9/28/2019 – Michigan 52, Rutgers 0 – 3-1, 1-1 Big Ten

This is all Raj's fault. He referenced the Mandela Effect in Punt/Counterpunt, and I clicked the Wikipedia link. There I had a record scratch moment:

In 2010, this shared false memory phenomenon was dubbed the "Mandela Effect" by self-described "paranormal consultant" Fiona Broome, in reference to a false memory she reported of the death of South African leader Nelson Mandela in the 1980s (who was at the time still alive), which she claimed was shared by "perhaps thousands" of other people. Other such examples include memories of the Berenstain Bears' name previously being spelled as Berenstein, and of a 1990s movie Shazaam, starring comedian Sinbad as a genie.

This is a bad moment, the moment an article about someone else's bad brain suddenly becomes about you. I remember a 1990s movie named Shazaam starring comedian Sinbad as a genie. I remember thinking that it was dumb that they had a movie named Kazaam starring Shaq as a genie. They just made that movie. Why on earth would you make a genie movie like two years after the other genie movie?! No I didn't see it, I have standards.

I have been googling furiously!

I must report back that Shazaam does not exist. This is a jarring thing to myself and fully two-thirds of the people who voted in my very scientific twitter poll on the subject, which even points out that this Sinbad movie is not the Shaq one:

was Sinbad in a genie move in the 1990s that was not the Shaq vehicle Kazaam

— mgoblog (@mgoblog) September 29, 2019

I believe in the ability of the internet to surface literally everything that's ever been, especially if it's dumb and/or funny. Any Shazaam surfacings have been quickly debunked as photoshops or Sinbad appearing as a turbaned host for a bunch of Sinbad movies, often by Sinbad. Sinbad himself insists he was never in a genie movie.

Undeterred, certain other persons have not and will not ever be put off their conviction that Shazaam exists. There's going to the mat for something and then there's this, for a 90s genie movie:

Carl’s explanation, however, is the most detailed. …

“University of Oxford’s philosopher Nick Bostrom suggested that members of an advanced civilization with enormous computing power might decide to run simulations of their ancestors,” he says, also arguing that quantum computers are now able to run such simulations. “In a day where we can now run these simulations, is this a far-fetched theory?” he argues, noting that the famous scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson put the odds we are living in a computer simulation at 50-50 earlier this year.

“Does it make more sense to argue with the scientific minds of our time exposed to the greatest understanding of the capabilities of modern technology, or to argue with the masses of people who simply write off these effects we are noticing as faulty memories?” Carl asks.

Shit, Carl. I had not thought of it like that. That had not occurred to us. I had not thought that we were in a faulty simulation that may fray at the edges by accidentally deleting the existence of Shazaam. Fiona Broome, the paranormal consultant—aren't they all—referenced in the Wikipedia article, has built a semblance of a career on another theory:

The “Mandela Effect” is what happens when someone has a clear memory of something that never happened in this reality.

Many of us – mostly total strangers – remember the exact same events with the almost identical details. However, our memories are different from what’s in history books, newspaper archives, and so on. … parallel realities exist, and – until now – we’ve been “sliding” between them without realizing it.

If this sounds like Ms. Broome had several mind-altering substances during a Sci-Fi channel marathon of the mid-90s Jerry O'Connell vehicle Sliders, well… yeah. This is absolutely, 100% what happened.

But I have to consider the possibility that the dubious provenance of this theory does not keep it from being true, because several people I talked to after the game said things like "that was better" or asked me if that performance changed my opinion. These people must have slid in from parallel universes where the Wisconsin game was less of a debacle. Maybe their universe's version of Rutgers is a spunky, cursed underdog like Indiana is in ours.

Or maybe this isn't "our" universe at all; maybe I, along with the six-hundred or so people who said Shazaam is a real movie in my twitter poll, have shifted timelines. My googling hasn't picked up any glaring alterations from my home universe, so let's just take a big sip of coffee and find out who the president is…

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

[Barron]

Your perspective may be different if you've recently shifted universes. In this one Michigan is a team with a ton of question marks and no more time for answers. Rutgers doesn't provide them. Michigan's first touchdown came on five-yard out to Nico Collins on which he was still running 43 yards later. Rutgers fired its coach immediately after the game.

