One Frame At A Time: Penn State
Bow wow wow yippee yo yippee yay
video via @djfarnum; obligatory soundtrack via George Clinton
Bow wow yippee yo yippee yay
video via the mgoboard
Bow wow wow yipp—GOTDAMN
Dennis Norfleet is a national treasure. Devin Funchess is terrifyingly good at football. Much, much more from this game—including multiple Devin Gardner Aneurysms of Leadership and the referee's priceless reaction to Brady Hoke's inexplicable end-of-half timeout—follow after the jump.
[AFTER THE JUMP, ONE STADIUM UNDER A GROOVE]
As usual, click the links/stills to open each GIF in a lightbox. GIFs that are embedded without a still (including all above the jump) are in the new imgur .gifv format that loads WAY faster—feedback on those is welcome. Don't forget to vote for your favorite at the end of the post.
HONORABLE MENTION
Touch the banner.
Ben Gedeon sacks Hackenberg.
Hoke points... to the sky.
Mike McCray blows up PSU's fake punt.
Great adjustment to the ball by Amara Darboh.
10. Flash Light
Top-notch show, MMB.
9. Can You Get To That
Frank Clark blew through a bit of a hold on the sack that ultimately forced PSU to take a safety.
8. Field Maneuvers
Safe to say the D-line won that battle. Jourdan Lewis also won his.
7. Get Up For The (First) Down Stroke
Not a bad game, Mr. Darboh. Not bad at all.
6. Funked Up
Damn, James Ross. That's one way to set the edge.
5. I Wanna Know If It's Good To You
I'll take that as a yes.
4. Super Stupid
The referee's flabbergasted reaction to Brady Hoke's end-of-half timeout (watch the whistle) couldn't be more perfect.
3. Wars Of Armageddon
Gardnerysm of Leadership, Part One:
Gardnerysm of Leadership, Part Two:
That's my quarterback.
2. Freak Of The Week
Enhance...
...ENHANCE...
...yup, ridiculous.
FRAMES OF THE GAME: FLEET YOUR MIND AND YOUR ASS WILL FOLLOW
"Atomic Dog" and the accompanying dance moves are an Omega Psi Phi thing, apparently. Without knowing anything else about that fraternity, I'm gonna go ahead and say that's the best fraternity.
VOTE
October 13th, 2014 at 2:43 PM ^
For all of the FLEETS
October 13th, 2014 at 2:50 PM ^
anyone do anything like what Norfleet did? I know he's done similar things in the past, but has anyone else?
Are we witnessing trailblazing, atomic awesomeness here?
October 13th, 2014 at 3:58 PM ^
It's a new Michigan Tradition.
See Dave? You can have new cool things here at Michgian that you don't have to rent or buy.
Nobody is saying that everything must always be kept the same. They just need to be things indigenous to Michgian and not some schlock that has shown up in 20 NFL stadiums.
October 13th, 2014 at 4:23 PM ^
this post. When we want to relinquish all that has made us special along with 130-plus years of tradition in exchange for a corporate logo and a piece-of-shit pop tune, we will f*cking let you know.
October 13th, 2014 at 9:20 PM ^
October 13th, 2014 at 3:04 PM ^
I would love to vote for Fleet because, damn, his enthusiasm and energy gets everyone in the stadium jacked up. BUT, I gotta vote for Ross blowing that OL up. We need more of that. MUCH more. I loved it.
Big licks.
October 13th, 2014 at 2:59 PM ^
I can't stop listening to Atomic Dog on Spotify this morning.
October 13th, 2014 at 3:00 PM ^
October 13th, 2014 at 3:11 PM ^
I see your point in that all craniums/brains are alike and a hit to the head is a hit to the head, no matter what position you play. However, Morris was rolling out to his right, had just thrown the ball, and was completely defenseless against an oncoming lineman. PSU's guard, who outweighs Morris by close to 100 pounds, has both feet under him and is prepared to make contact.
If you take hits like Ross' out of football, you might as well stop playing the game altogether.
October 13th, 2014 at 3:34 PM ^
If you take hits like Ross' out of football, you might as well stop playing the game altogether.
Completely untrue. You can make that exact same hit leading facemask up.
October 13th, 2014 at 3:37 PM ^
His head is up and his face is in the guys chest. He may have dipped his head slightly (out of instinct) but his screws do the damage, not the crown of his helmet.
October 13th, 2014 at 3:43 PM ^
October 13th, 2014 at 4:09 PM ^
It's not real bad - but he definitely dips his head and makes first contact with the forehead as opposed to his facemask.
October 13th, 2014 at 3:40 PM ^
October 13th, 2014 at 3:40 PM ^
I think you can pretty clearly see Ross's helmet hit the blocker in the chest and slide up into blocker's helmet. I'm no expert but it looks to me like he took on a blocker about perfectly and lead head up, without launching or leading with top of his helmet.
Not defending helmet to helmet hits at all, but there's a fair difference between 220 lb Ross hitting an engated 300 lb blocker coming at him vs Minnesota linebacker launching head first into a defenseless quarterback well after a throw.
October 13th, 2014 at 3:41 PM ^
October 13th, 2014 at 4:17 PM ^
Ross aimed for his chest and hit it, his helmet incidentally moved up to the other guy's.
It's completely different than a launched hit a defenseless player. They both may have effects on the brain in the long run but orders of magnitude are vastly, vastly different.
But besides that, as it was said above, if you think contact like this is awful:
1. stop watching football because this happens 293457835 times a game
2. petition congress to end all football played at all levels.
