trevor keegan

[Patrick Barron]

FORMATION NOTES: In general Bama was so multiple that I had a hard time deciphering whether something was a 4-3 with a standup end or a 3-4 with a SAM; they would go with a 5-1, they would shift constantly. Surely the thickest playbooks in college football went head to head in this game.

I called this weird thing 30 nickel slide SAM:

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You've got your line shifted to the run strength, you've got a standup end in a SAM spot, and you've got your LBs shifted to run strength. This is Bama's "please run at Justin Eboigbe" formation.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: Johnson, Wilson, Barner, and Loveland all got at least two-thirds of Michigan's snaps. Corum wasn't far behind. Morris, Edwards, Morgan, and Bredeson had 10-20; Mullings and Orji had cameos.

[After the JUMP: retired that so and so]

[Patrick Barron]

1/8/2024 – Michigan 34, Washington 13 – 15-0, 9-0 Big Ten, Big Ten Champs, Rose Bowl Champs, National Champs

The opponent was almost as different as it could possibly be, but the game held to almost the same script. Michigan dominates early, then their offense goes in a hole for about a half while the defense valiantly attempts to bar the door. Thanks to a couple boggling misses from a harried Michael Penix, they had. Michigan led by seven instead of trailed by seven when the offense entered Win The Game mode, again. JJ McCarthy fired a high hard one at Colston Loveland, who caught it and ran past an erroneously airborne safety in an echo of Roman Wilson at the Rose Bowl. Emboldened by newfound field position, Sherrone Moore called some play action that got Michigan in the red zone.

First and goal from the fifteen, eight minutes left in the national championship game. The guy two seats to my left says "take us home, Blake." Michigan runs duo up the middle for three yards. Second and seven, seven minutes left in the national championship game. The guy two seats to my left says "take us home, Blake."

Michigan lines up in an unbalanced set they'd used on the previous play and earlier in the game, a tight bunch to the field—all TEs, naturally—with a flanker outside of it. They got a chunk duo off of it earlier and three yards on the last play, but this one is counter. Blake steps left as Keegan and Barner pull the other way. The MLB is not fooled. He does not false step, instead reading the pulls and taking a scrape angle deeper than Karsen Barnhart, releasing free from guard, has any hope of chasing. Trente Jones has authoritatively turned in the playside end; Barner kicks out the force guy. Now we are two on two.

This is how Michigan gets home: the playside Washington end charges inside. He wants to spill Corum outside into that middle linebacker. All year, Michigan has handled this with aplomb, sealing that guy inside and letting fate dictate what happens at the point of attack. This has not worked as well as it did last year, when Blake Corum would juke any fool willing to occupy a phonebooth with him into the ground. It still works pretty well.

But here is a thing that Trevor Keegan does. Keegan could be forgiven if he's heard nothing but "Zinter, Zinter, Zinter" in this season after both guys came back to chase a ring. Last year Donovan Edwards's lightning bolt finishers went between Zinter and Olu Oluwatimi; this year it's Zinter getting first round hype and Keegan rounding out the draft eligibles. I don't think Trevor Keegan gives a good goddamn about any of this, except maybe for an itch in the back of his mind. I mention it out of professional obligation. I have been yelling at PFF about this man. He owns that 77 just as much as Jake Long now.

Anyway. Here is a thing that Trevor Keegan does. He engages the DE, shoving him down the line, and in the same motion realizes that guy is done. He's overcommitted. He will never get back to Corum even if left. So Keegan leaves. Physics being what it is, this is an act of optimism. He's never getting to that linebacker, and indeed he does not. Keegan never touches him.

It's still enough. The LB has to extend a little further outside—a step, maybe—to clear Keegan. He remains in flow mode an extra beat, unable to get square as he rounds the blocker. Corum cuts back, and then cuts again as the linebacker makes contact. The step; the bend; the flow: all of this means that there is a man trying to tackle Blake Corum by wrapping him up around the shoulders.