Michigan is staring down the barrel of Iowa, a team with defined offensive and defensive philosophies and an 18-17 win against Iowa State in which they got outgained by about 100 yards and didn't face a potential game-winning field goal drive because one Cyclone obliterated his teammate when he was trying to field a punt. Michigan was a 7-point favorite when betting opened; that line has been hammered down to 4.5 already.

Iowa will be an opportunity to change some perceptions, to prove something. At best it'll probably prove that Michigan can beat a mediocre Michigan State team. That would be nice, but when people ask me about whether needle's moved—no, it still points directly at another Ohio State loss.

We could try to pick out the things about this game against Rutgers that make it seem like the Army and Wisconsin games are not fate for the rest of the season, or we could sit down and try really hard to shift into a different universe. The latter is my bet. Maybe in the other universe they'll have supermarket tomatoes that are good.

[After THE JUMP: content]

AWARDS

 

 

also three rushing TDs [Barron]

Known Friends And Trusted Agents Of The Week

you're the man now, dog

#1 Shea Patterson. I mean, 12 yards an attempt. I think ESPN'S QBR metric may take the INT situation into account? He got a 95.4, which is close to the 100 maximum, despite the INT.

#2 Kwity Paye/Josh Uche. Paye had a sack and a half and 3.5 TFLs; Uche did Uche things to the opposition DL. One of Paye's sacks was actually more of an Uche thing since he put the left tackle in Sitkowksi's lap, causing him to bring the ball down and giving Paye time to get around the corner. Uche got credited with half a sack himself and two QB hurries, however those are issued. One of those was probably on the screen he crushed Sitkowksi on.

#3 Ronnie Bell/DPJ. 10 catches between them; DPJ also tacked on a nice return that got deleted through no fault of his own.

Honorable mention: Nico Collins was so far ahead of a guy on an out route he scored a 48-yard TD. Ambry Thomas and Aidan Hutchinson stuffed fourth-down attempts. Dax Hill kilt a guy. Christian Turner made some yards himself. Cam McGrone had a nice starting debut.

KFaTAotW Standings

NOTE: New scoring! HM: 1 point. #3: 3 points. #2: 5 points. #1: 8 points. Split winners awarded points at the sole discretion of a pygmy marmoset named Luke.

10: Zach Charbonnet (#2 MTSU, #2 Army)
9: Shea Patterson(HM MTSU, #1 Rutgers), Josh Uche (#3 MTSU, #3 Army, T2 Rutgers), Aidan Hutchinson(#1 Army, HM Rutgers), Ambry Thomas (#1 MTSU, HM Rutgers)
3: Ronnie Bell (HM Army, T3 Rutgers), Kwity Paye (T2 Rutgers)
2: DPJ (T3 Rutgers)
1: Will Hart (HM MTSU), Jordan Glasgow (HM MTSU), Josh Ross (HM, MTSU), Sean McKeon (HM, MTSU), Josh Metellus (HM Army), Brad Hawkins (HM Army), Lavert Hill (HM Army), Christian Turner (HM Rutgers), Nico Collins (HM Rutgers), Cam McGrone(HM Rutgers), Dax Hill(HM Rutgers), Christian Turner (HM Rutgers).

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

Michigan does not fumble their opening possession when Nico Collins turns up a simple out route for a TD.

 

Honorable mention: Aidan Hutchinson turns away Sitkowski on Rutgers's one real drive of the afternoon. Various other Rutgerings that Michigan turns into points.

?MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

A Rutgers guy blocks another Rutgers guy in the back and a slick DPJ return gets wiped out. Cumong man.

Honorable mention: A few different mesh incidents didn't go well. Patterson got intercepted on a deep ball that was short, which isn't bad unless it reduces the number of future deep shots to Collins.

OFFENSE

comfort zone [Barron]

Revisions. Michigan ran the ball early, frequently with gap-blocked plays. The RPOs were minimized; in their stead were a number of PA waggles on which Patterson was given half-field reads and was able to hit comeback routes. On the goal line Michigan went under center. Balls were chucked downfield.

All of that felt like Michigan attempting to reclaim some of the baby they tossed out with last year's bathwater, and were welcome. Michigan had to re-focus on what their QB can do after the Wisconsin debacle. I think we're going to find out that's still not what we wanted or hoped for preseason against tougher competition, but the approach at least made more sense than it did last week.

this is fine [Barron]

Continue taking the shots. Face with a third and long on its second drive, Michigan chucked a fade at Donovan Peoples-Jones. That converted and also got Michigan to within a hair's breadth of the goal line. Thumbs up. A later fade at Collins on third and four was intercepted since Patterson left the ball short and the DB actually got his head around this time. This is fine. It's the equivalent of a good punt, and the upside there is considerably higher than a short route just designed to convert.

