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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

For the 20,653rd year in a row, the Dunning-Kruger Effect is having a banner year.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect, of course, is the concept that those least competent in a certain subject area tend to overestimate their skills the most. The first recorded incident dates back to 18,630 BCE, when Krog disregarded the warnings of Gork, Selecter of Berries, stating, and I quote, "BAH, berry fine." Since then, the number of incidents of humans boldly asking the world around them, "what are you going to do, stab me?" has been, conservatively, 117 trillion.

The beauty and comfort of the Dunning Kruger Effect is that 98% of the time, it doesn't matter. Almost no one who says, "yes, I could land a commercial airliner on an aircraft carrier at night" or "I could defeat a silverback gorilla in unarmed combat" are ever going to face those scenarios. There is also comfort in it; many of us spend most of our days consumed with the nuances of our specific jobs or fields, which sucks. You got promoted to Assistant Vice President for Color Administration last year, and you spend all day looking at light refraction spectrums and focus group comments and color trademark research. There are, like, a couple of hundred people in the world who understand your job, and four people in the world who are BETTER at your job than you. And sure, it's annoying when normal people look at your work and say, "yep, that's green," but you can likewise turn on a basketball game at the end of the day and say to no one in particular, "man, he should have made that shot" when a point guard misses a 16-footer with a hand in his face.

[After THE JUMP: Gamification, and the poor pig.]

The last couple of weeks have been a fascinating journey when it comes to sign stealing. A month ago, 99.9% of us were comfortably hanging out on the leftmost part of the chart. We didn't know about this shadowy subculture of tryhard 24-year-old assistants grinding broadcast tape in super slow-motion trying to parse signals. Or about the Sign-Stealer's Code, which Connor Stalions so brazenly violated. Or the vacuum cleaners, which somehow play a critical role here.

Likewise, a good chunk of the college football world, including Tony Petitti, wandered into this week apparently not knowing a great deal about legal stuffs, only to be confronted by the full heft of the Michigan legal leviathan (including its online wing, Michigan Law Twitter). There's no shame in it; I doubt many schools, let alone many fan bases, would have mounted the level of OH SO YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT SOME LAW STUFF, EH? defense we saw from the maize and blue this week.

But when it comes to Dunning Kruger, I've long postulated that there is a certain wisdom-of-the-masses principle, in which the group of "least informed" often get to the right answers more often than they should, even if it isn't for the right reasons. We all have some gut instincts, even on very unfamiliar topics.

My wife cares very little for football. She tolerates it because she's married to a psychopath and it's just easier to humor me, but it's just not her sport. But the other day, we were watching a game, and after a running back was tackled for loss she asked, "why didn't he just run around him?" I, of course, launched into my usual screed about the play design, and how the defense played it, and when the linebacker does this the back is supposed to do this, until I realized... yeah, based on everything happening, the back probably should have bounced it to the outside. Or, you know, run around him.

Seth has used the term "gamification" to describe the reaction to SignGate. It's the temptation to react to the game of football like it was Madden or NCAA 2024, where the game is decided by wise tacticians playing 7-dimensional chess, or a weird Dungeons and Dragons ripoff. I cast 'Zone Read', but my opponent counters with 'Scrape Exchange with a +1 for an extra safety in the box.'  And, in part, this is the fault of MGoBlog. This site has dived deeper into the X's and O's and technical aspects of football than probably any fan site in the known universe.

But the UFRs and the Neck Sharpies have never been about the "why," only the "what." They help us average fans understand what is happening, and are extremely helpful and insightful. But whether or not it works often isn't about the subtleties of technique or play design. More often than not, it comes down to who has the better players. That's it. Which team has enough dudes on the defensive line that they can be fresh in the fourth quarter. Which team has an Aidan Hutchinson who is so much better than everyone else that he affects everything around him. Which team has enough offensive line depth to handle the occasional sprained ankle. Which team has... well, which team has JJ McCarthy or something approaching JJ McCarthy.

