This Is Minnesota

10/31/2015 – Michigan 29, Minnesota 26 – 6-2, 3-1 Big Ten

[Patrick Barron]

ONE. We've got a radio show now so I've been listening to sports talk radio even when Sam and Ira aren't on. I do it to compare and maybe get better and maybe draw confidence from the fact that a lot of sports talk radio is outrageously bad. The parts that aren't are often outrageously robotic. WTKA has a bunch of NFL stuff now that they switched to CBS, and it's on when I go to and from our podcast on Sunday; sometimes I catch it on a Thursday.

Tom Brady was on. Jim Gray actually asked him a lot of pointed questions about the upcoming game against the Colts and whether he had a desire to rain unholy fire upon those bastards. Brady responded with the passion of an accountant. I would chalk this up to Brady's flat affect, but I've seen player after player descend into this anodyne non-existence. This is a a league that spent most of the offseason discussing the Ideal Gas Law, after all—even if they didn't know they were doing so. It's just a thing. Colleges teach it but it doesn't take all the way. The NFL perfects it, along with the slant.

TWO. Minnesota has not been good for literally 50 years. Their blips to the positive aren't even Illinois blips. Every decade Illinois will show up in a BCS-level game; the Minnesota coach with the best winning percentage since 1944 is one Glen Mason, who the Gophers fired so they could hire Tim Brewster.

THREE. In 2005 I was pretty mad after a weird game where the Michigan Stadium scoreboards fritzed out and Jim Herrmann called a blitz on which Prescott Burgess, a 230-pound linebacker, was tasked with two-gapping a 270-pound monster TE. When I get mad I tend to be mad about everything, but when Lawrence Maroney rushed out to midfield and planted the biggest damn Minnesota flag in existence I was just like "yeah, go ahead, you earned that."

Sixty-plus Gopher players stormed across that field to reclaim the Jug without considering decorum, sanity, or sportsmanship. Michigan had just lost a game mostly because they called a blitz so telegraphed that a petrified backup QB could check them into a 50-yard run and I had enough non-hate in my heart to genuinely enjoy the fervor with which the Gophers reclaimed Fielding Yost's 30-cent chunk of crockery.

FOUR. Last year the Little Brown Jug went on a tour of the state of Minnesota.

This was a good idea.

FIVE. Jerry Kill retired last week because he could no longer control the seizures his cancer had bestowed upon him. Jerry Kill talks like a NASCAR driver. He comes by his coachspeak honestly, and when Tracy Claeys was again thrust into a role he probably never thought he'd be in—Kill tends to buy and hold assistants until the end of time—he sounded 100% like Jerry Kill.

It was awkward. It was stilted. It was genuine as hell. He told his kids not to play with emotion because emotion evaporates but to play with passion because passion sticks and I was just like YOU MAY BE SAYING THIS LIKE TOM BRADY SAYS THINGS BUT I KNOW THAT FEEL.

SIX. Junior Hemingway, just shouting and weeping after the Sugar Bowl.

SEVEN. Jerry Kill.

EIGHT. Michigan won a football game that often doubled as an exercise in hilarious improbability. Michigan gave up a 52-yard touchdown after Jeremy Clark executed the platonic ideal of coverage against a corner route. With 19 seconds left in a football game, Minnesota spent 17 seconds on a series of elaborate motions on first and goal from the half-yard line.

Football is weird and terrible and sometimes it gets you to within a half-yard of a cathartic, wonderful victory and then says "nah." Sometimes when you're 2-and-a-billion after always being good your walk-on QB dials up a bunch of incredible throws and you go grab the Little Brown Jug with a newfound respect for its importance. Football, above all, is cruel.

NINE. If you are a Minnesota fan on a bitter Monday indeed, here is the equivalent of Lawrence Maroney planting a flag. It is Jon Falk, the recently retired and legendary Michigan equipment manager, welcoming his favorite 30-cent crockery back home.

