at a 4% rate.

Aaand Genuinely Sarcastic has your Hart Chart. Not nearly as negative as I thought it would be, though it grades out at a +3 overall, down from +14 against Penn State. It does reflect my opinions of Boren (second straight tough game) and Massey (can't block).

Heroes?

Henne. QB controversy that did not exist in the first place is over. And Manningham had an excellent day that should have put those "he's a sulky baby" rumors to rest, except now he's suspended for EMU. w00t.

Goats?

Boren has an excuse as a first year starter. MacAvoy has an excuse as the third-string right guard. But how can Adam Kraus justify getting his ass kicked all day by Northwestern defensive tackles? The interior OL was awful all day against a NW defense that has been sliced like ginsu. Our penetration problems can no longer be chalked up to Penn State being this run-stopping machine. (By the way, Illinois had 216 yards rushing against Penn State despite having the infinite suck of Juice Williams as their quarterback.)

Oh, and whoever thought spending the entire first half running into the line against the nation's 114th-ranked pass efficiency defense was a good idea. Hmmmmm.

What does it mean for Eastern or, more likely, Purdue?

Purdue's defense might be totally horrendous, but it m
ight just be prone to packing it in with seemingly safe leads in the second half. Purdue led Minnesota 24-3 at the half and 38-17 after three quarters and ceded two meaningless fourth quarter touchdowns; the Boilers were up 23-0 on ND before letting the Irish back into the game, or at least as "back into the game" a team as bad as Notre Dame can be. The preseason prognostication on this team was much better against the pass, crappy linebackers, and wildcard defensive line... initial returns should be downgraded a bit. We'll see what happens against Ohio State. Henne's back and the full playbook should be available.

When Mike Debord plays rock-paper-scissors, he always picks rock.

Rock totally beats scissors. Why would anyone pick anything else? Sure, occasionally someone will throw his own rock, but this is Michigan. We can out-execute their rock. And there are rumors of this thing called "paper". Apparently it beats rock, which seems darned unsporting, but Mike Debord will believe that when Mike Debord sees it. We can probably out-execute paper, too. Some people will hypothesize that the potential existence of paper warrants the occasional scissors throw, but only three things can happen when you throw scissors and two of them are bad. The idea of throwing "paper" is to be regarded with naught but scorn. Oooh, a Snickers bar! Mike Debord likes Snickers and will let pet monkey Bonzo call a series as he enjoys a candy bar.

Hey, Bonzo scored a touchdown. Now we're ahead. Let's go back to rock. Rock beats scissors.

Rock, rock. Definitely rock. Rock. Judge Wapner's on at ten.

--------------------------------------------------

I had a dream literally moments ago that jolted me awake at 8:30 -- this is early for me -- after a weekend of getting up insanely early to drive to or from Chicago and drinking heavily. In this dream, Michigan was playing some team. It might have been Eastern, it might have been Washington. After an impressive opening touchdown drive, Michigan sent walk-on Nick Sheridan out to play quarterback. He completed a third down post. Then Michigan sent out four offensive linemen -- no right guard -- as the PA announcer said that today they were honoring the Bellevue Wolverines, singled out Steve Schilling as Michigan's lone Bellevue-ian, and ran behind him. Schilling could not out-execute three defenders and the play went for a loss. Oops let's punt.

This proceeded, as Michigan clung to a 7-0 lead whilst rotating in a vast cast of characters that had no business on the field and calling ridiculous plays that were destined to fail. Perhaps the best exemplar of the ridiculous things Michigan was doing came when yet another walk-on quarterback entered the game -- Michigan's fifth or something -- without even so much as a jersey. Instead, the new quarterback wore a Judd-Nelson style 80s jean jacket with The Realests spray-painted on it sort of where a name would go if this was an actual jersey and not an item of clothing ripped directly from The Breakfast Club. Also spray-painted on the jean jacket was the number seven.

It was at this point that I lost it. (This didn't seem like the trigger at the time, but the Michigan coaching staff inserting bloggers into the game and not picking me must have been intolerable.) Finding myself standing on the sidelines, I ran across the field between plays with the intent of finding Mike Debord and berating him or headbutting him so that his nose bled and bled and bled and Bonzo had to take over (note: don't try this, kids! MGoBlog does not advocate acting on the crazy id impulses of your dreams!) and that Michigan would yank The Realests and put in its actual starting quarterback and run actual plays. But all I found over there was my father. We crabbed about the playcalling and looked on dolorously, waiting for lightning to strike and for Michigan to blow it.

Eventually it rained.

-----------------------------------

If respected Rocky Mountain News columnist Paul Campos can let our mutual acquaintance JJ write entire columns, I can yank the most perfect metaphor ever for what Michigan football seems to be in 2007: a unit of Redcoats in the Revolutionary war walking down the road in a block, getting picked off on all sides by guerrilla fighters. They drink tea and think "by crumbs, these chaps will never make it in a real war" and feel superior to the elusive guys who are cutting them down by the dozens.

