Best:  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So yeah, the TL;DR of this game is MSU is terrible at football and UM is probably the best team in the country AND they were pissed off, which is a recipe for a blowout as pronounced and complete as any you saw during the depths of the Chris Ash’s run at Rutgers.  I’ll get to some analysis about the game but honestly, switch out MSU’s jerseys for anyone else on the schedule up to this point and you’d not be surprised by the outcome.  I guess MSU was 5% less lucky than everyone else so they didn’t get a sad FG or a deep backups’ mixup for a meaningless score, but that’s about it.  So please indulge me for a bit as I talk about things beyond the game on the field.

Best:  Acting Like a Fool

Up until about 4 days ago, the big story surrounding this game was what happened last year, where a number of mostly-former Spartan players attacked a couple of Michigan defenders in the tunnel after the game.  The video was pretty conclusive the order of operations, who was responsible, and how, frankly, dangerous it was and could have gotten.  To his credit, Mel Tucker did come out and condemn the actions of those players and the MSU athletic department suspended them, and at least one player faced criminal charges.  Yes, I’m giving credit to a millionaire and a major athletic department for acknowledging that smashing some players with helmets after a football game isn’t copacetic, but (gesticulates toward East Lansing), you know, take what you can get.  Now, that didn’t stop Sparty faithful in the media, from Graham Couch to something called a Jim Comparoni, to either (at best) both-sides the assault or (at worst) frame it as something Michigan “deserved”, and in general the MSU fans and the program took on a veneer of victimhood, that Michigan had instigated this issue by having a single tunnel and it was inevitable that this powder keg would go off a mere century later.  It always ran hollow, as a program that once talked about pride, toughness, and “60 minutes of unnecessary roughness” lacked the ability to now plead for temperance and composure exactly when they were no longer the bully on the block. 

But then the Spartans caught the most unexpected Hail Mary in college football – Michigan was implicated in potentially “stealing” (and as noted above, just accept that “stealing” in this case means whatever the laziest, dumbest college sports writer’s mind can concoct) signs and, with that revelation, the Wolverines were then thrust into the spotlight as the true villain of this rivalry again, the arrogant cheaters and charlatans who “only got good when they stole signs”.  It was perfect for MSU; nobody was focusing anymore on the fact the Spartans were embroiled in a bitter and likely protracted legal battle over millions of dollars they potentially owed their overrated, overpaid former head coach because they had fired him after he (at best) jerked off over Facetime with a vendor and then lied about it.  The announcers barely even discussed the assault in the tunnel the year prior, and even when it was brought up it was viewed via a Sepia filter, as if it was eons ago during a different time in society and the sport, when Teddy Roosevelt roamed the sidelines and beating another human being with a helmet because you lost was what a Harvard Man did to those dastardly Yalies. 

The game always looked like a one-sided affair on paper, with Michigan so clearly superior that any shred of David vs. Goliath, of good vs. evil, that could be wrung out of this rivalry would be met with jubilation from the media and viewers at home.

But as the saying goes, a tiger never changes his stripes, and the version of MSU that retains even trace amounts of Dantonium can never maintain the moral high ground for even an afternoon when it comes to the Wolverines.  So before the game MSU decided to stream, seemingly without any substantive review, a YouTube channel that was a series of “quiz” videos about famous events, people, and places.  Now, careful readers will note in the last sentence included the words “without any substantive review” and “YouTube” and see where this is going.  And yep, if you somehow weren’t online last night it’s understandable you missed it, one of the questions shown on this video was the country of origin of Hitler, with accompanying picture.  Yep, THAT Hitler, and while I’m more a fan of trivia about Friends cast members’ movie careers and perhaps not the target demo for football pre-gaming, I have no earthly idea why anyone needs to know the country of origin of a murderous fascist unless it’s part of a “Know Your Despot” series, at which point I guess Pol Pot’s favorite meal and Joseph Stalin’s shoe size might be on the table.   But in East Lansing on a big jumbo screen next to an add for auto insurance, Meijer, and a Nike swoosh?  Probably not.  Also, I’m sure those companies are ESTATIC about their brands trending next to an uncomfortably-large image of the former German leader. 

MSU’s fumbled response included first claiming this was an unchecked third party who supplied the content for those screens, which led to the video’s creator posting on YouTube that MSU didn’t contact them and the Spartans had simply grabbed it from the site before (weirdly) saying “[i]t's an absolutely normal trivia question, shown in an inappropriate setting” because “[i]gnoring the dark facets of history is by no means the answer, on the contrary”, as if knowing he was born in Austria had anything to do with educating people about his actions unless the point is “don’t trust Austrians”.  And while it’s never a “good” time to display images of a genocidal maniac, this particular time in history given recent developments is especially bad. 

