Best:  It was Tuesday

A bit like the Nebraska Cornhuskers, the heyday of bad video game movies was in the mid-to-late-90s and early 2000s.  While you could argue that movies like Tron and The Last Starfighter were heavily reliant on video games as a motif and inspiration, they weren’t based on actual video games commonly available (though in the case of Tron there was a subsequent game tie-in).  But starting in 1993 with Super Mario Brothers movie studious recognized that there were these iconic characters that had millions of fans around the globe that already had backstories and characterizations that could easily be slipped into existing cinema storylines and tropes.  The logic was that people already had an affinity for these characters based on hours of play time and would flock to the theatres to watch those characters in a cinematic story, where humans would be able to embody and enliven what were typically 2-dimensional characters with professional wrestling/for the cheap seats-level of one-off characterizations.  Unfortunately, this presumption that people who liked controlling a plumber as he battled sentient mushrooms and hammer-throwing turtles, or turn an opponent into an ice sculpture with freeze blasts before upper-cutting them into a pit, didn’t translate to the big screen when your lead actors weren’t necessarily knowledgeable about the characters or sound even vaguely life-like delivering lines.

But throughout this fallow period there were a few gems, or if not full-blown “gems” at least some memorable performances.  And at the top of that particular mountain was Raul Julia’s take on M. Bison in 1994’s Jean-Claude Van Damme-starrer Street Fighter, a movie that I can best describe as a 102 minute IP cash-in where characters that vaguely look and act like the characters from the eponymous video game do things while the viewer frequently comments “okay” while crossing his or her arms.  It’s not a “so bad it’s good” movie by any means, but it has some small amount of charm due to the absolutely insane (and, perhaps unsurprisingly, coked-up) performance by Van Damme as Guile and overall kitsch of the production, and likely would have enjoyed a longer and fuller legacy if meme culture had existed at the time.  The fact it spawned a video game based on the movie…based on the video game is like the Ur-text example of insane licensing deals that I presume is taught in Dave Brandon-approved business schools across the country, but it still had a fair bit of heart and self-awareness that made it enjoyable for its target demo of junior high kids especially compared to later attempts at exploiting some of the same characters and basic plot mechanics.  And perhaps most infamously it was the last movie of Julia’s career, as he was struggling to recover from stomach cancer surgery during the film and would subsequently die from the same disease after the movie wrapped. 

Street Fighter wasn’t a critical success and doesn’t have much of a cultural legacy despite it nearly earning $100M worldwide at the box office, but the one scene that does stick out in my mind is one where Bison listens to a capture Chun Li discuss how her father died successfully defending his village from Bison’s army.  Again, we’re grading all of this on a curve but Julia’s performance and line delivery stand out in a movie where “painting a guy with green body paint” was considered sufficient to capture the essence of Blanka.

This nonchalance, this ambivalence toward this game against the Cornhuskers seemingly spread across everyone involved, from the fans to the announcers to even the players at times.  It’s not that Michigan didn’t care about this game, only you could tell (similar to Rutgers last weekend) they didn’t treat it as anything more than another nameless opponent standing between them and another shot at the conference title and the playoffs.  But Jim Harbaugh clearly has a limited amount of cares in the world and he’s not going to waste them on everyone equally.  It’s impossible to be “up” for everyone and so good coaches marshal their team’s focus differently, putting some opponents (in UM’s case OSU, MSU, sometimes PSU) into one category that requires specific game planning and focus while others fall into a latter, more nebulous bucket.

Nebraska, somewhat sadly, falls into that latter category.  They came into the year as the reigning titleholder for “Not as Bad as Their Record” after a disappointing 3-9 2021 season where they went 1-8 in conference despite being dead-even in scoring margin (239-239) mostly because they went 0-7 in 1-score games.  There was the presumption (count me in that group) that even a slight improvement in overall luck in these close games would net the Cornhuskers a bid to some mid-December bowl game named after a cheap cell phone or strip-mall store and save Scott Frost’s job, and while there absolutely were warning signs that Nebraska had a hard ceiling this year (they lost a lot from last year’s solid defense, they still didn’t have many offensive playmakers, Frost had turned over the OC role to Mark Whipple, a pass-first guy on a team without a consistent passer, etc.) improvement record-wise didn’t seem outrageous.  But heading into this game Nebraska had already fired Scott Frost after a dispiriting home loss to (checks notes) 5-5 Georgia Southern and a 5-year run where Nebraska won 18 of 49 games (37%), and it’s even worse if you throw out non-P5  opponents (12 wins total).

