PUNT

By Bryan MacKenzie
@Bry_Mac

A few weeks ago, I got all up on my soap box about the Ghosts of Michigan State. I puffed my chest out and stuck my nose out at people who tried to read supernatural explanations into terrestrial problems. “We live in a modern, analytical society,” I whined. Quit being afraid of your own shadow.

Yeah, forget all of that. The Indiana/Michigan game is built on a sacred burial ground that was itself built on an even more sacred burial ground. It was excavated from an Egyptian tomb that was clearly labeled “cursed stuff inside, yo.” It spoke ill of the warlock who lives in the tallest tower in the castle. It said one of the seven dirty words on broadcast television. It is hexed. Jinxed. Afflicted.

Cursed.

What’s the worst that could happen

This series has regularly produced some of the most unexpectedly close and competitive football games you will find. And all it takes is a look back though recent history to see what we’re dealing with:

[After THE JUMP: a lot of normal results unless you look at more than the ultimate victor]

• 1979. A #10 Michigan took on Lee Corso’s best Indiana team (which was worth approximately what you would think it to be worth). Michigan blew a 21-7 lead in the fourth quarter, but won the game on a 45-yard touchdown to Anthony Carter on the last play of the game. Bob Ufer exploded.

• 1991. #4 Michigan took on an Indiana team that finished 7-4-1, and needed a late goal line stand to hold on 24-16.
   
• 1999. #15 Michigan took on an Indiana team that finished 4-7. Michigan jumped out to a 17-0 lead, but Indiana scored the next 24 points to take the lead. Michigan kicked a late field, and an Antwaan Randle El hail mary was nearly caught.
   
• 2009. #23 Michigan took an Indiana team that finished 4-8. Indiana took four separate leads, and Michigan retook the lead each time, including twice in the fourth quarter to win 36-33. Tate Forcier scored a spinning helicopter touchdown followed by an immediate helicopter two-point conversion. Indiana scored a 75 yard touchdown on the next play. Michigan put together another touchdown drive, and then picked off a pass about which Indiana fans are still upset (seriously, ask an Indiana fan about Donovan Warren and see what color they turn). The Hoosiers put up 467 yards.

The only thing Jordan Kovacs ever did wrong.

• 2010. #19 Michigan took on an Indiana team that finished 5-7 (and 1-7 in the Big Ten). The two teams combined to put up 1,146 yards of total offense (574 for Michigan, 568 for Indiana). Denard Robinson alone racked up 494 yards of offense. Michigan surrendered a tying touchdown with 1:15 remaining, but scored with 17 seconds left to win 42-35.
   
• 2013. A 6-1 Michigan team took on an Indiana team that finished 5-7. Jeremy Gallon caught 14 passes for 369 yards (seriously), but Michigan led by only 2 going into the fourth quarter before pulling away late for a 63-47 win. We were all nonplussed.

• 2015. #14 Michigan took on an Indiana team that finished 6-7. Jake Rudock threw for 440 yards and six touchdowns, but still needed to convert a 4th and goal from the 5 with six seconds left in regulation to force overtime, then needed a goal line stand in double-OT to win 48-41.
   
• 2016. #3 Michigan took on an Indiana team that finished 6-7. Michigan, down its starting quarterback, trailed 10-6 in the second half. Michigan put up only 284 yards of offense. Snow angels were made.

[Fuller]

• 2017. #17 Michigan took on a team that finished 5-7. Michigan held Indiana to 278 yards, which is great, except John O’Korn completed 10 of 20 passes for… 58 yards. Michigan jumped out to a 13-0 lead, and led 20-10 with four minutes left, and somehow the game ended up in overtime, where Michigan needed ANOTHER goal line stand to win 27-20.

The curse is real. And it is getting stronger.

The good news, though, is that this is only a curse of pain, not of doom. The only thing crazier than the frequency and insanity of bizarre events is that Michigan still won all of these games. They have won 22 in a row over Indiana. They haven’t lost to Indiana in Ann Arbor since before Bo.

