sad panda

[Marc-Gregor Campredon]

9/18/2021 – Michigan 20, Rutgers 13 – 4-0, 1-0 Big Ten

Well, at least it took 3.5 games to get back to the same old feeling. The grim one, where you're staring grimly at the grim field where grim things are happening and then Michigan and its steamroller of a run game takes a delay of game penalty instead of attempting a fourth and one. After that there's another penalty before Michigan can finally punt. The color drains out of the world until you forget where you are and momentarily think you're at Eastern's stadium, which is now gray—not just gray, but gray-gray, ultragray—in some sort of marketing stunt turned guerilla art installation.

Grey-Field-at-Rynearson-Stadium

Say what you want about the Eastern Michigan Eagles' proficiency at football, but never slander their perspective on the fatalistic trudge we call life. Football is healthy and good to have influence your thoughts.

At times like these the man with the mustache arrives in my head.

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You can find him by googling for "sad Florida State fan," and you will discover that this is now a bustling corner of the image search internet populated by folks in glitter and surrender cobras from sea to shining sea. But mustache man is still first, because he is a perfect distillation of the emptiness of a bad football game where your team gets to do the fun parts three plays, and only three plays, at a time while the opposition dunks on you.

He is also a tribute to the human ability to read nuance into facial expressions. What makes Sad Mustache Man so compelling? He merely stares ahead, stoic. His brow furrows slightly. The way he communicates the existential angst of Ole Miss punching your face in is mysterious. Blindingly clear, and somehow impossible to define. He stares into the middle distance and attempts to keep all his atoms in the same place.

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Since Michigan was playing Rutgers, "dunks on you" means "scores ten points in a half and still loses." The feeling is still the same. Michigan's second half didn't lose this game; it felt like it lost future games. At some point down the road when Michigan gets conked everyone watching will think about how the second half of Rutgers foretold this woeful fate.

Which, I guess, fine, okay, yeah. I predicted this team would go 7-5 and so did everyone else. Even after… that, a reversion to that level of pessimism is not reasonable. A reversion to the same old thing—9-3 or thereabouts, losing most of the exciting games, not being particularly competitive against Ohio State—is, and here we're in the same treadmill it seems like we've always been on.

Michigan can exceed expectations this year and still put up something entirely unsatisfying. Too good to fire, not good enough to enjoy. That's not fate, of course: maybe Greg Schiano is pretty good at this and Michigan will receive a wake-up call and actually bomb someone worth bombing on the road. One half doesn't erase the other halves.

But when you keep walking down the same road year after year it's hard to expect that something's different until it actually is. Until then, a steady stare into the middle distance is always a good option. Doesn't usually get you put on TV unless you're a perfect distillation of sadness, and even then there's usually someone just as sad but dressed more outlandishly.

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

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I AM DETECTING AN ILLEGALITY [Barron]

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

#1 Aidan Hutchinson. Didn't have a massive game statistically but is likely to check in with a monster UFR number. Had a sack, bowled over an OL on the direct snap to Pacheco, probably should have drawn multiple holding flags. Making up for meh performances otherwise.

#2 Nikhai Hill-Green. Shuffled through traffic on the second to last Rutgers drive to stick folks short of the sticks on critical plays. Led team in tackles, a fair few of which were important. Preseason hype seems not crazy.

#3 Brad Robbins. Ok he had a bad one but the one he dropped at the three that took a right turn out of bounds was important, and he limited the dangerous Cruicshank to just one punt return attempt.

Honorable mention: Josh Ross turned in a good performance with one thunderous TFL before leaving; Chris Hinton got off a block on one of the key Hill-Green stuffs to help; Dax Hill was a bit up and down but did stuff some perimeter stuff.

KFaTAotW Standings.