It hurts, but that means something. That is a thing that is real. It is a reflection of Jerry Kill killing himself to be in this game and dying because he has to leave it.

TEN. I've always hated THIS IS MICHIGAN a bit because it reminds me of going to Penn State in 2006 and having their chintzy-ass scoreboards proclaim WE'RE PENN STATE… AND THEY'RE NOT. It's not necessarily as bad, but sometimes it tends to AND THEY'RE NOT. I'm not a huge fan of Michigan's excellently-executed James Earl Jones intro video this year because it claims a bunch of things that should be gestured at instead.

Michigan's great. I love Michigan. I love it all, though. I've been to Georgia and Auburn and Penn State and Ohio State and Minnesota and the feeling of college football is something else. Minnesota hasn't done anything Colin Cowherd would note for 50 years. You could maybe compare them to the Lions, who no one should ever be a fan of.

Except no. Tell me that doesn't matter. Tell me This Is Minnesota doesn't mean anything. We took the Jug and we mostly earned it and that matters to me. It matters to Jabrill Peppers and Jon Falk and Jim Harbaugh and Greg Dooley. It matters because it's college fucking football, and Minnesota means something.

To Michigan, it means the Jug. They got it back on Saturday by the skin of their teeth, and for a program that's had a bit of a rough go of late they'll take it any way they can get it.

HIGHLIGHTS

Column inspired by Dr. Sap digging up a post-game Bo speech after the 1987 Jug game:

A half hour version that must be most of the game from WD:

Parking God has a more reasonable length reel:

AWARDS

[Barron]

Known Friends And Trusted Agents Of The Week

you're the man now, dog

#1 Jabrill Peppers had a 40 yard KO return, a 40 yard punt return, two PBUs, a near pick-six, a rushing touchdown, a reverse set up by everyone fretting about Peppers, a pass interference call drawn—Peppers played nearly 100 snaps and was instrumental in all three phases of the game.

#2 Maurice Hurst didn't actually pop up in the box score much but he was frequently in Leidner's grill; on the final stand he blew up the pass protection on the first play and was one of a few different Wolverines whipping their dudes up front. Actually in the box score: he had a critical TFL that forced Minnesota to kick a short field goal.

#3 Drake Johnson didn't get many carries but was by far the most effective runner Michigan had; other guys had lanes but didn't take advantage of them. Hoping to see more of him going forward.

Honorable mention: Chesson and Darboh both had nice days. Glasgow again contributed to mostly good run defense.

KFaTAotW Standings.

9: Jourdan Lewis (#1 UNLV, #1 Northwestern, #1 MSU), Jabrill Peppers(#2 BYU, #2 Northwestern, #2 MSU, #1 Minnesota)
5: Chris Wormley(#2 Utah, #1 Oregon State)
4:Maurice Hurst (#2 Maryland, #2 Minnesota)
3:Jake Butt (#1 Utah), De'Veon Smith(#2 Oregon State, #3 BYU), Ryan Glasgow (#1 BYU), Desmond Morgan (#1 Maryland),
2:Ty Isaac(#2 UNLV), Willie Henry(#3 Utah, #3 MSU).
1:AJ Williams (#3 Oregon State), Channing Stribling(#3 UNLV), Blake O'Neill(#3 Maryland), Jake Rudock(#3 Northwestern), Drake Johnson(#3 Minnesota)

Who's Got It Better Than Us Of The Week

This week's best thing ever.

Form a f-ing wall.

#FAFWpic.twitter.com/xWGkS1Fjqi

— Ace Anbender (@AceAnbender) November 1, 2015

Honorable mention: Speight throws the go-ahead touchdown and then converts for two; Peppers has the ball in his hands.

WGIBTUs Past.