So before the game even kicked off, you’ve got MSU having to apologize for one of the most egregious own-goals in recent sports promotion history.  And on top of that, when news of the sign stealing had gotten out there was at least one MSU or MSU-adjacent goober who publicly stated MSU was considering not playing the game for the healthy and safety of its players, which again is being said by the team that beat up two players in a tunnel after last year’s game.  This notion was shot down quickly and I do believe whomever gave that quote wasn’t a high-ranking member of MSU’s athletic department (though if you told me he was the guy who leaked the original report I wouldn’t be shocked), but still there was a sense that MSU was perhaps trying to duck the Wolverines on the field by playing the role of victim off it, and that seemingly fell on deaf ears and one would be reasonable to believe that was the end of it.

But then during the game MSU wound up having their QB performatively running to the sideline to get the play in order to “combat” potential sign stealing, something MSU was apparently warned of days before and couldn’t possibly come up with some better counter-measure such as “change your fucking signs” or “do anything else”.   It went about as well as you would expect on the field but also portrayed the team as woefully ill-equipped and under-coached, and at least based on my reading online a perception that MSU was failing to gild sympathy from the public, as whatever level of “stealing” UM had done in the past was quite common and teams had adapted to it without the need to make a show of it while also looking like neophytes in the process.  Oh, and later on the game MSU wound up using signals and moved the ball about as effectively when they remembered to block most, if not all, of the Wolverines they faced. 

And on top of all that, it was MSU’s Spencer Brown who committed by far the most egregious and dangerous play of the game, purposely leading with his helmet at the back of McGregor’s head while he was down on the turf.  If you read various MSU accounts this was merely “retaliation” for McGregor trying to block Brown on the pick-six return by Sainristil, which yeah, I’ve got nothing.  Michigan wound up getting dinged for some personal fouls late in the game when the refs clearly decided “we gotta both sides this thing” and issued them for somewhat-late blocks and trying to get out of the way of a QB who just scampered out of bounds, but nothing particularly egregious.

And that’s the thing about this rivalry, in the end – MSU desperately wants Michigan to take it as seriously as they do, to be viewed on equal footing and as a similarly-tiered program with the same ceiling and potential.  It’s why they talk themselves into the idea that Urban Meyer is coming through that door to save them regardless of his past or his spotty future, or believe that the Mark Dantonio years were the new normal and not the outlier.  It’s why they overpaid for Mel Tucker, who was fool’s gold outside of two wins against the Wolverines, and why I’m sure whomever they get to take over this rudderless ship will preach the gospel of a one-game season when all else fails.  And this isn’t intended to paint in a broad brush the MSU community at large – they contain multitudes like every group of people, and most of them care about winning and losing football games but have clear eyes and minds about its relative importance in the world (which is to say, very little).  Harlon Barnett, the interim HC, seems to be that type of person.  But what Dantonio did was instill in this fanbase a sense that a rivalry needed to be forged in blood and pain, that “caring” and “obsessing” were just two sides of the same coin, and it feels like that level of hostility has superseded the value of two football teams playing a game.  It’s taken on an identity beyond itself, and it’s not a healthy one. 

So yeah, MSU’s missteps this weekend were humorous to watch but ultimately distracted from the bigger story, which is that the gap between these two teams is far vaster than even the most partisan fan likely expected.  UM fans remember a similar, though perhaps not as pronounced, gap during the late RR and Hoke years, and it made these games more slogs and cringe-worthy affairs than they needed to be.  With the Big 10 expanding and fewer consistent matchups on the docker, playing MSU every year is a helpful guidepost for fans, a contest where you can measure your team’s relative strengths and weaknesses over time.  Right now Michigan looks the part of a champion, while MSU looks like they’re just hoping nobody notices them.

