mitch leidner

Previously in this series covering the 2010s: Favorite Blocks, QB-RB-WR, TE-FB-OL, Defensive Line, Linebacker, Secondary, Worst Calls.

We were in the midst of assembling our list of best and worst plays from the last decade of Michigan football when someone suggested that a particular incident wasn't really bad or good, but was spectacularly dumb. Someone suggested a list of smartest and dumbest plays of the decade.

It will not shock the reader that assembling the list of the most stupefying things was far easier than best, worst, or smartest. Our top ten has 11 plays in it because we remembered something halfway through. It was that kind of decade. A stupid, stupid, stupid decade.

11. Any Play Against A Service Academy, Let's Pick This One

2019 ARMY

This was an RPS -2 play that set up a touchdown for Army but it's the vibe, man. The vibe.

Michigan did this three times! They signed up to play a bunch of maniacal option fanatics three times over the past decade so they could do a bunch of military frippery pre-game. I hope those dudes parachuting into the stadium was worth three hours of bowel-clenching terror, because that's what every one of these games was.

Last year's Army game noses ahead of the two Air Force outings because it was significantly more terrifying, a game that went to overtime even with the aid of Don Brown's "MOVE" false start. Also this was the year after Army took Oklahoma—Kyler Murray Oklahoma!—to overtime, and happened mere weeks before Michigan cancelled a home and home series against UCLA.

The Black Knights had embraced the tao of option fully by going for it on any plausible fourth down. This happened four times in regulation, each of them another twist of the knife. Michigan spent the game running basic inside zone and never running the split zone play their QB ground game was built on. Michigan scored 14 points in regulation; a few weeks later Tulane would put up 42 on Army.

Every single second this was happening every Michigan fan was thinking "why are we doing this again?"

-Brian

[After THE JUMP: a journey into the heart of dorfness]