October 13th, 2014 at 4:25 PM ^
October 13th, 2014 at 5:39 PM ^
The O-lineman was leaning forward while running. Ross comes in and hits him completely legally. Does Ross' helmet hit the guy's chin? Yeah it does. That's going to happen when you have a taller guy running leaning forward and a shorter guy coming up to hit him.
As someone upthread said, there is really no way to eliminate this type of hit in football. The O-Lineman was NOT defenseless. Ross did NOT launch himself into the player. He simply ran into him and in the process of running into him his helmet made contact with part of the guys chin. That is going to happen as long as people play football. The only way to avoid it is pretty much not to play.
Football is inherently dangerous. You can eliminate some of it by getting rid of people intentionally targeting the head of defenseless players. This is not the type of hit you are giong to be able to get rid of IMO.
October 13th, 2014 at 4:02 PM ^
When you hit someone with forward lean, they are going to make contact with their helmet. Players would have to do the limbo at contact to avoid hitting their helmets on other players.
You are wrong. The way that Ross took on that block was fucking textbook.
October 13th, 2014 at 4:14 PM ^
October 13th, 2014 at 4:21 PM ^
Good:
Bad:
Compare:
October 13th, 2014 at 3:37 PM ^
Why do people feel like the Funchess TD grab was something so ridiculous? I get he had to stretch out his arms, but that was about it. Not very difficult and I think most players would agree.
October 13th, 2014 at 3:53 PM ^
October 14th, 2014 at 6:41 AM ^
does what he is supposed to do, which would be attack the ball at its highest point, it is a pick. Thankfully he didn't.
October 13th, 2014 at 4:17 PM ^
It was a nice catch and all, but I don't get the need for the whole "ridiculously good at football" thing WRT this play.
I also thought the ref's reaction to the timeout was pretty lame. Confirmation bias at work.
October 13th, 2014 at 5:20 PM ^
October 14th, 2014 at 12:51 AM ^
October 13th, 2014 at 6:28 PM ^
As someone that was watching on TV, I think camera angle has something to do with it. When the camera pans over, you get a couple seconds of the safety camping out for an easy INT with Funchess seemingly too far behind to make a difference. But just when you start groaning LOL TD OUT OF NOWHERE
October 13th, 2014 at 7:14 PM ^
Here's why I thought it was so good:
First, he took the ball away from the defender. The defender was in great position to either pick it or at least bat it down, and that wouldn't have been Funchess's fault. But he was aggressive and took the ball. He didn't just catch it, he took it.
Secondly, he still had to bobble it as he was running full speed and getting bumped by the defender, yet he kept the body control and concentration to finish the catch.
Maybe that's not "ridiculous" but that's a pretty darn good play, all in all.
October 13th, 2014 at 3:44 PM ^
Should it be mandatory from now on that Michigan return men dance? I think it should.
October 13th, 2014 at 4:00 PM ^
I'd prefer if the dance was in the End Zone, but yeah.
October 13th, 2014 at 4:21 PM ^
I like the Spats Dennis was sporting. Those baby are old-school and cool as freaking hell.
October 13th, 2014 at 4:21 PM ^
gosh this team has so many talent guys that are fun to watch. hopefully we get our act together next year. i wanna feel good about UM football again
October 14th, 2014 at 8:20 AM ^
You do realize THIS season isn't over yet right?
October 13th, 2014 at 4:30 PM ^
to get No. 23 a TD.
October 13th, 2014 at 4:45 PM ^
prior to this weekend I had no concept of what "Atomic Dog" meant.
I would have paid real money to have retained my blissful ignorance.
October 13th, 2014 at 5:15 PM ^
October 13th, 2014 at 5:23 PM ^
October 13th, 2014 at 6:08 PM ^
I think it's awesome because he's on my team. But if it was another team, I would still think it's funny. Because it's funny. it's not offensive or anything. I would think it's less cool because I think everything is cooler when Michigan does it, but I wouldn't have a problem with it from anyone else.
Bo would probably not approve. But then again, Bo coached at a different time too. Bo probably wouldn't like texting recruits. So if Bo coached today, he might approve.
October 13th, 2014 at 7:48 PM ^
October 14th, 2014 at 8:23 AM ^
These kids are acting like football is some sort of game!
/s
October 13th, 2014 at 5:23 PM ^
No mention of the blue uni's?
October 13th, 2014 at 6:11 PM ^
I chose other because I think the best play was McCray's play on the fake punt. That was incredible. It's tough to ask a guy who stands on the sidelines all game to come in at certain times and play heads up football like that. If PSU converts there, it might be a whole different game. They at least get a FG out of it I bet.
If I had to pick from one of the ones in the top 10, I would say either Clark's sack near the end zone or James Ross setting the edge (which looks fine to me). When I watched that live I thought it was a great play by Jake Ryan (it still was a good one) but Ross really deserves most of the credit there. Great play.
October 13th, 2014 at 6:19 PM ^
but viewing live it appeared Gardner was medicating right after the ankle injury. Could this have contributed to the Gardnerysms ?
October 13th, 2014 at 6:27 PM ^
What was he medicating with? Jager? If yes, then yes.
October 13th, 2014 at 7:42 PM ^
October 13th, 2014 at 8:19 PM ^
I watched the replay about 10 times, and its obvious he did most of the damage with his arms. The facemask to facemask contact was almost incidental, he just pushed the dude to the ground. Great play Mr. Ross.
October 13th, 2014 at 8:22 PM ^
I'm 35 and quite get-off-my-lawnish and I love Norfleet's dancing. i can't imagine how curmodgeonly and bitter at the world you would have to be to see that and complain about it instead of smile.
October 14th, 2014 at 1:26 AM ^
Nice blast by Ross. PSU's o-line is quite walkonish.
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