10/8/2022 – Michigan 31, Indiana 10 – 6-0, 3-0 Big Ten

It was 10-10 and it was stupid. Like half the games against Indiana, it was stupid and dumb. At some point I saw a highlight from that Denard game against Indiana where IU would score on a 15-play march and then Denard would immediately run for a 70 yard touchdown. "God, that game was stupid," I thought. Flinging the ball in the general direction of Junior Hemingway and hoping something good would happen, sort of thing. Charting 120 defensive plays, sort of thing. Craig Roh playing linebacker, sort of thing.

Don't get me started about #chaosteam, or overtimes, or anything else. My IQ is already dropping precipitously. Any more exposure to Michigan-Indiana may render me unable to finish this column. (I would still be able to claim that MSU was defeated with dignity, if that was my purpose in life.)

I had hoped that a little JJ McCarthy-led mediation in the locker room would straighten things out. Michigan did suffer through a scary event when Mike Hart collapsed on the sideline. This is a completely valid reason you may not be executing football with military precision, even setting aside whatever dorfy bioweapon the Hoosiers perfected about ten years ago.

Those hopes seemed dashed when Michigan was inexplicably offsides on a short-yardage punt on which they didn't even bother to rush. A touchback turned into a punt downed at the two, and then Blake Corum committed a false start and Cornelius Johnson dropped something that was either a chunk play or a 96-yard touchdown. Johnson started hopping up and down near the sideline, veritably slobbering with self-rage. The slope downwards to black pits became very slippery.

JJ McCarthy said "namaste."

[Barron]

That is immediately after the Johnson drop. He's signaling to his receiver: it's fine, it's fine, we'll get them on the next snap. And then they did. Conversion to Ronnie Bell, drive on. McCarthy took off for a first down on third and seven and hit Andrel Anthony and when he got some pressure he rolled away from it and dropped the ball back to Johnson on a drag route that had picked off the Indiana defender. Twenty nine yards later, Michigan led 17-10 and the stupidity started receding.

It was like being alone in a room, certain that the shadows were growing suckers and winding themselves into tentacles, when someone flicked the light on.

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

It is of course one thing to do this against Tom Allen's band of overmatched maniacs who pour forward at the snap when there's any indication of a run, and another to do it against top-end defenses, particularly top-end defenses that are not paired with the most disastrous act of nepotism in recorded history.

Michigan gets one this week in Penn State, which now stands out as the last hurdle before… uh… Illinois and Ohio State at the end of the season. It will probably be fine. You can say "just Indiana," but the tail end of this piece blockquotes this week's Best and Worst, which contains a comprehensive overview of just how maddening this series has been. McCarthy more or less turned that off—yes, interception—halfway through a game that was threatening to spiral out of control further, into something competitive.

In these moments breath gets short and vision restricts into a tunnel. In the game threads reason is overthrown and madness prevails. It takes something to grab those others back from the abyss. Maybe you look at the smiley face you've drawn on your hand, and think about eating one raisin with every ounce of your attention. And then you can see again and you hear something other than a single ominous tone.

JJ McCarthy seems like the guy who does that.

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

"I should have transferred to Stanford" [Barron]

you're the man now, dog

#1(T) Mike Morris, Eyabi Okie, Derrick Moore, Jaylen Harrell and Kris Jenkins. The story of the defense was Conor Bazelak getting crushed every time he tried to throw downfield. Seven sacks in this one; this spot was almost everyone who racked one up but the linebackers had some issues and McGregor only got ten snaps so some cuts were made and Kris Jenkins was added because he registered a couple QB hurries.

Uh, two points each.

#2 Ronnie Bell. 11 catches, a couple of them spectacular. He stabbed a toe down on Michigan's first drive; he wrestled away an interception on a badly thrown ball; he was the target on the key third down conversion that led to the 98-yard touchdown drive. Also blocked like a mountain goat for much of the game, paving the way for the Schoonmaker touchdown.

#3 JJ McCarthy. Narrowly pips Corum because Michigan needed him to drive the field in the second half and he did, with only the occasional mistake. 8.4 YPA, 28/36. Got some help from his receivers but also saw Cornelius Johnson drop what could have been a very, very long play. Ran fairly effectively.

Honorable mention: Well, yeah, Blake Corum. Luke Schoonmaker is heavily utilized in the passing game. Rod Moore came up with an important interception that he kept off the ground. Mike Sainristil had two PBUs and one solo tackle, which is good cornerbackin'. Mason Graham obliterated an OL for a stuff and snuffed out a screen.

