Nautical Disaster

"Michigan wins on a walk-off home run." --Patrick Barron (Photo: Patrick Barron)

I had this dream where I relished the fray and the screaming filled my head all day

It was as though I had been spit here, settled in

Into the pocket of a lighthouse on some rocky socket

Off the coast of France, dear

One afternoon, four thousand men died in the water here and five hundred more were thrashing madly as parasites might in your blood

Now I was in a lifeboat designed for ten and ten only

Anything that systematic would get you hated

--"Nautical Disaster" by the Tragically Hip, the third single from the band's 1994 album, Day for Night.

Walk-off wins should be exhilarating, at least on some level.  Your team is losing, and they have put together something that will allow them, with no time remaining on the clock, to win the game.  In baseball, it can be a lightning strike, because a walk-off home run takes just the proper connection on one pitch.  Maybe you needed to get a runner on base to set it up, but a walk-off in baseball can take many forms.  Football has simultaneously fewer and more types of walk-off victories.  Touchdown Manningham is a walk-off win.  So is the Miracle at Michigan.  Field goals in the bottom half of the overtime session are walk-offs.  Phil Brabbs' 44-yard field goal toward the north goal posts at Michigan Stadium against Washington was a walk-off (as far as I can tell, the last regulation field goal walk-off in Michigan history.  Brabbs also missed his first two attempts that game.)

It's not a deal not a test nor a love of something fated

(Death)

The selection was quick

The crew was picked, in order

And those left in the water were kicked off our pant leg

And we headed for home

It is easy to say that Michigan games against Northwestern in November are always weird, but there is at least a little truth to the statement when it comes to games in Evanston/Chicago.  Since 2000, we've had the 54-51 loss in 2000. 2003 wasn't weird per se; 41-10 games tend not to be. However, then you get 2013, which is the fire drill field goal with the Dileo power slide that forced overtime to win.  Then it's 2014, which, of course, is M00N.  So yeah, it's not a huge sample size, but it's also not encouraging.  Michigan did a bunch of little things wrong early (a hold on a beautiful outside run for Jordan Marshall for an early touchdown that would have absolutely set the tone, which led to Zvada's first miss of the day) but then, you know, 91 yard drive that ends in a touchdown, OK, that should be a good tone setter, especially because Bryce is throwing the ball well.  But the end of the first half for Michigan was punt, fumble (Chip Lindsay getting too cute by half with the orbit motion to Marsh), and a missed 60-yard field goal at the end of the half, while the Wildcats got a pair of field goals, creating an extremely annoying 7-6 score going into the locker room.

One could hope that after Michigan got the early touchdown in the third quarter after forcing Northwestern into a four-and-out, things would settle down.  They did not.  Michigan forced a three-and-out, and it looked like it would get the ball back with good field position. Semaj finally tried to make a return, and he fumbled (though I'm sorry, I still don't understand how that one counted as a Northwestern recovery.) Northwestern got a field goal out of it.  Michigan goes 80 yards, Jordan Marshall puts the ball over the goal line just long enough to get the score, Michigan goes up 21-9, and you would be forgiven if you thought that Michigan fans could relax.

It was at this point, after the third quarter stretch, that the game went into full bête noire territory for Michigan.  Northwestern goes 75 yards thanks to three long passes to get a TD and get it to 21-16.  OK, time for Michigan to respond.  Then Bryce has a freshman moment, throws a locked-on target pick, and five seconds later, Northwestern scores another TD; now they lead 22-21 after a failed two-point conversion attempt.  Fine, Michigan will just go down and respond.  Nope, Marshall gets hurt, and then Bryce throws another pick.  Ugh. Okay, the defense comes to the rescue, forcing a very tidy three-and-out.  Michigan gets the ball at their own 41, starts driving the ball, gets a great catch from Andrew Marsh, who was a revelation today, but on a fourth and one at the Northwestern 24, a fumble on the exchange, and Northwestern gets the ball back.  Defense bails them out again with a three-and-out, letting Michigan preserve all three of its time-outs.  Michigan gets the ball at their own 37, throws two straight incompletions, then needs a miracle of a grab from Marsh on the sideline, upheld on review (it shouldn't have even been a question), then keeps running Bryzon Kuzdzal seven times for 29 yards to set up Zvada for a game-winner with two seconds left.  