To Nebraska I’m sure this was viewed as a big game, one where an upset would provide a healthy bit of optimism around a program that is the last team in the conference to go bowling (they last played in the postseason in the 2016 Music City Bowl).  They came into the contest with a number of key injuries (starting QB Casey Thompson and LB Nick Heinrich were both out, the latter for the year), though, and from the jump you could tell they didn’t have much of a plan to stop the Wolverines on either side of the ball.  After a 6-play opening drive that featured one 30-yard completion the Cornhuskers punted and Michigan proceeded to march down the field to score on a 12-play, 80-yard TD drive.  Nebraska followed that up with 3 straight 3-and-out drives though were able to thwart an initial blowout by forcing UM to punt on their next 2 possessions.  But on the third Michigan marched down the field again, ending the TD drive with a nice play-action pass to a wide-open Ronnie Bell in the endzone.  Nebraska answered back with their one sustained drive of the game, a 12-play, 55-yard FG drive that featured a ton of QB scrambles by Purdy, but Michigan responded back with a languid 12-play, 55-yard FG drive of their own to end the half.  At that point Michigan was up 14 but Nebraska had at least shown the ability to move the ball a bit (over 100 yards of total offense), and I’m guessing the Cornhuskers had at least gotten Michigan’s attention.

Unfortunately for the visitors, Michigan’s second-half adjustments, especially to teams that show a little life, have been stupendous all year and were again in this game.  The Cornhuskers picked up a total of 43 yards in the second half and didn’t even cross the 50 yard line, repeatedly struggling to get anything going in the air or on the ground.  While Michigan’s offense wasn’t lights-out either they still picked up over 200 yards and 17 points without really having to deviate from a pretty rudimentary offensive game plan.  Blake Corum finished with 162 yards and a TD on 28 carries, while guys like C.J. Stokes, Tavierre Dunlap, and Isaiah Gash were able to pick up additional carries late in the game.  McCarthy had an up-and-down game, completing under 50% of his passes (8/17) for 129 yards and 2 TDs while getting sacked a couple of times, but he also picked up a TD rushing near the goal line and suffered a bit by some drops by his receivers.  The defense was its usual stout self, giving up 3.0 ypp on only 49 plays and harassing the Nebraska QBs into running for their lives.  While the defense struggled a bit with Purdy’s scrambles early on, even watching the game at the time it was clear that wasn’t going to be a successful long-term game plan for the Huskers, especially once Purdy got hurt.  And that’s been the theme for this team all year; they make look disinterested or reactionary for a bit but they have rarely looked in danger, and once you get Michigan’s full attention it has been lights out.  That’s what elite teams do, and for the past couple of years now Michigan has been an elite college football team.  That means you’re going to get every opponent’s best effort, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you need to give them yours.

 

Worst:  Where’s The Explosions?

One of the few consistent complaints about this season, and really for a lot of Jim Harbaugh’s tenure, is that his teams can be a bit predictable in his offensive playcalling, that he tries to impose his will on a game without necessarily taking into account what the opponent’s doing or what future opponents may glean from it.  In about half of Harbaugh’s tenure (2016, 2017, 2022) Michigan has ran for more yards than they’ve passed, and in the years they haven’t it’s typically because he lacks a solid offensive line and running backs, not because he has suddenly fallen in love with the vertical passing game.  But he also doesn’t seem to run the ball out of a prehistoric adherence to tradition or risk-aversion per se; he’s not a Kirk Ferentz-type who lacks offensive creativity.  He just plays to his team’s strength and astutely recognizes that running the ball doesn’t equate to a boring, plodding offense.  Case in point, Michigan was in the top 10 last year in terms of plays that went over 40 yards and this year they’re #45 nationally but are a mere 4 plays outside of the top 10 again.  The difference this season versus last in terms of explosiveness isn’t on the ground, as they’ve got 6 40+ runs on the year compared to 9 last season, but in the passing game where they’ve only got 5 on the season (the same as MSU) while last year they had 14 (again tied with MSU). 

