chris evans produces ankle slurry

[Eric Upchurch]

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SPONSOR NOTE: HomeSure Lending will provide you a mortgage. It's a simple process, really: some tax returns, maybe some other stuff, and then Matt works with various lenders to get the best deal. It is a quick process, as well, and one where you know the guy providing your mortgage has your best interests at heart because he gets business through word of mouth and MGoBlog advertising. Also he has opinions you can talk about related to Michigan in down times.

FORMATION NOTES: About 50/50 between shotgun and other stuff, with an emphasis on TEs and WRs—just 12 fullback snaps for Mason. Nothing stood out as unusual. WMU responded with a four-man front on every play and some rolled up safeties... sometimes absurdly so.

This was less of a problem for the run game than you'd think but RBs did have to dodge these guys at the line from time to time. The flipside was the Nico Collins touchdown, which was super easy because a safety lined up at eight yards.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: Same OL as the opener. Second team was Mayfield/Filiaga/Spanellis/Honigford/Hudson. QBs went Patterson, McCaffrey, Peters. Higdon and Evans got closer to equal reps with Wilson indeed the #3. WR rotation was pretty much the same as the opener, with DPJ and Collins clear-ish starters on the outside and Martin the only guy rotating in much. TEs were the same.

Muhammad, Schoonmaker, Turner, Milton, and Hayes not getting in strongly implies redshirts are coming for them.

[After THE JUMP: I am down with the G]

[Eric Upchurch]

9/8/2018 – Michigan 49, Western Michigan 3 – 1-1

Booing used to be a cause for Mad Online battles between booers and non-booers. Gloves were removed and slapped across e-faces as various wings of the Michigan fanbase challenged the very heart of others' fandom. Devastating ripostes flew into REPLY fields. Knuckles cracked in anticipation of the next bombing run against the uneducated heathens on the other side. The forest veritably quaked in response to the raw energies exchanged.

These days Michigan perpetrates a false start on their first drive and runs into the line a couple times and punts and the boos rain down with 13 minutes left in the first quarter of an eventual 49-3 win. They'd already gotten a first down and everything.

The fanbase is testy, folks.

It is our unfortunate fate to know this pattern intimately: you get a year, maybe two, of merciful silence around you. Then the sort of people who Yell Things To Their Section start yellin' em. It didn't take long for those guys to reveal themselves in this game; the depressing moment when you realize you are surrounded by people who are just going to keep saying things like that was a shock and then not at all a shock. The sea done changed. Hooray for that again.

The subsequent demolition of a very bad Bronco team could dampen but not eliminate them. In every football game a little derp must derp, and this was no exception. Josh Metellus got a penalty for flinging a WMU player to the ground a couple steps after both had left the playing field and BAWWWWWW GET YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME THIS HAPPENS EVERY WEEK METELLUS (it does not but don't say anything). Shea Patterson overthrows Sean McKeon in the endzone and BAWWWWWW I THOUGHT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE SOMETHING (Patterson had been disrupted on the throw but don't say anything).

And so forth and so on. MLive's cheap content idea after a 49-3 win was rounding up BAWWW tweets. (Their game column's title: "For at least a week, Michigan football quiets the critics." False, good sir. False.) A Maize and Brew takeaway was bitching about the gameplan(?):

Michigan won the coin toss and elected to receive, something I am usually NEVER okay with. But the Wolverines took the field on offense first and tried to flex their muscles in the face of an inferior foe.

Instead they did the opposite. After a quick completion to Zach Gentry from Shea Patterson for a first down, the Wolverines got conservative yet again (SHOCKER!) ...

Harbaugh has always been a guy that wants to establish the run game. But the run game was established by the end of the third drive. At that point, why not let the ball loose and see what can happen?

God knows what would have transpired if this game was anything like last year's outings against teams with triple-digit S&P+ rankings. The collective BAWWW would have set off seismic detectors across the state if Michigan had entered the fourth quarter up 24-14 or 19-13, as they did against Cincinnati and Air Force last year.

They did not. And there is a little something there. Shea Patterson can do things, things outside the realm of a Forcier. Michigan can grind very bad defenses into powder while limiting Patterson's exposure to 17 attempts, maybe half of which demanded even a semblance of pass protection. It is possible to squint and see the outline of a functional offense; last year squinting just made the tire fire blurry.

None of that is going to calm the BAWWWW brigade or our internal, censored BAWWWW, but keeping it relatively caged for a week is nice. Relatively nice. Better than last week, at least. BAW!

AWARDS

Known Friends And Trusted Agents Of The Week

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[Bryan Fuller]

-2535ac8789d1b499[1]you're the man now, dog

#1 Karan Higdon. 12 yards a carry is good. Higdon slashed to the backside on a couple of cuts, broke several tackles, and jetted past safeties for those yards. While they were there, they weren't free.