Then the dream ends when the phone rings

You're doing alright he said

It's out there most days and nights

But only a fool would complain

Anyway Susan, if you like, our conversation is as faint as a sound in my memory

As those fingernails scratching on my hull

Zvada shook off the nightmare of the season he's been having and put it through the uprights, and Michigan escaped with a 24-22 win, matching last season's win total with two games left to play in the regular season.  Questions about the injuries will loom, but off to College Park, we'll see what happens. 

Tales from the Spreadsheet

• 24-22 IS a Scorigami!  It would not have been if Northwestern had kicked the extra point.
  
• 38,223 were in attendance for the game (the smallest crowd of the season and the smallest crowd Michigan has played in front of since the 2021 Maryland game).
• Win 1,020.
  
  
• Michigan moves to 61-15-2 all-time against Northwestern University.  This is Michigan's ninth straight win in the series against the Wildcats, which has included a pair of overtime games and M00N, and now this.
• Michigan improves to 14-5-0 all-time on November 15 (this was Michigan's first game on November 15 since 2008, which was the most recent loss to Northwestern, a miserable 21-14 loss which was dubbed Fandom Endurance IV due to the dreadful game and weather conditions).
  
  
• Michigan improves to 41-8-0 when scoring exactly 24 points.
• Michigan moves to 6-7-1 (groans at Gen Alphas) all-time when allowing 22 points to the opposition.
• Michigan has won 21 games all-time by precisely 2 points, the most recent example being the 2022 Illinois game, bka the Money Moody pseudo-walk off win.
• Bonus Stat: Michigan moves to 16-14 all-time in games in the city of Chicago.  This was its first in Chicago proper since 1939, when they defeated the University of Chicago 85-0 in the game that basically made Chicago give up football as a going concern.

Cast No Shadow

On Senior Day, Donovan made his way into the end zone one more time at the Big House (Michigan Athletics)

"Bound with all the weight of all the words he tried to say

Chained to all the places that he never wished to stay

Bound with all the weight of all the words he tried to say

As he faced the sun he cast no shadow."

 --"Cast No Shadow" by Oasis, from their 1995 album (What's the Story) Morning Glory

So much of sports fandom comes down to expectations and how reality plays out against that backdrop.  While by no means or shape am I a gambler, I find Vegas lines interesting as a thought exercise by people who want to make money on an outcome think the game will go.  For many years, I did the fun exercise of going through the schedule pre-season and figuring out the record (I stopped doing this after 2007 taught me that nothing makes sense.)  However, freed from expectations due to last year's team, I ended up doing it again this season and landed on a 9-3 record, with losses to Texas, Oregon, and Ohio State.

That version of me did not know how dire things were in the quarterback room.

But expectations, even recalibrated ones, can still haunt us as we watch games.  So when the score was 10-6 with just under two minutes left in the first half, I think the mood in the stadium was dour at best.  Michigan fans had told themselves that the Oregon and Indiana games were a wash, but if Michigan just beat Northwestern, they would be bowl eligible, and that would be enough for what otherwise felt like a lost season.  And in that moment, it felt like that was slipping away.

So when Michigan figured out how to put together an 11-play, 65-yard two-minute drill, much of which fell under "don't think, just do," and ending with a Colston Loveland TD catch, the mood suddenly shifted back to "OK, it's under control."

I did not expect a 31-point explosion from the offense in the second half (as well as a bonus two points from a "I committed intentional grounding in the end zone and all I got was called for a lousy safety") from this Michigan offense.  Sometimes it was an explosive run by Kalel Mullings as part of his three touchdown day, sometimes it was taking advantage of short fields generated by special teams or a timely pick.  But to the point, Michigan didn't do anything fancy against an admittedly overmatched Northwestern team, but they did execute, and it paid off.

We all know what lies ahead in the week to come.  It will not be anything like the last three years, but that's OK. That was the expectation from the drop.  And who knows, sports are designed to defy expectations every so often.