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

16: The OL (#1 Wash, #1 NIU)

14: Aidan Hutchinson (HM WMU, #2 Wash, #1 Rutgers)

11: Blake Corum (#2 WMU, T3 Wash, T2 NIU)

8: Ronnie Bell (#1 WMU)

7: Hassan Haskins (HM WMU, T3 Wash, T2 NIU)

6: Nikhai Hill-Green(HM NIU, #2 Rutgers)

5: Dax Hill (#3 WMU, HM NIU, HM Rutgers)

4: AJ Henning (HM WMU, #3 NIU),

3: Donovan Edwards(T2 NIU), Josh Ross (HM Wash, HM NIU, HM Rutgers)

1: Andrew Vastardis (HM WMU),Mike Sainristil (HM WMU), Brad Robbins (HM Wash), Jake Moody (HM Wash), Mazi Smith (HM Wash), Gemon Green(HM NIU), Cornelius Johnson(HM NIU), Chris Hinton (HM Rutgers)

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

Michigan's opening drive is a 17-play marathon featuring two passes, a touchdown, and the absorption of half a quarter.

Honorable mention: Hill-Green gets back to back sticks to functionally end the game; bonafide RPO gets Roman Wilson a chunk on Michigan's second efficient TD drive to start; ditto the Sainristil catch; officials ignore a blatant block in the back on Henning's return.

image​MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

Can I say the entire second half? No? Okay, uh, McNamara missing three straight open receivers on one of the three-and-outs. (Sainristil could have caught the first one, yes; still low.)

Honorable mention: The rest of the second half.

[After THE JUMP: up up up up nope nope nope nope]

Usual post-disaster measures have been implemented: you need to be a "basic user" (100 points) to comment and "trusted" to start yet another redundant thread. Kitten:

bad-respawn

Happy New Year!

10/10/2009 – Michigan 28, Iowa 30 – 4-2, 1-2 Big Ten

 tate-forcier-benched denard-robinson-is-a-sad-panda

screenshot via MVictors; Denard Robinson as sad panda from the News via Genuinely Sarcastic and Mike Desimone.

This is probably a time to dispense with the fooferah and get right to the heart of the matter. From our vantage point from the endzone of Kinnick Stadium our instant assumption when Denard Robinson came in was that Forcier had gotten hurt on one of two earlier plays. We couldn't see a whole lot, but we saw a lot of Michigan's third quarter—unfortunately because they spent it next to the wrong endzone. Forcier banged his hand on someone's helmet, then later took a wicked shot from some defensive lineman or another moments after launching another incompletion.

When Robinson came out with around six minutes left, we had a debate about the idea, coming down on the side of "not good." Though Robinson was surprisingly effective driving Michigan for a score-tightening touchdown, the run-based nature of the drive stripped more than three minutes off the clock and saw Michigan attempt an onside kick with about 3:20 left and one timeout. This, too, was seen as a sign that Forcier was hurt: surely if you're going to cast your lot with Denard Robinson on a drive to win you need the ability to run the ball quite a bit. Kicking deep with only Robinson available is tantamount to waving the white flag.

So all that fit together and when Robinson came out after Michigan's defense thwarted Iowa on their attempt to strangle the game, it made sense. Forcier was unavailable, and this was the best Michigan could do. And, hell, it was working all right until Robinson eschewed what looked like a wide open Martavious Odoms in favor of Michigan's third or fourth jump ball into safety coverage. This one did not clatter to the turf harmlessly. As we say in UFR, EOG.

So… yeah. The news that Forcier had to be bodily escorted off the field before Michigan's last drive was less than thrilling. I'm sure this will be breaking no new ground after a couple days of checking in on the blog to see just which items raging about the decision needed to be excised, but for the record:

WHAT

THE

HELL

?

There are a billion comments across the internet calling the decision "indefensible," many of them drawing direct parallels to the last time a Michigan team visited Iowa. John Beilein sat Manny Harris down for overtime, Michigan lost when Iowa hit an array of circus shots and Manny's replacement, David Merritt, continued being a walk-on instead of Manny Harris, and a very large number of people were peeved, livid, or somewhere in between. This space in the aftermath of that decision:

If he thought Michigan had a better chance to win with David Merritt on the floor, he's nuts. More likely he had about reached his limit and sat him in what appears to be a fit of pique. I get that: Harris at the moment is a basketball doppelganger of Braylon Edwards in his afro phase, when he was benched because he and Carr weren't "on the same page" despite his clear superiority to Michigan's other receiving options. Edwards wised up and blew up. Harris? We'll see.

I would have preferred the teachable moment had not come in overtime of a crucial road game, though. You know.

