There's been a popular line on this blog for the past 10 months or so, "Oakland is still in play." Popular in the sense that it is commonly used, not that any one likes it. The first pro team I remember rooting for was the Oakland Raiders. The Raiders' logo with the shield, crossed-swords, and eye-patched, leather helmeted Raider/Pirate guy was an undeniable lure for a six year old boy. I even had a black and grey winter hat with the Raiders logo front and center. That was the only non-Michigan hat I would wear. But then the Denver Broncos drafted Rob Lytle and I switched allegiances between bitter rivals as fast as only a six year old can.

    Besides their iconic helmet, the Raiders have been famous for a few things: their fanbase (the cooler-poopers of the NFL,) Al Davis, Al Davis' unfortunate son, and leading the league in penalties every year by a wide margin. Standing on the sideline and looking out onto a field of yellow laundry, one could excuse Jim Harbaugh for thinking he actually ended up in Oakland. Michigan committed 13 penalties, costing 72 yards. I dare say every one of those was earned. After giving MSU and Rutgers 4 first downs with penalties, Michigan gave Indiana 3 first downs via yellow hanky. Indiana returned the favor by committing 9 penalties for 79 yards. The Michigan of old would take advantage of a sloppy team. This Michigan team has yet to learn the difference between aggression and controlled aggression. When the senior captain ends up in the opponent's backfield before the ball arrives, it's apparent that something is missing.

    Jim Harbaugh has mentioned how he passes by the statue of Bo Schembechler on his way to work. That prompted me to skim through my copy of Bo's Lasting Lessons looking for a nugget of wisdom to share with Team 136. Don't look in the index under "penalties." I'll bet Bo hated penalties so much he forbade Bacon to index them. What I did find was this passage,

Sloppiness in this building breeds sloppiness on the field. When a sloppy guy lines up, he'll jump offsides. When he goes out for a pass, he'll run a bad route. And when he carries the ball, he'll fumble it. Why? Because he's sloppy!

This quote, as with most things in life, reminds me of a Seinfeld episode.

Poppy and Team 136 are a little sloppy. Here's hoping the Michigan football team cleans things up in the next two weeks.

Link: http://www.mgoblue.com/sports/m-footbl/stats/111415aab.html

Burst of Impetus
* I'm torn here between the first play of the second half and the Indiana punt return touchdown that shortly followed. Michigan had built a 24-16 lead at halftime. Indiana was giving our defense trouble, but we were getting them off the field and forcing them to kick field goals. A good, sustained, scoring drive to start the second half would shorten the game and put us up by two scores. Instead, Michigan put Peppers in motion and pitched the ball to him as he crossed in front of the quarterback. Indiana's defense was ready for this and stopped Peppers for an 8 yard loss. An incompletion and a sack followed setting up 4th and 25. The ensuing punt was returned for a TD and all of a sudden it was a ballgame that was going down to the wire, and then some.

The Two Jakes
* Indiana's QB threw for 220 yards and their running back ran for 238 yards.
* Jake Rudock threw for 440 yards.
* Jake Rudock ran for 64 yards.
* Jake Rudock gained more yards than Indiana's prolific tandem of Sudfeld and Howard. Jake Rudock gained 504 yards running and throwing. Those are Denard Robinson numbers.
* Jake Buttttttt caught seven passes for 82 yards. He could have approached 100 yards if Rudock had turfed a couple obvious negative plays instead of throwing to Butt with a man all over him. This is a minor quibble considering the, you know, 504 yards and 6 touchdowns.

Root Tree Runners
* After spending much of the season spreading the ball out among numberous receivers, this was the Chesson/Darboh/Butt show. They accounted for 25 of Jake's 33 completions.
* I've probably grumbled more about Chesson's receiving abilities than most. He's an incredible runner and blocker, and Saturday he showed he's capable of being an incredible wide receiver as well, with 10 receptions for 207 yards and 4 TDs.

Jakehammers
* The leading rusher was Jake Rudock with 64 yards at 9.1 yards per carry.
* Smith did the bulk of the running from the backfield, carrying 12 times for 58 yards.

Tacos and Peppers
* Our leading tacklers were safeties Delano Hill and Jarrod Wilson with 10 each. I don't have to tell you that's not a good sign. Hill did have the game-winning BrUp.
* Michigan only had 4 TFLs for 17 yards. 12 of those yards came on one sack. The inability to tackle Indiana behind the LOS was a big reason IU put up 41 points.
* There was only one FF, no FRs, no INTCs, no Blkd passes, and no QHs. I think you have to credit Indiana for having a very good offense, acknowledge that Michigan was missing Glasgow, Ojemudia, and Mone from the defensive line, and that combined with the "tempo" hurt Michigan badly. Tempo is in quotes because Indiana very rarely went hurry up. They got to the line and waited 20 seconds to get the right play called. My fear level for OSU ratcheted up a couple points. They can do what Indiana did with Howard and ADD a running threat from the QB position.

ST3's STSTs
* This is the spot where I've been tracking total plays this season. There actually weren't that many plays run considering this was a double OT game and Indiana is noted for their pace. We ran 74 plays to their 89. There were 35 special teams plays (17.7%,) mostly extra points, field goals and kickoffs. There were only 5 punts total in the game, and only 2 of those were from IU.
* Michigan gave up another punt return TD this week. This one can be blamed on sloppy tackling.

Baughscore Bits
* 20 of Indiana's 32 first downs came in the first half. I took a look at the drive chart for an explanation for the discrepancy between 1st and 2nd halves. Thanks to the punt return, Indiana only had 3 real second half drives. Those took 9, 9, and 8 plays, but only consumed 10 minutes and 11 seconds of the clock. It's hard to gain a lot of first downs when you don't have the ball.
* All but one of Michigan's first half drives took less than 2 minutes. All but one of Michigan's second half drives took more than 2 minutes. I don't know if this was a conscious halftime adjustment, or just the variability of this crazy game. If anything, I thought Indiana was using more of the play clock by looking to the sideline before almost every snap.
* Since time of possession is meaningless, I also looked at total plays. Indiana ran 54 plays in the first half, but only 35 in the second half and overtime.
* Net yards rushing was 307 to 141 in favor of Indiana. I remember being on the other side of that many times. It was only the last two seasons of the RichRod era where we were outgained like that on the ground.

Ooga-Booga
* I'm not sure what I'm going to track under the Ooga-Booga category. It's either going to be horrible announcing or jinxes. Brock Huard had me thinking back fondly of the days Matt Millen called our games. Bob Windshield (as my son called him,) is just a guy. So if there was an ooga-booga, it was the fact that our #1 defense against the run gave up over 300 yards to Indiana. I tried explaining the ooga-booga jinx concept to my son, but he just responded with a confused look and said, "but we won." He's right, and there's nothing sloppy about that.