Tales from the Spreadsheet

• 50-6 IS a Scorigami!
• 109,830 were in attendance (884,382 for the home season, an average of 110,548, so that should allow Michigan to keep the attendance crown for another year.)
  
  
• Michigan moves to 60-15-2 all-time against Northwestern University.
• Michigan moves to 11-7-0 all-time on November 23 (There's a lot of Ohio State games I there.)
  
  
• Michigan moves to 7-0-0 when scoring exactly 50 points.
• Michigan moves to 84-5-4 all-time when allowing 6 points to the opposition (Michigan once beat Northwestern 74-6, so there's precedent here.)
• Michigan has won 7 games all-time by precisely 44 points, most recently, the 2022 Colorado State game.

The Pharaohs

Cornelius Johnson made the most of his turn on punt block duty today. (David Guralnick/Detroit News)

You kept me wanting wanting wanting

Like the wanting in the movies and the hymns

I want the pharaohs, but there's only men

I want the pharaohs, but there's only men

You said I was your blue, blue baby

And you were right

You said I was your blue, blue baby

And you were right

--"The Pharaohs" by Neko Case from her 2009 album Middle Cyclone 

 One of the fun things I learned when I was still assigned to teach World History is that the word pharaoh translates into something roughly meaning either "great house" or "big house".  I have always favored the latter interpretation for obvious Michigan reasons.  I also remembered that, thematically, Neko Case loves the word pharaoh, as it appears in several of her songs.  

The lyrics today are a solid representation of the two pieces of this game, the first half and the second half.  Games against Northwestern are never fun or easy.  Even as Michigan has won the last seven meetings, the chaos and closeness of those meetings have made each installment more teeth grinding than just a crossover game on the schedules.  Even with the welcome addition of the George Jewett Trophy to this series legacy, it was still always going to be an annoying state of affairs.  First half rust off the bye week.  Trap game.  Looming 7-0 Michigan State on the horizon.  

Five punts were exchanged before a Blake Corum touchdown to allow the Big House crowd a moderate sense of relief that maybe this would not be one of those games.  And sure, it wasn't ideal that Michigan had to kick a 20-yard field goal because the offense stalled once again inside the five-yard line, but Northwestern had not really shown any signs of offense life and....Evan Hull just ran for 75 yards, essentially untouched to make the game 10-7 late in the second quarter.  But Michigan was moving the ball well in the two-minute drill and was inside the five when there was a decision made to be too cute by half, Mike Sainristil fumbled, Northwestern recovered, and the teams went into the locker room at 10-7 and Michigan social media went into a full meltdown.  

Let's acknowledge an unpleasant reality about a wide segment of Michigan fans: We live in perpetual waiting for the other shoe to drop, followed by a question of how many shoes remain up there.  It isn't just Twitter, I was surrounded by various generations of Michigan fans who spent halftime grousing on a number of issues and faults with the first half game plan.  Every fanbase has this, if not in this particular idiom.  The weight of expectations grows with each victory, but so does the height from which one would fall when that moment comes when it all goes awry.  The high wire act of a college football season when a team is winning and winning and winning becomes a dizzying exercise.  Simultaneously, there is this desire for the fanbase to want players, who are very very excellent, to be even better, and that can be dangerous.

So when Michigan, aided by a holding call and a DPI call, went on a 7 play, 74-yard drive on the opening possession of the second half, followed by a ball don't lie missed field goal for Northwestern, followed by another touchdown about three minutes of game time later (after the Cornelius Johnson punt block seen above) to put Michigan up 24-7, the game took on a different dimension to the point where a 17 point third quarter had the same people who had been grousing at halftime were now aggressively yelling for Harbaugh to pull the starters with a lot of time left in the fourth quarter.  Well, except for the one guy behind me to my right who desperately needed Michigan to hold on to the 26 point lead because he had some money on Michigan covering.

In the end, every Michigan draw play that turned into positive yardage for Blake Corum, every coverage bust that still saw Michigan get off the field before Northwestern crossed midfield, there is this realization that this is team is the team we love and in being so, we just want them to win because they want to win.  It's a form of emotional whiplash, but this is our team, and I am glad we have chosen to embrace them, imperfect as they might be, as they seek a form of perfection.

