donovan warren

Previously: Krushed By Stauskas (Illinois 2014)

We've come to know and love Indiana as the Big Ten's agent of chaos, excepting the butt-clenching three hours most every year when they play Michigan close wire to wire before falling short. The Hoosiers haven't beaten the Wolverines during my lifetime, yet they've come inches away from providing some of my most painful sports memories. This is the essence of modern Indiana football.

In 2009, we didn't know it was going to be like this. The programs hadn't played since 2006, a Michigan blowout. The Hoosiers hadn't ended the game within a score since 1999, when they had generational talent Antwaan Randle El. Their last win was in 1987. Yes, Michigan was coming off their worst year in... ever. They had a quarterback now and a win against Notre Dame. This was still Indiana. Michigan made it their homecoming game.

Our introduction: “The Wolverines and Hoosiers have already won three games apiece. That’s as many games as both teams won all of last season.”

Indiana had beaten Eastern Kentucky, Western Michigan, and Akron. The first two were one-score games at home. Those technically count, I guess.

While Michigan had easily beaten Eastern Michigan and—oh, hey—Western Michigan, Notre Dame had exposed some serious holes in the defense. It wouldn't take the Hoosiers long to find the gaps; after taking the opening kickoff, they went 80 yards in 11 plays, scoring on a fourth-and-two option pitch to receiver Tanden Doss. Doss easily broke the contain of redshirt freshman walk-on safety Jordan Kovacs, making his first career start.

It took Rich Rodriguez's offense all of 23 seconds to knot it up. Tate Forcier threw a flare screen to Carlos Brown and, well, let's just say Brown didn't have to deal with much contact:

Upon closer inspection, Martavious Odoms made one of the Mountain Goat Blocks of the Decade:

Pahokee forever.

[After THE JUMP: Even more Carlos Brown! Bad Forcier! Good Forcier! A Denard cameo! "Simultaneous possession"! Gum flying through the air!]

photoshoppers, start your GNUs

So we did the meet and greet Q&A thing, and other than the liveblog portion being pretty much a disaster, A+++ would do again. I couldn't type fast enough to keep up with all the good info in the Q&A so below I've written up those answers plus some we answered after the fact via email.

We're tentatively talking another one the Friday night before the Notre Dame game, so calendar that. If you're coming in from out of town, Jared of Sports Power Weekends, who sponsored this whole thing, mentioned he's putting together a trip for that weekend that includes tickets for the game and a private tour of the Big House before we do drinks and ALL THE SHANE MORRIS.

Some things went way better than expected and other things not so much. Didn't go well: We had no way to plug our mic into the speaker system, fortunately remembering just in time that bartenders have friends with guitar amplifiers. The other thing that could have gone better is we forgot to warn Brian that Jehu Chesson was in the audience before your favorite blogger launched into his heuristic reasoning as to why Amara Darboh would be more effective this year because Chesson is still a waif.

New heuristic: Chesson sitting = Heiko standing minus an inch.

Did go well: lots of luminaries showed up. Players current and former included Chesson, Countess, Donovan Warren, and John Duerr. An incomplete list of bloggers: Bryan Mac (aka BiSB), MGoPhotographers Eric Upchurch and Bryan Fuller, Burgeoning Wolverine Star, Lloyd Brady, M-Wolverine, Craig Ross, and LSAClassof2000. Epic shirts: Heiko's bubble screen smile, and a Branch-Morelli sweatshirt.

In things that surpassed all expectations, let me being with actual nicest guy in the universe Marlin Jackson himself. Walking out of the game to his car took about 25 minutes because he signed every hat, helmet, t-shirt or whatever thing put before him. We talked NBA decisions, how the Jake Butt TD was on Jarrod Wilson's as-yet-unadvanced field awareness, and that the biggest difference with this staff is they "teach football."

After being introduced by Brian as "the man who still has Reggie Williams in his back pocket," to kick off the Q&A Marlin talked about his Fight for Life Foundation. He was candid about his youth: Jackson grew up in the projects with a mother addicted to drugs and a father he never met. As you can imagine this isn't the best way to learn things like accountability, the value of an education, or even your own value and that of others. Marlin learned these things through Michigan; it's the goal of his foundation to give similarly underprivileged kids the opportunities he received because of his athletic talents.

Fight for Life runs three programs: Field of Dreams (link) is an in-school and after school program that basically helps get the kids back up to speed with their classmates. Seal the Deal (hyperlink) is a series of leagues and football camps for youth through high school with an educational/character-building component. R.A.P. (reach out and access your peers – url) is an SEL* program that gets kids to open up through, e.g. a discussion of their future aspirations or by presenting a paper on their favorite song lyrics. They need to raise about $200k per year to fund these programs.

* Social and Emotional Learning, the spread offense of education. Full context is linked above but you may cognate as learning that's the opposite of 'Another Brick in the Wall.'

We then talked about things like that one year the Colts paired Manning with a real defense, which receivers were the hardest to cover, and his impressions on the young defensive players at Michigan today. That after the jump. But first here's three generations of next-Woodsons:

Fuller has a nicer version on the Flickr collection but this one I took on Countess's phone is superior for capturing our new official Robot Ace Anbender headshot.

[jump]

Sponsor:

We're live from R.U.B. BBQ. Epic thanks to Jared Cooper of Sports Power Weekends who sponsored all this.

Liveblog Chaos Mitigation Post. O heavy lightness, serious vanity, prevent the misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms.