Punt-Counterpunt: The 2021 Playoff Semifinal
Georgia Links: Preview, The Podcast, FFFF Offense (chart), FFFF Defense (chart)
Something's been missing from Michigan gamedays since the free programs ceased being economically viable: scientific gameday predictions that are not at all preordained by the strictures of a column in which one writer takes a positive tack and the other a negative one… something like Punt-Counterpunt.
PUNT
By Bryan MacKenzie
@Bry_Mac
“Act like you’ve been there before.”
You’ve heard it a thousand times. Often it comes from grumpy older fans upset that a Youth hit the Stanky Leg after scoring a touchdown, or when a school with a terrible basketball team rushes the court after beating the #8 team in the country. The idea is that people who experience success should act with humility and modesty. The idea is that it makes you look more impressive and imposing if you make it seem unremarkable.
And in this particular case, it’s really stupid advice. Just monumentally dumb.
For whom exactly is this façade being erected? Is there even a casual fan that doesn’t already know that Michigan is a newcomer here? The talking point has been so thoroughly beaten to death by everyone from Paul Finebaum to @SpartanGuy186631927 that we may as well have renamed Jim Harbaugh’s position the J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Hasn’t Beaten Ohio State Hasn’t Won The Big Ten And Hasn’t Been To The Playoff Head Football Coach.
Now what? (Barron)
[After THE JUMP: Georgia font.]
Everyone knows they’re new here. Michigan isn’t a tourist walking through Times Square who might be able to pass itself off as a long-time New Yorker who just happens to love Bubba Gump Shrimp. Michigan is wearing a plastic Statue of Liberty crown and a giant “I Heart NY” foam finger. It has no idea how the subway turnstiles work. It’s speaking in the thickest Midwest accent and taking pictures of street signs and pigeons.
Michigan has been playing football for 142 years. They’ve never been in a game quite like this. Punt/Counterpunt has been punting and counterpunting for a few decades. Ditto.
This is a new experience for Michigan. It’s also, intentionally, a different Michigan team. Somewhere within the halls of Schembechler Hall this year, someone — probably Aidan Hutchinson or Hassan Haskins or Cade McNamara — made the decision that Michigan was going to become 1990’s Miami. They were going to exhibit aggressive amnesia about the failings of the past, and call their shot before every at-bat. They were going to be unapologetically vocal. They were going to kick the hell out of the ball. And they were going to prove once again the power of Spencer Hall’s contention that great teams taunt.
Coming for it all (Fuller)
It would have been safer, and possibly more advisable, to go the ‘quiet confidence’ route. After all, the odds weren’t great. Michigan has been program whose previous summit attempts to have been more Into Thin Air than Free Solo, and they were coming off a full-on Crashed Into The Mountain season. The mere suggestion that Michigan might accomplish something like this were met with contempt from friend and foe alike, and you don’t run the risk of ending up with a “Joe Bolden drives a spike into Spartan Stadium” if you act meek and hope for the best.
But Aidan Hutchinson summarized Michigan’s approach to the season when discussing his viral blasting of Thayer Munford:
“Send it all at me. I want it all.”
In the John Beilein era, we learned the phrase “Queme Los Barcos.” Burn the ships. Give yourself no chance to go back. No easy escape. You don’t worry about tempting fate, because Fate is on your side… and if it’s not, Fate will be brought to heel.
It’s how you get a team Jumping Around in Camp Randall like goddang maniacs with 15 minutes left in a 10-point game. It’s how you get a team dancing to Thunderstruck while TRAILING through three quarters at Nebraska. It’s how you get the entire team talking an EPIC amount of crap in the tunnel at halftime in a 1-point game against a team they haven’t beaten in a million years. It’s how you make the #2 team in the country quit, and then get Buckeyes whining to the FCC, the Pope, and the International Criminal Court about Desmond Howard saying mean (and ***demonstrably true***) things about their offensive linemen.
In a lot of ways, Michigan and Georgia have been similar programs in the last decade or so. Both have been quite good. But both have been seen by the rest of the college football world as fragile, especially when compared to their rival Leviathans. Michigan figured out how to get past theirs this year, doing so with gusto. Georgia didn’t; despite being a touchdown favorite, they were blown out by Alabama in the SEC Championship Game.