Time and Time Again

Daybreak was a long time coming, but when it arrived, it stayed light. (Jim Young/AP)

"I wish I was traveling on a freeway
Beneath this graveyard western sky
I'm gonna set fire to this city
And out into the desert
we're gonna ride."
--"Perfect Blue Buildings", Counting Crows from the 1993 album August and Everything After


They're not always stupid games in Evanston.  It just feels that way.  History does undoubtedly show to us that there have been plenty of stupid games in Evanston in recent vintage. [gazes sidelong at M00N].  This wasn't a stupid game as much as it was a frustrating game because it didn't need to be that way, but a slow start by Michigan, an excellent opening script by Northwestern, and penalties upon penalties upon penalties made it so.  It would be really nice to just focus on the second half, where the defense looked much more like the unit that we have come to expect but to ignore the first half is to...well, sort of do what Michigan looked like it was doing yesterday.

Michigan won the toss and chose to receive, which was an initial point of confusion.  Coach Harbaugh has spoken previously of his love of the opportunity for the "wrap-around" score, where you get the ball at the end of the first half and score and then get the ball back to start the second half.  Certainly, you could argue that after last week Michigan perhaps felt that they did not need the wraparound score, after all, the experts in the desert had Michigan as roughly 15 point favorites, so come out, take the ball, get a score, and put an offense that lost its leading rusher during the week in a hole early.  But if that was the plan, then it went awry very quickly, with Michigan going three-and-out then Northwestern marching down the field and scoring to make it 7-0 early.  The Wolverines would spot Northwestern another 10 on the next two possessions and found themselves staring up from the bottom of a 17-0 hole as the second quarter began in earnest.  All of the possibilities and realignments of expectations that happened in the last three weeks felt ephemeral, another Michigan team that looks amazing against lesser competition at home but cannot find its way forward on the road, a very daunting prospect given the trips to East Lansing and Columbus that remain on the schedule.

But steadily, the things that Michigan does well came back into alignment, including the all-important halftime adjustments.  Karan Higdon ran hard, even if on his final touchdown drive, Northwestern had figured out that he was getting the ball up the middle on first down (four runs on first down on that drive, none for more than a yard.)  His final touchdown (illustrated above) came after nearly 56 minutes of Michigan not holding the lead.  Then defense bared the teeth of the wolf and kept up the pressure that saw Northwestern held to 61 yards on just 27 plays in the second half.  That is getting off the field, and that is how you give your team a chance to make a comeback.

I almost feel like Michigan fans don't appreciate this kind of thing because it's been the nature of the Don Brown defense: dominant, aggressive, and gets off the field on third down.  It doesn't always happen, but when it needed to, admittedly against a team that has offensive effectiveness issues.  It would be nice to see fewer penalties, but Gus Johnson served up a stat yesterday that essentially said that almost all of the most penalized teams in the nation also had winning records.

All of the consternation about yesterday comes back to "what does this mean for WisconsinMichiganStatePennStateOhioState????" and I understand that line of thinking.  The future is what we care about because it has yet to be written and we're trying to use what is happening in the present to be instructive.  If Michigan wins those games, then a game like this is the springboard to improvement and renewed focus.  If Michigan loses those games, then this was the harbinger of what happens when you start slowly and take foolish penalties.  We don't actually know anything, we won't really know anything until the games themselves are played.  I realize this is trite, I realize this is not useful, but attempting to extrapolate the future of a college football team is also very difficult.

Now, to find out what the Big Ten has to say about the penalty from Mars.  Because I would really like to know about that one.

The Drevnometer adopts Collective Rule

A colossal performance by the offense against Northwestern deserves a colossal ranking, so the Drevnometer shoots back up to seven. It's jumping up and down like a heartbelt because the offense finally has a pulse.