The two incidents are creepily similar, and my opinion about Saturday is about identical to my opinion about the Manny benching: there were a ton of good reasons to make the move that don't come close to outweighing the enormous one that argued against it. If Michigan had gotten that onside kick and Robinson had three minutes to work with, okay. With 1:40 on the clock, no timeouts, and sixty yards to go, no.

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So where does that leave us? Michigan's just experienced a two point loss on the road against a top-15 team during which they were –4 in turnover margin. They got outgained again. Forcier was pretty terrible. Robinson displayed both his talent and his limitations. Rodriguez made a poor decision in the heat of the moment, bursting this site's obvious hope that he was Jesus Ferguson. They're 4-2 in the league with three games they should win left, which would leave them at 7-5 if they don't pick off one of Penn State, Wisconsin, or Ohio State. A walk-on has permanently ascended to the starting lineup.

Add that all together and you get… I don't know. A jumbled mess that's clearly not as soul-destroying as last year's merry band of incompetence but not in any respect good. Michigan has been significantly outgained in each of four games against teams outside of the MAC, and mitigating factors like special teams and turnovers can no longer patch those gaps up. After all that at the start of the season, Michigan's settled about where everyone expected they'd be: still digging out from nuclear winter, looking towards the future with hope and the present with tolerance, at best.

The emotions I had coming out of Kinnick were as much of a mess as the team is. Michigan shot itself in a thousand different ways, busting coverages on two tight end touchdowns and a third and twenty-five that was more damaging than any of the five (five!) turnovers they gacked up with little assistance from Iowa. It was really frustrating to walk away feeling that Michigan should have won but for their own errors—errors that at this point are obviously a fundamental part of what the team is—but the memory of last year hovered, suggesting that the mere idea that errors were only a part of the whole this time around represented progress. Clearly, there is a long way yet to go.

Bullets

  • I know I make fun of people in the comments who believe I have some sort of crazy power over the fortunes of Michigan football that I only use for evil, but dammit Greg Mathews, not only did you drop a punt, give Iowa the ball at the Michigan 16, and eventually lead to that short-field Tony Moeaki touchdown, you did it mere hours after I suggested that I should stop typing HOLD ON TO THE DAMN BALL as the key matchup in the special teams section. It's hard not to feel personally responsible even though that's completely insane.
  • Have seen a number of complaints about the timeout with 27 seconds left before halftime. I wanted Rodriguez to call it at the time; after some consideration I think that was probably not a good idea either. Even if Michigan gets a stop on that third and ten they'd have the ball somewhere on their side of the field with 12 seconds on the clock or whatever. In general I like the bent of Rodriguez's decisions; that one was wrong.
  • Another TO complaint: Michigan shouldn't have taken one on third and ten from the one and a half. Just take the penalty there and Michigan's got another 40 seconds to work with on their final drive. I understand it's hard to break the natural inclination to take a timeout when the playclock gets way low, though. That's a corner case that doesn't come up much.
  • I don't know exactly whose fault the two busted coverages were but if, as rumored, it was Mike Williams I don't know what you do about it. Woolfolk was physically capable at cornerback and Michigan finally went with the press man they've been talking about since Greg Robinson got hired. Williams definitely let an Iowa receiver behind him on third and twenty-fing-five, and if Moeaki was his guy on either of his touchdowns he's directly responsible for all three Iowa touchdowns. Maybe Iowa would have done something with the last drive, but the first Moeaki TD was on third and twelve; a stop there is a FG attempt. A stop on the third and twenty-five is a punt.
  • Michigan did break out some new stuff, grinding Brandon Minor into the line from the I on a successful, Bo-pleasing late touchdown drive and debuting a quick pitch to the sideline that never looked like it was going anywhere but also never failed to gain four to six yards. The former is something Michigan could have tried against State; the latter was probably hampered by Forcier's shoulder issues.
  • It seemed like after the first interception from Forcier that he refused to throw to receivers who were open. On a couple third downs there were slants available (I think) that Forcier did not take, instead running around as is his wont. I was pretty frustrated by him, and imagine that Rodriguez was ready to strangle the kid.
  • Graham shouldn't be rushing the punter on a punt safe, not that it mattered.

