daylen baldwin

Attrition Day continues with the one rumored so strongly that I may have twinged my metaphorical neck while gesturing at it in this afternoon’s roster post. Daylen Baldwin announced on his Instagram that he’ll forgo a 6th season, let the 2021 tape stand, and pursue his professional dreams:

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Daylen Baldwin (@daylenbaldwin2)

Baldwin, who broke out in 2020 playing for Deion Sanders at Jackson State, chose Michigan last offseason over Ohio State because the receiver depth chart looked less daunting. Though Michigan’s own receiver roster proved to be packed, Baldwin earned five starts and played in 288 snaps this year behind just Cornelius Johnson (801), and Roman Wilson (395) in Michigan’s outside rotation. Andrel Anthony (269) was coming on late though, and the natural progression for the budding star, plus the return of Ronnie Bell from injury, was going to mean another crunch for playing time in 2022.

Baldwin showed some of the deep ball prowess that made him a star for Jackson State over the course of the 2020 season, none more memorable than when he hooked up with JJ McCarthy late in the opener. Here it is again.

Good luck Baldwin, and thank you for the visit!

Note: Aidan Hutchinson also declared today, but you already knew about him.

10/9/2021 – Michigan 32, Nebraska 29 – 6-0, 3-0 Big Ten

At the end of seminal 1998 poker movie Rounders, Mike McDermott walks back into the underground club where he lost his whole bankroll years before. He says he "feels like Buckner walking back into Shea." I watched Rounders again a couple months ago because having something on to pay attention to is helpful when your personal life is spiraling towards divorce.

I came to regret this, because the phrase would not leave my mind.

In my current situation, Shea is damn near everywhere. The park I walk through to get my kid from school was  the site of a couple other walks, late night ones. The little court I cut through to get there is one letter off the name of the town we stayed on an anniversary trip that felt like it would be the end of the bad times and the beginning of the good ones, until it wasn't. I've lived in the same town—the same part of the same town—for 15 years. Everything and everywhere reminds me of the state of things.

Buckner walking back into Shea, if Shea was the Big Bang. Or, no: more like that episode of The Next Generation when Beverley Crusher gets stuck in a universe that keeps getting smaller.

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Consider two football teams, now. Both are ancient and dignified and scattered apart on the sands of what used to be a championship-level program. Both are run by former quarterbacks from the glory days. Neither has broken through in the way their large, absurdly devoted fanbases want. One constantly shoots itself in the foot just on the verge of poking through. The other does the same thing but somehow one feels more like a Three Stooges movie and the other a Lars Von Trier joint. Which is which depends on which team you're a fan of.

History has decided that these two teams are going to play each other, and that it's going to be close. Inevitably whatever happens now will go in the collective psychosis of the loser. The winner? Dopamine hit, sure. But if Bill Buckner walked back into Shea and fielded a routine grounder it wouldn't change a whole lot. Damage is quick, recovery is long.

If you ignore the jersey color of the winner, then, the result here was foreordained. More mania for Nebraska fans looking at a punt that went the wrong way and a late fumble and oh God whatever it takes to lose to Illinois. More caution for Michigan fans who do not trust that anything can be good. One fanbase spirals down, the other barely increments up. The moral arc of college football is always towards derangement.

After the game Cade McNamara stood in front of a reporter and told her that "previous Michigan teams lose this game." He prefaced that with a "no disrespect" gesture. That hit in the same way any "I'm not an X, but" statement does. There must be a German word for it, the phrase that disclaims the thing you're about to do and only intensifies how hard you're doing it. That was disrespect—disrespect that was on some level deserved. Previous Michigan teams have lost this game and others like it.

This Michigan team is probably going to as well, because that's what happens in college football unless you're one of the elites living in the recruiting arcologies Alabama, Georgia, and Ohio State have built. And in this weird post-covid year, even two of those three. The Revenge Tour team that did seem like a playoff team lost a cosmically dumb and stupid and dumb game against Iowa, and then ate The Spot a couple weeks later. There's no shame in being caught up in the tides of college football.

I don't trust it and probably won't trust it until long after it is reasonable to do so. But okay. You went into Shea—in this case a road game against an approximately top 25 team per the fancystats—and fielded a grounder. A tricky one, even. A cool tile has gone down over some lava. Trust comes back one tile at a time, and maybe this time the Michigan team won't lose those games. And when they do maybe it won't feel like another in a long line of errors.

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

[Barron]

you're the man now, dog

#1 Brad Hawkins. The crucial strip and recovery to set up the winning points, plus an equally critical fourth down stop on Nebraska's first drive. I can't say for certain that he wasn't part of some of Nebraska's big plays but I'm pretty sure none of them were on him; he in fact had to clean up one when he came over to tackle a wheel route that (probably) Green busted on. Almost knocked that ball out for another turnover on downs.