Utah: Crazy #buttdown.
Oregon State: #tacopunts.
UNLV: Ty Isaac's 76 yard touchdown.
BYU: De'Veon Smith's illicit teleporter run.
Maryland: Jehu Chesson jet sweeps past you.
Northwestern: Chesson opening KO TD.
MSU: the bit where they won until they didn't.
Minnesota: form a f-ing wall.

MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

This week's worst thing ever.

Channing Stribling gets beat over the top for what seems like the game-winning touchdown, until it was not.

Honorable mention: Mitch Leidner hurling the ball downfield on throws that are very bad ideas only for those to be complete anyway. Rudock underthrows another deep ball by 20 yards.

PREVIOUS EDBs

Utah: circle route pick six.
Oregon State: Rudock fumbles after blitz bust.
UNLV: Rudock matches 2014 INT total in game 3.
BYU: BYU manages to get to triple digit yards in the last minutes of the game.
Maryland: Slog extended by deflected interception at Houma.
Northwestern: KLINSMANN OUT
MSU: Obvious.
Minnesota: The bit where the lost it until they didn't.

[After THE JUMP: fluky fluky fluky.]

OFFENSE

[Barron]

Weekly Rudock ambivalence shading towards depression. I mean, at this point I'm pretty much like whatever. Rudock started off with a shovel pass interception that was cause for twitter to start rabbling, and by the time I tweeted out a rhetorical question about a third and short that didn't go so well…

how does Rudock not throw the flat route that is wide open for a first down

— mgoblog (@mgoblog) November 1, 2015

…I got one sarcastic answer to that rhetorical question for every Michigan fan on twitter.

In between, he was fairly effective. The shot at right is the result of Rudock lofting a soft, arcing ball to Butt on an early drive, the kind of throw we haven't seen much of since Butt's touchdown against Utah. He hit a number of medium-length passes and seemed to have a slightly better grasp of where he should go with the ball.

A number of those passes were a little bit off, necessitating good catches from the wide receivers. Despite the color guy's insistence otherwise, Chesson's first touchdown was late. Minnesota's safety didn't trust his read and couldn't get over; if he had he probably gets a hand in, if not worse.

Later he got very frustrating. The third and two that spurred the above tweet was a WTF event on which Chesson ran into the flat and was definitely open for two yards on what was almost certainly the primary read; Rudock didn't throw. A later drive that ended on a turnover on downs saw Rudock wing a swing pass over the head of Drake Johnson on third down; Johnson easily had a first down if the throw was accurate. The play on which Peppers drew a pass interference flag saw him in one on one coverage against a linebacker. That is a spectacular RPS win on which any throw over the top is likely to see Peppers badly outdistance said LB; the throw was instead 20 yards short, causing me to again wonder whether Rudock has some sort of muscle injury that's causing his deep accuracy to drop off a cliff for the same reason ten-year-olds aren't real good at three-pointers.

End result: 6.7 YPA, 1 TD, 1 INT, and a win. Rudock's at the bottom end of reasonable projections but he's enough to win with if other facets are performing well.

a palpable throw [Barron]

Speight things. Speight gave a pretty good indicator as to why Rudock maintains his death grip on the starting job despite indifferent-at-best performances. His first half-dozen dropbacks resulted in open receivers that did not get thrown at. At one point Harbaugh resorted to the kind of frenetic pad-pounding that once featured on a Monday Night Football commercial that got me SUPER FIRED UP about Harbaugh:

That seemed to break Speight out of the funk, at least. He started throwing passes, which is a nice thing, and Michigan managed to drive a short field for the winning touchdown thanks first to a double post route he read and threw on the money and then a mansome two-point conversion on which he looked left for most of the play; started scrambling up in the pocket, and then hit a fourth read very late for the winning points*. 2012 Nebraska comparisons: aborted.

In the aftermath there is the inevitable groundswell of support for the backup QB. I'm not surprised but I'm still a little surprised—before that short touchdown drive Speight looked like he wasn't going to move Michigan an inch. The touchdown itself was a lightning bolt out of nowhere.

