rutger

[Patrick Barron]
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133

And Then It Got Worse
Brian • October 23, 2023 • 12:48pm

10/21/2023 – Michigan 49, Michigan State 0 – 8-0, 5-0 Big Ten

Somewhere in this country there is a person making approximately minimum wage who is tasked with finding benign videos to put on scoreboards across the country. It is a hideously dull job and he or she spends most of their time at work staring blankly at a screen, half focused. When something useful shows up, it's bookmarked and put in a bin.

This person is not watching question #28 in a 40-question quiz that takes 16 minutes to get through. After the second question is "what are crayons made of" they put it in the Michigan State bin on the off chance it convinces Spartans to draw with the things instead of eating them*. Then they spend 15 minutes playing solitaire. Some weeks or months later, a jaunty Hitler shows up on the Spartan Stadium scoreboard next to an ad for Meijer.

That person did not have a bad day on Saturday. That person got fired, shrugged, and had an edible.

That person's boss had a bad day. And that person's boss, and that person's boss, and so forth and so on up the chain until we reach the Michigan State administrator who chewed out a person at Company X after being chewed out himself.

These people have living wages and car payments. Our quiz selector has… edibles. You can only lose something if you felt like you had something. The person at the bottom of the totem pole with a life of dull-eyed drudgery stretching out for eons in front of them feels nothing.

This is the bright side for Michigan State fans.

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

On the other side of the equation, Michigan dominated a rivalry game to an extent not seen since the 1950s. Every box was checked: abject humiliation, fancy QB stats, taking over the opponent's stadium in the first quarter, revenge for all the various offenses perpetrated.

In the aftermath, Michigan sang a very silly song at piercing volume…

…and Mike Sainristil took 12 seconds at the end of his NBC interview—12 seconds NBC did not want to give him—to say "real quick, hey, c'mere, c'mere—real quick."

At this point the interviewer interjects with "Mikey, thanks so much" because she has been directed from on high to get this back to the studio. Mike Sainristil says no, you will not do this, and then he grabs Ja'Den McBurrows and says "the adversity he went through, what happened last year in that tunnel, to come out and have game like he did tonight—an interception, three-four tackles—Ja'Den McBurrows! Stay tuned!"

As he is doing this, JJ McCarthy is putting the imaginary crown on McBurrows, like he does everyone who scores a touchdown, or blocks for a touchdown, or happens to be in the area when a touchdown happens. It feels like he is overjoyed that he can put a crown on someone on defense for once.

Here it is: Michigan does not forgive or forget. But the way they get revenge is to go about their business. Michigan didn't endanger anyone's health or safety outside the rule book Saturday, as the Michigan State athletic department ludicrously suggested they might. They treated Michigan State just like any other opponent… mostly.

It was in the back of their heads, the way a one-sided assault on two innocent players had been both-sided by the media, the way an as-yet unsubstantiated report has caused the college football media's various MSU/OSU partisans and Medill graduates to wishcast absurd punishments on the nation's most dominant team. McBurrows responded by coming after the beatdown had commenced and simply continuing it. Michigan put German Green, Gemon's twin brother, on the field for the last snap and he came up with a TFL.

There's no need for revenge. The fact that this is Michigan's team and that is Michigan State's team is revenge enough.

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[Barron]

*[Quiz questions that get filed in the Michigan bin include "What was Erwin Rommel's fatal mistake during the Siege of Tobruk?" and "What is your most passionately held opinion you have absolutely no evidence to support?"]

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

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[Barron]

you're the man now, dog-2535ac8789d1b499[1]

#1 JJ McCarthy. A confession: I do try to switch it up in the Known Friends and Trusted Agents to prevent the monotony of the same guy being at the top constantly. This is not really possible this year. Your new Heisman favorite was 21/27 for 287 yards and four TDs in 40 minutes of gametime. Agog.

#2(T) AJ Barner and Colston Loveland. Harbaugh probably thought the rapture was going on as Michigan beat MSU 49-0 and his top two tight ends combined for 178 receiving yards and three touchdowns—and it would have been four but for a Donovan Edwards flinch at the end of the half. Barner mostly shed whatever reputation he might have had as a blocking tight end with a bevy of downfield catches, some contested and others difficult. Barner continues to turn in improbable YAC events. Loveland, meanwhile, is pure death whenever he gets a LB assignment. Five points each; they deserve it.

