10/30/21 – Michigan 33, Michigan State 37 – 7-1, 4-1 Big Ten

Any close game is going to have its share of coulda-shoulda-woulda moments. There's always missed free throws or shots that hit the post, etc. Saturday's game will stand out in my memory for sheer quantity in this department. It felt like every third play was a Fateful Moment, from Andrel Anthony ripping through the MSU secondary for 93 yards to Blake Corum dropping a swing pass with almost nothing but grass in front of him to David Ojabo's sack-strip touchdown to having that taken off the board by the replay official.

The previous sentence didn't get out of the first half. Also it could have included several other items. You see what I mean. This game was jam-packed with stuff. Bombs! Exciting runs! Special teams disasters! Aztecs invading Europe! Four straight field goals from the same guy at the same spot on the field! Boggling attempts to substitute while the other team was going up-tempo!

Unfortunately for Michigan, the most fateful thing was the backup quarterback coming in and having a mutual misunderstanding with Corum about who was supposed to have the ball. Michigan was up three and at their 45 with seven minutes left. They had almost 500 yards of offense at that point. JJ McCarthy had already fumbled, and so there is nonstop rabbling in the Michigan fanbase this day. Ah well.

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Here, as always, the particular Michigan mania sets in to ruin everything. This is a team with a more-or-less first year starting quarterback that could bring back literally everyone on the roster except for Andrew Vastardis and Brad Hawkins. Even when you account for likely NFL departures like Aidan Hutchinson and Dax Hill, this team looks more like a team building towards a peak roster year than something for the here and now. Anthony is breaking out on offense; Ojabo is breaking out on defense.

To many programs that would feel pretty good. There are scattered outposts of Michigan fandom attempting this zen even now.

To me it's difficult to get there because this is year seven of Jim Harbaugh and it seems like the error rate is baked in at this point. Michigan took three illegal substitution penalties and failed to get lined up on several other plays because of basic college crappe like "sometimes we use tempo." When Michigan tried it themselves they ended up asking AJ Henning to block a linebacker. Then they false-started on a fourth and one attempt and the punter did not get a punt off.

You could ascribe some of that to a near-complete staff reboot. I'm not particularly inclined since this is a program that has made shooting itself in the foot in miserable fashion a trademark. Sometimes they're pretty talented and it doesn't matter until they get to the games where the opposition is capable of matching them. When they are, though, it's always Michigan turning around to hand the ball off and failing to, you know, do that.

This does not have to be fate. LSU just won a national championship with a coach they'd fire less than two years later because he is excessively horny. Whatever Ed Orgeron's assets are, they do not include "is organized" or "suitable for indoor use." But man am I inclined to jump off the moving car that is football season as soon as this stuff rears its head again. It doesn't feel like Michigan is building to anything except another Michigan Football Season where they win enough games to make you think they're going to win the important ones and then don't.

So when McCarthy's in the game because Cade McNamara is briefly in the injury tent it doesn't feel like a weird one-off that you can shrug about and leave in the past. It feels like something that's going to happen against Penn State, and Ohio State, and so forth and so on. Maybe that's irrational. At this point, expecting Michigan to do something other than one-up themselves in late game failures seems more irrational to me.      

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

[Fuller]

you're the man now, dog

#1 Cade McNamara. My pregame take was that I thought Michigan would probably win if they got equal QB play but I was very nervous about that. McNamara blew expectations out of the water with a 383 yard, 8.7 YPA day where he was lasering in pinpoint passes while under some duress.

#2 Andrel Anthony. Hello Mr. Anthony. Randy Sklar lands the second-best Hot Take of all time by predicting Anthony would break out as Michigan's #1 receiver by next year; that took about a game to seem true. Anthony outran the entire secondary on his 93-yarder, had a Braylon/Terrell leaping TD later, had the wherewithal to get out of bounds on a late first half catch, and nearly made another spectacular leaping grab late on. It's not just the catches, it's the way he made them. Looks like a future star. Maybe a current one.