Michigan needs some of those as well, but the deep shots need to be a prominent part of the offense since the QB is generally very good at them and Michigan's WRs are excellent at getting open and making it count.

open pastures for Haskins [Barron]

Milton enters, run game does things. Hassan Haskins got a bunch of runs that were giant, easy chunks once Joe Milton entered. I can't help but think that some of that was Milton running a bunch of zone read stuff on which Rutgers thought Milton might keep the ball.

A couple of runs saw Rutgers run a scrape exchange; Michigan generally read it. The tackle would read the LB moving out and move to eliminate the DE, and then Haskins would have a huge chunk.

I'm not too upset about Michigan's lack of rushing YPC in this game because there were zero QB keeps aside from the goalline boots. We had the same story in last year's Rutgers game:

NO RUN AGAINST THE RUTGER.

I mean… eh?

EH?

This was a return to Michigan's early-season approach where the quarterback wasn't a run threat, and things suffered a bit because of it. Rutgers knew from the drop that Patterson wasn't going to run against them and used that to stuff up various plays. Michigan occasionally helped by covering the slot; here there's no read and no need to cover the slot WR so the gray area LB comes down. McKeon kicks him out, which leaves an unblocked guy to grab Evans after two yards:

Rutgers slot LB to bottom; MLB will be unblocked

This was a theme. Rutgers wasn't very good at stopping Michigan at the line of scrimmage but was able to apply unblocked guys to the ballcarrier in the 3-6 yard range frequently.

This was much the same, with a number of 7 on 6 and even 8 on 6 run surfaces. Michigan blocks usually went well but the runs had minimal upside because there were often unblocked guys near the line of scrimmage.

flashed [Barron]

Milton himself. Milton had a nice strike to Giles Jackson for the first touchdowns in both their careers and did not throw a ball directly to the opposition, which has been a theme in his early on-field endeavors. He's still learning how to quarterback. A third and five conversion saw him hum an open slant route hard and a bit wide of DPJ; DPJ made the diving catch.

Milton was always supposed to be a long-term project and he has progressed from last year, when even in warmups his accuracy was notably behind the other QBs. I hope he sticks around long enough for Michigan to see what they've got.

Running backs: quality. No long runs for either but both Charbonnet and Turner had solid outings. Turner was able to work his way through traffic on a couple of runs that didn't look like they were going anywhere.

Both Turner and Charbonnet seemed to see what was happening in front of them on Michigan's occasional stretch plays. Both guys cut upfield past DL with their arms outreached, nominally in the gap but not in the gap enough for a tackle. Both guys had incidents where they cut back behind a second level block that had gotten over the top but featured an OL still pushing from behind.

The stats don't show it yet but I think both of Michigan's top two backs are trending well and if the offense can just give them some RPS wins they're going to have a breakout pretty soon.

DEFENSE

[Barron]

404 not found, part X. I think we got ahead of ourselves last year because of a parade of beaten-up and outright bad quarterbacks, and as soon as anyone could find the time to run a semblance of offense things fell apart. In the harsh light of 2019 we should be circumspect about any conclusions arising from a game against Arthur Sitkowski and The Exactly One Downfield Throw.

What we can chisel out is below. But first!

YIKES. Wisconsin against Northwestern: 10 offensive points, 243 total yards, Jack Coan throws for 4.7 YPC. I have no doubt some of this was due to Paul Chryst returning to his turtle ways, and part of it was the fact that was justified since Northwestern will be in the running for worst FBS offenses in the country at the end of the year.

This is still an alarming data point in a situation where we do not need more alarming data points.

Zones. Like MTSU, Rutgers may not throw the ball downfield but at least they allow Michigan to practice their cover two. Michigan had to be forced out of man to man by the Blue Raiders; here they largely accepted the fact that they should be zoning against a team whose solitary offensive idea is pick routes.

For example, Rutgers threw on fourth and one late in this game. Michigan showed cover two, and ran cover two, and Sitkowski threw the ball to a running back in the flat. Ambry Thomas chopped the guy down for no gain. Hooray for that, but also Rutgers.

Duerr is now a McGrone stan but he's not wrong that this is pretty encouraging for a guy in his first start:

Cam McGrone with the perfect technique:
Look up #2 receiver. He left (deep route) so look up #1 receiver.