KFaTAotW Standings.

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

24: Blake Corum (#2 CSU, #2 Hawaii, HM UConn, #1 Maryland, #2 Iowa. HM Indiana)
18: JJ McCarthy (#1 Hawaii, #2 UConn, HM Maryland, HM Iowa, #3 Indiana)
15: Ronnie Bell (HM CSU, HM Hawaii, #1 UConn, #2 Indiana)
13: Mike Morris (T3 Hawaii, HM Maryland, #1 Iowa, T1 Indiana)
12: Mazi Smith (#1 CSU, T3 Hawaii, HM Maryland, HM Iowa)
8: Kris Jenkins (#3 UConn, T3 Hawaii, HM Iowa, T1 Indiana)
6: Gemon Green (HM UConn, T2 Maryland),
5: DJ Turner (T2 Maryland)
4: Junior Colson (#3 CSU, HM UConn), Eyabi Okie (HM CSU, HM Iowa, T1 Indiana), Luke Schoonmaker (T3 Maryland, HM Iowa, HM Indiana)
3: The Offensive Line (#3 Iowa), Derrick Moore (HM CSU, T1 Indiana), Jaylen Harrell (HM CSU, T1 Indiana), Mason Graham (HM Hawaii, HM Iowa, HM Indiana)
2: Roman Wilson (HM CSU, HM Hawaii), Max Bredeson (T3 Maryland), Joel Honigford (T3 Maryland), Mike Sainristil (HM Maryland, HM Indiana), Rod Moore (HM CSU, HM Indiana)
1: Braiden McGregor (HM CSU), Makari Paige (HM Hawaii), Rayshaun Benny (HM Hawaii), Cornelius Johnson (HM Hawaii), Donovan Edwards (HM Hawaii), AJ Henning (HM UConn),  Caden Kolesar (HM UConn), RJ Moten (HM Maryland).

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

Blake Corum is briefly inhabited by the spirit of Barry Sanders.

Michigan took the opening kickoff & moved the ball to midfield after 3 straight JJ completions.

On the first rush attempt, IU showed that they were gonna sell out on the rush with slants, scrapes, and aggressive safeties.

But Blake Corum is a sourcerer. pic.twitter.com/yQZgHzXuDP

— Due# (@JDue51) October 9, 2022

Honorable mention: Gus Johnson invokes Bill Raftery after another ankle-killer from Corum. Any of seven different sacks. Rod Moore pulls an INT off the carpet. Cornelius Johnson, Luke Schoonmaker, and Ronnie Bell turn in circus catches.

MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

Connor Bazelak throws a back-foot artillery round that parabolas its way into his receivers hands to set up the only Indiana touchdown. I will never not be mad that was a completion.

Honorable mention: Dubious PF on Harrell for celebrating a sack, dubious PI on Turner to continue the Indiana TD drive, Michigan gets a field goal blocked, back-to-back false starts. McCarthy throws a pick after a great play from the Indiana LB. Many tipped run plays.

OFFENSE

[Barron]

I am losing my mind about pistol. Michigan has played three Big Ten games and has run 100% of the time out of the pistol formation. Tom Allen has always been a guy who dials up corner blitzes on tons of run downs, and here it looked like pistol was an auto-check to those. The first pistol run saw both corners come. Allen usually doesn't have the horses, so it makes sense for him to have a maniacally aggressive defense. Also because Allen doesn't have the horses he can usually rely on high-end opposition to save their tendency-breakers for other weeks.

This creates a situation that's the opposite of what happened last week against Iowa. Michigan could trundle out their very predictable playcalling and Iowa just would not respond, because Iowa. Indiana is going to punish you for that, which is why we were one bit of Corum magic away from a flatly terrible day on the ground. If Corum's 50 yard run gets the 2 it was blocked for we're looking at a 3.0 YPC game.

And things might even be worse than that!

Of the 30 times Michigan's RB lined up even with the QB on Saturday like this, 29 ended up in passes. The one rush came from UM's own 1-yard line. pic.twitter.com/ENYyyNURT9

— Tony Gerdeman (@TonyGerdeman) October 10, 2022

The best time to break this tendency was before you established it. The second best time is now. This is likely to be an RPS disaster in the charting.

