About Last Week:
I like curling.
I don’t watch it very often. In fact, I pretty much forget it exists for 206-week stretches at a time. But for two weeks during the Winter Olympics, I’m a curling fan. And when America is curling, I’m into it. I’m chastising a guy whose name I didn’t know the week before for a thing that I am only 80% sure was good or bad. This guy has been working without pay for this goal for the better part of his adult life, and guys like me swoop in when the big torchy thing goes poof and start screaming at the TV about BROOMING HARDER DAMMIT.
The wonderful thing about spectator sports is that you can select your level of emotional investment. Athletes don’t have that luxury. For them, emotional investment is a byproduct of the tangible, physical investment. For fans, deciding to go mentally in on a team is a conscious choice. And like any other wager, the more you bet on your team, the more you have to win or lose. Odds are that you, dear MGoReader, know this phenomenon well.
I drove the four and a half hours up to the Michigan-Indiana game on Saturday. I sat by some very nice, rather intoxicated Hoosier fans, and for the first couple of hours we made amusing small talk about Indiana’s #CHAOSTEAM nature. They exhibited the kind of gallows humor you would expect from a team that had been through what Indiana fans had been through this year. They had hope, of course, but it was the kind of guarded Charlie-Brown-kicking-the-football hope. Experience taught them to guard their soul dongs against the inevitable.
By late in the third quarter, they had stopped talking as much. They had started to believe again. Thrice bitten, they had yet found the way to come back for more. And by the time Delano Hill batted that fourth down pass down, they were inconsolable. They stared off into the cold, cruel evening as if searching for the deity who had wronged them again. No one would have blamed them if they had mailed this one in. But like a poker player who had taken multiple bad beats, they went all in one last time only to lose on the final card.
Sports are wonderful and terrible because we allow them to be so.
[After THE JUMP: some fear, mostly loathing]
The Road Ahead:
Penn State (7-3, 4-2 B1G)
Last week: Bye
Recap: No recap. Bye.
This team is as frightening as: Any change in our opinion of the scariness of the Nittany Lions has to be a result of what Michigan did, as Penn State sat quietly at home this weekend. And yet people seem more afraid of Penn State than they were a week ago. But while the performance of the defensive line was not ideal, it’s worth noting a few key differences:
· Indiana’s offensive pace is 13th in the country. Penn State’s is dead last. So while Indiana could keep players on the field for Ishtar-length drives, Penn State struggles to put together coherent drives.
· Indiana’s offensive line is very good. Penn State’s line is, in a technical sense, butt.
· Indiana allows very few negative plays and has a high success rate, leading to Indiana staying on schedule. Penn State allows sacks on 9.7% of standard downs, and despite playing at a slower pace they have 50% more TFLs allowed than Indiana.
Bottom line, they remain who they thought we were.
Fear Level = 4
Michigan should worry about: Michigan hasn’t beaten Penn State by more than a touchdown since 2001, when sophomore John Navarre led them to a 20-0 victory.
Michigan can sleep soundly about: This one won’t be a night game, which is where the kooky stuff tends to happen against Penn State.
When they play Michigan: James Franklin will do a stupid thing.
This week: vs. #Michigan, noon, ABC
#3 Ohio State (10-0, 6-0 B1G)
Last week: Beat Illinois, 28-3
Recap: They played Illinois and throttled Illinois despite not playing that well because Ohio State is very good and Illinois is not very good.
This team is as frightening as: As we mentioned after week one:
We’ll check back with them when they’re 10-0 and playing Michigan State.
Well, they’re 10-0 and playing Michigan State. And it’s hard to say EXACTLY where they are, but it’s safe to say that they are somewhat less than the giant granite monolith we were expecting, but much more than the mid-game Jenga tower we were hoping for. They’re #3 in S&P+, #6 in FEI, and #3 in the CFP standings. They’ve won all but two games by at least two touchdowns... with those two games being NIU and Indiana because college football is freaking weird. They are not invulnerable, but neither is a full-grown grizzly bear hopped up on goofballs. Fear Level = 9
Michigan should worry about: Ohio State’s run defense has seemingly found itself. In the last two weeks against Minnesota and Illinois, two non-Rutgers/Maryland teams, they surrendered 53 yard on 51 carries (or 73 yards on 48 carries with sacks removed). That trend will likely continue this week against Michigan State.
Michigan can sleep soundly about: Objective reality does not matter in The Game.
When they play Michigan: You may commence with the nervousness.
This week: vs. Michigan State, 3:30 p.m., ABC
Objects in the Rearview Mirror
#10 Utah (8-2, 5-2 Pac-12)
Last week: Lost at Arizona, 37-30 (2 OT)
Recap:
Utah didn’t headline the Pac-12 Playoff Bid Implosion Especial, but they certainly get a pretty prominent billing. Arizona lost starting quarterback and offensive lynchpin Anu Solomon to a concussion-type object early in the 4th quarter, and backup Jerrard Randall only completed one pass in the rest of the quarter and in the two overtimes. However, that one pass was a 25 yard touchdown in the second OT, and Utah failed to convert on the ensuing 4th and 16.
In reality, this doesn’t really affect Michigan very much at this point in the year. Any damage it might cause in terms of Michigan’s resume will be counteracted by the fact that it momentarily removes one of the teams ahead of Michigan in the national pecking order.
This week: vs. UCLA, 3:30 p.m.
Oregon State (2-8, 0-7 Pac-12)
Last week: Lost at Cal, 54-24
Recap:
This week: vs. Washington, 6:00 p.m., Pac-12 Network
UNLV (3-7, 2-4 MWC)
Last week: Lost at Colorado State, 49-35
Recap: No1curr
This week: vs. San Diego State, 10:30 p.m., CBSSN
BYU (7-3)
Last week: Lost at Missouri, 20-16
Recap: It’s hard to know exactly what to take from this game. Missouri was coming off arguably the most bizarre and disruptive week any football team has experienced in years. On Monday, they were on a sympathy strike in solidarity with the ongoing protests on the Missouri campus that saw the school president and the chancellor resign. Then, on Friday, head coach Gary Pinkel announced that he had been undergoing treatment for lymphoma, and would be resigning. So given all that, no one would have been terribly surprised if the Tigers had been beaten by 40, nor would it have been shocking if they had channeled all of that emotion into a 30 point win. In the end, they charted a middle course and beat BYU in solid but unspectacular fashion.
Likewise, for BYU, this season has the kind of I-don’t-know-how-to-feel-about-this feel that 2012 Michigan football or 2014-15 Michigan basketball elicited: The results were middling, but were arguably encouraging given some key injuries, but also arguably showed some more fundamental problems underlying the program. BYU lost some of their best players at the beginning of the year, including Taysom Hill, but given their schedule, if they finish 8-4, is that a success? The candidates for BYU’s best win are Boise State, Nebraska, and Cincinnati, and two of those required ridiculous late-game luck.
This week: vs. Fresno State, 3:30, ESPN3
Maryland (2-8, 0-6 B1G)
Last week: Lost at Michigan State 24-7
Recap: God Maryland is bad. They were given the cosmic gift of a wounded Connor Cook, and a resulting Michigan State offense that was only able to put up 262 yards and 17 points. And Maryland lost by… 17 points. Was it the five turnovers? Was it the 2.9 yards per carry? I don’t know. I’m not a coroner.
Maryland now has 35 turnovers in 10 games. That’s the most in the country. No other Power 5 team has more than 23 (Louisville). In fact, Maryland has more interceptions (28) than any other P5 team has turnovers.
I mean, we’re in mid-November, and Maryland has two quarterbacks who have each thrown more interceptions than any other team in the Big Ten East. HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN?
This week: vs. Indiana, noon
Northwestern (8-2, 4-2 B1G)
Last week: Beat Purdue, 21-14
Recap: I will ask the question I asked the week before Michigan played Northwestern, and to which we still do not have an answer: is Northwestern good?
This week: at Wisconsin, 3:30 p.m.
#13 Michigan State (9-1, 5-1 B1G)
Last week: Beat Maryland 24-7
Recap: If you took a poll of the Big Ten who’s-who, and ask them to name the player on any Big Ten team whose loss would affect the conference most, I don’t know if anyone other than Connor Cook would garner a single vote. So when Cook went down with a shoulder injury in the first quarter against Maryland, that sound you heard was the collective Spartan Nation spiking their Faygo with moonshine. The fact that Cook finished the game 6 of 20 for 77 yards (3.8 YPA) and a pick against that really bad pass defense did nothing to make them put the 2-liter down.
Bottom line, Michigan State was an underdog to Ohio State WITH Cook, but they had a shot. But there is just no way they can beat Ohio State without a close-to-100% Connor Cook. They probably can’t even hang with Ohio State if Cook is hampered in any significant way.
This week: at Ohio State, 3:30 p.m., ABC
Minnesota (4-6, 1-5 B1G)
Last week: Lost at #5 Iowa, 40-35
Recap: Indiana on Ketamine strikes again. For the third straight week, the Gophers hung around with a ranked Big Ten opponent. For the third straight week, they lost. This one wasn’t as close as the core might indicate; Iowa had a 10 point halftime lead, and the Gophers never had a second-half possession with a chance to tie or take the lead.
This week: vs. Minnesota, noon, ESPN NEWS
Rutgers (3-7, 1-6 B1G)
Last week: Lost to Nebraska, 31-14
Recap: Kyle Flood outlasted Tim Beckman. Kyle Flood outlasted Steve Sarkisian. Kyle Flood outlasted Randy Edsall. Kyle Flood outlasted Al Golden. Kyle Flood outlasted Steve Spurrier. Kyle Flood outlasted George O’Leary. Kyle Flood outlasted Dan McCarney. Kyle Flood outlasted Norm Chow. Kyle Flood outlasted Todd Berry. Kyle Flood outlasted Jerry Jill. Kyle Flood outlasted Frank Beamer. Kyle Flood outlasted Gary Pinkel.
Kyle Flood might be the Highlander.
This week: at Army, noon, CBSSN