This offense has been a joy to watch and also a sign of false nostalgia. Harbaugh and Drevno are providing us with the MANBALL offense we're nostalgic for, the one that could not only run roughshod over opponents, but also adapt to take advantage of their weaknesses. The real historical Michigan offense at Tennessee, and that's a lot more exciting. No lead is safe, and you'd rather be behind after three quarters than ahead. I don't miss that feeling of dread in far too many fourth quarters.

The Drevnometer's Three Stars of the Game

Massive props to the offensive line for a true team performance. Unfortunately for Jehu Chesson, the Drevnometer's Three Stars do not incorporate special teams performance.

Previous Three Stars

Maryland: ★★★ Drake Johnson ★★ Graham Glasgow ★ Jehu Chesson
BYU: ★★★ De'Veon Smith ★★ Amara Darboh ★ Jake Rudock
UNLV: ★★★ Ty Isaac ★★ Jehu Chesson ★ Sione Houma
Oregon State: ★★★ De'Veon Smith ★★ Erik Magnuson ★ A.J. Williams
Utah: ★★★ Jake Butt ★★ Amara Darboh ★ Graham Glasgow

Kill the M00N

m00n dot gif http://t.co/5bHDV1DWss
— Ace Anbender (@AceAnbender) November 9, 2014

In 2002, the Detroit Lions, who would end up going 3-13 that year, hosted the Dallas Cowboys, who ended up going 5-11, at Ford Field in a game that ended up Lions 9, Cowboys 7.

That game was scoreless at halftime, and memorable for the fact that Filip Filipovic and John Jett combined for 19 punts between them, the first nine possessions of the game ended in punts before a Dallas fumble in the second quarter ended the streak.  Fox even put up a graphic that said "Coming up next: A Punt."  A veritable fiesta of punts. It was as ugly a football game as I have ever watched.

And then M00N (HT: @mgoshoe) arose over Evanston.  It was a bad M00N rising.

To list the offenses against football competence in this game would be to invite charges of piling on.  It was bad, we know it was bad, and in the end, the final play, with Trevor Siemian slipping on the greasy Ryan Field turf as Frank Clark bore down on him like a Stinger missile.  Michigan knew what was coming and played it perfectly, Northwestern threw scissors and Michigan didn't just bring rock, they brought boulder, only to see Siemian embed the scissors in his thigh of his own volition.  It was the imperfect capper to an imperfect game.

In the end, Michigan won.  Michigan has lost just four times to Northwestern in their last 35 meetings.  I have clear and vivid memories of each of those four losses:
2008: Fandom Endurance III
2000: A-Train Fumble
1996: We just lost to you LAST YEAR!
1995: Luther Van Dammit

The only other team that I have this precise a memory of losses to is Minnesota, and that is mostly Jug related.  If you'd like to make the argument that Michigan should be 0-3 against Northwestern over the last three years, you'd very well be on to something.  And yet, here we are.  Football is a strange game, deserving to win does not assure that you will.  Northwestern did everything they could to give this game to Michigan, and Michigan did everything they could to give the game back to Northwestern.

It was only the Michigan defense that kept this game from going rapidly south.  Jake Ryan and Frank Clark were essentially picked Michigan up time and again.  They assured that this 2014 season is now 2009 as opposed to 2008 with a chance to go to 2010.  It's not the happiest of thoughts, but at this point in the year, given everything this team has been through, let's just enjoy the ride.  Because chaos is swirling everywhere in college football, we're just a part of a giant string of random.

So another week off, another week of sitting on an Open Date with a win, and a winnable game against Maryland, and amazingly, a chance to finish third in the B1G East, where we sort of thought we might be at the start of the year.  We've got two more games, maybe three, so let's enjoy the moments, no matter how terrible they are on paper. #915

No Pressure

Devin Gardner, doing Devin Gardner things.  We aren't sure what they are yet, but we like them.
AP Photo

So Michigan's 6-0 after six games of the 2011 season thanks to last night's comeback win in Evanston, a nice bit of second half magic* that was almost so routine in the workmanlike nature of the adjustments and the like, Denard settling in after a first half of "Oh no!" to become a second half of "Oh wow!" and Jordan Kovacs continuing to be everyone's favorite scrappy former walk-on.  Michigan is bowl eligible on the earliest date it could possibly be and is now a Top 10 team heading into East Lansing for a Legends Division showdown with Michigan State.**

Uh oh, Mr. Persa hears footsteps.
Photo from AnnArbor.com

*-From USA Today: "The Wolverines have outscored opponents 62-7 in the fourth quarter."

