kirk-cousins

Wallpaper by Blue Indy, but monuMental made one too.

For a half, it almost felt like last year. Northwestern attacked Michigan's youth on defense with, among other check plays, the triple option (Picture-paged by dnak). With the "curse of 5-0 lurking in the shadows like some angry pedo-bear" (jhackney) and big chunks of yards (ST3's Inside the Box Score, includes ref commentary) coming off Michigan's hide all I could think about was how jamie mac said Michigan was tempting fate and the sharks by breaking every Just Cover Blog Rule in the book. Michigan was about to be the victim of the Ugliest Game of the Week (stubob). Then the Hoke things started happening again:

• Michigan forced a fumble, because Michigan leads the nation in fumble recoveries (Turnover analysis, by Enjoy Life)
• And baaaarely picked off another (Game Wrap with pics by Blue Seoul)
• The offense dominated in 3rd and long and 4th and short situations (Moving picture pages by Logicdangerchrisdanger),
• The Wolverines avoided the upset scare (can they do it again? –Maize_in_spartyland's Upset Watch. .<p>no<p>. says a guy from the future.)
• And entered the mid-way point of its season 6-0, a thing which in Lordfoul's life has happened just three other times.

Michigan is at the mid-point. Eye of the Tiger tries to project what the second half has in store.  Maize_in_spartyland hands out grades. On to MSU; get your program.

Not So Much with the Hate Week

Yes, I still play NCAA'04 because it was awesome.

Since MSU had a bye week preoccupied diarists went back to State's offensively challenged game in Columbus to ask things like is our biggest rival a bowl team (Chi-Blue), and whether our arch-rival's ethical struggles teach us about the human capacity for lying to oneself (hailtothe).

RESPECT THE RIVAL, NOT THE RIVALRY

On the boards, Michigan Arrogance asked whence the great Spartan trollers of  yesteryear? Perhaps with MSU recently closing the gap from 39 games back to just 36 in the all-time rivalry, things have gotten a bit more sanguine. Also the fact that Michigan State is a great university with a great athletic program  that has beaten us in football three years running under a great football coach. RationalMSUfan previews the offense, while bama blue has their best-in-the nation defense covered. Smile, Mark Dantonio (at right, HT Six Zero):

Maybe it's just that the trolls coaching one of the big Detroit programs (HT: MGoAndy) and Spartan Bob (HT: Everyone Murders) have both been shipped out the of state. The Spartan Bob article makes it sound like Michigan fans are a bunch of classless griefers but nobody I know ever said they hate him; we hate that a guy named "Spartan Bob" was in a position to hair-trigger the clock when the Spartans needed it most.

After the jump: more from the board, a three-part preview of Three and Out, and other things Michigan is better at than Michigan State.