Punt-Counterpunt: The Game 2014

PUNT

By Heiko "4 AD" Yang

FIVE BOLD PREDICTIONS FOR THINGS THAT WILL HAPPEN BETWEEN NOON AND 3:30 TODAY:

1. Michigan has a negative play that results in positive yardage. Sometimes you have to go back in order to actually move forw–

/punches own dong.

Ow. Ohio State has this guy named Joey Bosa. He’s really good, we all know this. Probably at some point in the game he’s going to blow by Michigan’s freshman left tackle and cause someone in the Michigan backfield to explode into a million pieces. The play will be flagged for unnecessary roughness, and Michigan will gain 15 yards on the penalty and double their total offensive output for the half. It will be a pyrrhic victory.

2. Urban Meyer outsmarts himself. Calls time-out during Michigan’s two-minute drill; instructs punt returners to signal fair catch; double-covers Funchess in the red zone; huddles.

3. Ohio State’s efforts to enhance their CoFoPoff considerations are in vain. There are no style points to be gained when you end your regular season against a team that got blanked by the team that lost at home in overtime to the team that got torched 48-7 by the team that lost to the team that gave up 581 rush yards to the team that lost to the team that lost the M00N game. I have no idea where I ended up going with this. Did Michigan and Northwestern each appear in this twice? Yes. Yes they did.

/sobs

4. One unsportsmanlike penalty is awarded. Mike Slive, for taunting.

5. Brady Hoke wears a headset. It’s plugged into his phone, and it’s playing Hall and Oates.

• “Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid” – While releasing depth chart.
• “I Can’t Go For that” – 4th-and-1 on the OSU 30.
• “Did It In A Minute” – Getting the offense to the line of scrimmage.
• “Possession Obsession” – See previous.
• “Maneater” – Joey Bosa sack/TFL.
• “So Close” – 21-point deficit.
• “I’ll Be Around” – December.

Michigan 13 Ohio State 21

COUNTERPUNT

by Nick RoUMel

One competitor comes into this contest with a 5-6 record, especially struggling as the season has worn on. The other, after a rocky start, has turned it up a notch – really getting into the groove in the last month.

On paper it seems no contest. But as the cliché goes, where there is a fierce rivalry, anything can happen.

We are not talking about Michigan-Ohio State. This is about Punt-Counterpunt.

The heart of this column, in the decades it has run, has been about the accuracy of prediction. Whether Dave “Original Punt” DeVarti, Jeff “Original Counterpunt” Gourdji, Ken “Sky/Punt Classic” Walker, Heiko “4 AD/New Punt,” or yours truly, we do strive to nail the outcome and final score.

For 2014, the upstart at the top of this column has failed miserably. After cruising through the early season with four straight outcome predictions, Heiko barely managed to call the winner of the Indiana game correctly. Perhaps it was the concussion he suffered playing softball that affected him, but despite his incredible brains, winning personality, and medical school success, Heiko would be lucky to pick the winner in a game of solitaire.

Enter Counterpunt, the reincarnation of Nostradamus. Yes, I started 2-3; and both of us failed to see the cluster**** that was Minnesota. But where Heiko has since reeled, I have picked four straight, almost nailing each score. Season records:

On one point both Punt and I will agree: this has been a very difficult season to entertain our readers. A perfect storm of calamities has made this perhaps the most awful season in Michigan football history –not necessarily by record, but for reasons well known to our readers that need not be recounted. Suffice to say it’s hard to be funny when your loved one is lying in a hospital bed, in critical condition, writhing in painful agony, with only the faint hope of a miracle cure.

No miracles today, I’m afraid. But we’ll see you next year, with sharpened pencils and renewed optimism. May the best prognosticator win, and one more thing:

Forever and always, Go Blue.

Ohio State 35, Michigan 6