amara darboh

[Bryan Fuller]

Previously: Krushed By Stauskas (Illinois 2014), Introducing #ChaosTeam (Indiana 2009), Revenge is Terrifying (Colorado 1996), Four Games In September I (Boston College 1991), Four Games In September II (Boston College 1994), Four Games In September III (Boston College 1995), Four Games In September IV (Boston College 1996), Pac Ten After Dark Parts One and Two (UCLA 1989), Harbaugh's Grand Return Parts One and Two (Notre Dame 1985), Deceptive Speed Parts One and Two (Purdue 1999)

Week One: 1993 Washington Part OnePart Two2002 Washington Twitch stream

Week Two: 2011 Notre Dame Part One, Part Two, Twitch stream

This Game: Full game, highlights, box score

MGoBlog Coverage: Preview, punt/counterpunt, recap, game column, GIFsUFR offense, UFR defense

I got started on this before the FOOTBALL BACK announcement, so I'll finish out the "non-conference" schedule over the next week while turning my focus to season preview content(!). After some consideration, I decided to look for a game that didn't have a deeply stressful ending. This one merely has a deeply stressful beginning.

Despite both teams getting off to dominating 2-0 starts, #4 Michigan and unranked Colorado aren't expected to play a particularly competitive game in week three of the 2016 season. The Buffaloes finished the previous year 4-8 and dead last in the Pac-12 South for the fourth straight season. Head coach Mike MacIntyre is in his fourth year and on thin ice. The first two weeks change the expectations from "abomination" to "a football team":

In this context a rousing blowout of in-state rival Colorado State does mean something. They squeezed by a 7-6 CSU team last year and spent big chunks of the last decade actually losing to them, so roaring out to a 30-point first-half lead and coasting the rest of the way is a notable improvement no matter how off this year's Rams are. How much improvement is an open question, but they could be a 6-6, 7-5 type outfit headed to Shreveport or wherever.

Vegas expects them to be Michigan's stiffest test to date, with a line more than two touchdowns closer than the UCF game. This shouldn't be close, but it should be a football game.

Vegas favors Michigan by 19.5 points. Here are the lineups, courtesy of 2016 Seth [click for big]:

Michigan offense vs. Colorado defense:

Colorado offense vs. Michigan defense:

Michigan enters this game banged up. After the typical obfuscating from Jim Harbaugh and the typical lack of a Wolverine depth chart, Michigan eventually fields a defense down two starters (CB Jourdan Lewis and DE Taco Charlton) and a key backup (DT Bryan Mone). In response to the uncertainty, Colorado issues a game week depth chart that would've been funnier if they hadn't explained all the jokes. Harbaugh gets peeved about it, giving us a controversy silly even by college football standards.

"I saw the depth chart," Harbaugh said. "I was trying to imagine how many people sat around and how many hours they worked on that. We've just found, I mean, when it comes to the depth chart, modern technology seems to have made the depth chart an outdated task by about 20 years. We've found studying last week's film of the opponent is the most accurate way of determining another team's depth chart."

And the jokes were bad!

With all of that out of the way, BTN is kind enough to show (most of) the Wolverines take the field.

Your announcers are Kevin Kugler and Matt Millen, possibly returning from The Joker's funeral.

Let's do the football, after THE JUMP.

Go on, argue. [Eric Upchurch]

A series covering Michigan's 2010s. Previously: TEs, FBs, and OL, best blocks, the aughts.

Methodology: The staff decided these together and split the writeups. Considering individual years but a player can only be nominated once.

QUARTERBACK

DENARD ROBINSON (2010)

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one shining moment [Bryan Fuller]

A decade after the 2010 season, Denard Robinson is still the NCAA Football cover guy. This is in part because the NCAA would rather have no money than share some of it with its players, but it also speaks to the hold Robinson had on college football's imagination. Robinson's career started with a near-literal bang and blossomed into a minor national obsession; it ended with Robinson playing running back in the Outback Bowl because his elbow didn't work anymore.

With some exceptions* NCAA Football cover guys were coming off either legendary team successes (Tim Tebow), legendary individual seasons (Charles Woodson), or both. Denard is the only guy on the cover who ended his final season injury-riddled in a bowl that is so barely New Year's Day that Northwestern's played in it. And when it was announced everyone went "obviously."