#2 Hassan Haskins. The hurdle, of course, and several other grunting runs where he makes four or five yards after contact with his combination of power and balance. 5.9 YPC against a real defense despite frequent short yardage deployment.

#3 Jake Moody. More than just a guy who makes field goals. He's a guy who makes field goals in the same exact way, casually drawing them in from the left hash mark. Kick goes up, kick looks slightly wide, have now been trained to interpret that as a sign something good is going to happen.

Honorable mention: Uh Aidan Hutchinson was PFF's defensive player of the week again so I guess he should get an HM. Dax Hill turned in one spectacular INT and several other plays. Blake Corum had 18 touches that averaged 7 yards each. Josh Ross delivered several thumping tackles. The OL checks in here with special mention to Stueber, who was paving.

KFaTAotW Standings.

(points: #1: 8, #2: 5, #3: 3, HMs one each. Ties result in somewhat arbitrary assignments.)

23: Aidan Hutchinson (HM WMU, #2 Wash, #1 Rutgers, #1 Wisc, HM Neb)
17: The OL (#1 Wash, #1 NIU, HM Neb)
12: Hassan Haskins (HM WMU, T3 Wash, T2 NIU, #2 Neb), Blake Corum (#2 WMU, T3 Wash, T2 NIU, HM Neb)
8: Ronnie Bell (#1 WMU), Brad Hawkins (#1 Neb)
7: Dax Hill (#3 WMU, HM NIU, HM Rutgers, HM Wisc, HM Neb)
6: Nikhai Hill-Green(HM NIU, #2 Rutgers)
5: David Ojabo (#2 Wisc), Brad Robbins (HM Wash, #3 Rutgers, HM Wisc), Jake Moody (HM Wash, HM Wisc, #3 Neb)
4: AJ Henning (HM WMU, #3 NIU), Josh Ross (HM Wash, HM NIU, HM Rutgers, HM Neb)
3: Donovan Edwards(T2 NIU), Roman Wilson (#3 Wisc)
2: Cornelius Johnson(HM NIU, HM Wisc),
1: Andrew Vastardis (HM WMU),Mike Sainristil (HM WMU),  Mazi Smith (HM Wash), Gemon Green(HM NIU), Chris Hinton (HM Rutgers)

Who's Got It Better Than Us(?) Of The Week

Hawkins's late strip and recovery sets Michigan up for a chip shot to win.

Honorable mention: Sainristil lays out for a long ball. Haskins hurdles a dude. Corum zips through an insert iso for a touchdown-creating chunk.

​MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

McNamara throws a terrible interception immediately after a Nebraska TD, setting up their go-ahead score.

Honorable mention: Illegal formation TD, various missed deep shots, Nebraska quackery getting Michigan's linebackers running after ghosts.

[After THE JUMP: hello ground game]

9/25/2021 – Michigan 38, Wisconsin 17 – 5-0, 2-0 Big Ten

There is another feeling related to the grim gray grimness discussed in last week's column after the second half of the Rutgers game was not good. It is being on the other side of that, watching some yahoo in the other team's uniform with his helmet on wrong attempting to do a complicated thing while 270-pound men try to sit on him. When he fixes his helmet one of his thigh pads falls off.That sort of thing.

Usually he's been pressed into duty by injury or, in extreme cases, a mid-game resignation letter pinned onto the center. Usually he has an implausible name and instead of career stats they just put up the grimace emoji. Usually he hands off until it is third and long and then the adventure begins.

So what you need to know about "Chase Wolf" is this: he threw one interception on eight attempts and this significantly lowered his career interception rate. Once Graham Mertz exited the game it was a matter of naming the final score. There's a pleasant feeling of relief when the opposition is on offense and things are very, very dull.

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Getting there, though: that was interesting. The play on which Mertz gave up the ghost was a slot blitz from Dax Hill. Michigan waited until the snap was imminent, then fired back a safety and rotated another one down.

Mertz seemed to think he had a hot route in the area that RJ Moten had vacated, but David Ojabo had dropped off the line and was standing with the TE; he hesitated and then got buried.

This blitz is not alien to college football, or even Michigan—Greg Mattison liked doing things like this—but it does stand up as the clearest indicator that this defense is not the defense Don Brown wanted to run. Opposing quarterbacks have talked about how difficult it was to predict what Michigan was doing on any particular snap. Rocky Lombardi in fact made a direct comparison to the previous season, when it was not at all difficult to predict what was about to happen.