*-I'm sorry Big Ten, I tried using the new vernacular, but it just feels wrong.  Not just the name, but the notion of divisions is utterly foreign and confusing to me.  I'm sure it will grow on me, but the notion that for two weeks in a row, on some level, I should be rooting for Ohio State because they were facing teams in Michigan's division just felt wrong as well.  But nevertheless...


But there's something else going on with this Michigan 6-0 start and I want to toss out a theory.  This is not a residual of the "Summer of Hoke" lovefest, or the "Anyone but Rodriguez" notions of others.  My working thesis is simply this: Michigan is 6-0 and, outside of Michigan's core fans, very few people in Metro Detroit care right now.

Why is this?  Well, blame the Lions, and blame the Tigers.  The fact that the Tigers are still playing into October, at least for another week, has drawn many of the column inches and focus of the sport talk radio callers. * And that might be enough, but then the Lions being 4-0* for the first time since 1980 and the NFL can trump all when your team is winning, especially in Detroit, where we've waited so long for something resembling competence in our NFL franchise.  You only have so much you can focus on as a sports fan, only so many free cycles you can allocate, and Michigan isn't getting them from your "average" Detroit sports fan.

*-I had my wife's car on Friday to get the oil changed after work.  She does not have Sirius like I have in my car, so I was listening to 97.1.  After deciding I hated myself, I realized that sports talk radio just edges out local newspaper online comment section as the worst thing in the history of ever that doesn't actually involve people dying.


**--Going into Monday Night Football, the Lions are 4-0, Michigan  is 6-0 and Sparty is 4-1, so that's 14 of the 22 available wins for the year.  If this keeps up, we're going to party like it's 1999.

OK, fine, so the "average" Detroit sports fan doesn't care, but what about the college football world?  Surely someone has noticed the Michigan football renaissance?  Well, yes, several have, there's no way to say it's been ignored, but let's just take for the sake of argument that Michigan really is the 11th best team in the country right now.  Look at the ten teams ranked ahead of them: LSU, Alabama, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Boise State, Oklahoma State, Stanford, Clemson, Oregon, and Arkansas.  In each case, they have at least one great story that can be discussed, be it a Honey Badger, the greatest defense in the history of the world, the implosion of the Big XII, Russell Wilson's War, the Rodney Dangerfields of the BCS, Justin Blackmon, Andrew Luck, how the heck is Clemson in this mix, the spread and shred Ducks, and the fighting Petrinos.  This doesn't even count Ohio State's continuing NCAA troubles or conference realignment also eating into the timeline.  Michigan has some compelling angles from a national sense, the Brady Hoke Secret Service angle, the Brady Hoke hat thief angle, the wither Denard Robinson? angle, the Greg Mattison angle, the return to Michigan being Michigan angle, there's a lot of possibilities, and as you can see, they are getting some run.  But the smoke and mirrors feel of this, the notion that Michigan is 6-0 by luck more than skill or design, especially as they needed comebacks against the two "real" teams that they have faced (Notre Dame and Northwestern), well, there's a lot of reason that Michigan might only be the 11th best team in the country yet, and even then everyone is still not sure if they are.

So this Saturday becomes the first real test of Michigan's 132nd team, a trip into the dark recesses of this state's soul, a place where they know they are hated with a deep and bitter passion that stems from a combination of envy and frustration*, where the team in black and bronze will try to send a senior class off with four straight wins over Michigan, one where Brady Hoke will try to do something that Bump, Bo, Mo, Lloyd, or RichRod couldn't do, beat Big Ten member Michigan State in his first season as coach.**

