2022 iowa

[Ed(S): Kelsey Zimmerman is a writer/photographer from Ann Arbor who's currently completing her MFA in writing at Iowa State. A game at Iowa City was too good to pass up, and her self-justification of going to write up her experience was too good for us to pass up. You can find more of her stuff at kelseyzimmerman.com. Photos herein are hers.]

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Friday I burned myself while rushing to bake a batch of cookies. I didn’t run my hand under cool water soon or long enough in the aftermath, rushing to finish the cookies for a friend’s birthday, and ended up with an inch-long red stripe on my left index finger.

Saturday I drove to Kinnick to watch Michigan win a football game. Over the summer, I’d wondered what it might be like to go to an away game alone, how opposing fans might treat me both as a Michigan fan and as a woman attending a game by herself; the idea made me nervous, but what is being a writer for if not for putting myself in uncomfortable situations and then writing about it?

Driving into Iowa City is surprisingly similar to driving into Ann Arbor; the corn and soy fall away, leaving the highway thickly lined with trees. I stopped for gas 20 minutes outside town and saw Hawkeye tailgaters in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn Express. I saw a billboard that read, “TIME ENDS! ETERNITY FOREVER.” It was probably some sort of religious shtick about how we all die but heaven is permanent, but it seemed poetic too, the sort of aphorism you might find on a grave, or a birthday party, or an essay about not understanding how to feel about anything anymore.

[The rest after THE JUMP]

The Sponsors

Thank you to Underground Printing for making this all possible. UGP makes custom apparel such as t-shirts and sweatshirts and was founded by 2 Michigan alums over 20 years ago. They have 3 retail locations in Ann Arbor and offer thousands of University of Michigan athletic products for sale, ranging from clothing to accessories and memorabilia. Check them out at ugpmichiganapparel.com or check out our selection of shirts on the MGoBlogStore.com!

And let’s not forget our associate sponsors: Peak Wealth Management, HomeSure Lending, Ann Arbor Elder Law, Michigan Law Grad, Human Element, The Phil Klein Insurance Group, Venue by 4M, and we are recording this on SignalWire.

Featured Musician: Orochen

Video is Here:

[After THE JUMP: What's to be said]

FORMATION NOTES: Hello, it's Iowa. Iowa loathes putting guys in the box:

This play has Edwards in the backfield and has the Iowa safeties rolled up inside of ten yards. This was an occasional change up; this was more frequent:

Split safeties at 12, six guys in the box. Michigan severely cut down the number of multiple TE snaps. They had 43 snaps with 1 TE, 17 with two, and six with three. Half of those 3 TE snaps were Michigan's last drive.

Later in the game Iowa started firing up their blitzes and got aggressive, but until it was desperation time the light box was near-universal.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: With Keegan back the OL did not deviate from Hayes/Keegan/Olu/Zinter/Jones. RB was Corum/Edwards exclusively. TE lacked All, had a ton of Schoonmaker, and was relatively limited otherwise. Until late Michigan's TE density was relatively low, for reasons discussed above. WRs as usual except Wilson went out later in the game after taking what looked like a hit to the eat.

[AFTER THE JUMP: a thousand cuts]