Penalty Yards: Michigan-85 Minnesota-10

Other than the two personal foul penalties that I guess you could argue have some semblance of subjectivity, most of Michigan penalties we're procedural (offsides, false start, illegal formation). These refs were incompetent, but Michigan has been getting called for lots of procedural penalties this year, as you would expect for a young team. MSU gets called for a lot as well, and they're equally young. The idea there is some conspiracy against UM and not just mistakes from a young team is needlessly reactionary and just wanting to vent. oh wait, this is a Maizen post?

What’s unfortunate is that this animosity toward Harbaugh is really short-sighted by the traditionalists in football. They hated the football camps he started because it broke unspoken rules about recruiting that were antiquated. They hate his vocal opinion about the officiating in 2016 OSU game, which was obvious to even the announcers that there were some terribly missed calls against Michigan and zero holding penalties against one of the the best Dlines in the nation. They hate him for the innovative foreign trips he takes his players on, even though those types of experiences are what college is all about and many of these players have never traveled outside the country. They hate him for his secrecy around the depth chart and “fair gamesmanship.”

The resistance of the NCAA, media, officials in games, and general “football establishment” toward Harbaugh is foolish. He is a visionary and innovator. He will change his recruiting happens so as to create more parity throughout D1 schools, how the college game is played on the field, and how the media is handled.

What boggles the mind is that if the establishment could see past their own hate of Harbaugh, they would realize he will help to innovate the college game for the better. Look at the PAC 12 since he left: USC no longer dominates, Stanford is now feared rather than laughed at, and parity has been established within the conference. These things make the sport much more interesting to watch.

that Michigan fans stop blaming everything that goes wrong on the refs?  No loss is ever the team's fault or the coaches fault.  It's always becasue the refs were paid (by Ohio State or the Big Ten or the NCAA) to make bad calls that go against us.  

 

Sheesh. Just stop.

Right. Now .

Coming off the heels of a relatively comfortable win.  NOW.  Speak up now when the narrative cant be it's just sour grapes coming off a loss like last year against OSU.  Coming off a win I think the media will at least have to pay attention to what he's saying and not immediately dissmiss him.

Playing nice with the refs isnt working. It didnt work with RichRod playing nice with a Detroti media that hated him (he gave out injury updates AND depth charts if you remember) and it's not working with Harbaugh and the league officials.  When a group of people hate you, they hate you, and appeasement has never worked in changing that mindset.  

He should come out this week and demand that officiating crew NEVER gets assaigned a Michigan game again.  He should loudly and specifically demonstrate their insane bias against Michigan immediately so if Delany does assaign them to the OSU game again (and my guess is they will send them to both Wisconsin and OSU) at least it's already out there as to why it's happening.  

The bias is real.  The hate is real.

but I think the way Fox broadcast the game aggravated that significantly in terms of how it affected us.

The announcers were clueless and there was something very odd about their lack of knowledge but also their lack of complete awareness of what happened in the game at any time. And that went both ways, Brando and Tillman had precious little useful to say about Minnesota as well. I watch a *lot* of CFB and this crew is significantly worse than quite a few of ESPN's lower end crews who end up doing Sun Belt. MWC or MAC games. They were rambling on about stuff, missed plays, etc. Tillman's bizarre take on the ejection situation was IMO most likely a result of him not having fully seen what happened, opening his mouth anyway and then digging his hole deeper to save face.

This was made worse by the overall production which also seemed 'out of it'. Note toward the end of the game when they showed 3rd down as 4th down so on TV there were seemingly two 4th down plays by Minnesota. Why? Because they had missed a penalty against Michigan which we also never saw a replay of. This wasn't the only missed replay - and that in a game hardly played at a breathtaking pace.

Fox hasn't been terrible across the board this year but this was a pretty bad show by them. Their foursome in the studio was visibly bored and quite obviously wanted to leave for the day before the Michigan game had even started. The fake banter had long given way to vacant stares and they were mailing it in. I know there was a long delay in the PSU/MSU game, but it's not like that really changed their schedule in a major way nor did they have to wait it out in the cold of East Lansing. It seems like these guys just aren't mentally up for a tripleheader.

 

I find it hard to believe that there is a ref conspiracy against Michigan, but you would think randomness alone would dictate opposing teams occasionally having more penalty yards.

refs have with Dantonio.

I haven’t seen more consistently lopsided reffing against one team as I’ve seen against Michigan starting with last year’s OSU game. I’ve seen worse single games however don’t recall a stretch where it’s been so consistent that I’m concerned about it’s affect on future games. Usually it evens out. Sometimes you can say it was the home crowd having influence. Sometimes the team with more star power gets the benefit of the doubt. There’s no consistency in this instance outside of Harbaugh. It’s rare that I think it’s personal but I’m starting to believe this is targeted and personal.