Michigan/Penn State isn't about Connor Stalions, and it was never going to be about Connor Stalions. Despite the histrionics of certain Big Ten coaches about Stalions being worth 21 points per game, Vegas hasn't budged on this game since The Whole Thing began. And Vegas makes a KILLING off of people with a little bit of knowledge. Because Vegas knows the Wisdom of Marshawn Lynch: sometimes the deeper lesson is actually the surface lesson:

Big, fast, physical, talented football players win football games. Michigan has more of those. They've had more of those than just about everyone over the last three years. This isn't rocket science. It's not even really science. It's a performance art installation titled "I'MMA HIT YOU, WHATCHA GONNA DO ABOUT IT." Last year, Penn State did nothing about it. Ohio State hit them earlier this year, and they did nothing about it. Under James Franklin, outside of one blocked field goal, Penn State has never really taken that punch. I don’t expect that to change today. Michigan 27, Penn State 10

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COUNTERPUNT

By Internet Raj
@internetraj

On June 15, 1869, on the sleepy San Juan Island, a hungry pig ignited a powder keg of international relations that nearly culminated in a war between the United States and Britain. Lyman Cutlar, an American farmer living in the then-territorial no-man’s land between the United States and the United Kingdom, discovered a pig eating potatoes in his garden. This was not the first time Cutlar had found the porky provocateur trespassing on his property, so he promptly shot and killed it. Unknown to Cutlar, that pig belonged to Charles Griffin, an Englishman running a sheep ranch on the island. Cutlar attempted to soothe over tensions by offering $10 to Griffin as compensation for the gang-style execution of the pig, but Griffin refused. He wanted his pound of flesh. Griffin demanded $100, prompting an indignant Cutler to rescind his initial offer off and stand his ground because the pig, you see, had been trespassing on his land, eating his potatoes. At least one historical account claims that Cutlar protested to Griffin by proclaiming, “It was eating my potatoes!” to which Griffin retorted, “It is up to you to keep your potatoes out of my pig.”

The standoff between Cutlar and Griffin led to threats of arrest from British authorities, which in turn led to the Americans sending in troops to defend the rights of its citizens. The British, not to be outdone, countered by deploying three warships to the island. Suddenly, a seemingly low-stakes and self-contained swine skirmish was on the brink of becoming an all-out military conflict and history-shaking geopolitical crisis.

And another may change Big Ten history

On Friday, the Big Ten Conference suspended Jim Harbaugh for the remainder of the regular season stemming from the program’s alleged violations of NCAA rules relating to advanced, in-person scouting. The unprecedented sanction is the culmination of a weeks-long and rapidly escalating acrimony between the Big Ten and Michigan. What started as an investigation turned into in-person meetings, which turned into both sides hiring powerhouse law firms, which turned into an exchange of strongly worded and bitter allegations, which turned into a dead-of-night suspension while Michigan was still on the team plane en route to Happy Valley, which turned into Michigan filing an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order. And if that wasn’t enough sizzling steak for you, you can always sprinkle on top the scandalous rumors that Michigan is sitting on, and ready to unload, a stash of allegations against other Big Ten teams.

Connor Stalions was a trespassing pig rooting around his neighbors’ properties and guzzling down their potatoes. He got shot and has now become a sacrificial pawn in the high stakes maneuvering of two superpowers: the Big Ten and one of its flagship members. Michigan President Santa Ono and Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti are currently playing a winner-take-all hand of poker, each of them taking turns raising and re-raising the other. It's only a matter of time before they are forced to show their hands and see who was bluffing.

My money? The guy who, in his first year on the job, has managed to piss off a conference cash cow, thwart basic principles of due process, capitulate to a self-interested mob, and dole out a last-minute punishment in such a bizarrely prejudicial and haphazard manner that one seriously begins to question Harvard Law’s admissions standards. Petitti is pot committed and his forehead is no doubt coated in that special, extra shiny kind of sweat that can only be produced by the glands of a spineless, in-over-their-head dolt.

Of course Michigan committed NCAA violations. Of course Michigan should accept whatever punishment results from a full and fair investigation concludes. I’ll even go so far as to say a more reasonable and well-reasoned mid-season punishment would have been fair. But this kind of ad hoc and escalatory double-barrel shotgun of a blast to a pig may result in unintended and deeply consequential outcomes for the conference, including a world where Michigan begins to question why they are a member in the first place.

Tony Petitti with a 27

You’re probably wondering when I’m going to talk about Penn State. Well, it’s really quite simple. The entire Michigan football program has now been imbued with a singular, unbreakable rallying cry. And I know that one side of Punt/Counterpunt is supposed to be optimistic and the other side pessimistic, but unprecedented times call for unprecedented diatribes. As I type this, I have no idea if Jim Harbaugh will be on the sidelines on Saturday. But I do know one thing. That pig in San Juan Island isn’t the only thing that gets slaughtered. Godspeed, James Franklin.

Bet.

Michigan 35, Penn State 10.