In the aftermath everyone confirmed that Speight was indeed the #2 QB, clear of Morris. I think that's been the case for much longer than Harbaugh was willing to cop to.

*[Assuming that Minnesota would have kicked a field goal from the half-yard line. Given the events of the fourth quarter this is not 100%, admittedly.]

[Barron]

Receiver things. They had some opportunities here and they both got open against a very good secondary and made a bunch of catches that were at least moderately difficult. Chesson and Darboh are a terrific #2 and #3 without a Braylon; hopefully next year they're an increment better. If you watch a bunch of college football you've no doubt found yourself exclaiming "catch the ball!" at a receiver on a team that you don't even care about—while Chesson did have a big drop against MSU those are quite rare. I can't imagine what this passing offense would look like if Michigan's receivers were as stone-handed as, say, Northwestern.

All Johnson everything. The difference between all non Drake Johnson backs and Drake Johnson was stark in this game. I have a feeling I'm going to look at a bunch of non-Johnson carries and slap my forehead because there were yards left on the field; Johnson had some pretty big gaps and hit them.

I know Johnson was dinged up and tends to have his ACL implode every nine months but at this point you have to move him to co-starter territory with Smith and see what you can get out of him. This is the fifth or sixth game in which Drake Johnson is picking up yards at the same time other tailbacks are grunting into defenders. At some point that's not a coincidence.

No Poggi. Assume he's hurt, because he didn't play. More fullbacks and Khalid Hill resulted.

No Newsome redshirt. Possibly as a reaction to the lack of Poggi, Michigan pulled the redshirt off freshman LT Grant Newsome. Newsome looked pretty good on a couple of goal-line plays—he certainly looks the part, looming over people in the 77 jersey—and got a dozen or so snaps as a sixth OL. Taeks:

• Bleah. I mean, he did contribute in a win. Still, I hope we don't regret that lack of a redshirt as much as some that got burned under Hoke. At least in this case Michigan is bringing in a (probably) five-man OL class comprised entirely of high four star kids. Unless that class is as much of a dud as the LTT/Bosch class they'll probably be fine.
• That's a depth chart clarifier right there. Wouldn't expect Bars to get a fifth year if he's far enough behind Newsome already to justify the burned redshirt. Also, Juwann Bushell-Beatty has dropped behind a true freshman. Dawson and Kugler are also somewhat implicated since your sixth OL could be an interior guy if you so desired.
• On the other hand. Newsome looked good. If they're expecting he moves into the starting lineup next year then the move makes a lot of sense. That could happen one of two ways: Michigan moves Mason Cole to center, where he practiced a bunch in spring, or Newsome displaces Magnuson (and possibly Magnuson displaces someone else).

Peppers, Peppers, Peppers. He's going to have that role on offense the rest of the year, and I think it'll expand even a bit more. In this game he trucked a guy like he was De'Veon Smith on a touchdown and coulda shoulda had a long touchdown but for the Rudock underthrow. Michigan tried to set him up with a pass play that ended in a slight loss when he ran OOB for a sack; they hit a big reverse from Chesson when Minnesota overplayed a pitch sweep to him.

This was the game when Peppers seemed to come of age. Michigan is relying on him for a ton right now, and if Harbaugh's first version of Owen Marecic at Michigan is a 210-pound CB/LB/WR/RB I'm down with it.

Ty Isaac seeya? Could be injured, but we didn't hear anything about such a thing even after the game, and now:

Ty Isaac is no longer listed on Michigan's depth chart: Smith, Johnson, Green, Higdon

— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) November 2, 2015

DEFENSE

[Patrick Barron]

Fluke fluke fluke. In the preview I wondered how Minnesota was going to move the ball, and in the first half the answer was "hurling it downfield at Michigan defensive backs." Without that Minnesota goes into halftime down 14-3 or worse and the second half is less nerve-wracking.

