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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

James Hydrick was a “self-proclaimed psychic” who rose to prominence in the early 1980s as a guy who could perform super-simple acts of telekinesis, but skyrocketed in prominence when he got super mega dunked-upon on television for his obvious, obvious fraud.

Hydrick went on the television show That’s Incredible! in 1980 and demonstrated his vast powers to… flip the pages of a phone book (located right in front of his face), and to rotate a pencil (located right in front of his face). The trick was so obvious that even host John Davidson pointed out that he could hear Hydrick blowing. And this was 1980, before the concept of skepticism had been invented.

So when Hydrick got invited on a second show, the Bob Barker-hosted That’s My Line, to face a challenge from magician James Randi, he probably should have said no. Randi offered Hydrick $10,000 if he could perform the page-turning trick again. And this dude agreed. And then got body-slammed into the core of the Earth by my man Ambrose Burnside.

[After THE JUMP: The people who demand to be taken seriously.]

I’ve often wondered why people like this subject themselves to this kind of unnecessary scrutiny. He could have gone about his business like any other magician, doing tricks that everyone already knew weren’t real. But when called to the carpet, man, you gotta bail. You see it all the time: people who should know “I am a fraud, and he knows I’m a fraud, so this is not going to go well for me.” I watched the Sam Bankman-Fried fiasco for months, and every time he did a podcast or a Twitter Space or took out a billboard that just said “SBF: he only did 90% of the stuff he’s been accused of,” I wondered what the actual hell he was trying to accomplish.

Because here’s the real problem with proving you aren’t a fraud: you can’t. It’s not possible. Even if you aren’t. No matter how much proof you have, in the minds of those who are convinced you’re a fraud, all you can prove is that you are amazing at covering your tracks. In the best case, you can’t really help yourself, and in most of the other cases, you can cause yourself amazing harm.

And I wonder if it was this logic that caused Ohio State to misplay their hand so badly on this one.

Imagine you’re Ryan Day, and you learn “Michigan has been cheating. They are running one of the dumbest schemes this side of Slurp Juice, and they will go into The Game thinking they have our signals.” WHY WOULD YOU TELL ANYONE NOW?

First, YOU CAN USE THAT INFORMATION. You can trick Michigan by exploiting the fact that Michigan will be relying on those signals, and you can recreate your version of the famous Mike Leach Fake Script ploy. You could look like a genius after a couple of years of looking like a guy who wrote a tell-all book about the dark side of the Keebler Factory. The whole point of Connor Stalion’s Incredibly Fantastical Scheme is that information is power. You knew something Michigan didn’t know. But then you told them.

And second, and WAY more devastatingly, you could have completely invalidated Michigan’s entire season. Hell, you could have invalidated the last THREE seasons. Imagine this news came out on, say, January 15, 2024. Maybe Michigan is sitting there with a bright shiny national championship trophy and a third consecutive Big Ten championship trophy. And then ESPN or The Athletic or someone drops the news that the whole thing was the fruit of the poisonous tree. That’s the final word. Michigan won because Michigan cheated. Ohio State is completely off the hook for another loss.

But Ohio State thinks Michigan is a fraud. They’ve thought that for this entire run. Michigan has been winning because of the snow and the flu and five bad plays. Every turn of fortune has been a mirage, and this proved it. And if we take away their magical and ill-gotten powers, they will crumble.

But by announcing this to the world now, Michigan gets its shot. Sure, Michigan can’t prove they’re not a fraud, both because they DID cheat (for some definition of cheating), and because we know you can’t prove that kind of negative. There will always be a cloud over the last 2.5 years. But Michigan gets to play games against Penn State, Maryland, Ohio State, the Big Ten West Champ [/waves tiny, tiny flag] and up to two playoff teams. And they get to do so without their illegal sign-stealer guy (who was ALSO their LEGAL sign-stealer guy), and possibly without their head coach, and with all of their opponents having more than ample notice of what Michigan had been up to.

If they win out, they prove that whatever else they are, and however they came to this moment, they didn’t win because of Connor Stalions. But they have to win out. Anything short of that, no matter how much other evidence they pile on the side of “this is a kick-ass football team, full stop,” and the whole enterprise will be deemed null and void. Even for a team as good as Michigan, that’s a huge task. And you thought the pressure to make 2023 “The Year” couldn’t possibly get any higher.