#3 Aidan Hutchinson/David Ojabo. Three sacks and one erroneously deleted touchdown between them. Generally unblockable. Three points each.

Honorable mention: Erick All had ten(!) catches, building on last week, and looks like he's emerging into the kind of dual-threat weapon Michigan fans had envisioned from him for years. Dax Hill forced an INT with a PBU, had another one, and tracked down a would-be TD, for all the good that did. Jake Moody was 7/7 on field goals, four of which counted.

KFaTAotW Standings.

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

31: Aidan Hutchinson (HM WMU, #2 Wash, #1 Rutgers, #1 Wisc, HM Neb, #2 NW, T3 MSU)
18: The OL (#1 Wash, #1 NIU, HM Neb, HM NW)
17: Hassan Haskins (HM WMU, T3 Wash, T2 NIU, #2 Neb, T1 NW), Blake Corum (#2 WMU, T3 Wash, T2 NIU, HM Neb, T1 NW)
8: Ronnie Bell (#1 WMU), Brad Hawkins (#1 Neb), Cade McNamara (#1 MSU), Dax Hill (#3 WMU, HM NIU, HM Rutgers, HM Wisc, HM Neb, HM MSU)
6: Nikhai Hill-Green(HM NIU, #2 Rutgers), Jake Moody (HM Wash, HM Wisc, #3 Neb, HM MSU)
5: David Ojabo (#2 Wisc), Brad Robbins (HM Wash, #3 Rutgers, HM Wisc), Josh Ross (HM Wash, HM NIU, HM Rutgers, HM Neb, HM NW), Andrel Anthony (#2 MSU)
4: AJ Henning (HM WMU, #3 NIU)
3: Donovan Edwards(T2 NIU), Roman Wilson (#3 Wisc), DJ Turner (#3 NW)
2: Cornelius Johnson(HM NIU, HM Wisc), Erick All (HM NW, HM MSU)
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

Anthony takes a crossing route 93 yards to paydirt.

Honorable mention: Sack-strip by Ojabo; the other sack-strip by Ojabo; McNamara threads a needle to convert on a crossing route to All.

​MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

The fateful fumble.

Honorable mention: Corum drops that swing pass; various tempo follies; TD taken off the board wrongly by replay official; Johnson drops a back shoulder bomb; no PI on fourth down; more tempo follies; false start on fourth and one; subsequent punt dorf; I could keep going but will not.

[After THE JUMP: ack]

OFFENSE

[Barron]

Star? Looks like a star. To reinforce the comments above, here's the not-quite catch:

There's 2:22 left in the game
Ball on State's 38 yard line
1st down
Anthony just can't get his fppt down inbounds. pic.twitter.com/7hc1t6bZk7

— Due# (@JDue51) October 31, 2021

The body control, range, and ability to go high-point a ball outside of his frame are all very enticing, especially when he is also capable of putting distance on an entire secondary like he did on the 93-yarder. This seems more likely to be announcing a new talent than a flash in the pan.

Aaargh. McNamara obviously had a great day but man this would haunt me if such things were capable of haunting me any more:

4th down

Is Johnson supposed to be the target? He's running the pick. Sainristil is open as a result of the pick. pic.twitter.com/c2Zf9fTReD

— Due# (@JDue51) October 31, 2021

For one, that is an MSU defensive back bashing Johnson off his route with the ball in the air. That is a penalty. It is a very obvious penalty that very obviously should be thrown. I do not like that it was not thrown.

But also for two, why are we running a pick route against man coverage and then not throwing to the wide open guy created by the pick? Is this not supposed to be a pick route? If not, why not? I have so many questions.

 

[Fuller]

The Erick All we were promised. 10 catches, 98 yards, no drops, mismatch against linebackers, dogged blocker who may be a little light but gets after it. All was plagued with drops for the first couple years of his career, albeit on limited opportunities. The last two weeks he's been a critical, reliable option on third down. I think that will continue as well; the guy pops out as different whenever you see him run drills.