#3 Ja'Den McBurrows. Had an interception and a TFL; had a couple more good tackles in space; dominated a slant route and only failed to get a PBU on it because the ball was wide. Given the dispersion of defensive snaps—he tied for fourth in tackles!—this is only kinda sorta about last year. Dude looked like a worthy replacement for Sainristil. As the man himself said, stay tuned.

Honorable mention: Mike Sainristil had an admittedly free pick six and, more importantly for this section, demanded that NBC not cut away until he could shout out McBurrows. Junior Colson was everywhere; Derrick Moore had a thunderous sack and only missed a second by a bare margin. Kris Jenkins and Mason Graham were entirely unblockable.

KFaTAotW Standings.

(points: #1: 8, #2: 5, #3: 3, HMs one each. Ties result in somewhat arbitrary assignments.)

43: JJ McCarthy (#1 ECU, #1 UNLV, #2 Rutgers, HM Nebraska, #2 Minn, #1 IU, #1 MSU)
23: Kris Jenkins (HM ECU, T2 UNLV, #1 BGSU, HM Rutgers, #1 Neb, HM MSU)
15: Mason Graham (HM ECU, T2 UNLV, #1 Minn, HM IU, HM MSU)
13: Mike Sainristil (T3 ECU, HM BGSU, #1 Rutgers, HM IU, HM MSU)
10: Blake Corum (HM ECU, HM UNLV, #2 BGSU, HM Rutgers, HM Neb, HM IU), AJ Barner (HM BGSU, HM Neb, HM Minn, T3 IU, T2 MSU)
9: Roman Wilson (T2 ECU, HM UNLV, HM BGSU, #3 Nebraska)
8: Mike Barrett (HM UNLV, T3 Rutgers, #2 IU), Colston Loveland (HM Rutgers, T3 IU, T2 MSU)
7: Braiden McGregor(T3 UNLV, #2 Nebraska), Cornelius Johnson (T2 ECU, HM UNLV, HM BGSU, HM Minn)
6: Kenneth Grant (T3 ECU, T2 UNLV), Junior Colson (#3 BGSU, T3 Rutgers, HM MSU)
4: Ernest Hausmann (T3 ECU, T3 Rutgers), Max Bredeson (HM Rutgers, HM Neb, T3 IU), Derrick Moore (T3 UNLV, HM Neb, HM MSU)
3: Will Johnson(#3 Minn), Jaylen Harrell (HM UNLV, HM BGSU, HM IU)
2:  Josh Wallace (T3 ECU)
1: Tommy Doman (HM ECU), Donovan Edwards (HM ECU), Tyler Morris (HM UNLV), Semaj Morgan (HM Rutgers),Quinten Johnson (HM Rutgers), Kalel Mullings (HM Minn), The Offensive Line (HM Minn), Keon Sabb (HM Minn), Josiah Stewart (HM Minn), Ben Hall (HM IU)

Who's Got It Better Than Us(?) Of The Week

JJ McCarthy gets set up with a third and thirteen on Michigan's first drive, gets late pressure, moves out of the pocket, and calmly nails AJ Barner to convert. In itself, not incredible. As an emblem of JJ McCarthy in this game, ah yup.

Honorable mention:  uh… everything else.

imageMARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK: SPECIAL EDITION

Since literally one thing of import went wrong AND MSU center Nick Samac deployed the double bird IN HIS OWN STADIUM, IN THE THIRD QUARTER, this section is dedicated to birds, not bad things that happened. About a dozen people @'d me on Twitter about this even before I asked, and there was a lot of discussion about replacing Marcus Hall with Samac.

I don't want to do this, because Marcus Hall got ejected from a Michigan-Ohio State game that Ohio State won; his birds were a roar of defiance. Say what you want about Ohio State but they're not ankle biters. I feel like having the bad things about a game represented by Hall is fine. My man did some dumb shit and went out on his own terms. There's a level of respect in this section.