The three events:

• Two Minnesota dudes run into the same area. Michigan had three guys themselves, and somehow this was the result:

• Mitch Leidner invents the back-shoulder corner route. Jeremy Clark did everything perfectly. He was underneath the receiver, he got his head around, he dominated that route. There is no way Mitch freakin' Leidner saw that and thought to himself "I should patent what I'm about to do." Against mediocre coverage that's an interception; Clark was unfortunate to have perfect coverage. This is 100% fluke.

• Dymonte Thomas's hands not so much part 1. A deep middle of the field looper is jumped by Thomas, who gets both hands on it and somehow contrives to bat the ball directly to the tight end. Thomas's error there is something we might want to take into account going forward but the fact that it was complete after the dropped interception was 100% fluke.

Michigan had a couple of holes exposed in this game but they also got supremely unlucky to not pick Leidner off two or three times. Football's weird—oh look it's Ohio State in a competitive game with Indiana's backup QB and RB—and I think most of what happened on defense can be chalked up to that. There are a lot of hypothetical M-Minnesota games where Michigan gives up a net of 7 points or so.

I expect about 10% of sportswriters to notice that, and to be annoyed at some articles this week. But that's my problem, not yours. On to some holes.

James Ross at buck happened why exactly? That very odd personnel switch saw Michigan deploy at 230-pound linebacker instead of a 255-pound defensive end for most of the game against the manballiest team that Michigan has played this year. It would be one thing if RJS was suspended or injured, but he played and seemed pretty much fine. Your guess is as good as mine, especially because my initial impression of Ross's play at an unfamiliar position he's not well-suited for physically was not positive.

[Barron]

Hill meh. Leidner busted a 24 yard touchdown on a third down zone read keep on which Delano Hill was certainly responsible for that contain. That's the second consecutive week he's chased an opponent to the endzone, or close to it. This one is more worrisome than the MSU event since you could reasonably chalk that up to an intricate playcall that was not yet in Hill's experience. This was a basic zone read on which Hill was the eighth guy in the box.

With Thomas struggling to use his limbs effectively—he also got beat badly on a post-corner on Minnesota's first drive—the safety spot is looking a bit wonky outside of Jarrod Lewis.

On the 4th down catch that they reviewed, shot I got looks like it hit the ground. Cookie Monster is in awe pic.twitter.com/IxQwOWbOqi

— Patrick Barron (@MGoDrone) November 1, 2015

What is a catch? Nobody knows. Minnesota converted a fourth and five on their final drive on a pass where the wide receiver had a solid grip on the ball but couldn't make the proverbial Football Move with it before he ended up going to the ground. As he did that the ball hit the turf. All of the ball. It was not even sort of close. This was ruled a catch.

I've been saying this for years now, but everyone's life will be much easier if a catch is widely understood to be "he kept it off the ground." That's your job as the WR; Junior Hemingway didn't catch that pass in the 2011 Iowa game and Danny Coale didn't catch that pass in the Sugar Bowl and Minnesota didn't catch that pass on Saturday. Except he did because something something mumble grumble process.

Not a fluke: the wheel route. Desmond Morgan got hit on a wheel route because he bit on play action and didn't have the speed to catch up. I get punchy when things like that happen against teams that are struggling to run the ball, and aside from a couple of Rodney Smith jaunts that was very much the case. Morgan is not a superior athlete; that's the first time this year I thought that had much impact on a game.

Also not a fluke: the almost-end. Man, Stribling just cannot have the above happen to him given the situation in the game. They're already in reasonable field goal range, there are 20 seconds left, getting hit on a slant-and-go is just brutal. With this and Clark's issue on the 30-yard MSU touchdown two weeks ago the non-Lewis corners are showing some holes.

They're still much better than I think we thought they'd be preseason, but they're not as lights out as they seemed when people were trying to test them on fade routes all day. They can be had by double moves.

