The State Of Our Open Threads: After Michigan State

First, I would like to apologize for the tardiness of this feature, but for the few of you who may know bits and pieces about me, Season Three of "The Crown" dropped on Netflix yesterday, and while I definitely did the data collection as soon as I woke up, everything after about 1 PM or so was devoted to Elizabeth and Philip and the machinations of the Windsors.

Having explained myself, now we can dive into some numbers.

In the seven seasons that I've been pouring over our foul language, this is probably the most relaxed we've been for the MSU game, and of course, there are many reasons that previous games have consistently been most fruitful for "fuck" and "shit", some of which have been discussed ad nauseam in other threads where almost as may fucks and shits were given. Needless to say, this game has successfully stirred blog emotions. Saturday was no exception, but because it was pretty much all Michigan after that MSU touchdown (unless you are the new troll - Stinky McStinkerton - in which case we lost by five scores), this one was quiet as MSU games have gone. 

Still, we gave 271 fucks, which is not bad, but only the fourth-best performance this season. We gave 102 shits, which is also the fourth-best performance this season, and in the case of each, only barely above the season average for each (262 average fucks, 95 average shits). Of course, this has been an odd season as far as this data goes - the most prolific performance for most of the words that are tracked was the Army game, and we won that one, although I still am not sure how. It is interesting to note that about 15% of the fucks came at the moment of Tarik Black getting called for unsportsmanlike conduct, which yeah, I contributed to that total (unofficially) from my seat. 

It wouldn't be Michigan either if there wasn't a modicum of "fire" and "suck", and particularly in the first half of the first quarter or thereabouts, plenty of people had those on their mind, but it faded rather quickly. Still, 30 instances of "fire" and 36 instances of "suck", while far below season averages, are nothing to laugh at - we cannot possibly win or have good things, you see, unless the gameplan is executed flawlessly and at such a level that we begin thinking that Alabama is finally a winnable game. 

"Shea" is another word I've actually tracked all year, for much has been said about the kid, and some of it you can even share in mixed company. 118 instances of "Shea" was the final total, somewhat below the season average, but nowhere near the 249 mentions in the Army thread or the 205 in the Iowa thread, where the offense had all the visual appeal of a dead fish washed ashore. 

Overall, 953 instances of tracked words over 2,451 posts was the overall tally, which makes for a swearing efficiency of 2.57 for the thread, and that is in line comfortable victories in the Harbaugh era, and as far as that statistic goes it would make MSU the third least stressful game yet this season, which is quite the change from previous years. We can only hope that Bill Beekman caves to Mark's demand to, yet again, rearrange the deck chairs at the end of the season. After all, the S&C coach hasn't had a crack at special teams yet, eh?