It's TCU
The playoffs are set: Michigan has to face a team that was a few freak plays and literally an inch away from being undefeated and a conference champion, with a legit Heisman candidate at QB and one of the most talented secondaries in the nation.
Georgia just has to face Ohio State.
Specifically #2 Michigan faces Max Duggan and #3 TCU in the Fiesta Bowl at 4PM EST (2PM local) on New Years Eve. #1 Georgia gets a virtual home game against the #4 Buckeyes in the Peach Bowl. Both top seeds should be favored, though the opening line for Michigan-TCU is 9 points. It was the correct matchup, but it's also a better draw. Going 13-0 and boatracing one of the other Playoff teams on their home turf has its advantages.
[After THE JUMP: What I know about Frogs]
So…the Frogs. Like Michigan they tend to start slow and then adjust in the 2nd half. In Michigan's case this meant tight games that became laughers by the early 4th quarter; in TCU's it was a parade of upset watches that they had to pull out of their asses. They survived a game-sealing 4th and 1 and scored 21 points in the 4th Q to beat Texas Tech, stopped a 4th & 4 to preserve a 28-24 win at WVU, rallied from 17 down to beat KSU the first time, beat Oklahoma State in overtime, and needed late scores and stands to finish one-score games against Kansas and SMU. While Michigan was playing with Illinois the Frogs needed to put together an 11-play, 90-yard drive, and a 9-play, 46-yard FG drive with no timeouts in the final 2:07 to beat Baylor by a point. TCU's horseshoe lasted through a huge comeback in the Big 12 championship, but ran out of mojo at the 1 yard line on two FB dives in overtime (the penultimate might have been an unreviewed TD).
Max Duggan only became the quarterback mid-season but he's got the proverbial dog in him. He is like the anti-Stroud. He loves to run even if he looks like Steven Threet when he's doing it. He stays up when he should be sacked, and is most dangerous when going to his 3rd or 5th reads. Receivers Quentin Johnson, Derius Davis, and Taye Barber are good complements, all guys with good speed and hands who get a lot of yards on comebacks.
Ohio State needed help to get in, notably USC losing to Utah in the Pac 12 championship, but they were the most deserving #4 since the next options were 2-loss Alabama whose best win was a game they should have by all rights lost at Texas, and 3-loss teams after that. Georgia has some small complaint about getting what seems a tougher opponent, but they also get them in Atlanta, and the Dogs had a very similar resume to Michigan, so this is really the only setup that made any kind of sense.
December 4th, 2022 at 1:34 PM ^
TCU is good, and has a special quarterback. But this is nothing short of a dream match up. It is so wonderful being the number two team in the country, but clearly getting the opponent the #1 team deserves.
Also, we don’t play on January 1, we play on December 31. (Edit: I see you got the quick correction on that one. Still the hardest working man in blogging sports.)
December 4th, 2022 at 1:35 PM ^
I fixed quickly.
December 4th, 2022 at 1:37 PM ^
It definitely made my heart skip a beat after booking flight, hotel, rental, etc.
December 4th, 2022 at 2:22 PM ^
It's wild to me that the B1G East is the first Division to put two teams in the CFP in the same year.
December 4th, 2022 at 3:01 PM ^
Also 3 teams in New Years Six Bowls. Crazy.
December 4th, 2022 at 4:09 PM ^
What's Feet Pinebottom think of that?
December 5th, 2022 at 8:08 AM ^
LOL! I'm going to be using that on the tweeters.
December 5th, 2022 at 7:43 PM ^
I like to show commensurate respect. Feel free.
December 4th, 2022 at 7:38 PM ^
Few years ago this was regarded as the best division in all of CFB, and Joell Klatt was still pushing that mantra early in the season, though it’s fairly dubious with MSU being in their current predicament.
There’s been a few other years where it was considered a real possibility if 2 of the big 4 had actually managed to go 12-0/11-1.
December 4th, 2022 at 1:34 PM ^
An inch away from being undefeated? Huh?
December 4th, 2022 at 2:19 PM ^
Duggan was down with the ball at the one-inch line. Big 12 refs botched the spot. TCU then failed to punch it in from the one-yard line, turned it over on downs, and let KSU win it with a FG.
December 4th, 2022 at 3:02 PM ^
I saw it as 3-4 inches short, the extra two feet they marked it back were plenty to make the following run a questionable TD that was called short as opposed to a clear TD
December 4th, 2022 at 3:05 PM ^
Though to be fair, they should have kicked the field goal, given how OT works.