*-If you're a Michigan State fan, it has to gnaw at your very soul that you have your best team in decades in 2010, and you don't get to go to the Rose Bowl because of the tie-breaker rules, you don't get to go to a BCS bowl because Ohio State gets picked ahead of you, you get killed by Alabama in your bowl game, and then Rodriguez's dismissal and Hoke's hiring and the the OSU issues, steal all of the off-season headlines.  Michigan State is 4-1 and they just got back into the AP poll this week after the Notre Dame loss in Week 3.  The lack of respect is arguably palpable and tangible, and yet, it doesn't seem like they can do anything about it.  The best press Michigan State has had all season is from Kirk Cousins' speech at the B1G kickoff luncheon.  What's worse is that because of the Lions and Tigers, Michigan State, which already doesn't get the Detroit area coverage that Michigan does, will potentially be a smaller story and if Michigan State wins, right or wrong, a lot of the focus will end up being on why Michigan lost rather than how Michigan State won.  Sorry Sparty, I don't make the rules, and remember, there's a reason that "Sparty, no!" is a meme.

**--Rich Rodriguez, 2008, L 35-21
Lloyd Carr, 1995, L 28-25 (DAMN YOU TONY BANKS!)
Gary Moeller, 1990, L 28-27 (DAMN YOU EDDIE BROWN!)
Bo Schembechler, 1969, L 23-12
Bump Elliott, 1959, L 34-8
(Every coach from Yost (State Agricultural College) to Little (Michigan Agricultural College) to Kipke (Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Science) to Ooosterbaan all beat what we no know as Michigan State. Yost's Michigan team didn't play SAC in his first season at Michigan.  He made up for beating the Aggies 119-0 in 1902.)


So in locker rooms in East Lansing and Ann Arbor, a pair of countdown clocks each wind toward the inexorable conclusion at noon on Saturday.  A pair of teams whose destinies are intertwined.  The build up is immense, and yet, it nothing like it might have been in a different year.  But hey, no pressure.

Michigan Defense Theater Experiment 1106: "Zook People/Persa A-Go-Go"

THEME SONG

In the not too distant future, Saturday A.D.

There was a guy named Jordan, not too different from you or me

He worked at Schembechler Institute, just another face in a maize jumpsuit

He did a good job cleaning up the place, but his bosses kinda liked him so they made him play in space

(Curse you GERG!)

We'll send him speedy runners, the best we can find

He'll have to stop, tackle them all as we monitor his mind

Now keep in mind he can't control when the games begin or end

He'll try to keep his sanity with the help of his D-Line friends...

D-LINE ROLL CALL!

Martin! (I'm Captain!)

Heininger! (Left side!)

Van Bergen! (Where've you been?)

Rooooooooooooooooh! (I'm sophomore!)

If you're wondering how he eats and breathes and other science facts

He's got a meal card and it's set on earth so you can really just relax

For Michigan Defense Theater 3000.

INT. SATELLITE OF YOST

JORDAN

Hi, everyone and welcome to the Satellite of Yost. I'm Jordan Kovacs and I'm usually accompanied by my pals Roh and Van Bergen, but I don't see them around right now. Martin, can you get me Rocket Number 9?

Rocket Number 9 shows MARTIN, HEININGER, VAN BERGEN, and ROH holding off a disorganized horde of invaders of Minnesota. The horde retreats, and VAN BERGEN and ROH enter the Satellite of Yost.

HSR Field Trip: A Day By The Lake

6:15 is a damn early Saturday wakeup call in any timezone, but I'd been the one pushing for a 7:00 departure from the O'Hare Holiday Inn, so it was all my fault. We made Evanston, figured out you can't park on the golf course, and found the on-campus lots by 8:00. Immediately after we parked, in came a U-Haul next to us. Three people in Michigan gear jumped out of the cab and rolled up the gate. 15 guys inside gave a cheer and jumped out the back. Awesome.

We got ourselves set up quickly and looked around our lot. Nothing but Michigan fans as far as the eye could see. Blue sky, blue lake, yellow sun. The U-Haul people got out the grill, the boombox, and the traditional door for flipcup. Craig caught up on the sleep I'd deprived him of while the rest of us threw the football around [Craig: I want to make this very clear, that is sleep, not drunk. Sleep!].

