mike macdonald zone deployer

NOTE: This is being reposted from Friday, but now you can see the plays I was talking about.

Matt Demorest, Realtor and Lender and I have brought back our (sometimes-)weekly video short. The purpose of these is to show you something on film that you as a fan will be able to pick up on when you see it in the future. Or to just show you what people are talking about.

We put this together this afternoon because there's been some questions about what's different between Win Martindale (who's blitzier) and his former assistants Mike Macdonald and Jesse Minter, who were using more simulated pressures than actual ones with their respective defenses last year. If you're in the housing market, Matt's the guy.

There is nothing after the jump because it's video content.

9/4/2021 – Michigan 47, Western Michigan 14 – 1-0

I've got a spreadsheet now. I put it together a month ago when the idea of doing something, anything at all, was appalling. It has columns and if I do the thing in the column I get to bold it. Some columns are daily, or at least they're daily without the extraordinary intervention that causes the "shruggie" column to get bolded. Others are, uh, less daily. Kind of got knocked off a thing I wrote about in a column this March.

please come weed my backyard

The idea is that as we go along more things get bolded. Just two things are currently getting hit 90% of the time: walking, and people. I get to bold "people" when I undertake an activity (that does not count as another activity) in which I interact with another human, socially. Not usually 110,000 of them.

---------------------------------------------------

Being in Michigan Stadium was an experience bifurcated into competing feelings. One was a sense of unreality that this was actually happening. Carl Grapentine's "good afternoon" was met with a roar unlike any other "good afternoon" to date. Before the formal pre-game festivities were initiated it was just… nice? To sit in the stands as people filed in and the team went through its pregame warmups was nice. These days people use the word "nice" to mean "not nice" when describing an experience. Here I am saying that there was a real, mild pleasure derived from sitting in a place and doing a thing I used to do and then did not do as part and parcel of massive society-wide problems. It felt strange, like amnesia lifting.

The other was a sense that life had finally, truly resumed. Like the last year was about to be dumped out of the movie, replaced by a smash cut to kickoff. There was a guy with bad jokes on a microphone narrating three guys parachuting into the stadium.

we gotta talk about the smoke color though [Barron]

The band came out. I was vexed by first-quarter playcalling against a MAC opponent. A man holding a toddler was incensed enough to stand up and berate an official.

those are daddy's sports words, kiddo [Barron]

This was undoubtedly after the Bell OPI call and was thus justified. It was all very normal.

For a window on a fall Saturday you could believe that 2020 was a bad dream. I have to admit that I was not much moved by the game itself—I'm spending this fall's emotional capital on things closer to home—but even I, person about ready to drop-kick college football into the next town, could do nothing but see a real college football season as a ribbon-cutting ceremony for something called Real Life.

We can talk about whether all of the above was, you know, wise*. Even outside of the context where young men hurl their heads at each other for our entertainment and now the occasional sliver of NIL money, what with a pandemic on. But we can all admit that even in the depths of our collective malaise, sitting with our people and experiencing our thing together felt better than it had any right to.

There were some preteen kids sitting behind me who predicted a screen, and then a punt, on a third and long. (They were wrong, but correct spiritually.) They were possessed of a world-weary cynicism that made me wonder if the thing actually oozed from pores in the stadium concrete and seeped its way into our bodies, the environment guiding us into a common way of being. COVID was probably the less transmissible thing in that stadium Saturday. That just goes in your lungs. Michigan goes in your bones.

That's why we're all still here, in whatever capacities we are. Not hope or fun or desire, but a giant "we." A community, one that may be loosely bound but is nonetheless real. I felt that when I posted The Story and got hundreds of comments, DMs, emails, and texts expressing support, asking if there was anything they could do. The answer is both no, and also you've already done it. I bolded my people box Saturday, continuing the thing that's letting me climb out. Hopefully it meant something to you, too.

*[For me the combination of vaccinations, open air, and the fact that vaccinated people apparently don't transmit Delta readily if asymptomatic is makes me comfortable with the situation, though I'd prefer Michigan require proof of vaccination to attend games.]

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

[Barron]

you're the man now, dog

#1 Ronnie Bell (RIP). Well... crap. Bell had the catch of the year taken off the board by John O'Neill Crew Hijinks, scored a long touchdown, and ripped off an impact punt return... on which he was lost for the season. This set off a firestorm on Michigan twitter, which is addressed later.

#2 Blake Corum. Corum had the most touches of anyone on offense with 14 rushes and two catches; he had two TDs and averaged 7.9 yards per carry. He also had a 79-yard kickoff return. That eases him out in front of Hassan Haskins. The two guys will likely continue splitting carries right down the middle, and that's fine by me.

#3 Dax Hill. Hill's your new spacebacker; he deleted every attempted screen to the wide side of the field and had a PBU on slant that looked impossible about a second before he made it.

Honorable mention: Seth's likely to hand some hardware to Andrew Vastardis in UFR. AJ Henning deleted a pursuit angle on long reverse TD. Mike Sainristil blocked like a demon that's into blocking instead of torturing souls. Haskins ripped through a tackle on short yardage to score and did well otherwise. Aidan Hutchinson had a sack-strip on which the WMU QB wanted to leave the state.

KFaTAotW Standings.

(points: #1: 8, #2: 5, #3: 3, HMs one each. Ties result in somewhat arbitrary assignments.)

8: Ronnie Bell (#1 WMU)
5: Blake Corum (#2 WMU)
3: Dax Hill (#3 WMU)
1: Andrew Vastardis (HM WMU), AJ Henning (HM WMU), Mike Sainristil (HM WMU), Aidan Hutchinson (HM WMU), Hassan Haskins (HM WMU)

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

[Barron]

McNamara nails Bell on his 76-yard touchdown, which followed on from the Bell catch wiped off the board and may indicate dude has a deep ball. Would be a major development.

Honorable mention: Swing pass to Corum on the first drive causes me to say "touchdown" as soon as Corum motions out. Henning and Wilson rip big gains on end-arounds. Corum's kick return.

​MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

Bell is lost for the year. Awful.

Honorable mention: Bell's catch is taken off the board, violating every principle from "it's too cool to call back" to the actual rules dictating college football. WMU drives down the field and scores a touchdown on their first drive, resulting many "here we go" feelings in the stands.

[After THE JUMP: Baldwin is crazed]