Motion to remove Lewis. Minnesota was singling Maye up on the backside and then motioning him across the formation; when this happens Michigan tends to respond by dropping that corner to safety and moving the safety up. That was how Minnesota got a couple of conversions on S/WR mismatches. Michigan went away from the pure Maye/Lewis matchup after.

SPECIAL TEAMS

[Barron]

Another huge win. Michigan had 6 punts averaging 44 yards; Minnesota, which returned the All Big Ten punter from a year ago, had 5 punts for 38 yards apiece; with Peppers returning a punt 41 yards and a kick to the 43 Michigan had another week with 120 or so hidden yards to the good.

Kickoffs should go back to the old rules. The NCAA's changes to kickoffs are a gesture towards player safety that don't do much of anything to actually help. Despite the miserable inconsistency with with targeting is currently called, it is a necessary change to the rules that needs refinement. The kickoff changes are a public relations exercise.

Kicking off from the 35 instead of the 30 just makes more kickoffs into pointless exercises; if kickoffs are really that dangerous then they should be eliminated entirely. The rule change just moved the touchback rate from 15% to 35% across college football. Any improvement to player safety is minimal because it is a case of optimizing before profiling. Since that is the case we might as well make kickoffs consistently interesting.

Yes, I am complaining about this mostly because I want to see Peppers with the ball in his hands more.

There was one hairy moment. Peppers tried to field a punt inside his own five with an over-the-shoulder basket catch. Michigan was fortunate that he missed it and it bounced into the endzone. Peppers did deflect it, causing the announcers to impose unnecessary heart attacks on various Michigan fans when they exclaimed that this could be A SAFETY. Their ref consultant was on top of things at least—when the ball enters the endzone thanks to its own momentum it's still a touchback as long as you field it.

Dymonte Thomas's hands not so much part II. Blake O'Neill nailed another pooch punt inside the five that Michigan should have been able to down, but the ball bounced just over Thomas's outstretched hands again. Suboptimal. That's why Michigan is trying to field those on the fly.

Kick catch interference. A frustrating call but a correct one. Michigan fans might remember a similar play in the 2005 Iowa game in which Breaston muffed a kick due in part to a guy running through Breaston's path to the ball without actually touching him; when it's in doubt they will throw the flag.

It does suck that Thomas was focused on one guy who called a fair catch only for the other guy to be the guy who actually caught the ball, but once you see a fair catch signal you should shut it down and not get anywhere near anybody.

One thing: kick catch interference should not be a 15 yard penalty. It basically exists to prevent teams from forcing opponents to muff kicks; whenever it comes into play the ensuing return is probably going to be 0 yards. Make it a 5 yarder and throw unnecessary roughness flags if someone gets blown up.

MISCELLANEOUS

Game theory of the week. Uh, don't do that.

Slightly more detail. With 19 seconds and a timeout you can easily get four plays in. The first one is probably going to have to be a quick pass, likely a fade, and then you get one free run in there.

Michigan did win on two consecutive downs from the half-yard line, so that's considerably more earned than… other things that have happened.

What's with the gray? Gray is the sign that whoever is designing your uniforms is out of ideas.

Targeting is in the eye of the decrepit beholder. A second consecutive year where Minnesota knocks a Michigan quarterback out of the game with a clear targeting call that goes unnoticed. (Last year the ref did throw a roughing the passer flag, but Theiren Cockran wasn't ejected.)

And that wasn't the only targeting hit the refs ignored.

That was a late hit flag but not ejection, like last year against Morris.

Can't blame replay officials for that. The on-field guys have to make a call first. Why Michigan gets the short end of every targeting call is a mystery.

Guy running on the field. Well timed, Michigan pitch invader. That is all.