My brother and I are always apt to wander when tailgating. The Cardinal came with us as we tried to find a way down to the beach, but it's all fenced off. Lame. I was at least able to get this picture looking back toward our tailgate site. You can see the Grosse Point lighthouse sticking up on the right. If the spelling of "Grosse Point" looks wrong, it's because the "e" in "Pointe" had to be amputated after a particularly chilly February in 1917.

At 10:00 we packed up and then started walking to the stadium. The other three headed inside while I waited to give my sister her tickets. And waited. And waited. At the exact moment when I was about to snap, her cab pulled up. I pitched the tickets through the open window and ran to my gate. I took my seat as the NUMB was lining up for pregame.

The first thing you notice is that Northwestern has a very small band. Its total undergrad enrollment is 7,826, so that makes sense, but 148 is still not a large number. They also have flutes, and a lot of them. Not just piccolos, but flutes, which are even harder to hear. The performance was pretty good, and both drum majors nailed the backbend, but then they interrupted it in the middle for five minutes of standing around doing nothing while waiting for the team to come out of the locker room, during which time the PA system – the PA system! – played "Thunderstruck" and "Welcome to the Jungle". And the team didn't exactly race down the hill either, it was more of a casual jog. Decidedly anti-climactic. The band played the anthem and then finished up their show with some other Northwesterly things before vacating the field.

Other game notes:
• Read this immediately.
• We had a prime view of Northwestern's first play of scrimmage and Brandon Harrison's galling failure to get Omar Conteh down. I kept waiting for the whistle after forward progress had been stopped, but it never came, just like any help. I think everyone thought he was down and nobody wanted to risk a 15-yard personal foul on the play.
• The referees were just terrible. In the end, I think 4 plays were stopped for further review in the booth plus the one challenge from Lloyd. That's way too many, in addition to the crap late hit call (which was a direct result of the busted first play).
• I want to see Brian's UFR for our defense. There was a point where Northwestern ran the same sweep to the left three times in a row for 10+ yards on each carry. Then there was the hideous breakdown where the Wildcats ran Omar Conte on TGDCounter-Draw for the long touchdown run. It seemed like it took forever for us to get real pressure to Bacher. He had a lot of time to hang around in the first half, and even in the second there were key plays where we gave him 6 seconds in the pocket without a guy in his face. Once we started to get to him, I think that's what forced those (oh so sugary sweet) interceptions.
• Speaking of which, there is no joy like that of seeing a defensive lineman chugging down the sideline with a tipped ball in his hands. Godspeed, Tim Jamison, even if Mike DeBord ran his patented "zone left, zone left, throw out of bounds" offense immediately thereafter. Seriously, no man can take the air out of a stadium quite like DeBord. Zone left was the call after every turnover we recovered.
• Do we have another right guard on scholarship available after Zirbel? I think the position might be cursed. I need an old priest and a young priest.
• Never ever trust a kicker who went to Detroit Catholic Central. Especially a walk-on. How bad are our other kickers if they can't take that job? Every drive in the red zone is now 4-down territory.
• The NUMB's halftime show? West Side Story. If EMU's band does it next week, Hollywood may have company, as all band directors will be officially out of ideas.
• My brother and I were there for the '95 Northwestern game, and I was at Michigan Stadium for the '96 one. It looked pretty dark at halftime.
• On the one hand, we played a brutal first half where we couldn't tackle a throw-pillow. On the other, it's a hell of a thing to be in a hostile environment different stadium and watch your team claw its way back to the tune of 21 unanswered points as Mike Hart passes Jamie Morris on the all-time list and Chad Henne sets the school record for career TDs. We were in Section 104, Row 20. In front of us were a dad and his two kids, behind us were a bunch of guys in their late 20's, and all of them were a ton of fun to be around. HIGH FIVES FOR EVERYONE.

We went to Indiana last year and Evanston was our road trip for this year. 2-0! Next year: Minnesota, probably. The Metrodome is a crap environment for college football, but I'd like to see a game there before that's not an option. Purdue is another possibility, especially since West Lafayette is a relatively quick drive for me.

Other photos from gameday can be found here and here. And, hey, this is our 150th post and our 100th of 2007!