This year, there is a shot at a Big Ten Title on the line, but Michigan also has a game 164 hours later against its most hated rival. Sounds like a recipe for more of the same. Michigan 26, Indiana 24 (3 OT)

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COUNTERPUNT

By Internet Raj
@internetraj

British philosopher and logician Bertrand Russell tells us a story of a turkey who just arrived to a turkey farm. On his very first day, the turkey was fed by the farmer at at precisely at 8 a.m. The very next morning the turkey was fed again at precisely 8 a.m. And so the strictly uniform feeding schedule continued, day after day, week after week, month after month. Eventually, the turkey had such an overwhelmingly large sample size of observations that it was confident enough to predict that the friendly farmer would feed him everyday at 8 a.m. By all accounts, life on the farm was proving to be pretty awesome for the turkey. And so, lulled into complacency by data point after data point of his daily observations, the turkey was caught completely blindsided on the morning of Thanksgiving Day, when the farmer strolled into the farm at precisely 8 a.m, wrung the turkey’s neck, and butchered it.

A Couple of Jive Turkeys

Russell’s metaphor is an interpretation of David Hume’s “problem of induction,” widely recognized as one of the most important arguments in philosophy. “Inductive reasoning” is the process by which one makes a series of empirical observations and, based on such observations, infers a certain claim. For the turkey, the series of observations was his daily feeding and the claim was that the farmer would continue to feed him. Hume is ultimately asking on what grounds do we derive our beliefs about the unobserved world (I won’t be butchered) on the basis of inductive inferences (I was lovingly fed every day for almost a year).

Statistician Nassim Taleb recently reintroduced Hume’s age-old argument to the masses with his popular “Black Swan Theory.” The theory’s etymology is rooted in the fact that, until explorers discovered Australia (the home of black swans), the entire world assumed that all swans were white because up to that point those were the only swans that had ever been seen. When the first black swan was observed in Australia, a thousand-year-old belief confirmed by millions of of corroboratory observations was immediately invalidated. Taleb takes this one step further by defining a “Black Swan” event as one that (i) is a statistical outlier (i.e., one that violates long-held expectations); (ii) carries an extreme impact; and (iii) despite its outlier nature, is errantly rationalized as being wholly predictable with the benefit of hindsight. Taleb offers events like the rise of Hitler, the demise of the Soviet bloc, and the market crash of 1987 as examples of “Black Swans.”

Also a Black Swan Event

So what does this have to do with Michigan vs. Indiana? Let’s take a look at some of the empirical evidence, shall we?

• Michigan has won 22 consecutive games against Indiana.
• Michigan has not lost to Indiana in Ann Arbor once in the past 50 years.
• Indiana gave up 310 passing yards to Nate Stanley this season.
• Indiana’s offensive brain trust is Mike DeBord (OC) and Nick Sheridan (QB coach).

You might be thinking to yourself that you know exactly where this Counterpunt is going. That Michigan has been getting fat off 22 straight years of juicy Hoosier-flavored victories. That, like the turkey, Michigan fans have been lulled into a false sense of security by a half-century home streak and a horrible 2018 IU squad. That the Hoosiers will stroll into the Big House like the unsuspecting farmer on Thanksgiving morning who isn’t clutching a nice juicy victory, but instead wielding an ominously sharpened knife. That Michigan’s dream season and championship aspirations will get choked out like Tom Herman after scouring Craigslist for 4 hours.

Well, I’m sorry. You’re wrong. I mean, come on. Michigan is going to crush Indiana by like 30 points. Indiana sucks lol. I know this. You know this.

And, if anything, what Hume, Russell, Taleb et al. should have taught you is that when all of the observable data is seemingly pointing one way, you are vulnerable to getting blindsided by an unexpected result: Alabama 34, The Citadel 37