December 4th, 2022 at 3:25 PM ^
It's certainly a charitable take, since they would have had to prevent KSU from scoring a TD and/or played additional overtimes. No guarantee they win if they score the TD there.
December 4th, 2022 at 1:36 PM ^
Be a good game. Anxious to see our young defensive up-and-comers with another month of practices under their belt. And, hope we have one of our two best players back for this one!
December 4th, 2022 at 2:24 PM ^
hope we have two of our two best players back for this one!
Fixed it.
December 5th, 2022 at 12:53 AM ^
Assuming that one of those you're referencing is Corum, I'm afraid there's not much hope.
December 5th, 2022 at 12:50 PM ^
It'll be 5 weeks post-surgery, not impossible for him to be back. Especially for the Championship Game.
December 4th, 2022 at 3:24 PM ^
If Edwards has a broken hand like people have been saying, he should be 100% by December 31st since I think it's been 3 weeks since his injury
I'm not sure what Morris' injury is, but hopefully he's back as well
December 4th, 2022 at 1:36 PM ^
I've watched a couple of TCU games and they remind me of Penn State but in a 3-3-5 defense, which sounds just fine for Michigan fans. Duggan was actually a 4-star dual threat out of Iowa who apparently runs a 4.5 40. He strikes me as being a bigger X factor than Sean Clifford. But otherwise, Penn State vibes.
December 4th, 2022 at 1:48 PM ^
Yeah, but Sonny Dykes is a better coach than Frames Janklin.
December 4th, 2022 at 2:22 PM ^
So no Donny Sykes?
December 4th, 2022 at 4:12 PM ^
So is Jackie Treehorn!
December 4th, 2022 at 1:49 PM ^
I’ve watched several as I live near Fort Worth and wife is faculty at TCU. Your take is a good one.
Seth also did a good job laying out how fortunate TCU has been. They are good, with some real weapons, but could easily be a run-of-the-mill 8-4 team. They play hard all four quarters and have dangerous players at the skill positions. Duggan is legit fast and a real run threat. Also not hard to pull for the kid, as he had massive heart surgery before the season began.
I could see this game feeling a lot like the game last night. Hopefully, Morris is back and Edwards is fully recovered and adds the receiving dimension to the offense.
December 5th, 2022 at 11:33 AM ^
Honestly, we watched the entirety of the Big 12 title game at Punch Bowl Social and it looked like K-State was completely unprepared for Duggan to start running. TCU had their opening drive and then did basically bupkus until gut-check time in the 4Q when Duggan scrambled/QB-drew them down the field in the had-to-have-it moment.
I would be lying if that didn't make me pucker a bit, given Michigan's historical struggles with QBs that can get out and run when things break down, but I didn't see them doing a ton of other stuff that looked sustainable. They clearly have some talent on O, but I didn't see it. One game sample size against a good opponent caveats apply, but isn't that what our game with them will be?
December 4th, 2022 at 1:37 PM ^
Looking forward to a great matchup. I'm going to be watching it on a plane. Based on their decision to take the ball out of the hands of the player who almost single-handedly got them in to game winning position, we've got to have the edge in coaching.
December 4th, 2022 at 2:16 PM ^
Yeah those 3rd and 4th down play calls were head scratchers.
December 4th, 2022 at 4:13 PM ^
Duggan was completely gassed (and possibly injured). I suspect the two dives were to prevent him getting killed knowing they were going to get in the playoff.
December 5th, 2022 at 2:00 AM ^
Any tips for watching on plane/what streaming service do you use? I’m in the same situation and last time I watched on plane wifi it was pretty choppy..
December 5th, 2022 at 2:33 PM ^
It's United, and I've had good luck with them, whether on a back of the seat screen or on my phone. Also, you can pay for WiFi and food with miles, which is nice, since I don't fly enough to ever earn anything more valuable.
December 4th, 2022 at 1:40 PM ^
I love the TCU match up. They could beat us, but we should win. Get healthy and win the turnover battle.
Purdue was the first game all year where we were outgained, I think we are missing Corum and Morris.
December 4th, 2022 at 2:17 PM ^
Out gained but it felt like pretty much every other game...no doubt in which was the better team.
December 4th, 2022 at 5:26 PM ^
Out gained, but Purdue was kicking 5 field goals while Michigan was scoring 5 touchdowns.
December 4th, 2022 at 3:17 PM ^
Purdue was pretty impressive moving the ball. Although they put gained Michigan, Michigan was able to play their way into a couple short fields. 17 yard TD drives are wonderful, they don't do much to help you win time of possession and yardage stats, but of course who really cares.