Early on the season fans were justifiably excited about the downfield passing game powered by J.J. McCarthy and a slew of speedy receivers, even if some of this optimism was based more on measurables and vibes than on-the-field production.  While I didn’t buy the NFL hype around Cornelius Johnson he definitely had his moments in 2021, including a dynamite stutter-and-go route for 87 yards against NIU and a nice catch in coverage against OSU.  His hands were a question coming into the year, though, and that’s continued this year as well.  He has struggled to pull in contested throws and dropped a couple of easier ones, including an easy drop against IU that was going to be for a long gain had he held on.  In this game he missed a catchable ball that was a bit off.  Roman Wilson was the lightning-fast downfield threat at the end of last year and the beginning of this year, but against non-cupcakes he’s largely disappeared (after breaking 60 yards of total offense in each of the first 3 games of the year he hasn’t cracked 30 since) and, somewhat damning, has struggled to get separation against a lot of defenses.  Admittedly some of that may well be scheme but in this game, for example, he wasn’t close to open on a lot of these downfield throws and didn’t give McCarthy much of a window to even let him fight for it.  And Ronnie Bell, who was injured in that first game and missed the rest of the season, leads the team in receptions with 45 on the year but also has had some issues holding onto the ball, including a bobbled pass and a fumble near the goal line, though the latter was after some nifty moves and may well have just been slippery conditions.  The rest of the receivers have largely been afterthoughts, with cameo appearances here or there but little beyond these top 3 and Edwards out of the backfield and Schoonmaker at TE. 

I’ve long complained about how Michigan should invest in a WR coach; I understand that there are staff limitations but Gattis, for all his flaws, had a background as a successful WR coach and so there was a base level of competence one could expect.  Now, this passing attack wasn’t particularly dynamic last year either and other than Bell returning it didn’t feel like any of them seemed poised to make some substantial leap, but if anything it feels like a regression from a unit as downfield threats (as blockers they remain really solid).  I’ll get to the other half of the passing equation in a moment but the claims that Michigan would be better downfield if they threw more in games feels like the tail wagging the dog; Michigan doesn’t throw downfield that much because the receivers struggle to get open and, when they do, they aren’t catching the balls that get to them consistently enough.  I can only assume they practice and refine these plays during practice all week, and they probably work with some consistency.  But last year we heard a lot of fans bemoan the fact that McNamara wasn’t throwing “catchable” balls to wide-open receivers, yet a year later we’re again seeing a downfield passing attack struggle to throw the ball even moreso against somewhat-comparable talent.  Like, my guess is Michigan wanted to throw the ball against an MSU pass defense that has given up, on average, 260 yards per game in the air, 66% completion and 7.8 ypa.  But Michigan only completed 58% of their passes on 26 attempts for 167 yards (6.4 ypa) and a single TD (that was basically a 1-yard handoff to Corum), and no completion was longer than 29 yards. 

Do I think there’s ways for Michigan to scheme their way to more downfield success and they haven’t shown all their cards because they haven’t been in competitive games?  Absolutely – as we saw in this game when UM called play action near the goal line defenses freak out so much about Corum and co. that guys can be screamingly wide open.  But coming into the year the talk around this receiver room wasn’t “you can game plan them open” and that relative weakness has absolutely contributed to the cap on the downfield success rate we’ve seen.

 

Worst:  Not Perfect

I blanched a bit early on in the year when the narrative around McCarthy was that he was performing demonstrably better than McNamara last year and that this high level of play would largely continue unabated against better competition.  It wasn’t that I thought McCarthy wasn’t the best QB on the roster; he won the in-game competition quite convincingly and doubly so when McNamara went down for the year.  But for a couple of weeks there I chronicled his in-conference numbers and how they were pretty pedestrian.  There’s no debate around the speed McCarthy brings with his legs; he’s saved quite a few plays by moving in and out of the pocket and either picking up a first down himself or throwing to a streaking receiver who has broken off his route as defenses adjust down to the threat of McCarthy in the open field.  But as I noted above Michigan’s pass offense (with largely the same receivers minus Bell last year and Erick All this year) has been markedly more anemic downfield, and doubly so if you ignore the OOC season.  In this game McCarthy couldn’t quite get the ball to Anthony downfield (on an overthrown ball with little separation), something that also happened last weekend against Rutgers on one of the rare wide-open throws we’ve seen for this team recently.  But even beyond the classic bombs McCarthy has struggled to put the ball in the best space for his receivers to make plays.  This throw to Bell, for example, probably should have been to the back shoulder and not so far downfield, and some of the other throws noted earlier didn’t connect due to a combination of middling throws and receivers not bailing out their QB. 