Georgia has been here before. They’ve won the SEC and they’ve been to the National Championship Game. They are easily the more established of the two powers, and Michigan is the upstart. But, fundamentally, is this a different Georgia team than the ones that came up short against Alabama all those seasons? Michigan, for better or worse, is a different team than the ones we’ve seen in recent years. This one wants it all, and Georgia isn’t the ones to deny them. Michigan 23, Georgia 21.
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COUNTERPUNT
By Internet Raj
@internetraj
I’ve been staring at a blinking cursor for an hour, willing words to spill forth from my fingertips, but nothing has come to me. “Counterpunt – Georgia.docx” is a vexingly blank canvas and the harder I try to summon the smallest nugget of an idea, a kernel of a concept, a mere subatomic particle of creative inspiration, the larger and more intimidating the white space before me becomes. I silently curse myself for typing this on my widescreen work monitor. I pace around my apartment, listen to my 17th different CFP preview podcast, have a glass or 4 of bourbon. Still, nothing. I sit back down and try fiddling with the fonts. I eschew my go-to Times New Roman for Georgia to get meta. It’s similar to TNR in a lot of ways but much fancier. Especially the numbers. 42-27. See? They are all asymmetrical and stuff. My mind drifts. I wonder if Dax Hill has finally made it to Miami. I check Twitter to see if there are any updates on his status but end up falling into a meme wormhole and don’t snap out of it until another hour has passed. My mom FaceTime’s me and I answer. She asks why I seem so distracted. I tell her I’m trying to figure out if Dax Hill made the trip to Miami. She asks me who Dax Hill is. My forehead furrows in exasperation. This will require a lot of explanation. I start with a broad overview of FlightAware before taking a brief detour into the Najee Harris recruiting saga. There’s silence on the other side of the line. I ask if she’s following before noticing she hung up 23 minutes prior.
I try to give myself some self-encouragement. Come on Raj, you can do this. You’ve written this column over 40 times! It’s just 500 words, surely you can do it! It doesn’t work. I take a different tack and try to berate myself, hoping that a brutally sharp excoriation will whip me into a productive frenzy. You fucking idiot, Raj. You can’t write 500 damn words? Pathetic loser. Despite voicing these thoughts in as close an approximation of Urban Meyer’s voice that I can summon, it still doesn’t work.
So here I am, writing about my inner creative struggles, taking you, the reader, on a real time tour of my lethargically non-compliant brain. As I try to unpack and interrogate why I am at such a loss for words for this game, it would be easy for me to point the finger at my jetlag-induced fugue after just disembarking an 18-hour flight from New York to Singapore. But that’s not it. I’ve done some of my best Counterpunt work in a sleep-deprived fugue state.
The true answer, I think, is that we are in uncharted waters and I simply don’t know what to do with myself. Beating Ohio State. Avoiding a catastrophic letdown one week later by grinding Iowa into dust for a Big Ten Championship. A College Football Playoff berth. The Fucking College Fucking Football Fucking Playoff. Excuse my language, but as I’m typing it right now, I still can’t believe it. I was so sure that in the dying embers of the MSU loss, this season would devolve into the typical November nightmare. Instead, it’s been a dream. I feel like I’m floating in a warm fuzzy ether, the opposite of whatever the BPONE is. The strictures of Punt-Counterpunt require me take the opposite stance of Bryan and predict a Michigan loss. And, sure, I’ll do that. Given the Vegas odds, advanced stats, and all the prognostication from the College Football intelligentsia, a Michigan loss seems to be the most probably outcome. But predicting the outcome is beside the point. Like this column, I’ve decided I’m no longer in control. I’m just along for the ride. And my prediction be damned, let’s hope it keeps on going.
Michigan 24, Georgia 27
December 31st, 2021 at 2:49 PM ^
I'm going to suggest that Raj start thinking about the Punt-Counterpunt column for the Alabama game right now. One more column to go...
December 31st, 2021 at 7:24 PM ^
I’m going to suggest that Raj resign since nobody will put him out of his misery by firing him.