"If someone leaves, someone else is coming."

My heart is melting. pic.twitter.com/5e4NEVWsui

— Due# (@JDue51) September 28, 2019

As to how the zone looks when Michigan is tested downfield, ask again later.

Mesh. In a disturbing callback to last year's OSU game, about three of the five things Rutgers did on offense were mesh routes that popped wide open. McGrone got caught on one of these on a third down; he got outright blocked and the ensuing catch and run went 17 yards.

So:

• yeah, that's OPI
• no, that's not the reason the play succeeded, Blackshear was going to get the first down anyway
• Michigan still gets got on these too often

Unfortunately clips from this far back were deleted when the Big Ten sold some derivative rights to a company that tried to pretend that fair use doesn't exist, but I remember a particular mesh against MSU on which Mattison, then the DC, dropped two guys off the LOS specifically to block the receivers as they tried to run their crossing routes. Good idea, but Jake Ryan missed the assignment and the QB got the ball out to the guy he should have been mucking up. I don't think there's a good way to deal with this without moving away from pure man coverage.

this probably didn't go well [Barron]

Going to be interesting at LB. Josh Ross has been hurt a lot and also iffy when on the field, so the MLB spot suddenly looks a little open. Jordan Anthony had an extremely rough outing against Wisconsin and then McGrone did some Bush things late, so McGrone got the start. In addition to the subtle item embedded above, McGrone also ran very fast at the quarterback's chest a lot.

Meanwhile at WLB Jordan Glasgow had a rough game trying to tackle Blackshear in space. He got his ankles broken spectacularly once and got outrun to the corner a second time once Blackshear gave him a stutter-step. Prior to this he's seemed pretty athletic for a WLB, and Blackshear is essentially a slot receiver masquerading as a running back. I wouldn't write off his first three games, in which he was very good, just yet. But he might have opened the door a bit for Ross or Anthony to grab some WLB snaps.

DT getting to the QB on a quick throw: I've missed you [Barron]

Dwumfour returns. Any healthy, vaguely DT-shaped body added to this defense is a huge relief, so it was nice to see Mike Dwumfour make it back, seemingly 100%. Michigan went with a lot of three-man lines in this game so his workload wasn't giant; he was clearly favored over Jeter, who only got a few snaps.

Dax Hill debuts. Michigan's five star safety savior had a bit of a slow start but emerged into a rotation piece in this game. PFF actually had him for 29 snaps, a hair more than half.

The "ooooooh" play people are talking about is his hit on a Rutgers punt returner, but blowing up a guy who has to be stationary until the ball returns earthward from its moon-bounce is something just about anyone can do. His ability to work through some traffic and delete a wide receiver screen was the actual play of the day.

Kwity/Uche. Paye had a major game as a rusher; I'm leery that's going to stick given our evidence to date. Uche is having a bit of an inverse 2018 where he has a ton of impact and not much in the way of stats.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Meh? Michigan made a field goal. There were some punts. The end?

Except for one thing. DPJ's punt return was called back on an incredible yakety-sax play where a Rutgers player plowed into a teammate. Sammy Faustin was in the area and made some contact from the rear when Rutger One's momentum was stalled by his pratfall into Rutger Two, but one dollar says the flag flew because a ref saw a Cable Subscriber get obliterated from behind and didn't check to see what uniform the obliterator was wearing.

Frustrating way to lose an excellent return.

MISCELLANEOUS

Photo of the week. Football!

[Barron]

So much for that. Rumors that Michigan was going to toss aside various players who hadn't been giving enough super tough tough effort came to nothing. Josh Ross didn't dress because he was in a walking boot. Zach Charbonnet cannot be credibly asserted to be an effort issue and is clearly dealing with an injury. Sean McKeon was also out with injury. Everyone else played in more or less the same rotation.

Game theory around the country. Nothing of note in this game, obviously, but a couple of things were interesting nationally.

The first was Northwestern's attempted comeback against Wisconsin. There were two separate controversial two-point attempts:

• Down 24-3, Northwestern scores and goes for two at 24-9. This is a special sad case of the idea you should go for two when down 14, because the hypothetical future decision can be made advantageously. Did you make it? Kick the extra point? Did you miss? Go for two again. More details and a helpful spreadsheet here. College conversion rates have hovered around 42% for a while, and in those circumstances the gambit is correct. Marginally.
• After missing the first two-point conversion, Northwestern scores again and is down 24-15. They go for two. This one is a no-brainer, and Ace even asked "how many times have we talked about this?" when I brought it up on the podcast. A lot. To repeat myself: an eight-point game is not a one-score game, it is a one-score game 42% of the time and a two-score game 58% of the time; if you can figure out which one of those it is by going for two early you should because it affects your planning.

