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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

There has been a lot of confusion, consternation, amusement, and anger over the last 48 hours. I know many of you want answers. And in that light, I have a confession to make.

It was me. I did it. All of it.

Since 2013, I have been taking careful, detailed notes about Michigan’s opponents. Scouting them. Analyzing them for strengths. Probing them for weaknesses. And for a decade, I’ve been documenting my findings in this highly secure database. It was my understanding that this information was ONLY available to Michigan’s coaching staff. However, it has come to my attention that apparently, through some sort of technical glitch, that information has been, UNBEKNOWNST TO ME, publicly available this entire time, to the point where people were openly discussing it.

So now, with my cover blown, I can now reveal myself to the world. It is I. I am Sparticus.

[After THE JUMP: MSU's signs.]

Mostly, I worked through my vast network of spies. But sometimes I had to take matters into my own hands. Here I am, scouting UConn in person in 2021 against Vanderbilt, a mere 11 months before the Huskies came to Ann Arbor. I even recorded some of the game without the express written consent of Major League Baseball and in direct violation of State and Federal Wiretapping Laws.

Am I saying this is why Michigan beat UConn 59-0? Of course not. This is a team effort. But yes, I am the reason. Watch these highlights and tell me Michigan could have done that without knowing exactly what Jim Mora had planned. And am I the reason Michigan was able to pound ECU, UNLV, Bowling Green, Rutgers, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Indiana into the ground? Also yes. There is no other logical explanation.

So now, with the world aware, there’s no reason for me not to empty the notebook on Michigan State. So here’s what I know:

They are bad.

A lot of people are saying MSU is at “rock bottom,” but I don’t like that term. I understand it, and it provides a handy universal shorthand for “the thing has gone terribly wrong,” but I feel like people use it wrong. It’s commonly used as a way of saying, “things can’t possibly go any lower.” And a couple of centuries ago, that might have been true of rock bottom. If the Pilgrims were digging a hole, and they hit bedrock, that was it. That was as low as they were gonna go.

But we don’t live in ye olde times. What “rock bottom” means today is, “okay, you’ve gone as low as you can EASILY go. If you want to go lower, you can, but you’re gonna have to put some real effort into it.” And boy howdy did Michigan State stack the dynamite last Saturday.

Six months ago, you couldn’t have drawn up a scenario much worse than having your starting quarterback and best player transfer, starting the season 2-3, and having your head coach fired for REASONS. But if you said, “Michigan State then loses a road game to 4-1 Rutgers,” sure, that would have been BAD, but it’d be consistent with the world you’re describing. But losing the game by building an 18-point lead and then speed-running the worst of the Bobby Williams, John L. Smith, Mark Dantonio, and Mel Tucker… buddy, you’re doing a yeoman’s work to reset the floor.

“But where is that tactical insight you’re so invaluable for,” I hear you asking. Well, fine, here you go:

• Michigan State uses three play signalers, but only the most handsome guy’s signals are live. The other two are dummy signals. Jay Johnson thinks having the beautiful people convey the plays will help instill a sense of gravitas and confidence to his team.
• On fourth downs, the signal “breathes oxygen” means that Michigan State will run a slow-developing run play out of shotgun.
• State’s go-to play if the defense shows pressure is called “Marco Polo,” where the quarterback will throw the football as hard as he can at the first person to say his name. That’s a check at the line, where Kim or Houser will use the verbal call “YEET.”
• On third downs, they will run a lot of “Yellow Line Is Lava” calls. The signal for that is making the face from Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’
• Defensive Coordinator Scottie Hazelton’s signals are all beard-based. Defenders get their play calls based on the positioning and overall musk of Hazelton’s facial hair. I tried to crack it, but I kept getting mesmerized by it and couldn’t focus long enough.
• I couldn’t figure out Special Teams Coordinator Ross Els’ calls either. They all seem to be Els staring blankly off into the distance, though occasionally he’ll check that up to “patting his pockets like he can’t find his cell phone or car keys.”

Now, without this secret edge, Michigan’s only hope is that Michigan State will overthink things and adjust TOO much to their circumstances, which, pal if you think that’s a risk you’ve got another thing coming.

Michigan State 21, Michigan 20

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COUNTERPUNT

By Internet Raj
@internetraj

Forty-eight hours ago, I was approaching the dénouement of Rivalry Week with casual indifference. Michigan has spent the first seven games of the 2023 season methodically and brutally suffocating the dying breaths out of their opponents. Michigan State, meanwhile, has spent the year reeling from embarrassing off-the-field scandals only to stumble into even more on-the-field humiliations, culminating with last week’s collapse against Rutgers.