December 31st, 2021 at 2:52 PM ^
Opposite of BPONE? BCOPE - Blue Cloud of Positive Expectations
December 31st, 2021 at 3:18 PM ^
DOPE - Den Of Positive Expectations
December 31st, 2021 at 4:19 PM ^
Actually, make that EL DOPO
Especially Lofty Den Of Positive Outcomes
December 31st, 2021 at 4:12 PM ^
ENOPB: Expanding Nebula of Positive Beliefs
December 31st, 2021 at 2:54 PM ^
Here's to Michigan playing a strong, competitive, error-free, and injury-free game. Let the chips fall where they will after that.
December 31st, 2021 at 3:39 PM ^
I'm with Bryan!
Damn it, Bry_Mac had the balls to not just predict, but to CLAIM a victory over ohio.
UGA goes down today!
Go Blue!
December 31st, 2021 at 3:42 PM ^
No game day is complete without reading a Punt Counter Punt.
Great work through the season gentleman.
I am hopeful that there's yet one more column in both Bryan's and Raj's arsenal.
Go Blue!
December 31st, 2021 at 3:53 PM ^
As they apparently said in the 60s, "Right arm!" (Left arm too, I guess? Who knows what was going on then?) Or maybe it was "Right on!"
Whatev.
BMac, you nailed it. This IS a different team, and WE feel different.
IRaj, you nailed it. We're just along for the ride, and hope it keeps on going.
GB! BG!
Go Blue! Beat Georgia!
December 31st, 2021 at 4:27 PM ^
Great job, gentlemen! While a Harbaugh team has not technically been in a game of this magnitude, they have experienced -- and now won -- a game that will have a similar feel in this year's Ohio State game. I suggest the team and coaches adopt the same aggressive attitude. Win and you (presumably) get Alabama, a team that looks amazing but one that a great Michigan team has beaten in recent memory. We are a great Michigan team.
Anyway, I digress. A loss will elicit a personal shrug and function as a measuring stick of where we need to get to in order to make more frequent CFP visits. So, to hell with it. Queme los barcos and leave it all out there. If it doesn't work, it's still been an excellent season.
Aside from that, Win. The. Game.
December 31st, 2021 at 4:42 PM ^
Cmon Raj buddy. We got this.
Good shit BMac. I can’t wait to taunt some of my MSU buddies with Golden Tate diving into the MSU band. That was…Golden.
December 31st, 2021 at 4:48 PM ^
Bryan, that was very funny and well written. One of my favorites in the series.
December 31st, 2021 at 4:49 PM ^
I think Raj played a lot of golf the past to weeks.
December 31st, 2021 at 5:03 PM ^
Bryan, I think you have actually found the one key factor that causes me to think Michigan can pull this off. We know this is a different Michigan team. For all their gaudy metrics, is this really a different Georgia team? I think a little Mel Tucker analysis (BTW, I'm confident he is going to be a monumental pain in our ass for years to come) is in order. In the 4th quarter, they will break; we won't.
December 31st, 2021 at 5:04 PM ^
The true answer, I think, is that we are in uncharted waters and I simply don’t know what to do with myself. Beating Ohio State. Avoiding a catastrophic letdown one week later by grinding Iowa into dust for a Big Ten Championship. A College Football Playoff berth. The Fucking College Fucking Football Fucking Playoff.
December 31st, 2021 at 5:41 PM ^
I have faith in this team. That's it. There's no Great Insight Into Stats and Specs. I just feel it.
Really enjoyed p/c today, gentlemen. you're both terrific writers!
December 31st, 2021 at 5:43 PM ^
Good stuff. But no MGoWeather?
December 31st, 2021 at 6:26 PM ^
Great stuff, as usual. I'm always here for atypical font families.
December 31st, 2021 at 6:59 PM ^
I don’t ask for much, I just want one more column from you boys this season. Go Blue!
December 31st, 2021 at 7:22 PM ^
Great again, Bryan and Raj. Here’s to one more!
December 31st, 2021 at 8:23 PM ^
Times New Roman FTW!
January 1st, 2022 at 10:26 AM ^
That Spencer Hall taunting article is awesome!
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