When controlled. Things went better for the Michigan ground game when they built in controls for the Indiana secondary. This is an RPO with a bubble attached and the bubble holds three defenders outside. Corner blitz fiesta neutered, Corum goes and gets a decent chunk:

Similarly, when Michigan ran basic waggle action Indiana was gone. McCarthy had three wide open guys on this chunk to Bell:

Literally all of these guys have uncontested catch and run opportunities:

I thought Michigan would test the jumbo sets and see how they went; they went badly so they went to more of an RPO style, and that worked and then they didn't go back to it. This was a frustrating game tactically after three very good weeks.

[Fuller]

Obligatory McCarthy take. Another day where you can remember virtually every incompletion and then you think "maybe he was not as metronomically efficient as in previous games" and then you look at the numbers:

Ye gods. Now, his receivers helped him out in ways that they did not in previous outings. So far our receiver charting has been absurdly light on anything other than routine catches. Not the case here. Michigan came up with some snags. But then you add that Johnson drop in and, well… yeah. If he can just get back to the deep ball accuracy he had last year…

[Fuller]

On the interception. This makes perfect sense presnap as you've got your #1 WR lined up as #3 to the field and you're looking at split safeties. Unless that Indiana linebacker—backup Indiana linebacker—is able to carry Ronnie Bell it's six. Oops!

On the replay you can see that this is right on Bell's facemask. To me this is a good presnap assumption that turns bad and McCarthy can't get off of it. As INTs go it's not an egregious BR*; he's not throwing it into someone's chest, he's suffering a PBU that happens to go the worst way possible.

courtesy one tight end [Fuller]

Schoonmaker has gravity. Luke Schoonmaker has been targeted so much and so effectively that big chunks of the game-turning 98-yard march were due to Indiana defenders getting in his grill as other guys ran open. Those intermediate shots to Andrel Anthony both featured Schoonmaker's route drawing the key zone defender:

This is the complete opposite of what was happening on the ground. Michigan has a tendency to hit Schoonmaker underneath? Ok, now when you react to that we go behind your zone.

Dangit, Klatt. Yes, I will be checking in on Joel Klatt's assertion that Michigan has a second giant run/pass tip: motion. Klatt asserted that if Michigan went in motion it was almost always a run, and vice-versa if it was a pass.

Ban baseball slides, and don't wait for them to ban baseball slides. McCarthy ran it a bit here and did not immediately head out of bounds. Most of the time he just went to get what was there but on one first down keeper he slid down in front of a linebacker. That linebacker barely missed obliterating McCarthy in the head. Also that act gave up 3-4 yards that would have come in handy on third down when Luke Schoonmaker was 3-4 yards short of a first down.

All of the worst hits we see QBs take downfield are on baseball slides.

Dirty hit on Dillon Gabriel. Wow. pic.twitter.com/Vlhr9glb31

— JWP Sports ? (@JWPSports) October 1, 2022

It is inevitable that this is going to keep happening because the baseball slide turns the natural tackling motion of a defender into a killshot. Harbaugh brought this up a few years ago when his QBs kept getting hit after sliding down, but never actually followed through with coaching a dive forward.

DEFENSE

mmm back foot [Fuller]

The most annoying ten points you'll ever give up. Give Walt Bell credit: his offenses may not go anywhere, but by God do they convince you you're going to die. Michigan gave up 222 yards in this game and I spent a big chunk of it bemoaning what Michigan was doing out there. Get lined up! Why are you playing in the parking lot! Tackle! Get lined up! GET LINED UP! Aaaaaaaaargh.

/Indiana scores 10 points.

In fairness to Bell, I don't know what you're supposed to do when your offensive line is largely notional. Even the touchdown Michigan gave up required a dubious PI call and one of the more stupefying completions I've seen recently:

At that point just start heaving them up blindfolded. (This is more or less what Bazelak did.)

Colorado State caveats apply, but... This line was so bad that I'm not sure how much of this translates to Penn State, let alone Ohio State. On the other hand, I watched what I could of Eyabi Okie's FCS games and I sure as hell didn't see this:

Meanwhile Mike Morris is currently exceeding our "is Chris Wormley" take by turning in consistent pass rush wins, some of them on the outside, on a weekly basis. If Michigan can get to Sean Clifford semi-consistently next week it'll be time to re-evaluate.

Early issues. Aside from the Bazelak heave, Michigan's first-half yards ceded mostly came in two categories. One was waggle plays on which Michigan players frustratingly bit on. Indiana's ground game is close to nonexistent and they barely run stretch so watching linebackers and safeties suck up on rollouts was rough. Also rough: what are we doing screen passes. This one has two Michigan defenders over three Indiana players, and those defenders are in the parking lot:

This isn't even something you can put on tempo. The snap is at 21 seconds. It's just a free first down by alignment. Similarly, this is three guys against four Indiana players, and they're playing super-soft, with Turner bailing into a cover three deep third:

This got fixed in the second half and then the pass rush just obliterated Bazelak. By the end of the game he was just heaving the ball out of bounds without even bothering to try to stand in.