Purdue also got about 100 yards of offense after Michigan got up three scores and just needed to made Purdue drives time consuming
December 4th, 2022 at 5:32 PM ^
My “out gained” also auto corrected to “put gained”… weird.
December 5th, 2022 at 4:36 AM ^
It’s a PGA tour term, better expressed as “shots gained putting.”
December 5th, 2022 at 1:08 AM ^
t seemed like we missed Corum's ability to consistently make 2 or 3 yards beyond what was blocked. That is a major factor in the long grinding drives that are Michigan's trademark. There's a big difference between a 1st down gain of 2 and one of 5.
December 4th, 2022 at 1:41 PM ^
We just beat a better version of TCU last night, that fielded a decent run defense, and we dominated an even better version a week ago, in their stadium, loaded with a billion 5 stars, and a stud defensive line. We're ready.
December 4th, 2022 at 1:47 PM ^
Whuh? TCU is better than Purdue, and perhaps a lot better. Purdue is a 5-loss team that lost to some very bad teams along the way. TCU had a tougher-than-you-think schedule and beat everyone except KSU in OT. You tend to overestimate the quality of most Big Ten teams. Most of them them are somewhere between bad and average.
December 4th, 2022 at 1:53 PM ^
TCU is a better Purdue by a lot.
December 4th, 2022 at 2:13 PM ^
Its easy to come to that conclusion, if you look at the records. If you've watched them play all season then it's a different story. Duggan is better than O'Connell, but they have no team after Duggan. Purdue gave us more of a game than TCU will.
December 4th, 2022 at 2:01 PM ^
TCU has a great quarterback, and that's it. He's heroically carried them to numerous narrow, or come-from-behind, victories against .500 Big 12 teams. They're comparible to Purdue, but Purdue plays defense, while TCU has given up nearly 70 40+ yard plays this season.
December 4th, 2022 at 2:14 PM ^
TCU's top two receivers would start at UM. Stop.
Purdue has a nice quick passing game with their QB and slot receiver on the same page and a bunch of great offensive scheme - that's it.
TCU will be a battle. Hoping our O-line does it's thing and we wear them down and win in a battle of attrition.
December 4th, 2022 at 2:26 PM ^
I mean, Purdue's top receiver would start and feature at UM, so there's that.
TCU definitely has more dimensions, but they get streaky and it's hard to buy their defense.
December 4th, 2022 at 3:30 PM ^
I kind of view TCU as OSU-lite. Good on O, average on D, not as good in either phase as OSU and we all saw the result against OSU. The "X" factor and equalizer is Duggan who can hurt you with his legs. We could see some big plays for Michigan in this one.
December 4th, 2022 at 3:54 PM ^
You said 70 40+ yard plays? Im not sure why I am even asking this but are you joking?
December 4th, 2022 at 9:13 PM ^
Calling BS on this... cfbstats isn't perfect but they only show TCU allowing 15 40+ yard plays.
TCU is a more explosive team than Michigan, I think turtleboy is confused between offense and defense (TCU has 84 20+ yard plays, or maybe he is pointing to 20+ yards allowed (TCU has allowed 69 of those.)
You are right to question this.
http://www.cfbstats.com/2022/leader/national/team/defense/split01/category30/sort04.html
December 4th, 2022 at 1:50 PM ^
Purdue better than TCU? No.
December 4th, 2022 at 2:17 PM ^
Could be true turtle. TCU's offense is unimaginitive. And their defense is a typical Big 12 defense. Purdue came up with a couple of brilliant plays on offense last night. And Purdue's defense is more physical that TCU's. I really don't think TCU should even be in the playoffs. But the Committee likes to use the #4 spot to give the public what is wants. And the public sees a 1 in the L column for TCU. The general population sees that as meaning they've got to be better than any team with a 2 in the L column. So the Committee went with it.
I guess that works to Michigan's advantage. The coaching staff can focus a little more on Georgia than if they had to prepare for Ohio St or Alabama.
December 4th, 2022 at 2:22 PM ^
This is a bad take. TCU played a much tougher schedule than Purdue did in the B1G West. With all due respect to AOC and the Purdue offense, "Hacksaw" Max Duggan and his WRs are also better than Purdue's weapons. TCU's WRs are also more of the jump-ball, go grab it-types that we have had issues with. I don't think this will be a blow out and I think we'll need a good gameplay from Minter to contain their playmakers.
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