Trip Report Section

City. I can tell you about a lovely Econolodge in Davenport, Iowa, but despite driving out Friday and spending about all of Saturday in Iowa City, I can't tell you much about the city itself. My momentary first impression was that this was a foofy college down as I strolled by some organic eatery down one of those cobbled pedestrian streets you see wherever people are trying to create an area for foot traffic. Then we went in a bar that had six things on the menu, asked if you wanted ranch with your waffle fries, and attempted to purvey something called a "walking taco," which the waitress explained was "um, it's like Doritos in a bag with some meat and cheese and onions and taco stuff thrown in." The stalls in the bathroom didn't have doors on them.

So I was a little confused. I was referring to this experience at the Black Heart Gold Pants tailgate, and I was talking about this place we were, and when asked where, exactly, we were I rakishly pulled out my zinger: "the place with no doors on the stalls." The response was "which one? There are lots of those." So… yeah. Iowa City leans towards the no doors on the stalls. I guess. I saw the inside of a bar, a parking lot, and Kinnick. I am not a one-man Yelp here.

Fans. Excellent. There was the usual dose of meathead yellin' at the guys in the wrong colors—sort of, anyway, the difference between maize and blue and black and gold is not drastic—that you get whenever you go anywhere other than South Bend. Other than that everyone was perfectly nice. At no point did I feel like someone was going to hit me, which is more than I can say for the last few trips to Columbus or East Lansing.

I will note that the male student body of Iowa appears to be 80% meathead.

Kinnick experience, in total. Very classy. All brick exterior, looks like I'd like to see Michigan Stadium end up looking like once they figure out what they're going to do in the endzones:

kinnick-stadium-exterior

Anthony Ciatti

And the interior:

kinnick-stadium-concourse

Anthony Ciatti

The stadium itself was a bit smaller than I'd expected. Our seats were strange: section "NB," which ended up standing for "North Bleachers" and was not listed on the map or at all familiar to the first two people we tried to talk to about just where the hell we were supposed to sit. An usher had clue, though, and directed us to five rows of makeshift metal bleachers that were literally on the field in the endzone. We stood the whole game, which was fine because from appearances so did the rest of the place.

Despite that, it didn't seem particularly noisy. It got loud on important third downs but I thought it was about on part with Michigan Stadium. FWIW. I am apparently terrible at discerning variable noise levels, given my reaction to this year's addition of luxury boxes.

There's a full gallery by Anthony here.

PIPE IT IN BABY. The Iowa marching band might as well not exist. I don't know if this was a homecoming thing, but they didn't even march pregame—the alumni band did—and had a seriously abbreviated halftime show so that a Hawkeye inductee to the CFHOF could get his due. During the game they hardly played, and when they did play they mostly played marching band versions of songs that had already been piped in over the PA.

Oh, also:

This disaster was played incessantly over the PA, and we, not being 14-year-old-girls, didn't know what it was. Friend of Blog joked that it was probably a Jonas Brothers song, and we laughed, and then we thought to ourselves IS that a Jonas Brothers song? It turns out no, but it's by the Black Eyed Peas, which is 95% as emasculating. Hell, this imeem playlist by one Shelby Veppert, who—no foolies—is a 19-year old from Columbus who lists Nickelback(!!!) as one of her favorite bands, has the song sandwiched between two Jonas Brothers songs. If Michigan Stadium ever has anything that can be considered a sort of theme song I'm going to buy out Ann Arbor Torch & Pitchfork, and if it's ever something as terrifyingly fey as that thing, I'll storm the castle myself.

Site note: Michigan's homecoming activities murder Iowa's, chop them up, and put them in a bag. Iowa basically has the alumni band play the fight song and march off the field, then has a tedious announcement of various alumni who helped out and the members of the homecoming court*. And that's it. Michigan has a goofy prohibition-era cheer, awesome flipping 80-year-old alumni cheerleaders, a terrific combined-band halftime show, and that one crazy old drum-major who rips it up every year. I love homecoming at Michigan Stadium, and was excited to get the Iowa version of it. I didn't get it.

*(The homecoming king was a bioengineering (or something along those lines) major named Rohit… Naha… Romin… fromblobololgbogl. The telltale pause from the very Iowan public address announcer after the poorly-pronounced "Rohit" promised three seconds of pure unadulterated awesome, and that promise was delivered upon.)