HERE

Best And Worst:

Worst:  Duck Tales

You look at the stats on the paper and Jake Rudock had (what is sadly for him this year) an average performance; 13/21, 140 yards, 6.7 ypa with a TD and a fluky-ish INT.  Not setting the world on fire, but that type of line has proven to be good enough for a lot of wins this year (even when one of those wins wound up not happening).  But at the same time, it’s gotten to the point that there must be an injury that is severely impeding his throwing motion, as his mechanics seem terribly off.  While I agree with the announcers that Rudock has shown a good deal of poise and toughness in games (including in this game after getting lit up a couple of times), he’s not passing the ball so much as throwing it.  Anything beyond 10-15 yards downfield and it looks like he has to load up and use his whole body to the ball there quickly.  I know people will argue otherwise, but he looked much better last year at Iowa, and I’m doubting that a 5th-year senior under Jim Harbaugh’s tutelage would regress this much without a major physical component.  I doubt we’ll hear anything until the end of the year, but with 5 games left in the Rudock era at UM he barely looks like the player everyone expected when he showed up.

Inside the Box Score is highly complicated:

  Earlier this season, I proposed the Stribling's cat paws sequel to Schrodinger's cat illustration. I'm not sure everyone got the idea, so let me present it again. First of all, Schrodinger's cat is imagined as being in a box with a radioactive source and poison that will be released when the source emits radiation. According to quantum mechanics, the cat is considered to be simultaneously both dead and alive until the box is opened and the cat is observed.

      Likewise Channing Stribling's hands are either hands with fingers and opposable thumbs good for gripping a football, or they are cat paws that can only bat at a ball much like a cat plays with a ball of yarn. We can only determine which appendage is connected to his arms at any particuluar moment by throwing a football at him. It appears that this very odd law of quantum mechanics has spread to others in the UofM secondary, in particular, Dymonte Thomas. Seth did a great job recapping multiple points in this game where the cats paws returned. Those who aren't versed in the finer points of quantum mechanics, such as dear leader Brian, refer to this as, "the Gypsy," but it's really just an extension of Newtonian mechanics at the secondary level.

ELSEWHERE

HSR:

The longer you watch college football, the more that you come to realize that even familiar tropes and scenarios can have surprise endings.  On Minnesota's final drive, Michigan couldn't get off the field on third and long in the shadow of the Gopher end zone, well, you start wondering what form the destroyer is to take, because God doesn't forgive poor tackling or coverage too readily.  When the "go for broke" pass beats your coverage, you're shocked when the replay review actually correctly showed the receiver down at the half yard line and the officials got it right.

MVictors:

Bravo.  Tip of the hat to the Gopher fan who showed up as Summer Camp Coach Harbaugh.   Brilliant.

Straight A’s across the board:  1. The concept  2. The outfit  3. The rigorous diet plan that yielded that physique.  4. Layers of sunscreen to maintain the pasty white belly. 5. The gameday execution, including the front row seating.  Bravo!

MVictors is also deeply concerned about helmet sticker overflow. Sap's Decals:

OFFENSIVE CHAMPION– Gotta give it to QB Wilton Speight.  His first three completions in his career?  WoW!  He was obviously tight at first but it sounded like the old ball coach settled him down and stuck with him.

Sure enough, he delivered the goods in a BIG way – especially on that 2-point conversion pass.  He has come a long way since the verbal tongue-lashing he received from Coach Harbaugh that we saw on the HBO Real Sports feature a few months ago.

Touch The Banner.

Dirk Jeeblers took some time off from filming his new movie EL CORAZON DEL DIABLO to take in the Michigan football game!

When it's Halloween and you're ready to go out.. but Michigan is on haha pic.twitter.com/0ysBV1R9Xe

— Hannah Davis (@hanni_davis) November 1, 2015

Hannah Davis is a professional attractive person.

Quinn and Baumgardner.

Stewart Mandel reports that there's talk of a centralized review system after the replay official got about eight different things wrong at the end of Miami-Duke. That would be welcome; might help targeting be called somewhat consistently. What's going down at Georgia sounds pretty familiar. Late Carr malaise has set in.