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Something's been missing from Michigan gamedays since the free programs ceased being economically viable: scientific gameday predictions that are not at all preordained by the strictures of a column in which one writer takes a positive tack and the other a negative one… something like Punt-Counterpunt.

PUNT

By Bryan MacKenzie
@Bry_Mac

This day felt like it might never actually come.

No, I don’t mean a Big Ten Championship Game appearance. Michigan did that last year. Nor do I mean a College Football Playoff bid. Michigan did THAT last year as well. Nothing that happened this year is particularly novel… which is the point. For the first time since the late Cooper Era⁠—at the end of the last century—it is plausible, if not outright true, that Michigan has truly surpassed Ohio State as a program. Which means it is the first time Michigan has been atop the Big Ten East.

The Big Ten East is the spiritual successor to the old Big Ten, which was referred to by many as the “Big 2, Little 8.” And while that was a pejorative moniker, it was true to an extent. The Big Ten has always been a hierarchy-heavy team. It was an old, established ecosystem where the megafauna thrived and the little creatures mostly tried not to get squished. The list of teams at the top of the food chain changed, of course… but slowly.

The Big Ten food chain from 2000-2020

But then, nine years ago, something happened. The tectonic plates beneath the Big Ten shifted, and the Big Ten West split off and floated away into the sea. Thus began an ecological and evolutionary experiment. For while the hierarchy of the Big Ten East remained comparatively static, the Big Ten West, suddenly free of the apex predators, started to evolve. They started competing among themselves.

[After THE JUMP: Drift or gene flow?]

And the results have been fascinating, with two overarching themes. First, the West is bad. Statistically, they have been among the weakest divisions in the Power Five for several years. The West is 0-8 in the Big Ten Championship Game, and are entering Game #9 as about a 16-point underdog. And the eye test has provided ample evidence that the football that has evolved out of the West is not aesthetically pleasing.

Second, success is more fleeting in the West. In the last four years, four different teams have made the Big Ten Championship Game out of the West. And in the last five seasons, the teams to win the West have been a combined 28-30 in the following seasons with a total of TWO bowl appearances. And it is that change that makes things interesting for tonight.

You see, most of the time, when a creature is introduced into a new environment, it dies. Creatures adapt to their environments, so the odds that the new environment will be MORE friendly are pretty low. If you drop a penguin into the rain forest, or if you drop a tree lizard into Antarctica, it isn’t gonna go well. So, unsurprisingly, dropping a Big Ten West teams into a competition with the East usually doesn’t go well.

But eeeeevery now and then, an invasive species thrives. In 1935, Australia imported 102 cane toads from Hawai’i to try to deal with some native beetles. And they TOOK THE HELL OVER; they have no natural predators in Australia, as they are poisonous to the native creatures. Today, there are over 200 million cane toads in Australia.

FUN FACT: TCU’s punter is actually an Aussie

Big Ten West teams do this sometimes. I’m sure you remember in 2016, when unranked Iowa smothered #3 Michigan in dense, pointless undergrowth (yes, Iowa is the kudzu in this analogy). The very next year, unranked Iowa destroyed #6 Ohio State 55-24. Then in 2018, unranked Purdue beat #2 Ohio State 49-20. And just last year, unranked Purdue beat #3 Michigan State 40-29.

Thus far, no Big Ten West team has gained a foothold in the Big Ten Championship game, but that is likely a matter of luck and timing instead of some real immunity to such an event. I don’t think it happens today, but one of these days, a West team is going to break through and absolutely wreck the landscape. And Purdue is among the most likely species to make it happen. Purdue has won an FBS-high 17 games against top 5 teams when unranked themselves. Oh, and Michigan’s apex predator, Blake Corum, is no longer available to crush any challenges to the existing balance. Michigan better have an environmentally-sound backup plan in the event things start to get out of hand. Michigan 26, Purdue 23

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COUNTERPUNT

By Internet Raj
@internetraj

I’m not going to mince words. This isn’t going to be a great column. My eyes are half closed and there’s nothing I want to do more than hide under a blanket and take a nap for the next 72 hours. I’ve had about 64 ounces of ice water but my throat is still parched and I’m sweating buckets. My head feels like someone took a power drill to my skull, scooped out my brain and tossed it into a Vitamix on the highest setting. Even looking at my laptop screen at its lowest brightness level feels like fire ants are crawling all over my optical nerves.

I’m hungover as shit.

Me trying to write this column.

The thing about hangovers is that there are hangovers and then there are Hangovers and this one is a capital “H” doozy, something I haven’t felt in years. The kind of hangover you wake up from and tell yourself that not only are you never drinking again, but you’re also never going to make direct eye contact with a beer ad on TV again. The kind of hangover that makes you want to apply for a Master’s degree at BYU just so you can move to Utah. The kind of hangover that inspires you to study quantum physics just so you can invent a time machine and go back to the Prohibition Era. The kind of hangover where you swear you can hear your liver gently weeping.

I spent last night at a company holiday party and made the rookie mistake of mixing things that should not be mixed, namely a noxious cocktail of champagne, red wine, gin and, to cap off the night, an incredibly ill-advised tequila shot. The result, unsurprisingly, was a witch’s brew of toxic terror bubbling in the cauldron of my stomach. It didn’t help that my eyes fluttered open at precisely 7:03 a.m. to the persistent exclamations of “Daddy, daddy time to wake up!” from my two-year-old son who was gleefully turning on and off my bedside lamp, an unholy seizure-inducing strobe effect that is likely barred by the Geneva Convention.

My son at my bedside at the crack of dawn every single morning after I decide to have more than 2 drinks

Last week, Blake Corum tried to gut out a serious knee injury to give it a go against Ohio State. If there was a blogger equivalent of such valor and intestinal fortitude I’d like to think I’m displaying it right now. Sure, Blake had his knee brutally slammed into and now requires season-ending surgery. But I did mix several glasses of mid-range prosecco, house red, and, well, tequila. Like they say, courage comes in many forms. And here I am, an out-of-shape middle-aged dad valiantly hanging on by the most fraying of threads, sustained only by delivery ramen and a vanilla sweet cream cold brew.

Like I said, there are many different flavors of hangovers – they come in all different shapes and sizes. And, today, the Michigan Wolverines, like yours truly, will be nursing a giant hangover. Coming fresh off their first victory in Columbus in two decades, pulverizing their arch nemesis and permanently altering the very balance of the Ohio State rivalry, the Wolverines will likely enter today’s Big Ten Championship with a harrowing headache and leaden lethargy. While the stakes are notionally high–winning another Big Ten trophy–the game has been robbed of a lot of its juice given Michigan is a likely lock for the Playoffs win or lose. Luckily for Michigan, the non-threatening Purdue Boilermakers are the perfect hangover cure. Purdue is a juicy cheeseburger. A chocolate shake. A bag of piping hot French fries. A comforting bowl of pho. A 64oz Hydroflask full of cold water and three Advil.

Michigan will cruise today. I will nap.

Michigan 51, Purdue 13