-----------------------------------

And, of course, we won. By a seemingly comfortable score, even. No doubt this will be chalked up in certain Pravda-esque circles as grumble grumble BLOGS(!) grumble downfall of public politeness grumble internets bleah. Michigan won by twelve points and the nuts on the internet are livid. See how unreasonable they are. But it's not the nuts on the internet who inserted Chad Henne for the first drive of the game, watched him score a touchdown -- albeit one aided by a fortunate fourth-down facemask call not relevant to the play -- then sat him on the bench and ran Mike Hart zone left for two yards for the rest of the first half. Against a team that let Duke's quarterback -- who plays for Duke, which is Duke, people, friggin' goddamned Duke -- do this:

Northwestern stacked the line, leaving its corners on an island the entire first half, and Michigan called rock. Because eff you, that's why. The results: oops let's punt. Or miss chip shot field goals. They did this because they were playing Northwestern, nevermind that the Wildcats were clearly moving the ball up and down the field against Michigan -- over 300 yards in the first half alone -- and that Michigan had proven quite thoroughly that it couldn't stop the spread attack of a I-AA team. Nevermind that a play here and there and Michigan would have been facing a truly formidable halftime deficit against a team that lost to the above-mentioned Duke team. Nevermind that every time Ohio State threw it deep they scored a touchdown. Nevermind all that: throw rock. We will out-execute their paper.

We might forgive this outburst of stupidity if it was a one time thing, or something that Michigan might learn from. Obviously, it is not. Michigan arrogantly assumed its front six could stop a zone read play and sat in a cover two as Appalachian State shredded them for four first-half touchdowns. On the other side of the ball, a slightly dinged Mike Hart watched Brandon Minor take 13 handoffs for 3.8 yards per carry -- Hart would finish at 6.2 even if you completely remove his 54-yard touchdown run that briefly gave Michigan the lead -- and lose a fumble despite Michigan still trailing a I-AA team. The vast stubbornness, arrogance, and outright stupidity of Michigan's coaching staff led to the most embarrassing loss in college football history... and three weeks later they let a virtually identical script play out. They will never learn. They will always play football like it's 1978 and Northwestern's starting a 190 pound defensive tackle. And it will cost us. It already has, dearly.

To reiterate, to be as clear as possible: there is no excuse for what happened yesterday. Pulling Chad Henne when he was clearly healthy enough to play and telling Ryan Mallett to hand it off time and again into a stacked line -- no, I don't buy that Mallett's just failing to check off into pass plays; even a freshman can count to eight (or nine) -- when that was clearly not working turned a game that Michigan should
win 90% of the time into a game it wins 50% of the time. Michigan's failure to take advantage of the nation's 114th-ranked pass defense is criminally negligent coaching of the sort that led to Michigan's loss to Appalachian State. The historical record is clear: Michigan does this all the time. Lloyd Carr should be extended a hearty handshake at the end of the year and given a gold watch whether he wants it or not, and Mike Debord should be the next head coach of a North Korean Pop Warner team because it's still 1972 in North Korea.

Bullets that we are specifically not aiming at anyone in particular because violence is wrong, man.

• This was my first trip to a Northwestern game; it was worth returning. We drove to a lot maybe ten minutes from the stadium on Lake Michigan, parked there for free, and were surrounded by Michigan fans, some of whom were making bratwurst wrapped in bacon. Nice. Also, Tyler Ecker was there, as was Hot Dog Man. (Hot Dog Man? Hot Dog Man.) I managed to not spend the hour before the game screaming "why didn't you pitch the ball?" until I got cold-cocked, so I've got that going for me.
• Everything at Northwestern is named: the press box, the locker rooms, the weight room, the ring of honor, some terrace. I was busy looking for Stewart F. Mandel Pole, but there doesn't appear to be one.
• It must be really frustrating to be a Northwestern fan and to have fewer than half the fans at "home" games against Michigan.
• Did Michigan miss either of its starting linebackers at all? Maybe Thompson, as there were a lot of gashing runs in the first half, but there didn't appear to be a dropoff from Graham. And where is Jonas Mouton? This has gone on too long for a little ankle sprain. Brandon Logan was his replacement.
• A Brandon Harrison blitz worked. Me == stunned. It came from the backside, so Bacher couldn't side-step it.
• Yeah, Jason Gingell is officially not a good kicker. What happened to KC Lopata?
• Another hideously frustrating thing: as soon as it looked like there was even a chance at a field goal for the lead, Michigan went back into its caveman offense. Third and long after two running plays led to a bullet Henne post for a touchdown. We scored almost in spite of ourselves.
• The zone game is showing serious flaws in year two. We have no play action that isn't a waggle and precious little in the way of available misdirection.
• We do have some, though. Where was the TE-pull thing?
• This was another log for the "Lloyd Carr always coaches like he has a killer defense and a pounding ground game no matter the facts on the ground" theory.
• Pregame prediction: 27-17. Final score: 28-16. Oh, how I wish I wasn't right about that.
• Maybe we could cut down on the spleen in the comments? There was righteous complaining all weekend, which is fine and something heavily featured above, but we can just assume that anyone defending the coaching staff is an Ohio State plant, ignore them, and keep it constructive... maybe?

Hopefully this goes better than The Horror.

Re: sopcast. Sorry, guys. I could not find one already listed. Maybe someone in the comments can help.

I will be attending the game, then crashing in Chicago for the night, so content this weekend is unlikely.