overtime

As you might have heard, there is a new John U. Bacon Michigan book today. This one's full title: OVERTIME: Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines at the Crossroads of College Football. If you want it, you can start at Bacon's website, or you can come down to Hill Auditorium tonight for the event hosted by Literati, ask your questions to the man himself, and get a signed version.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Bacon's publisher is advertising this book on this here site, and I make my living by selling the advertising on this site. They're not paying me to write a review, and I had most of this review written before they offered. I think if you compare this review to Brandon's Lasting Lessons, you'll be able to gauge how much bias crept in. Anyway, you're a Michigan fan and you read this site, so the rest of this is superfluous: you've known you're going to start it tonight since you heard about it.

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Revelations

I heard about it early. I was trying to pitch Bacon on writing an article for Hail to the Victors 2018 called “Recruiting Harbaugh,” paralleling Michigan’s pursuit of the young quarterback in 1981-‘82 with that of its savior head coach in 2014—”You know, like Godfather II.” Bacon kindly explained his publisher had other ideas for a Harbaugh story contrasting the rise of the Comeback Kid with the administration of the family operation he rescued.

As with previous books, Bacon spent a year embedded in the program, catching stories you wouldn't believe, and a lot more you suspected. Coming off the Brandon one, I can see why reviewers and excerptionists would prefer to focus on the few compact tales of cartoonish villainy and incompetence. A barrage of "I can't believe he actually…" stories were a feature of Endzone because they were a feature of the man in charge of things. In Overtime, the ol' rogues gallery provides enough to keep things spicy and tickle some confirmation biases, but focusing on the controversies is antithetical to the story being told. My friends will be happy to know the Michigan Man™ stuff isn’t as belabored as the tweets make it seem.

[After the JUMP: A sequel to someone’s lasting lessons]

Special Guests: New York Times bestselling author John U. Bacon joins us to talk about his latest book, Overtime

The Sponsors

We can do this because people support us. You should support them! The show is presented by UGP & The Bo Store, and if it wasn’t for Rishi and Ryan we’d be all be very sad ex-Vox employees with “real” jobs.

Our other sponsors are also key to all of this: HomeSure Lending, Peak Wealth Management, Ann Arbor Elder Law, the Residence Inn Ann Arbor Downtown, the University of Michigan Alumni Association, Michigan Law Grad, Human Element, The Phil Klein Insurance Group, FuegoBox, and Perrin Brewing

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[After THE JUMP: Off the rails as usual

The NCAA's passed some new rules. (One thing they did not pass: the anti-grad-transfer legislation. /waves tiny flag) Let's consider them.

Overtime must end

There was a seven-OT game that ended 74-72 last year, causing consternation amongst TV executives, players, coaches, and persons who fall asleep at reasonable times. There will never be a seven OT game again:

Moving forward, if a game advances to a fifth overtime, the teams will run alternating two-point plays instead of regaining possession from the 25-yard line like in prior overtime periods. … As part of the change, the NCAA is instituting two-minute rest periods after the second and fourth overtimes.

The degenerates of college football twitter hissed at this, because seven OTs is an event to remember. People who are not into late-night delirium are more numerous, unfortunately.

If they had to bring a definite end to a football game, two-point conversions are dumb. The article linked above calls it "football's version of penalty kicks," which is correct because penalty kicks are also dumb. That crazy California playoff OT system Spencer found is way better:

The format of The California Tiebreaker is butt-simple. The ball starts on the fifty. The winner of the coin toss gets possession, and each team receives four plays to move the ball however they like in the direction of the other team’s endzone.

The weirdness kicks in here: Each team trades possessions, and works the ball from the spot where their opponent left it on the previous play. Complete a pass to the opponent’s 35 yard line on the first play? That’s where they play their first. Because this is a godly solution to football’s overtime problem, field goals and punts are not allowed. If no one scores or turns the ball over after four plays, then the victor is determined by field position.

That ends a game in exactly eight plays and features passes in which receivers can run more than 13 yards downfield.

I still think OT periods should start from the 35 so you don't get a reasonably makeable field goal for going three and out.

[After THE JUMP: targeting roulette!]