That's because Robinson was a video game quarterback brought to life. If you don't know what you're doing you pick the team with the fastest quarterback. You might mistake the snap button for the pitch button on the first snap. Might put the ball on the ground. And then it might not matter at all.

That was Robinson in 2009. In 2010 he won the starting job from Tate Forcier, nuked UConn, and then had one of the greatest individual games in Michigan history against Notre Dame: 24/40 passing, 244 yards, 1 TD, 0 INTs, and 258 yards rushing at 9.2 yards a pop. I am pretty sure the happiest I've ever been after a football game was sitting in the Notre Dame Stadium stands longer than I'd ever sat in the stands before:

When the band marched out, we thought that was our cue. I grabbed one of the souvenir mugs as we exited. When I got home I crudely carved "28-24" on it with a steak knife. It's in the closet. Our walk back was half-accompanied by the band. We met a goodly chunk of my family walking the other way, exchanged excited greetings, and then went about the business of getting out of town. We got to the Chili's just as the adrenaline wore off and the stomach reasserted itself.

A few minutes before everyone filed out Denard Robinson zinged a skinny post to Roy Roundtree on third down and finished the job himself. In the first half Robinson had snuck through a crease in the line, found Patrick Omameh turning Manti Te'o into a safety-destroying weapon, and ran directly at me until he ran out of yards.

He knelt down to give thanks, and that felt inverted.

He broke the NCAA record for rushing yards by a quarterback with 1702 yards at 6.6 YPC(!!!) and completed 63% of his passes for 8.8 YPA, 18 TDs and 11 interceptions. He didn't tie his shoes and he smiled all the time. He showed up to basketball games with Roy Roundtree like he was any other student.

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standing in the back next to Roy, Kenny Demens, and JB Fitzgerald [Eric Upchurch]

It didn't last—couldn't last. Rich Rodriguez managed to parlay the #2 S&P offense into a mostly deserved firing, Brady Hoke and Al Borges had no idea what to do with him, and Robinson's ulnar nerve started its slow decline. The "what if Rich Rodriguez didn't have the worst defense in Michigan history at the same time he had Denard Robinson" question is the decade's greatest counterfactual.

There are no other real contenders for this spot. The only other Michigan QB to get drafted this decade was Jake Rudock, who went in the sixth round after a one-year grad-transfer cameo. Shea Patterson does not look set to join them. And there's your decade in a nutshell: the best QB season was the first one, and then pro-style ruined everything.

-Brian

*[There was a two year period where EA had a different cover for every platform they made the game for, which led to guys like Utah QB Brian Johnson and WVU fullback Owen Schmitt on the cover. Most ignominiously of all, the 2009 wii version of the game had Sparty on the cover. The mascot. Also one year they put Boise State QB Jared Zabransky on the cover, presumably for the same reason Gameday occasionally visits Colgate or wherever.]

[After THE JUMP: Okay, we're not writing up this much again. Except maybe for the 4th place receiver as payback for not making him 1st string]

Hi it's a Norfleet. [Bryan Fuller]

[Site notice: It happened.]

You know those “make your all-time” lists that circulate in the offseason. That inspired me to make some themed versions, sort of like how Ace made his all-Beilein teams last year. Previously: The 5-stars. This week: Extracurricular Entertainment!

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Rule: This team is for those who made their contributions off the field. I don’t mean being a quiet model citizen; I mean doing things that we found entertaining, insane, or otherwise meme-worthy.

Cutoff Point: Had to exist in the Michigan consciousness during the Time of Blog (2005-present)

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Quarterback: David Cone

Please still exist please still exist please still exist DAMMIT.

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Why you gotta use MySpace, Notorious C.O.N.E.? Since stone age social media no longer hosts, former WR Toney Clemons filmed roommate/former QB David Cone in their apartment laying some sick rhymes (free mgoshirt to whoever can track down a copy of the album for us).

mrdave

Mr. Dave

Fortunately MVictors still has the audio, if the vid is gone for all time. But that video was so good.

Honorable Mention: Denard. How do you separate Brian’s kid’s name, Shoelace, the smile, Whaaaaat?!?, the cover of the last NCAA edition for a decade, and a crumpled up mailbox from the actual dilithium? You can’t, and the purpose of this list is to honor the Coners because these lists otherwise exist just for an excuse to put Denard at QB when you wouldn’t otherwise.

[after THE JUMP: bang bang]