I should clarify something. I referenced a Matt Hinton tweet on the podcast but got it slightly wrong:

Down one, I'm always in favor of going for 2 to win. By that logic you could argue going for 2 after scoring to cut a deficit to eight. But down 15? Must kick.

— Matt Hinton (@MattRHinton) September 28, 2019

I disagree with this most of the time but it's clear that Hinton gets the implications in a way the ARGH ANALYTICS folks don't.

Now, I'm fully willing to listen to arguments that NW shouldn't have gone for the analytics gambit, which assumes average teams playing average-ly. Northwestern was locked in a game of horrible offense in which neither team cleared 300 yards. This means that your two-point conversions are unlikely to work and that you're probably on level footing in overtime.

The second analytics event was North Carolina going for two in an effort to go up 22-21 against Clemson. This happened with 1:19 on the clock; Clemson had two timeouts. Both teams were barely over 300 yards. Reasonable minds can disagree here. I wasn't a fan. The reasoning:

• ESPN gave UNC a 38% chance at a win after the TD but before the extra point.
• An average team playing an average defense expects to convert 42% of their two-point conversions.
• UNC is a below-average offense playing an above-average defense.
• Because of the time and TO situation you are giving back a portion of your expectation because Clemson will be more aggressive about scoring on their regulation-ending drive.

If there were 30 seconds on the clock, sure, yeah, let's go.

Disclaimer. I spend too much time on this stuff because they're fun logic puzzles and the best way to win a lot of football games is to not have to bother with it because you've kicked someone's head in. There are some decision that do massively change outcomes in football games—see Paul Chryst this year versus last year in the Michigan game—and these are not those decisions.

HERE

Best And Worst:

Worst: Only a Half Rutger

Listen, this isn't going to be a long column. There are more important games coming up that will decide how this season turns out, and just like Rutgers reading the direction of the afternoon I'm not dying to relive what turned out to be the last game in Chris Ash's penance for what I can only assume was a metric ton of bad karma.

As noted by the title, Michigan scored more points (52) than Rutgers had rushing yards (46), denoting a Rutger on the ground. Unfortunately, it would have taken Michigan basically doubling their output to Rutger them in the air, as the Scarlet Knights was able to just squeak past the century mark in the air (106, to be precise). Of course, it says something about the misleading nature of basic math that Artur Sitkowski completing a career high 71% of his throws (yah!) resulted in 6.2 yards per completion (eek!).

Honestly, I don't know what the future holds for Rutgers. Their new head coach, Nunzio Campanile, was coaching HS two years ago, and I'm dubious he'll suddenly turn a program that has been outscored 112-16 over the past 3 weeks. They'll get a couple of beatable teams this next month or so in the form of Maryland, IU, Minnesota, Liberty, and Illinois, but then they end the year picking various body parts off the turf as Ohio State, MSU, and PSU take their turns. I guess you gotta find that money for Jim Delaney's boat somewhere.

ELSEWHERE

HSR:

They didn't turn the ball over on the first offensive series.  6-14-2-10-Nico for 48 and a TD.  [Caveat: Rutgers]  People we're going to point to Gattis on the sideline calling plays, or the "good week of practice", but really [Caveat: Rutgers] it just came down to talent cohering, looking crisp, and after a Rutgers three and out, finding a solution to the goalline woes by bootlegging Shea [Caveat: Rutgers] not once, not twice, but thrice (and Joe Milton once for good measure.) Shea's day looked like what you would expect from a top-end signal-caller recruit [Caveat: Rutgers], and even the interception, a good idea "Chuck it to Nico," almost worked.

Sap's Decals:

SPECIAL TEAMS: I love how Daxton Hill is making an impact on special teams. The way he lit up the Rutgers punt returner in the first half was a great sign that all three phases of the Michigan football team came ready to play. Aggressive & hard-hitting plays on special teams provide a boost to the D when they take the field & it sounded like that type of intensity was rehearsed this week in practice. Duly noted and…helmet sticker for you #30!