Pass protection accomplished. Michigan didn't take a sack. McNamara did have to stand in the pocket and deliver in a few uncomfortable situations; given the number of throws and the number of obvious passing downs that seems like a best-case scenario. MSU DE Drew Beesley did return for this game, as well, so that was some version of full strength. Should still be noted that MSU's gaudy sack numbers are largely a function of facing a billion passing attempts, so shutting down Georgia this was not.

DEFENSE

[Barron]

Rotation gets got. The above is the long MSU rushing TD, and Kris Jenkins has just finished going upfield of his guy on a zone stretch. Jenkins was a guy to check back in on this year with a view towards being a starter-level guy next year and beyond; here he made a devastating mistake. You have to wonder whether this is another NFL transition thing; in the NFL your backups are all, you know, NFL players. So they don't do stuff like the above. Michigan's frequent DL rotation was a huge problem even when they weren't failing to get set on easy touchdowns. Michigan does not need to substitute on nearly every snap.

I mentioned the substitution penalties above. I cannot think of any other game I've seen involving Michigan or not where one team regularly attempted to substitute when the opposition wasn't doing so. In the NFL their leisurely approach to spotting the ball makes this feasible. It's hard not to draw a line straight from "new defensive coordinator who has little college experience" to the loss.

[Fuller]

Arriving. That is two consecutive games in which David Ojabo looked pretty analogous to Aidan Hutchinson. Ojabo's still not on his level as a run defender—he did give up one of those Walker runs which bounced outside, IIRC—but dude was still supposed to be pupating after picking up football in 2017. He even got stuck in Scotland for much of last year because of COVID. His improvement trajectory is one that points towards an all-conference DE next year.

DTs make no impact. Michigan did an okay job bottling up the ground game outside of tempo instances and missed tackles, but this was vastly different than MSU's game against Nebraska where their LOS was getting reset constantly. Michigan DTs did little of note here, getting stalemates against single blocking and not shedding. The starting DTs combined for one tackle. Tackles aren't everything at that spot, but they are an indicator.

Weird stuff. Michigan's first snap was a 6-1 with Ojabo and Hutchinson as "OLBs" on the line of scrimmage and four DE/DT types between them. Michigan frequently went to more guys on the LOS in this game—probably more DE/DT snaps here than any other game by a wide margin and relied on those guys to make it work; therefore there was often little or no second level when that did not work, because Ross was the only linebacker in the game. That proved costly, IMO: as mentioned the DTs weren't making good use of their single blocking and there were multiple instances where breaking through the first line of defense meant nobody else was available.

[Fuller]

Revenge of the slot fades. Another Fateful Moment occurred above, when Thorne nailed Reed on a fourth-down slot fade. Hill got caught in man coverage again and you can see how close he was to making a play, but he's a step out of phase and therefore his arm is not in a spot he can contest the ball. Michigan's attempt at a slot fade on third and three was well overthrown.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Missing Peppers. AJ Henning did not field MSU's punt after the overturned sack/strip, that turned into a 66-yarder, and Michigan ended up kicking a field goal from the 21. Their previous two plays were fade attempts because that was the thing that made sense to do given the situation. Slash 15-20 yards off that punt and Michigan has an excellent chance of getting those four points back.

Henning did make up for that a bit by ripping off another 50 yards in returns.

Moody, the mood. After the timeout sequence:

pic.twitter.com/blNjTnokpN

— no context college football (@nocontextcfb) October 30, 2021

I enjoyed that. I did not enjoy Moody going 4/4 on field goals with a long of 38, because that is how you put up 550 yards and pick up two turnovers and lose a game.

MISCELLANEOUS

[Barron]

Gone. The goal of replay is to correct obviously wrong calls on the field. It is not to see that a ball is definitely moving as soon as Ojabo hits the QB and to go over it frame by frame until you can convince yourself that there is a whisper of control while a shin may or may not be on the ground. The overturned fumble was the very definition of a situation where you shrug and say "call stands."

