[Bryan Fuller]

Aftermath of a decision. Spencer tackles the boggling end of the Penn State-Ohio State game. Two timeouts and two checks to the sideline resulted in this:

This is the PSU version of that one screenshot from Lloyd Carr's last Ohio State game.

It is truly boggling even aside from the stunt that eats the play whole. Penn State's left tackle doesn't let the backside end go! PSU options nobody on fourth and five! Trace McSorley had 175 rushing yards! This is after two timeouts! And two checks to the sideline! Three different guys are utterly unblocked! What!

In related news:

I just did the math.

Penn State's win probability peaked at 97.3% in 2017 with 7:35 left on the clock, and 96.1% this season with 8:00 remaining.

The odds of Ohio State winning both of those games at that point, given those numbers, is 0.105%. Literally one in a thousand.

— Kevin Harrish (@Kevinish) October 1, 2018

FFS, James Franklin. Next year is going to be real interesting for PSU. McSorley is the thing propping them up right now in their Moorhead Wile E Coyote year. Could be very different next year. PSU fans can console themselves on 24/7; Franklin is recruiting his ass off. Which he'd better since he's the gameday equal of Brady Hoke. Except with more yelling at fans.

Someone please stop EMU. This looks like Pleasantville State taking on Generic Green Opponent That Has Frenched A Lady's Bosom*:

BALLGAME.

NIU's @Harbison_iii with the game-winning TD in triple OT! #theHardWay #MACtion pic.twitter.com/xzk6LrHXDc

— #MACtion (@MACSports) September 30, 2018

I am mesmerized, but it feels like NIU folks entering the endzone should suddenly burst into color.

*[I don't quite remember the plot of Pleasantville. Or, apparently, what to do in the boudoir. Boudoir. Boodwah.]

[After THE JUMP: Maryland's culture is screwed all the way to the boosters]

Saving it. A couple of Big Ten teams are very, very bad at running the ball:

Worst Power Five teams in the country in yards per rush is an interesting list:

128. Northwestern
126. FSU
121. Iowa State
117. Washington State
115. Michigan State
112. Stanford

— Barton Simmons (@bartonsimmons) October 1, 2018

Northwestern can say they've played Duke, Michigan and Purdue; even Akron is currently 22nd on S&P+. They're probably real bad and worse now that they don't have Larkin but they've played a tougher than average run D schedule. Michigan State has played Arizona State (#116 run D), CMU (#75), Utah State (#44) and Indiana (#20).

Naturally they'll have an entire first quarter of stuff they've been saving all season when they play Michigan.

While we're discussing MSU: leading receiver Cody White broke his hand against CMU. The incident didn't look great for his availability in the near future.

Oblique interests. Okay folks, let's all root for Bobby Petrino to get fired. Because that coaching search might well be one phone call to Jeff Brohm, and that may well induce George Karlaftis to reconsider his Purdue commitment. I am a normal human.

One proposed hurdle is Petrino's buyout at UL:

Petrino’s 2018 pay, including the APR bonus, comes out to $4.475 million. If Louisville fired him on Dec. 1, right after the season, it would owe:

• $4.025 million for 2019
• $4.075 million for 2020
• $4.125 million for 2021

That’s $12.225 million. ...

The language also suggests Petrino would likely get three more years of the $500,000 APR bonuses, even if he weren’t coaching. Unless Louisville argued against that or somehow failed to keep up its APR, Petrino’s buyout would rise by another $1.5 million, going to about $14.1 million on Dec. 1, 2018.

That's what about USA Today gathered for their 2017 coaching database. But a couple of other buyouts that got executed weren't far off Petrino's: Jim McElwain got axed despite a $13 million buyout; Jim Mora and Todd Graham got booted despite a $12 million buyouts. Kevin Sumlin was fired despite a $10 million dollar buyout.

Meanwhile Louisville's athletic revenue is bigger than you might expect: 120 million annually. Meanwhile the difference between getting Jeff Brohm and not getting him might loom both competitively and financially. Petrino can probably survive a bleah year. Can he survive 4-8?

Maryland items. The Washington Post comes out with an article further detailing the weird Hieronymous Bosch program DJ Durkin was running:

During meals and in the training room, players were shown graphic videos featuring loud music, violent imagery and animals killing each other. The videos were intended to motivate the players. “There would be videos of animals eating other animals, pulling them apart,” one player said. “Video segments of, like, zombies just pulling out the intestines of other people.”

“A predator attacking prey,” former wide receiver DeAndre Lane said. “Kind of just to get you in that mind-set: Attack, kill or be killed.”

There are many other anecdotes in that article; combined with the ESPN article it beggars belief that Durkin's program was a sane thing. Not that some rich old dudes care; the Maryland student newspaper was able to get some boosters on the record—and named!—saying things like this:

"He's the right guy," said John LaPides, the CEO and founder of an Annapolis-based investment firm and Champions Club member. "He represents the university well and brings the right kind of culture."

Or this:

"As much as we hate to say this, Jordan didn't do what Jordan was supposed to do," Jaklitsch said. "A trainer like Wes Robinson thinks a kid's properly hydrated and runs a drill set up for kids that are properly hydrated, and when the kid didn't drink the gallon he knew he had to drink, that's going to send the wrong signal to the person running the drill."

I have no idea what kind of morality you pretend to have when you blame the death of a kid on the kid himself. Appalling.

Not technically a sponsor note. This has ALF in it, and if there's a rule on this blog it's that any even tangentially related video that has ALF in it gets embedded:

Reboot ALF! What's taking so long?

Huh. PFF's top-graded players from the Northwestern game:

The five highest-graded players from the Michigan-Northwestern game on Saturday pic.twitter.com/dyr6idn5H8

— PFF College (@PFF_College) October 2, 2018

I don't think I'm going to get the same results—Winovich yes, Patterson and Mone probably not so much. Glasgow maybe. Silver lining to Hudson's absences is that Glasgow has established himself as a quality backup.

Remembering M00N. The Daily is on it:

Northwestern took back over and actually strung together a drive that had some potential. Siemian connected with Prater a couple more times to get into Michigan territory, but things stalled out, and the Wildcats faced a fourth-and-two.

They handed it off to running back Justin Jackson, who was stuffed short. The camera flashes to Fitzgerald, who gives a shrug and then claps. This probably summarized everybody’s feelings of the game to that point.

Like, “Man, these first few drives have had some weird stuff happen, but there’s a lot of game left. I’m sure it won’t all be weird! Michigan has momentum now, maybe they’ll score!”

So young, so innocent.

Etc.: Midseason soccer update from MSN. Michigan is in the top 15 and has a guy named UFO. It's all right. Trash talking Michigan Stadium.

A bit of scouting on 2020 hockey commits Jacob Truscott and Austen Swankler. 2019 hockey commit John Beecher currently projected as a late first round pick, one of nine(!) USNTDP players projected in the first round. Cooper Marody on the verge of making the Oilers. A brief history of the Superfans. Don't click here.