Opposing coaches and color guys have said things like "this team is built to beat Ohio State"—not to say that they will, but that they aren't going to roll into The Game expecting that they're going to win by manning up Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave. If we do get a competitive outing* it'll be on the backs of plays like the above, where Michigan sends a couple of guys through unblocked and the quarterback doesn't know what he's supposed to do.

Confusion is dual-edged blade. If you can apply it, you win downs. But trying to do so inevitably exposes your own team to risk. Whenever someone is struggling we hear about the coaches "simplifying things" (in fact heard it in this game about Mertz). We have not heard that about the Michigan defense, in a transition year, running a bunch of stuff that other teams think is pretty hard to figure out.

Michigan has in fact been remarkably impervious to busts. Implausibly so, even. They've given up a total of 4 plays of 30 or more yards, and a couple of them have been in garbage time. That's tied for fourth nationally with, like, Alabama. They're also tied with Alabama in 20+ yard plays. As we approach the halfway point of the season it's probably time to start believing that this defense is in the right spot almost all the time and importing guys from the Ravens might have been a pretty good idea.

We gloried in Michigan's gaudy fancystats rankings under Brown until Michigan entered The Game with the top defense in the country and got completely shredded. Michigan's D is up to 8th in SP+ despite not having overwhelming talent, and we don't know that their WRs are going to simply outrun Michigan's secondary en route.

We merely supect. Progress!

*[This outlet is not allowing anyone to approach the football. Do not approach the football yet. Lucy is still holding it, and she is a wily beast indeed.]

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

this is not the same picture that was in this spot last week [Fuller]

you're the man now, dog

#1 Aidan Hutchinson. No sacks, somehow, but absolutely rampant all the same. Drew a holding call when two different guys gave up and decided to tackle him. Flushed Mertz into various sacks not credited to him. PFF's national defensive player of the week, and yeah.

#2 David Ojabo. 2.5 sacks and another forced fumble as he teleported around Wisconsin's admittedly iffy tackles. Also dropped into the hot route on the Mertz-breaking play detailed above.

#3 Roman Wilson. Breakout game for him with six catches, including a deep, contested one on an armpunt. Popped open a ton; could have had a seventh catch if he didn't accidentally step out of bounds before acting as a safety blanket.

Honorable mention: Cade McNamara hit enough throws, including the flea-flicker, to make this comfortable despite some wobbles. Cornelius Johnson got the easy one but also came down with a tough fade for a second touchdown. Dax Hill had a sack and an INT and wasn't too much at fault on the quick TD drive. Brad Robbins averaged 45 yards a kick despite some pooches, allowed zero returns, and used the power of his mind to induce a Wisconsin muff dorf. Jake Moody was 3/3 on FGs and also offered no returns.

KFaTAotW Standings.

(points: #1: 8, #2: 5, #3: 3, HMs one each. Ties result in somewhat arbitrary assignments.)

22: Aidan Hutchinson (HM WMU, #2 Wash, #1 Rutgers, #1 Wisc)
16: The OL (#1 Wash, #1 NIU)
11: Blake Corum (#2 WMU, T3 Wash, T2 NIU)
8: Ronnie Bell (#1 WMU)
7: Hassan Haskins (HM WMU, T3 Wash, T2 NIU)
6: Nikhai Hill-Green(HM NIU, #2 Rutgers), Dax Hill (#3 WMU, HM NIU, HM Rutgers, HM Wisc)
5: David Ojabo (#2 Wisc), Brad Robbins (HM Wash, #3 Rutgers, HM Wisc)
4: AJ Henning (HM WMU, #3 NIU),
3: Donovan Edwards(T2 NIU), Josh Ross (HM Wash, HM NIU, HM Rutgers), Roman Wilson (#3 Wisc)
2: Cornelius Johnson(HM NIU, HM Wisc), Jake Moody (HM Wash, HM Wisc)
1: Andrew Vastardis (HM WMU),Mike Sainristil (HM WMU),  Mazi Smith (HM Wash), Gemon Green(HM NIU), Chris Hinton (HM Rutgers)

Who's Got It Better Than Us(?) Of The Week

[Fuller]

Flea flicker so pretty they should have run it again.

Honorable mention: Dax intercepts; Ojabo forces a fumble; Wisconsin's pass pro is overrun; McCarthy bombs it to Baldwin again.

​MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

Wisconsin's quick strike x2 drive to turn 13-3 into 13-10 at halftime was unbelievable and maddening right before a 20 minute period where nothing else happened.

Honorable mention: Michigan has to settle for 3 after the muff; M gets stuffed on fourth down on their first drive.

[After THE JUMP: war. war never changes. oh wait i mean QB debate never changes]