 

Worst:  Let’s Remember Some Guys

I’ll keep this brief, but the controversy around Michigan and signs was an opportunity for me to learn that a bunch of mediocre college football types are still up to.  Stewart Mandel apparently is the head CFB writer at The Athletic, a site who’s lasting legacy is showing that no matter how mismanaged and illogical your business VC bros with access to low interest rates will keep giving you cash long enough for a legacy media company to dramatically overpay for you.  But anyway, Mandel railed against UM and talked about mid-season sanctions, a shockingly silly claim given the fact there hasn’t even been a formal investigation into the matter yet.  Reece Davis, who’s never met an answer he can’t over-complicate, honestly may not be sure about what’s actually being claimed here since he talks about “sign stealing” as something pretty common and then talks about someone sitting in the stands and seeing said signs as “beyond the pale”.  His buddy Pete Thamel at ESPN apparently thought it was a good idea to copy-paste some hyperbolic statements from unnamed coaches and out a low-level employee in Connor Stalions as this mastermind of a vast network of sign stealers, while noticeably providing any real evidence he had done any of these things.  The biggest accomplishment of Thamel’s writing, AFAICT, is get a guy who pull all his social media accounts after what I can only assume were a deluge of trollish activities by rival fans and make sure this controversy is the only thing that comes up when people search for his name in the future, regardless of outcome.  Pat Forde at Sports Illustrated, a guy who’s signature impact on college football was being horny on main for pictures of coeds in his articles, got snarky online.  And Ross Dellenger, college football’s Adam Schefter in that he basically copy-pastes press releases from the NCAA and treats it as reporting, excitedly circled pictures of Stalions on the sidelines of UM games as proof he was stealing signs at other games, because when Yahoo Sports says “familiarity with Photoshop a plus” on the job posting they mean “can you open a picture”.  There are others, including the usual assholes out there who totally aren’t mad about being called an idiot a decade ago trying to be smug, but it was telling that the “journalists” around this story let whatever standards they had at the door and instead ran as fast as they could to pump out the hot takes. 

Of course, if this turns out to be not much of anything, I’m sure those guys will rush out just as quickly to set the record straight. 

 

Best:  Heisman Front-Runner

Coming into the year a lot of UM fans figured they had a Heisman candidate on the team and his name was Blake Corum.  That made a ton of sense; Corum had been the highest non-QB and top returning vote getter from last season despite missing the last 3 games of the year, was once again going to be the focal point of the offense, and was likely to be starring on a team poised to compete for a national title.  And in some respects this season Corum has played like an elite back, leading the nation in rushing TDs on only 13 carries a game.  But the running game has, if not struggled, at least sputtered for most of the year, as defenses have sold out to limit UM’s explosiveness on the ground and some run blocking inconsistencies have led to less spectacular performances from Corum (and for that matter Donovan Edwards).  Perhaps this was predictable given the fact that when Corum announced he was returning it was made clear than him, Edwards, and the rest of the backfield would limit touches in order to remain fresh during what is looking like 2.5 months of preseason games. 

And yet, Michigan still has a leading Heisman Trophy candidate.  J.J. McCarthy has put together one of the best seasons ever by a Michigan QB, currently second nationally in QB rating and accuracy while third in ypa.  He’s helped Roman Wilson rise to the top of receiver charts while also turning Colston Loveland and A.J. Barner into the most effective TE group in the country.  Save for that inexplicable BGSU game, he’s not thrown a pick all year and has guided the offense to being one of the best on 3rd down as well as in the red zone despite, again, not getting a particularly dominant performance on the ground.  In this game Michigan didn’t crack 100 yards on the ground until the 4th quarter while facing 3rd downs of 14, 13, and 8 on their first 3 drives of the game, yet still converted on all three while scoring TDs on 5 of their first 7 drives (and scoring on the 6th until a somewhat-dubious penalty on Edwards and, to my eyes, incorrect run-off ended the first half at the goal line).

And yes, there have been some throws that were questionable that worked out, from the late flea flicker to Cornelius Johnson to the dangerous TD throw to Wilson against Nebraska, which likely won’t when run against better competition, but that’s true for any QB and even in those circumstances we’re talking about a handful.  If there’s one type of throw that actually scares me it is ones like this against IU and this one to Barner against MSU where he tries to slip it through tight NFL windows where better LBers and safeties might swoop in.  But again, I’m worrying about elite throws by a guy who’s in heat-check mode during a blowout, and frankly that type of “gunslinger” mentality, for as tired a cliche as that is, is what you need to see in order to win a title nowadays. 

So yeah, McCarthy is having the type of year where I almost expect him to be invited to NYC for the ceremony, even if in the end his lack of gaudy numbers may deny him the prize.  It may take the voters pulling Zack Greinke/Felix Hernandez Cy Young type of outlook, rewarding an elite performer despite somewhat-middling counting stats, but if so I doubt you’d hear any complaints about it.  I’m not sure if McCarthy comes back next year or heads to the NFL, but regardless fans need to enjoy what we’re seeing and how he’s raised UM’s offense to a level we’ve all hoped for since Harbaugh took over.