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To describe this act as "futile" doesn't capture it. Bail out your boat with a colander. Watch the first season of a quirky sci-fi Netflix drama. Attempt to get to a destination flying Spirit Airlines. These are all as likely to get you to a satisfactory conclusion as tackling Blake Fucking Corum by the shoulder pads. Especially when you're not even square to the guy. Corum shakes like he's Ryan Day watching Lou Holtz say something true and the linebacker falls off; Keegan and Barnhart put the last guy in the center of the Earth. Ballgame.

Almost, anyway. Close enough when you have approximately two of the best defenses in America on one team.

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I still read physical books. I also have a disease wherein if I start a book I have to finish it, even if I loathe it. ("Of course you do," sighs every single person who's ever encountered this blog.) Sometimes when I finish one it is a great relief to have that trial in the rear-view mirror. I slam the book back onto the shelf, where it will sit for the end of time, remembered but never encountered again.

Sometimes the end of a book is a tragedy because it gave something to me and now it is over. There is no more of it. When this happens I close the book and hold it in my hands, turning it back and forth, looking at the back cover and front, reading the silly blurbs on it for the first time if it happens to have them. I think about what just happened, and while I know I cannot ever have the experience of encountering this for the first time again I know that it will go back on the shelf, too, and I can revisit it when I want to get a shadow of the feeling I had the first time.

I've mentioned this before: once that happened immediately, when I was frustrated by Infinite Jest's sudden, indeterminate stop and shifting timelines. Remembering something from the beginning of the book that I could connect with something towards the end, I flipped back to it, and after a while I realized that David Foster Wallace had pulled one over on the ol' Brian Cook. I mentally issued DFW the Robert Deniro finger wag meme. I did not actually get stuck in a loop of reading Infinite Jest, getting mad at it, and reading it again, like I was someone who had encountered The Entertainment in real life.

I thought about it, though.

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Afterwards, I waited. I wanted to see the last I could see of those who had just finished their Michigan careers. The next time Blake Corum takes a snap he will not be wearing a winged helmet and there will be something subtly wrong with the universe, so I watched him walk through the tunnel 20 minutes after the game. Donovan Edwards, Mike Barrett, an assemblage of walk-ons who are doing their part by convincing OSU fans that Michigan has 44 seniors and will go 3-9 next year. Every one a champion.

Sainristil was the last one. He came over to the section by the tunnel where the players' families were camped, and his dad held his legs and lifted him so he could talk to someone there. Then he came down, took pictures, and gave an impromptu interview that I imagine was the most polished post-championship interview in the history of the genre.

A stadium worker came down to kick us out. I did not move. She then came down to kick me out, specifically, because I was the last one in the section, and mercifully this was the moment that Sainristil had discharged all his on-field obligations and could stride down the tunnel to the locker room, also a champion. The last champion.

Now we close the book, and turn it back and forth in our hands. The shelf can wait a little while longer.

[After THE JUMP: Awards! And an apology that the bric-a-brac is coming tomorrow!]

[David Wilcomes]

FORMATION NOTES: Maryland was one of those multiple outfits so I don't have a representative alignment for you to ponder. Their favored alignment was a three-deep shell:

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Those safeties would get significantly nosy.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: Hinton started in place of Henderson and got 53 of the 71 snaps; Jones got the final 18 and had 9 snaps as a bonus OL prior. Skill positions:

  • Cornelius Johnson: 65
  • Barner: 55
  • Loveland: 52
  • Morris: 47
  • Morgan: 27
  • Bredeson: 15

Wilson had just four and Michigan did work in a few snaps for Moore, Clemons, and O'Leary. Gentry got one snap as OL7. Corum had a 2-1 advantage over Edwards with a Mullings cameo.

[After THE JUMP: kind of a scary lead in to OSU]

whompin' 

McCarthy stays absurd 

michigan can pay its guards but not its centers 

we have liftoff

best dang guard tandem in a minute 

KEEGS!

final nail in the PFF OL grading coffin

it got better on review 

yiiiiipes

Moore vibes.