But also. Many, many complaints about every video review in this game going MSU's way, but other than the above and maybe the Reed catch he may or may not have taken off the turf I don't think there was much to complain about there.

I guess this isn't a problem since people don't turn it off. FOX was scrambling to insert every possible commercial they could. Action would stop suddenly, key moments would not be replayed, and there were multiple instances of commercial-kickoff-commercial. It took ten or fifteen minutes to be informed that the replay official did look at DJ Turner nearly ripping the ball out on an MSU two-point conversion.

This isn't news and isn't going to change, and I'm the kind of person who views advertising insulting as a concept anyway, but the commercial-to-action situation on Fox is just egregious. Like flood water seeping into every available crevice.

— Matt Hinton (@MattRHinton) October 30, 2021

Lord knows how long Jalen Nailor had been out, sporting a neon-green cast on his hand, before anyone at FOX noticed.

So at the same time all the whiz-bang was going on it was still frustrating and boring. I'd like to imagine there's some sort of breaking point at which people put their collective feet down and say no more insurance commercials, but it doesn't seem like that's coming.

Joel Klatt can be on our podcast. Because he's not very good at pronouncing names. Very good at other color commentator things, but not so good with the names.

HERE

Best And Worst:

Worst:  Making Plays

I’ve always been annoyed with the idea of “making plays” as an idiom surrounding sports, especially those so reliant on teamwork and synchronicity like football.  It always feels like post-hoc analysis, divining merit and morality from accomplishment when oftentimes it’s simply the binary result of any football play – a team picks up more or less yards than they needed, someone did or did not catch the ball, etc.  It’s a zero-sum game, and while it’s human nature to find narrative structure in the ebb and flow of a game sometimes there really isn’t one.  Cade McNamara “made plays” all day against the same MSU secondary that decidedly did not “make plays” until Charles Brantley “made a play” by picking off a pass.  Kenneth Walker and Andrel Anthony “made plays” more consistently (but even there you have Anthony only snagging 28 yards after halftime and Walker picking up 32 yards on 10 carries in the 1st and 3rd quarters combined), while Payton Thorne and Cornelius Johnson struggled  “making plays” but then still had moments (Thorne on his dime to Reed in the 3rd, Johnson with his 4th-down reception in traffic).  R.J. Moten “made a play” on his first-quarter interception and then didn’t “make a play” on a dropped pick in the second half, while Quavaris Crouch “made a play” on Robbins’s fake punt but was also picked on all day by Erick All.  This doesn’t mean players didn’t stand out or have atypical performances that had outsized impact on the game, only that the idiosyncrasies of the game don’t lend themselves to a tight narrative of “players” and “scrubs”.

The State of Our Open Threads:

There were 476 fucks given in yesterday's open thread, which is far and away the most this year, with the next highest total being 299 fucks given during the Nebraska game. In a diary that you'll see in December, we will discuss "The Fuck Differentials", which will highlight differences in usage frequency across wins and losses, even down to margin of victory / loss (there is a "Fuck Curve", and you will see it). For now, we'll talk about yesterday - 476 fucks is not the highest we've managed in a game against MSU, but it does signal the most engagement we've had with a game in general in a long time actually.

It's companion word - "shit" - returned to a level of usage seen at Nebraska, and then exceeded that ever so slightly. There were 124 shits given, which is actually lower than I thought we would see, but compared to only 42 for the Northwestern game, it was a big jump week over week. There were 117 shits given at Nebraska and 88 at Wisconsin, so it has remained somewhat elevated throughout much of the conference schedule, as you might expect.

Here is the summary comparison of the two:

We reached a high for the season to date when it came to "fire" as well - there were 87 instances of this word, and it was the usual mix of targets as well, with Harbaugh figuring into it a little more heavily this time.