Best:  Depth

One of the ongoing stiorylines for the defense all year is the sheer number of guys who’ve seen the field and logged meaningful snaps.  Usually when you hear about a bunch of young players getting significant playing time on defense, you think of a unit riddled by injuries and/or ineffectiveness and simply throwing bodies into the breach in the hopes of finding a stopgap.  Last week I noted how nice it was to have so many playable guys at interior defensive line after what felt like decades of converted backup offensive linemen and undersized ends, and you saw it this year when Mason Graham went down for a couple of games and the team barely missed a step despite his absence.  This year, despite not always having All-league (if not All-American) level performers in Graham, Rod Moore, and Will Johnson for stretches, Michigan has been able to digging into their depth chart to field competent, complimentary players.  In this game Michigan got 2 of their 7 (!) pass breakups from Amorion Walker and DJ Waller, 4 of their 9 (!!) TFLs from McBurrows, Harris, Guy, and Goode, and at least 1 of their 30 (!!!) solo tackles from 18 different players.  Yes, some of these numbers were picked up late in the game, but even in the first half of play guys like Grant, Waller, and Walker picked up stops while a number of other players rotated in. 

Before the game Brian noted on the podcast and in the preview that this was probably the game where those rotations needed to stop, where Michigan couldn’t necessarily afford rotating guys thru and giving the better teams on the schedule a chance to trap someone undersized or slow-footed on the field and exploit them.  And at some point you do need to start relying heavier on your stars because there are teams on this schedule (okay, maybe just team) that offensively can make them pay for a mismatch.  But getting these guys all of the snaps isn’t just because they want to keep the starters fresh and limit the wear they get in these games; for example, the linebackers have almost exclusively been Colson, Barrett, and Hausmann until late in games.  They legitimately believe they have starter-level talent pretty far down the depth chart and they’re going to exploit it where they have it. 

Best:  Cake and Eating It To

Alex during the preseason hot takes said he thought A.J. Barner was going to be an all-conference level player at tight end, and I think the general consensus was perhaps that was possible but likely more of the honorable mention variety.  Barner had been at IU for 3 years, starting 2 and generally looking just a guy.  He had 32 catches over 25 games played, and last year averaged 7.1 ypc, which feels like the most Walt Bell number ever.  But like a lot of players on that IU offense, Barner was being held back quite a bit by scheme and general ineptitude, and I agreed with the take that Barner was likely going to be better than expected. He is a big guy with decent wheels, and his coaches at Indiana thought he’d ultimately be the greatest TE in their history.  That may not be a particularly high bar to clear but it pointed toward a better player than just another backup TE, and Barner has proven that optimism right by emerging as UM’s most complete TE.  Loveland is still more of a pass-catching mismatch and has that extra athletic gear you see with the truly elite pass catchers, but Barner is still snagging throws left and right in tight windows while also displaying a really high level blocking acumen.  The run game has floundered at times this year but while early on you’d see Loveland get beat by an end or linebacker that’s not happening with Barner, and Michigan has shifted some of their runs to his side while moving Loveland out to receiver to better exploit that matchup advantage.  PSU will be a step up for everyone defensively but Barner gives them what Erick All did and that type of dual-threat receiver and blocker has helped unlock the offense’s potential and made McCarthy’s life that much easier.

Best:  The Rest of This League, Again

UM-MSU had a lot of drama off the field but nobody expected much of a contest on it.  But when PSU visited OSU, the talk centered around how these were two titans meeting in the first of 3 epic tilts between top teams in the country.  PSU has consistently been third in the division’s pecking order the past handful of years but they did get a block-and-return in 2016 against the Buckeyes and so apparently that’s enough to justify James Franklin always being close to getting the Nittany Lions over the hump.  But woof was this game hard to watch, as neither OSU nor PSU could do much offensively for long stretches, in particular Drew Allar and the PSU passing game.  Franklin’s been prickly about the lack of downfield throws by Drew Allar all year, and you knew that with OSU’s solid front 7 and PSU’s 10th-straight year of mediocre-to-bad offensive line play Allar would need to be able to move the ball in the air to give Penn St. a chance.   Well, Allar responded with 191 yards on 42 (!) attempts, a miniscule 4.5 ypa that was goosed by a late TD drive where OSU was clearly letting him bleed clock.  PSU was 1/16 on 3rd down and had only 49 yards on the ground, and while Allar’s receivers couldn’t get separation all day against the OSU secondary he also failed to even attempt a deep pass or hit his receivers more than 10 yards down the field when they did get open.  A lot of excuses have been made for this, including the fact he’s a true sophomore and a first-year starter.  But J.J. McCarthy was a first-year starter as a true sophomore last season and his numbers were significantly better and his team’s offense played with more coherence and consistency. 