Samac's birds were pathetic. MSU was down a billion, Michigan fans had taken over his home stadium, and per Seth's reckoning the Michigan fans' response was to sing "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow" at him. I'm not dumping Hall for this joker. Just compare the two screenshots we have. Hall is out there with it; Samac seems embarrassed, because he should be.

What I am doing: NICK SAMAC PATHETIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK. I'm not going to issue this after every game, only ones in which something unsporting, cowardly, incredibly stupid, infuriating, unethical, or downright-not-right happens. I'm guessing it'll be about a third of Michigan games and 100% of Michigan-Michigan State games.

Honorable mention: The illegal motion at the end of the half takes a touchdown off the board.

NICK SAMAC PATHETIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEKsamac

Spencer Brown gets ejected for a an ultra-targeting on Braiden McGregor:

I'd say suspend him but it's probably meaner to let him play.

Dishonorable mention: Nick Samac issues double birds to Michigan fans that have taken over Spartan Stadium up 42-0 in the third quarter. MSU takes three personal fouls in two plays in the third quarter. A cheap shot on Alex Orji gives Michigan a shot at a seventh touchdown that they take. The replay official in Iowa-Minnesota takes a Cooper DeJean punt return TD off the board for a ticky-tack invalid fair catch signal.

[After THE JUMP: JJ out of pocket]
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Unverified Voracity Decommits From Rutgers, Becomes Unimaginably Powerful
Brian •

[Bryan Fuller]

Not many throws but they were pretty good. PFF B10 QB grades from last week:

Do not read the replies, which are all #TalkinBouttheBuckeyes. Unfortunately the PFF news isn't all good. Their list of Michigan's top five offensive players against WMU drops off pretty rapidly and implies that if any OL scraped over a 70 rating it wasn't by much:

In the past 70 has been "this person isn't terrible"; if they've still got the same scale they're attributing much of Michigan's success to WMU dorfs. Which is accurate.

Quick! Who does Rutgers have committed at running back? Recruiting services should probably give a running back who decommits from Rutgers six stars:

Imagine being Rutgers and watching two Heisman-quality RBs you had committed play in the Big Ten, a conference you would like to join but cannot.

[After THE JUMP: George Perles features, which is never a good thing.]

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79

Unverified Voracity Watches Drills
Brian •

Sponsor note. Good to see you got out of jail after punching that police horse. Hope you didn't call Richard Hoeg about that. That would be silly to do, use your one phone call on a small business lawyer instead of a criminal defense attorney. But now that you're out, maybe you've got an idea for a small company that doesn't involve any sort of jail time. Maybe a company that sells extremely lifelike horse statues for punching in the aftermath of Super Bowl wins? Think of the wear and tear saved on horse and man.

hoeglaw_thumb[1]

Well, you're going to need some contract help in there. You're going to need to incorporate. You're going to need a person skilled in areas of the law unrelated to Police Horse Law. Richard Hoeg is that man. And he will discuss Michigan athletics with you.

oblig

Stu Douglass on transferring. Douglass says college basketball trade secrets don't really exist, and that Michigan is the way it is not because of how they do things but rather what they do:

Listen, this guy even recorded our practices and broke down our mistakes the following days like it was game-film.

We watched drills! I am not lying when I say he would show us a simple passing drill we did the day before so he could correct guys on their technique. I hadn’t been corrected on my passing technique since I was 10.

It was time-consuming and mentally consuming, but we were definitely better off for this attention to detail. I never felt underprepared for any game, and it was a huge part of any success we had during my college career. Just don’t turn all the lights off during one of those hour-long film sessions, or you’re going to hear snoring coming from those comfortable seats.

Film was always the first thing we turned to when preparing for an opponent. It helped us prepare for all aspects of the next game. We broke down the basic components of their offense and defense, and even a majority of their favorite plays and what they called them.

Overall, we looked deeply at strengths, weaknesses, statistics, and tendencies of each team and player. Then the coaches would combine all of that to set up specific strategies to attack their defense and to halt their players, plays, and overall offensive system.

This would change from game to game depending on who we played. We’d change how we wanted to guard certain screens on and off the ball and other actions away from the ball based on their offensive system and personnel.

