Blow at High Dough

"Well, I can get behind anything."  Welcome back, Rod Moore (Michigan Athletics)

Well, sometimes the faster it gets

The less you need to know

But you got to remember the smarter it gets

The further it's going to go

--"Blow at High Dough" by The Tragically Hip from their 1989 debut album Up to Here 

Scripted drives, man.  Scripted drives.  Because Michigan won the toss and deferred, Wisconsin got the ball first and went on a 12-play, 75-yard, nearly seven-minute touchdown drive that felt like an absolute harbinger of doom.  Collectively, there was a sense that this was how Fickell planned to win and save his job: a methodical, run-heavy approach, similar to Wisconsin of old, which would bleed the clock, limit possessions, and make Michigan's defense sweat.  Michigan would answer with a tidy five-play 75-yard, two-minute drive to draw back to even on its own scripted drive, and the game settled into an equilibrium that made no one happy.

Several decades of watching not just Michigan football, but college football in general, have given me a false sense of knowing where the doom lurks.  I should know better, but I don't, because fandom is an emotional pursuit for many of us.  I am the person that makes his students mark every time they guess on a test question they had down to two options on the multiple choice because the tendency to believe that you missed all of your 50/50 questions comes from looking for where things go wrong, and forgetting to check for the ones you had down to 50/50 and got correct (it's a version of survivorship bias I would later realize.)

Here's what Wisconsin did in the drives after the scripted one:

• Punt - 6 plays, 22 yards, 2:57
• Punt - 3 plays, 5 yards, 1:45
• Punt - 5 plays, 19 yards, 3:33
• Punt - 3 plays, 8 yards, 2:16
• Punt - 4 plays, 23 yards, 1:35
• Punt - 3 plays, 1 yard, 1:05
• Punt - 3 plays, 5 yards, 1:36
• Interception - 3 plays, 31 yards, 1:37*
• Punt - 3 plays, 5 yards, 0:57
• Field Goal - 13 plays, 53 yards, 6:41

(*-Did I yell "ROD MOORE!" like six times in a row after the pick because it was just so good to see him back out there and balling again?  You bet!)

Sky McCulley (Michigan Athletics)

Wisconsin never actually threatened Michigan after the scripted drive.  Even the dead cat bounce field goal drive was a mirage, as it took almost seven minutes to complete when they were down 24-7 with 9:24 left in the fourth quarter. If Wisconsin had shown the horses to be able to move the ball well and with assertiveness, they would have done it before the fourth quarter.  So when Channing Goodwin recovered the onside kick attempt by the Badgers, Luke Fickell saw the hand writing on the wall, did not use his timeouts, and Michigan won its clunker, 24-10.

Because the scripted drive came first, and because Michigan could not capitalize on some of its drives, the whole game felt worse than it was —a game with a 99.8% Postgame win expectancy, according to SP+.  However, it's a win; Michigan remains undefeated in conference, Wisconsin continues to spiral toward the likely dismissal of Fickell, and Michigan's path to the playoff has opened up a little more because Penn State could not handle a cross-country trip to previously winless UCLA.  Michigan makes a similar sojourn to Southern California next week (thankfully, Willow Run's runways are more than adequate to handle a charter flight to LA [side eye at Frames]).  All things being equal, if Michigan can secure a win in the Coliseum, it will become a direct path to achieving its goals for the rest of the season.  

Tales from the Spreadsheet

• 24-10 IS NOT a Scorigami!  (Three previous occurrences: 1982 Indiana, 1989 Illinois, and 2001 Purdue (also homecoming))
  
• 111,070 were in attendance for the game, which is not the largest crowd at Michigan Stadium this year, but it is the largest crowd for a Michigan Stadium football event this year.
• Win 1,016
  
  
• Michigan moves to 53-17-1 all-time against the University of Wisconsin.
  
• Michigan moves to 12-5-2 all-time on October 4 (It is Michigan's first win on this date in the 21st century and ends a three-game losing streak of 2003 Iowa, 2008 Illinois, and 2014 Rutgers, the last two of which are among the most infuriating losses in Michigan history in their own way.)
  
  
• Michigan improves to 39-8-0 when scoring exactly 24 points.
• Michigan moves to 58-10-1 all-time when allowing 10 points to the opposition.
• Michigan has won 52 games all-time by precisely 14 points, the most recent example being a 21-7 victory over #24 Michigan State in East Lansing in 2018, which was notable for Devin Bush opening a lawn maintenance service, a rain delay, and DPJ hitting the Bunyan for the first time.