But Purdue? Oh, buddy, I would NOT want to be Purdue right now. Did you watch the Michigan State game? Michigan did NOT take kindly to the three-ish days of Sign-gate leading up to that one, and they took it out on lesser competition. Imagine that level of pent-up frustration after two solid weeks of having their every accomplishment marked as suspect. I don’t know what will happen in Happy Valley or on Thanksgiving Weekend, but I have a pretty good idea what is gonna happen tonight.

Next week, Michigan begins its titanic struggle for the soul of the program. Today, Michigan gets to exorcise some demons and send a message. I somehow doubt they will forego that opportunity.

Michigan 56, Purdue 6

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COUNTERPUNT

By Internet Raj
@internetraj

Earlier this week, Purdue head coach Ryan Walters had an opportunity to do what most head coaches do when asked about an unfolding scandal at another school: side-step any question that has even the tiniest garnish of controversy, say a whole bunch of vanilla-ass nothing, and move the hell on.

Ryan Walters did not do that.

Instead, when asked about Michigan’s headline consuming sign-stealing operation, Ryan Walters waded straight into the mud and unleashed as direct and unrestrained a statement as possible: “These aren’t allegations. It happened. There’s video evidence. There’s ticket purchases you can track back. We know for a fact they were at a number of our games.”

And with that, Ryan Walters revealed three things to me.

First, Ryan Walters earned my admiration for being one of the only Big Ten coaches to come out and address Michigan’s sign-stealing allegations head on. He did not cower behind a cloak of anonymity, as I imagine some other Big Ten coaches doing as they clandestinely slide into a telephone booth at the stroke of midnight and pull out their voice-disguising vocoder from the depths of their trench coat while dialing 1-800-THAMEL. So, putting aside, my own obvious bias, props to Ryan Walters.

Second, Ryan Walters probably said just enough in that interview to change my score prediction from 42-0 to 49-0.

Third, Ryan Walters made me finally realize who Ryan Walters is. I don’t mean that in any sort of abstract, existential sense. I mean I had no fucking idea who the head coach of the Purdue Boilermakers was until I read this interview excerpt. This might baffle you. But Raj, you write a weekly football preview column for one of the largest independent sports websites in the country. How do you not know who the head football coach is for a conference foe? And you know what, you’re right. Hand up. My bad. But if you’re truly loyal reader of this column, you should know by now that I barely Know Ball. I don’t talk schematics, statistics, or, really, substance. The engine of Counterpunt is Vibes.

Using Vibes as a compass to navigate complex issues is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you are prone to making embarrassing basic factual mistakes like not knowing who the head coach of Purdue is. On the other hand, surrendering to Vibes-based lifestyle while in the eye of the storm of a potentially program-leveling scandal can be useful. Because, unlike the Purdue game, I can’t tell you what’s going to happen with sign-gate. You can parse NCAA bylaws. You can analyze the Big Ten rulebook. You can follow the money. You can study precedents. You can spend days filling your entire head with gobbledygook and try to apply rational, evidence-based logic to a situation that is comprised exclusively of fast-moving, dynamic constituent parts. Believe me, I’ve tried. Your futile attempt at rationality will be rudely confronted with the belly laugh it deserves.

What I can tell you is, that as of the very moment I’m typing this, the Vibes are decidedly… Not Good. Michigan most assuredly committed NCAA violations, the degree to which will be adjudicated in due time. In the interim, though, the overwhelming majority of Big Ten coaches and athletic directors are out for Jim Harbaugh’s blood and want a pound of flesh delivered outside the strictures of the NCAA’s traditional dispute resolution process. The fate of our head coach, championship-caliber team, and the program at large are in the hands of a first-year conference commissioner who has the unenviable task of balancing a bloodthirsty mob against the principles of due process for a brand that is an economic pillar of the Big Ten. Putting my own, obvious bias aside, I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes.

The Vibes are currently a depressing gray cloud casting a pall over what should be a triumphant season. But as the popular refrain goes, winning cures all. Win today. Win next week. And the week after. And the week after that. Just keep winning.

Michigan 49, Purdue 0.