But that isn’t to say Allar is really at fault for PSU’s struggles; he’s still just one guy and PSU’s issues offensively run far deeper.  While in years past they’d have at least one high-level receiver, this year it’s just a bunch of guys who lack real explosiveness against even the dregs of the schedule.  Lambert-Smith and Theo Johnson have been there for years but have seemingly topped out at “okay”, and their two backs would likely be really good behind better offensive lines but as currently constituted they’re both averaging under 5 ypc by quite a bit.  Fashanu seems fine as a tackle but I simply don’t see the all-world play out of him this year, and everyone else on that line struggles to get push against middling Big 10 West teams, let alone someone like OSU.  PSU’s defense looks legitimately elite and that’s been true for some time, but for the life of me I’ve never really been impressed by a Franklin offensive gameplan – having Barkley and McSorley can do bad things to a lot of college defenses regardless of the plays you call – and his greatest accomplishment in years in Happy Valley is tricking that AD to keep paying him like a top-10 coach whenever a new job opening pops up.

As for OSU, the difference between Drew Allar and Kyle McCord is McCord has Marvin Harrison Jr. to throw to and Allar doesn’t.  McCord tried again to throw a couple of picks and never looked great reading the field whenever PSU brought pressure.  He’s the same year as McCarthy, mind you, so even though he’s the first-year starter it’s not like he hasn’t been around college football before and yet he still seems easily flustered.  PSU has elite defensive ends but their tackles are suspect and yet OSU really couldn’t get much going inside, a recurring issue for the Buckeyes all year despite what media pundits would like you to believe.  The defense looks fine but when Maryland and Notre Dame can run on your somewhat consistently I don’t find it dispositive that you held PSU to 60-ish yards on the ground.  They’re “better” defensively than they were last year, but probably only incrementally, and offensively they look extremely limited. 

While obviously a lot can happen between now and these games, it’s hard to imagine PSU or OSU being able to hang with Michigan, which seems to have at least as good as defense as either of them and an immensely more diverse and explosive offense.  It’s crazy to say after years of feeling like UM was chasing OSU and treading even with the Nittany Lions, but Michigan is now clearly the class of this conference and these other schools are sort of hoping to catch UM on a bad day.

Quick Hits:

• We often talk about players as a guy you want walking off the bus first, a sign of what type of player to expect on that team and how tough they are.  Joe Milton famously was brought up as the first guy you want off the bus given his size, and you’ve heard about guys like Mazi Smith and Mike Onwenu just being overwhelming, physically-intimidating men.  But the first guy off this team’s bus has to be Mike Sainristil, who plays like an absolute stud and also has the type of quiet intensity and leadership that really embodies this iteration of Michigan.  He had another pick-six in this game and was all over the field, and in the post-game was talking up basically everybody on the team.  Just a great example of Michigan.
• Donovan Edwards remains a bit of an enigma but you saw on that third-down pickup early in the game that he’s just so dangerous in the passing game that they should probably just keep feeding him the ball.  I also thought he was maybe the better option on a McCarthy scramble on 2nd-and-12, as he had nobody around him and McCarthy was going to get popped at the end of that run. 
• This isn’t meant to slag on the guy but Houser throws the ball the way people think Cade McNamara threw the ball at Michigan.  The difference between his arm velocity and McCarthy’s was stunning, no more so than on a couple of those out throws where the DB had what felt like seconds to break on the ball to knock it away.  He’s a young guy and he’ll improve but having an elite arm at QB really can’t be overlooked.  It’s why I get people keep wanting to make Joe Milton happen.

Next Week:  Bye

So yeah, finally a break in the action.  Michigan is playing like the best team in the country and there’s a non-zero chance they’re #1 in the CFB poll by the next time they play given Georgia facing Florida and their general struggles.  Usually I’d be somewhat nervous about a hot team taking a week off but this team seems locked in in a way that is unlikely to cause a drop in performance, and with the home stretch coming up my guess is this week will be useful to get some guys healthy and install new wrinkles.

As a programming note, I won’t be writing one of these columns for Purdue.  I’ve got a lot of family responsibilities in 2 weeks and won’t likely even catch the game on TV.  I doubt anything notable will happen then but just an FYI.