Now, this isn’t to say that McCarthy has been bad; the offense has been chugging along pretty effectively and there are game conditions that warrant not depositing your bag of tricks or inviting turnovers and uncertainty when you’re capably dismantling good defenses.  But at the same time this passing offense has been stuck in neutral for months now and at least some of that blame falls on McCarthy’s shoulders.  I doubt we’ll see a deviation in terms of passing the ball against Illinois this coming weekend so we may well see McCarthy’s first real downfield test come in Columbus in 2 weeks, a moment that could either cement his legacy at UM or give credence to some questions fans have about this offense generally and him specifically.

 

Best:  No Panic Switch

Now, I do want to stress that after two doom-sy sections I’m not necessarily all that concerned about the downfield passing attack as it pertains to the final two games of the year.  Illinois has fallen hard these past 2 weeks, losing to MSU and Purdue in successive games where they held their opponents under their season yardage totals but couldn’t keep them from scoring in the red zone (MSU and Purdue scored 6 TDs on 9 red zone possessions) while struggling somewhat on their end (4 TDs in 8 red zone trips, including 1 of 4 against MSU).  There’s a non-zero change the Illini might also be down Chase Brown in this game as well, further limiting the Illini’s ability to move the ball and giving credence to a low-variance game plan by Michigan.  And for Ohio State, Jim Harbaugh has almost always had a great game plan for beating them; hell, he nearly beat the Buckeyes in 2017 with an insane dearth of offensive firepower.  McCarthy has shown an ability to escape pressure and buy time, and for what feels like a lifetime Michigan has more of a weapon at QB running the ball than the Buckeyes, and in a tight game where Michigan’s running game remains a weapon that could make the difference.   Plus, it’s not like the receivers have been “bad”, just underwhelming, and in a big game I fully expect guy like Bell and Johnson to play well.  But there remain questions around the passing game that maybe were never going to be answered before the end of November but thus far they remain in the ether.

 

Best:  Another Paving

This diary is going to be a little shorter because, honestly, there isn’t much to say about the offense or defense that hasn’t been said already for what feels like a month now.  Michigan averaged 5.4 ypc; the Huskers averaged 2.6.  Corum had another Heisman-type performance and barring a major collapse should at least come in for serious contention for the Doak Walker, if not a trip to NYC.  He picked up his 162 yards with a long run of 12 yards, consistently weaving between defenders at the line of scrimmage and getting to the second level before contact.  On the other side of the ball, Nebraska couldn’t do much outside of QB runs and even those were fleeting, and young guys like Mason Graham and Will Johnson continued to provide nice contributions while rotating through with the starters.  I’m sure there will be nuances teased out in the UFRs but this past month has felt incredibly same-y in a very happy and stress-free way, and I hope that continues for at least 1 more week, if not a couple more.

Quick Hits

• I saw people get worked up about that end-of-half drive where Michigan didn’t show much urgency.  Given the opponent and the game situation I’m not remotely surprised Harbaugh didn’t try to speed that up or show much urgency.  As stated earlier, this was a Tuesday game and the goal seemed to mostly bleed out the clock and get some points to end the half.  That mission was accomplished and my guess is that if the opponent was OSU and the game was on more competitive we’d have seen a different series of playcalls.  But this has been Harbaugh’s M.O. for years now and expecting something different isn’t reasonable.
• I thought Colson and Barrett had good games again, which wasn’t necessarily the case a couple weeks ago.  It’s still probably the weakest part of the defense but it feels stabilized a bit more than during the middle of the year when it felt like they had barely 1 competent player there.  Illinois isn’t likely to test this newfound ability but OSU also may have some injuries of their own in the RB corps. so that may even out a bit.
• Please stop trying to jump over players.  Nebraska guy basically got pop-up powerbombed for his troubles.  I get that hurdling is cool and fun but leave that to the professionals.

 

Next Week:  Hated Rival* Illinois

A couple of weeks ago this looked like a tough out against one of the best defenses in the country and the probably West division winner; after 2 losses and some injuries there’s a good chance Illinois doesn’t even make it to Indy.  If Chase Brown plays then this might be a bruiser of a game for a while; without him and this feels like yet another slow-motion beatdown.  I hope it’s a relaxing and injury-free game either way.  Then the real season begins.

* allegedly