[Barron]

Line reshuffle. Indiana provides a boatload of snaps for your defense, which necessitates rotation. Snap counts are thus a pretty good proxy for a depth chart. The state of things, without bothering with fine position distinctions that don't really seem to be materializing:

DE	DT	DT	DE
Mike Morris (42)	Mazi Smith (53)	Kris Jenkins (52)	Jaylen Harrell (36)
Eyabi Okie (32)	Mason Graham (21)	Rayshaun Benny(18)	Derrick Moore (27)
Taylor Upshaw (10)	Kenneth Grant (8)	Cam Goode (4)	Braiden McGregor (10)

Moore is just coming off a 5 snap outing against Iowa so this may be a bit wobbly, but you can definitely see Moore and Okie consolidating Taylor Upshaw's snaps and even eating into the time the starters get. This is close to an OR situation, and that's with Morris playing at a very high level in both phases.

Graham and Benny are clearly the second-string DTs after Goode got some early run. George Rooks has fallen off the radar—is he hurt?

Errors and nothing. Quite the dichotomy for the Indiana running backs. Each one got a decent run off: Jaylin Lucas had a 39-yarder, Shaun Shivers a 15-yarder, and Josh Henderson and 11-yarder. The other 15 Indiana carries went for exactly 1 YPC each.

Those errors, though. Going to be some –2s handed out by Seth to the LB corps in this one. Barrett got beat on a simple route to the flat for a touchdown because his first move was directly upfield; Colson was one of the guys biting on those waggles. I would like to rescind one slander I issued on the podcast on this Indiana chunk run:

I said Barrett messed this up but actually he's boned either way because he's the only Michigan player in two different gaps because Mazi got scooped and sealed out. The RB does a good job to threaten the inside gap and when Barrett understandably tries to get over to it he's done.

SPECIAL TEAMS

[Barron]

Man who should know on blocked field goal. Zoltan Mesko:

Tackle over = take a guy from the right, to the left, where the rush is coming from, especially in college, because of the wider hash marks.

— Zoltan Mesko (@ZoltanMesko) October 8, 2022

You can see on the right side of the Indiana line they've got three guys who are attacking two Michigan OL:

Point for Indiana's special teams coach.

As always, I am most concerned about what will happen to our FEIST rankings. Does Michigan get credit for blocking the Indiana chip shot, or does that get lumped in with opponent Field Goal efficiency, which does not apply to the overall ranking? (FWIW, Michigan was like 129th in thanks to Maryland's kicker.)

Almost. AJ Henning had two good cracks at a return here, breaking one out to midfield:

This was apparent in the Indiana punting stats—their guy does not get consistent hangtime. Let us all silently appreciate Brad Robbins.

MISCELLANEOUS

Devastating. I credit these guys with keeping the score close for most of the game:

[Barron]

Hard to recover from that. Elsewhere in Indiana fans:

[Barron]

This is every college football message board.

cumong man [Fuller]

Celebration penalties are extremely suspicious. I am not hearing any old man complaints about how you shouldn't give the officials the opportunity to throw a flag on you. You cannot accurately predict what celebratory motion is going to be 15 yards and what's going to be fine. This week I retweeted Chase Winovich's "I AM GOING TO EAT MY OWN HEART" celebration, which was deemed legal. What's the difference between that and what Harrell did? Nothing. Did I hear any clucking from the "don't give them a chance" crowd after Winovich's celebration? No. What's the difference between Harrell's act and Cornelius Johnson throwing up an X with his forearms?

[Barron]

Johnson could be making an X, because that's what they put on dead cartoons. This is a threat. Flag! Flaggity flag flag! Etc, etc. Jaylen Harrell didn't invite a flag more than anyone else did in this game. He just happened to get one. 

Save the throat slash stuff. There is no way this official actually thought Harrell was doing a throat slash, he's three feet away and looking him right in the face:

There aren't any celebration penalties in hockey and baseball. Why does football need them? Why does basketball need them? The penalties are a legacy of a "gang sign" moral panic from the 1980s. They are, in the parlance of our times, sus. It's time to let it go.

Outside of taunting someone in their face—which is likely to lead to shoving and the like and the occasional bench clearing brawl, especially if you are in Florida—you should be able to do whatever you want. It's a game. It should be fun.