#2 Rashan Gary. Mostly because this happened:

This game was strange in that—aside from a couple of guys who were the beneficiaries of WMU defensive largess—everyone got one or two shiny things and nobody stood out without a detailed film review. Since Gary is operating in the above context he gets the nod for the defense on a dominating day all-around.

#3 Shea Patterson. Just 17 attempts but slick on most of them and mercifully detonated that WR TD stat just before it hit critical mass. Throws balls to open people well downfield, which is delightful. Had the one bad Mallett moment when a rollout was defended very well and he tried to chuck it away; was otherwise as promising and you might have hoped pre-season.

Honorable mention: Chris Evans put it on 'em, Ben Mason PUT IT ON 'EM, everyone on the defense was approximately equally good as Gary except they were never triple teamed, and Will Hart also PUT IT ON 'EM. I wanted to slot Hart in at #3 but he only had three punts. Alas. (But not alas.)

KFaTAotW Standings.

3: Chase Winovich (#1 ND), Karan Higdon (#1 WMU)

2: Ambry Thomas (#2 ND), Rashan Gary(#2 WMU)

1: Devin Bush(#3 ND), Shea Patterson(#3 WMU)

Who's Got It Better Than Us(?) Of The Week

Nico Collins runs by a bad safety who set up at like six yards for an easy post touchdown, which you may have heard was Michigan's first WR touchdown since April 16th 1925.

Honorable mention: Most of the rest of the game. Karan Higdon's first big chunk and 69-yard TD stand out. Patterson's sideline throw to Martin. Patterson's corner route TD to DPJ.

imageMARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

Quinn Nordin misses a 40-yard field goal. I get nervous about kickers, shut up.

Honorable mention: False start and a couple uninspiring runs help set up a first-down-and-out first drive, causing audience consternation. That is literally the only thing I can think of.

[After THE JUMP: Garrett Rivas.]

11/25/2017 – Michigan 20, Ohio State 31 – 8-4, 5-4 Big Ten

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[Bryan Fuller]

John O'Korn sat in a press conference on Saturday and broke down. He blamed himself, and himself alone, for Michigan's latest loss to Ohio State. And he was correct. I don't think I've ever seen a Michigan-Ohio State game so clearly decided by one guy's inability to hack it.

Previous terrible individual performances have been given in concert. The 2007 game featured Chad Henne without a throwing arm, but it also featured an offensive line that had to drag Alex Mitchell out of retirement midseason and the infamous picture that resulted. Nick Sheridan averaged 3.6 yards an attempt the year after, but nobody missed the forest for that particular tree as Michigan finished a 3-9 season with a 42-7 loss. And so forth and so on. The sad fact of the last decade of Michigan football is that when Michigan gets in a competitive game against Ohio State it's usually because someone is playing over their head.

This was different. This was Michigan feeling like the better football team except for one glaring black hole at the most important position on the field. The crowd felt the agony of this keenly with every errant pass or unnecessary sack. O'Korn was not booed, per se, but the desperate groans that issued involuntarily from the assembled masses were almost worse. There's a certain tenor of "ohhhawwww" a crowd can issue that is the pure, distilled sound of frustration. I have memorized this after Saturday, and find it replaying in my head whenever there's a spare neuron not playing Baby Signing Time songs. (This is rarely.)

Even after all those moans Michigan had not one but two shots to go ahead very late. Those ended with back-to-back throws that are burned into the retinas of every Michigan fan and will be replayed when "John O'Korn" is mentioned. Possibly even corn. Or Korn. I can't mention my Pandora station ever again on this website. Those throws were a fourth and four pass that went yards over the head of a screamingly wide open Chris Evans and an interception on which two Michigan receivers were open, and not within 20 yards of the ball.

That is O'Korn's football gravestone, chiseled, checked, and done.

O'Korn knows it, and wasn't going to offer up any bullshit platitudes afterwards. Say what you want about his play—although I can't imagine there's any excoriation in any language that hasn't already been delivered—but the guy did not shy away from the enormity of the thing that had just happened to him, a living, breathing human who has to go through the next sixty years introducing himself to people and hoping they've never heard of the most popular sport in America.

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At about the same time O'Korn was breaking down in public, someone logged on to this website and typed "fuck John O'Korn," into it, posted it, and then got a bunch of upvotes. A guy who started arguing with the various toxic manbabies in this thread that O'Korn was a virtually unpaid person thrust into a position he should never have been in was consistently downvoted.

After taking down several threads and banning a dozen people I yanked commenting for about a day. Naturally, this resulted in these same people fleeing to twitter to tell me it was PATHETIC that I COULDN'T HANDLE NEGATIVITY, because I didn't want them throwing their poop in a place I feel responsible for. And I didn't want to wonder what they were saying while I was doing anything other than commenting on Michigan football. Also, I hate them.

If you're one of these people reading this column I'd like to make it clear that there is something wrong with you. The vast majority of people who come to this site don't post on it, because it is like every other website in the world. Those that do are split between normal people with something to say, and you, the person too dumb to know you shouldn't say anything. You are a tiny minority of this fanbase that gets outsized attention because you're dumb and loud, and most people are willing to throw away the good parts of the comments because of you:

Next football season will not be like this, because you will be gone from this website. If you have any doubt in your mind whether I'm talking about you, yes, I am talking about you. If you're mad at Ace for saying the fanbase is the worst part of his job, I'm talking about you. Because he's not talking about 90% of the fanbase, he's talking about you.

No one needs to yell at John O'Korn, who clearly understands the implications of what just occurred in ways you do not. Nobody needs to say anything to John O'Korn ever again. Dude needs a hug and a Malaysian passport. And even though O'Korn just set a winnable Ohio State game on fire in a way that has probably never happened before or will happen again, I care a lot more about his feelings than some jabroni on the internet who doesn't have to introduce himself under his screen name.

That's it. There's no big sweeping theme here, nothing about the direction of this program or where this fits in the historical firmament. Just an incredibly obvious black hole...

...and a bunch of people who are incapable of seeing it.

AWARDS

Known Friends And Trusted Agents Of The Week

-2535ac8789d1b499[1]you're the man now, dog

#1 Rashan Gary. Finally got a little sack luck, as Devin Bush flushed Barrett to him on one of his two sacks. He added a third TFL amongst ten tackles, which is a very large number for a DE, especially because he missed a big chunk of OSU's first TD drive with a recurrence of the shoulder stinger (or similar injury) that he's been battling all season.

#2 Mike McCray. Eight solo tackles and two TFLs as McCray was a major factor in Michigan's ability to keep OSU to under 200 yards of offense until a late fade, none of which was on him. He didn't get edged, and managed to survive the return of Oh No Mike McCray On A Flanked Out Running Back without getting targeted.

#3(T) Chris Evans and Karan Higdon. Michigan's tailback duo had 165 yards on 28 touches, 5.9 yards a pop. Evans caught five passes as Michigan finally paid off on that preseason hype; Higdon was able to get the corner a couple times as well. If the offensive line can come together next year one or both are candidates to have All Big Ten season... or at least they would be if they weren't going to cannibalize each others' carries.

Honorable mention: Mo Hurst and Devin Bush turned in excellent performances; Michigan's cornerbacks again almost pitched a shutout, albeit with the aid of a couple drops. DPJ set up Michigan's second touchdown. Mason Cole had an edge two for one that sprung Crawford early in the third to get Michigan's third TD.

KFaTAotW Standings.

9: Rashan Gary(T2 Indiana, #1 Rutgers, T2 Wisconsin, #1 OSU).   
8:
Devin Bush (#1 Florida, T2 Cincinnati, T2 Air Force, #1 Purdue), Mo Hurst (#1 MSU, #2(T), Indiana, #1 Wisconsin),  Karan Higdon (#1 Indiana, #2 PSU, T2 Minnesota, T3 OSU).
6: Mason Cole (#1 Cincinnati, T2 Rutgers, T3 Minnesota), Chase Winovich(#1 Air Force, #2a Purdue, T2 Wisconsin),
5: Khaleke Hudson (T2 Cincinnati, #3 PSU, #1 Minnesota), David Long (T3 Indiana, #1 PSU, #3 Maryland)    
4: Chris Evans(T2 Minnesota, #2 Maryland).   
3: Ty Isaac (#2, Florida, #3 Cincinnati), Lavert Hill(#2 MSU, T3 Indiana)), Josh Metellus (#1 Maryland), Mike McCray(T2 Air Force, #2 OSU).
2: Quinn Nordin (#3 Florida, #3 Air Force), John O'Korn (#2 Purdue), Sean McKeon(T3 Purdue, #3 Rutgers), Mike Onwenu(T2 Rutgers),
1: Tyree Kinnel (T2 Cincinnati),  Zach Gentry (T3 Purdue), Brad Robbins(#3 MSU), Brandon Watson (T3 Indiana), Ben Bredeson(T3 Minnesota), Donovan Peoples-Jones (#3 Wisconsin).

Who's Got It Better Than Us Of The Week

The entire first quarter? Yes, that.

Honorable mention: Oh man I should not have used up the whole first quarter before the honorable mention section. That was a real good first quarter. Oh: Kekoa Crawford

imageMARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

Of the two chiseled, checked, and done plays the Evans miss stands out since it was a wide open guy less than ten yards downfield.

Honorable mention: Various other things that happened when Michigan dropped back to pass. I could tell you about them, but you know. Metellus gets lost on two late drag routes. Watson misses a third and thirteen PBU. Nordin misses an XP.

[After THE JUMP: less than usual, i tellya]