So you can forgive me for lackadaisically meandering to today’s game. Kickoff is 7:30am Singapore time, and I was planning on waking up with a cold brew, indulging in a mimosa or two, and goofing around with my kids while a three-touchdown game served as fuzzy, warm soundtrack to a lazy Sunday morning. Really, my chief concerns were winning by a respectable enough margin, getting out of the game injury-free, and avoiding felonious assaults.

That’s all changed now.

On Thursday, it was reported that Michigan and Jim Harbaugh are the subjects of an NCAA investigation for an alleged “sign-stealing operation” involving a “low-level staffer” and a “vast network” of spies. The allegations have trickled through to the public via a jumbled and often internally inconsistent and incomplete medley of media reports, press releases, leaks, and dubiously cryptic message board posts with just enough of that tiny kernel of “wait this could be true?” to take them seriously. At the time I’m writing this, we are currently still stumbling around in the fog of war of the just-launched investigation, but that hasn’t stopped rival fanbases from weaponizing selective facts to delegitimize everything Michigan has accomplished the last two years, or Michigan fans from loudly shouting “Witch hunt!” from the rooftops while cherry-picking any piece of favorable evidence as proof of absolute exoneration.

The truth of the matter is that, at this stage, it is impossible to state with any certainty how this whole thing will shake out. Unfortunately, that mindset is completely at odds with a media and content landscape whose principal currency is likes and engagement. So, instead, we are left with tribal factions plugging their ears, hurling vitriol at each other, and making declarative conclusions with 100% certainty about a complex, evolving situation as if we didn’t all know that each and every one of them couldn’t even figure out if a dress was blue or gold a couple years ago.

But you know what? This is fun. I embrace it. I love it. This entire scandal, the response to the scandal, and the counter-response to the response, embodies everything that is awesome about college football. Just take a step back and think about it. Michigan may have hired a former military officer to clandestinely spy and decode opposing team’s signals. And if shady but deliciously salacious message board buzz is correct, rival coaches that have had their soul snatched from them by Jim Harbaugh may have been so desperate that they snitched to the NCAA.

And that doesn’t even account for MSU President Teresa Woodruff, who came out of the woodwork to issue a bizarre statement admonishing Michigan amidst reports that MSU was actually considering the ultimate act of cowardice by forfeiting today’s game. Sprinkled atop all of that is the deliciously indignant reaction of the MSU fanbase, who have taken a break from cobbling together photoshops of Urban Meyer in Spartan gear to moral grandstand about integrity—I mean, come on! Would I be doing the same if I were in their shoes? Probably! Because this is college football. And once you come the cathartic realization that college football can be separated from more serious pockets of reality like geopolitical crises or politics—which would benefit from a more deliberate, rigorous, and civil debate—you can surrender to the inanity and recognize it for what it ultimately is: the best entertainment product today, period.

All that being said, for Michigan fans, this investigation has very real consequences for the team we know and love. And we are truly standing at a monumental crossroads in college football. One fork of the road winds its way to a conventional, program-leveling scandal that culminates in the routine series of shame, firings, and media backlash. That would be a huge bummer and a generally depressing end to the recently revitalized Harbaugh Era.

But the other road? Oh baby, that’s where it gets good. That leads to quite possibly the most hilarious destination of all time: namely, Michigan fans getting to shove everything back into the faces of rivals; emerging victorious over the objectively horrendous reporting and transparent engagement-farming by breathless clowns like Stewart Mandel of The Athletic (a company that owes its very existence and solvency to Jerome Powell’s printing press and inebriated VC investors); and, if the salacious rumors of Ryan Day the snitch are true, dancing on the grave of a chinless loser who (1) got his ass caved in twice in a row by a man who casually undermined the pinnacle of his lifetime achievements with a single “third base” comment, and (2) somehow found himself going from “hangin’ a hundred on ‘em” to desperately tattling to the NCAA as a last resort to dodge the inevitable November buzzsaw. Yeah, this could get good.

But in terms of immediate impact, the sign-stealing scandal has injected a newfound sense of urgency in an otherwise monotonous regular season for Michigan. All of a sudden, I won’t be yawning when the Wolverines roll off touchdown after touchdown on overmatched opponents. No, I’ll be at the edge of my seat, greedily soaking in every score, cackling like a James Bond villain as the last credible excuse of our opponents crumbles before one of the oldest, most inexorable laws of the universe: “Ball don’t lie.”

And today will be the best day to soak it in.

Michigan 52, MSU 10