Have to use your review. This looks like a first down to me:

Since it's on the sideline and the yard markers are right there this is a spot review that can actually go your way—also the guy who spotted this ball is behind Bell and probably doesn't see the arm extension. If you're wrong you lose a timeout. If you're right you get a bonus possession.

Tom Allen grouses accurately. After the Johnson touchdown the cameras cut to an exasperated Tom Allen barking at a line judge and uhhhhhh

May have a point there. Academic at that point—three minutes left with Indiana down 14 and completely unable to pass protect—but good lord these officials are in for a paddlin' from the league office.

HERE

Here's a take on the Michigan offense through the lens of the… Boer War?

The second week of December 1899, the British Army suffered three humiliating defeats at the battles of Stormberg, Magersfontein and Colenso. Thousands of British soldiers perished under the withering long range accuracy of the Boer Mausers. (Second time that rifle has appeared here!) The pack masses of British soldiers died in the ranks they had marched in. It was so bad, that at Colenso, British Infantry were said to have stood in ranks, dying, waiting for someone to tell them which rock to take cover behind. The defeats humiliated the British Army, and the Empire itself. But this story isn’t about the losses, it is about the lessons.

This:

Against This: Only ends one way.

I award this person 7500 Michigan War Dad points.

Best and Worst sums up the recent history of the Indiana series:

Now, if you just skim the final scores of these games you'd wonder why I'm so annoyed with the Hoosiers - Michigan is 61-10 against them all-time and have won 26-1 in the past 27 games. But basically since Carr left and IU became an agent of abject chaos they've typically been the root canal of football games to consume. The 2009 game ended on a simultaneous catch/pick and turned out to be the last win against an FBS team UM had that year as the defense absolutely cratered. 2010 required a huge performance by Denard to escape. They didn't play again until 2013, a game that ended 63-47 because nobody played a lick of defense (1300 combined yards) and nobody could stop Jeremy Gallon (a team-record 369 yards on 14 catches) or Devin Gardner (503 [!!!] yards and 2 TDs on 29 passes as well as 81 yards and 3 TDs on the ground). 2014 was uneventful because IU was starting a backup QB and neither team was particularly good (UM finished 5-7 and Hoke was out that off-seasons), but 2015 was absolutely bananas 48-41 double OT game where The Rudockening began. 2016 was the post Iowa game where there was some snow, John O'Korn (subbing in for an injured Wilton Speight) did the complete opposite of Rudock and threw for only 59 yards, and DeVeon Smith carried UM to a win. 2017 featured John O'Korn throwing for even fewer yards (58) and Michigan again winning in OT behind 200 yards from Higdon and in spite of 16 penalties for 141 yards, the most penalties UM has had in at least the past 20 years. 2018 felt not unlike this game in which Michigan was clearly the better team but kept scuttling offensively and settling for FGs and IU was able to string together a couple of drives in the first half to take the lead before UM asserted itself more in the second half and won comfortably. And 2019 was the last win of the year for the Wolverines, a comfortable plastering featuring 5 TD throws from Shea Patterson that, even in the moment, felt a bit like fool's gold. 2020 it was clear IU was the better team (and Joe Milton was decidedly not quite ready to be QB1) while 2021 was a reversal under center but was also the week after the MSU loss when feelings around the future of the team were still pretty raw and splintered.

So yeah, that's over a decade of angst and annoyance against the Hoosiers, a team that, again, Michigan has dominated but still gives them and outsized fight across a multitude of iterations.

State of Our Open Threads:

We will start with the most impressive statistic first - the 251 fucks given in the thread yesterday, which is adjusted some for attempts to inflate the total (although I sympathize with those people - I had a similar thought in the moment), is nearly double the 136 fucks given for the Iowa game. Although I don't do a quarter-by-quarter breakdown normally, I will tell you that much of those came in the second quarter, when it definitely seemed like it was going to be one of THOSE Indiana games, which should never really happen but somehow does because they do everything we aren't built for - at least for a half, before we get the Indiana version of turtling.

The performance of "shit" wasn't nearly as prolific, but yesterday's 122 shits given definitely bests the 93 given for Iowa, but notably, it is only slightly higher than the Maryland shits - 118, to be exact. Historically, the blog has managed about two fucks for one shit, but the gap is narrowing some this year, so with a different crowd and slightly elevated engagement in these threads, we're getting some different behavior. Coming off a season like the last one helps too, of course. Anyway, here's the "fuck" / "shit" trend: