PUNT
By Bryan MacKenzie
"Football season is here."
The calendar declares this to be a true statement. But we know it to be, at best, a half-truth.
'Seasons' come in gradually. The occasional nip of the morning air tells you autumn is beginning, but temperatures ebb and flow. Sweaters gradually supplant t-shirts in the laundry over the course of weeks, not overnight. Basketball has a season; media start reporting on NBA scores in October, but no one cares until Christmas Day. Baseball has a season. Even the NFL has a season; it begins with four weeks of [exaggerated air quotes] 'football' that is visually indistinguishable from the real thing, but that everyone agrees doesn't matter at all.
College football doesn't have a season. College football ARRIVES, like a Mongol invasion from the Eurasian steppe. Sure, you may know it is coming. There may be whispers and rumors and a sense of the impending doom. But one day there are no Mongols at your gates, and the next day, whether you are ready or not, the ball is in the air and a three month siege on your soul begins.
It is in that context that openers are particularly tricky. We have so little data. And while the data will come, it will arrive in unmanageable quantities, and it will be mixed with terror and anxiety and joy and fear and love and hate that accompany the arrival of a thing you care about too much. Your brain will have to distribute processing power between "gee, let's see how Chris Evans handles blitz pickup, and what this portends for the rest of the season" and "NGHHAAAAAAAGH SOMEONE HIT SOMEONE THEN GO HIT SOMEBODY ELSE."
This year, we have as little data as we have had in a long time. Michigan's "five returning starters" statistic is misleading but qualitatively correct. They are relying on approximately a dozen freshman on the two-deep. Their receiving corp and secondary are almost completely new. And they have a new offensive coordinator with fancy new NFL concepts like "what if everyone was also a receiver."
Meanwhile, we know almost as little about Florida. They lost most of their team to graduation, the NFL draft, injury, weed, and some credit card issues that not even Jennifer Garner is willing to discuss publicly. They seem to be making a late run for Michigan State's "worst offseason ever" crown. Like Michigan, they lost their entire secondary. And they are starting a freshman quarterback.
But while the margin of error on any player-based analysis is too broad to draw any definitive conclusions, there is one set of factors that is known. And it is decisive. The real difference in this game is gonna be the guys in the headsets. Don Brown is the most creative coordinator in college football, and Doug Nussmeier is, well, not. Pep Hamilton brings passing spread concepts designed to exploit personnel mismatches, while Randy Shannon very much plays a my-guys-are-my-guys style 4-3. And Jim Harbaugh is Jim Harbaugh, while Jim McElwain is just trying to keep his locker room culture from jumping the shark.
Soon we will know more about the players and the schemes and the strengths and the weaknesses and the plan going forward. Starting on Sunday, we will be able to point to actual things that happened and project similar things happening in the future. But that is for later. That is for when your body has adjusted to the sudden rush of football that has returned to your veins.
In the meantime, stock up. Hunker down. Man the walls. Football is here.
MICHIGAN 27, FLORIDA 10
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COUNTERPUNT
By Nick RoUMel
The ruination of a sports franchise doesn’t happen on the field, but in the front office. Justin Verlander’s trade to Houston was not that moment for the Tigers. (But back to that.)
The classic example was the Boston Red Sox’ 1919 sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees, for what Jim Harbaugh earns in about four minutes, so that their owner could finance a Broadway play. The “Curse of the Bambino” ensured 85 years of futility for the Sox, a team that had won 5 of the previous 15 World Series, while the Yankees became legendary. (The play, “My Lady Friends,” bombed as well.)
Often the bonehead management decision is followed by failed attempts to compensate. Joe Dumars’ widely derided choice of Darko Milicic, “The Human Victory Cigar,” ended an era of shrewd moves that had brought the Pistons two championships, and resulted in a series of head-scratching management decisions.
Drafted ahead of ‘Melo, Bosh and .......
...... Shoulda been a Piston!
Baseball GM Dave Dombrowski is widely regarded as a front office genius, but he suffered his own “Darko moment” with his inexplicable trade of Doug Fister in 2013 for a stale bag of BBQ potato chips—not even the good kind, but the ones made with corn syrup and MSG. He then continued his breakup of the greatest pitching rotation in the majors, among other baffling decisions. Verlander was the last man standing from the 2006 team that lost to the Cardinals in the World Series, pitching with dignity as the team crumbled around him. While he goes to a winner, the Tigers are poised to endure long-term mediocrity.
Which, after this long, winding scenic route, finally brings me to Blue.
Bill Martin’s gaffes were legendary. He blew the 2007 search for Lloyd Carr’s replacement, managing to get turned down by the coach of Rutgers, before landing a glorified offensive coordinator who fit in Ann Arbor about as well as Kid Rock in the U. S. Senate. (Let it go, I’m making a point.) It was not until the hiring of Dave Brandon as Athletic Director that the entire foundation of Michigan football was threatened.
This unprecedented one-two punch, of Martin and Brandon, could have put Michigan into a death spiral. But 2000 miles away, the blunders of the San Francisco 49ers proved to be our blessing. After Harbaugh led the ‘Niners to three NFC championship games and one Super Bowl appearance in four years, they unceremoniously dumped him. They’ve since gone 7-25 in two seasons and were rated by ESPN the worst sports franchise in North America. Who knows how long until they crawl back to another Super Bowl?
In the meantime, the futility of the Michigan Wolverines need not be recounted to readers of this column. Acute pessimism was the order of the day. Even your loyal Counterpunt boldly predicted to ex-Punt, after Martin’s bungled coaching search, “Michigan will never be a national power again in our lifetime.”
Counterpunt was wrong. Thank you, Jim Harbaugh, and all those who brought and supported you.
As for today’s game, despite the temptation to counter Punt’s prediction, I can’t bring myself to make that decision. No “Darko moment” for me. I don’t want to be wrong again.
Here’s to putting it all together in 2017.
MICHIGAN 45, FLORIDA 6