We would trap a Talor Battle ball screen until he gave the ball up and then full out deny him to make other players score, but that strategy didn’t happen with Northwestern’s “Princeton offense” under Bill Carmody (one of the most time-consuming scouts we did because of their unique off-ball actions coupled with young players playing major minutes that had never defended them before).

The upshot is: everyone knows what Beilein is trying to do already and it doesn't matter. He does not explain why taking a Michigan grad transfer immediately makes the team in question a thousand times better, though.

Brief hockey bracketology update. Not really enough for its own post, but: Michigan is 10th after this weekend's action. Avoiding a pitfall against Arizona State didn't help much because 1) it was expected and 2) results elsewhere did not go their way. Most notably, Penn State played itself into a two-thirds shot at an at-large with a sweep of Minnesota. Michigan is still 96% in per CHN's Pairwise Predictor, with only a 30% shot of even being on the four line.

Michigan gets Wisconsin this weekend at Yost in a best two-out-of-three series. The worst case scenario featuring a series win (three games and a subsequent loss to OSU) would put them at 12th, give or take some movement around them. It would take a huge number of things going the wrong way to boot them in that case. A three-game series loss is the same situation.

If Michigan gets swept they'll move down to ~14th, which is Danger Zone time. Two stolen bids would boot them, one if someone got hot and moved past them. They'd still be 50/50 to make it; there would be a lot of nervous rooting for favorites in various conference tournaments.

On the more optimistic side of the ledger, Michigan's ceiling is #7. Not that it matters, because here's your regionals setup:

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One West regional is in South Dakota. The other is more or less in Philly. You'll love next year's too:

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Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and the Pittsburgh area provide about a quarter of college hockey's teams. They get nothing for the next two years. 0/10 sites.

The somewhat good news is that the NCAA has not announced sites in 2020 yet. That's unusual and may indicate that the powers that be are finally moving away from the "how empty can we make this building in the middle of nowhere" era. Home sites, please.

Mo Hurst scouted emphatically. NDT Scouting thinks he is very good:

I have a take that was once lukewarm, and is now hot, and should be freezing cold. Michigan’s Maurice Hurst is the best interior defensive line prospect in the 2018 NFL Draft, and it is not close. Vita Vea, Derrick Nnadi, Taven Bryan, Da’Ron Payne and others all offer intriguing traits and characteristics, but none of them can make the consistent high-value impact that Hurst can.

In terms of explosiveness, Bryan is the only other top interior defensive lineman who can rival Hurst, and he isn’t nearly as flexible or nuanced in his rush game after that initial burst. Hurst has the ability to quickly capture a guard’s edge, and then either turn a tight corner to the pocket or get back underneath with a counter.

Various videos at the link.

There is another. Yes, this is Mo's younger brother:

He's 16 so could be a 2019 or 2020 if he decides on the same route Mo did. Michigan seems like an excellent fit for him if he does:

As a bonus, imagine all the "oh no not another one" takes from opposing fanbases.

Random things about Syracuse. I was curious about how Tyus Battle was doing so I clicked over to Kenpom's Syracuse page and found the strangest team in the country. 'Cuse runs nothing but 2-3 zone, of course, and recruits to that model. This explains some of the things. It doesn't explain all of it:

  • Syracuse has thee of the top ten MPG players in the country. Battle, who has been off the floor for a total of eight minutes since December 2nd, is #1. Frank Howard has missed 32 minutes since that same date. That's a span of 23 games.
  • Syracuse is the tallest team in the country, has the fewest bench minutes, and gives up the highest A/FGM rate in the country;—74%.
  • Other stats that are extremely extreme but not quite that extreme: they're 311th in eFG%, 318th at 3s, and 275t hat giving up steals. Opponents chuck threes 44% of the time, which is 332nd. OTOH they have the #2 block rate in the country, the #15 teal rate, the #12 2P% allowed, and the #44 3P% allowed.
  • This adds up to the #129 offense and #9 defense.

It's a weird team man. FWIW, Battle is keeping his head above water despite a 31% shot rate and 49/31 shooting splits by not turning it over much and hitting a bunch of FTs. M filled his spot with Matthews, more or less.

RUTGERS. A valuable addition to the conference!

Eject them as soon as it is legally possible!

Etc.: Baumgardner on MAAR. Throw college basketball coaches into the ocean.

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