I Can't Explain

And now the maize jerseys are forever immortalized, just not in the way we thought.  (Exceptional photo by Rachel Leggett.)

Dizzy in the head and I'm feeling blue

The things you've said, well, maybe they're true

I'm gettin' funny dreams again and again

I know what it means, but

"I Can't Explain" by The Who (from the band's 1964 single release, the first under the name The Who)

I don't like believing in omens, but I'm a Michigan fan; omens are ignored at one's own peril.  So when the drum major dropped the mace after tossing it over the goalpost in pre-game, my mind immediately went to the other time we know it happened in a season-opening game, 2007 Appalachian State.  Michigan comes out wearing the all-maize monstrosities, a new scoreboard graphics package that feels like a hustling of people who have already spent far too much money to be there, and it all feels worse, cheaper, and less authentic than it did in the past.  But we're here, another season, a new year, and a new era.  So we can hope.

Michigan lost the toss and got the ball first, and if you only looked at the first drive in isolation, Michigan's scripted drive was pretty solid.  Some excellent passing early, including a play where Bryce lost the snap long, recovered it, and scrambled outside to hit JJ Buchanan for 20 yards. The illegal formation penalties were annoying (and as Seth Fisher noted, might be a new point of emphasis this year for things that had been previously uncalled), but Michigan went down, and after an iffy replay review on Bryce's audible to a naked boot to the corner (FORESHADOWING) but Michigan punched it in next play, 7-0 Michigan and everything feels solid and good.

Reader, it was anything but after that.

Western Michigan mounted a 42-yard drive that ended in a field goal, and I sort of felt OK if Michigan's defense could keep the Broncos to three points on their fall camp drive.  But Michigan went 4 plays and a punt (including a ghastly near interception where everyone in the building is begging Bryce to just throw it out of bounds, only to have the pick overturned because the WMU player was out of bounds first), then held the Broncos to a three-and-out, only to have Andrew Marsh just straight up have the punt drop through his catch radius.  But Michigan's defense held Western to four plays and a turnover on downs.  I noted at that point that well, the turnover sucked, but at least the defense, oh crap, Michigan with a three-and-out where it only gained two yards, defense forces a punt, Michigan with a three-and-out that only gains five yards, defense forces a punt, Michigan with a three-and-out that only gains ONE YARD, defense forces a punt, Michigan with another terrible AND NEEDLESS interception where everyone in the building is begging Beck to just run the clock out and get to the locker room, Western gets a field goal and we head into the half Michigan 7, Western Michigan 6.

This is where I make my interlude about the continuing decline of Michigan Stadium's in-game presentation.  

1). Adding the weird little LED buttons to the aisle handrails makes the whole place seem cheap.

1a). Not adding them in the student section because you know they would be stolen. 

2). They played "All of the Lights" even though it had largely been agreed that they were no longer going to play songs by that artist and had not for several years.

3). The allegedly improved cell service still left me without a signal until most of the students had bailed before the end of the game. Even weirder was the fact that it kept showing that I had five bars of signal, but nothing would connect to send/receive.

4). The got-danged Google Gemini "trivia quiz" promotion, which featured a question so convoluted there's no correct way to answer it.

4a). In retrospect, that's actually probably a perfect advertisement for what Google Gemini will do. 

5). Some very weird entrance choices leading up to taking the field.

6). Putting up the lyrics for "Mr. Brightside" but not for the "pick the sing-along song" choice later in the 4th- why would you not do that? 

As a whole, the last five years have been an effort to "modernize" the game day in-stadium experience that has only succeeded in making the whole of it feel cheap and hokey in the pursuit of "modernity."  I get that things need to evolve, to some degree, but it just feels like it's a scattershot attempt by people who don't fully understand what their fans want or what makes Michigan Stadium special and cherished by generations of fans. 

Back to the game.

I felt like Michigan needed to come out of halftime and hold Western Michigan to a three-and-out if it wanted any chance to win the game, and I suppose, on the long arc of history, I was right.  I also presumed Michigan would take its first possession of the second half and do something better than lighting downs on fire, but after seven plays and 29 net yards, including a holding penalty on the quarterback(?!?!?), Michigan punted the ball back to Western with nine minutes left on the clock and would not see it again for the remainder of the third quarter.

If deserving to win had anything to do with the actual outcomes of sporting events, this drive would be the evidence: 20 plays, 13:40 off the clock, three third-down conversions; it's all there.  But it is worth noting, it did not end in a touchdown, just a field goal.  

Another interlude:

For years, my sports fandom has informed me that the best choice in any sporting event, when given one, is to leave no doubt, to take the potential result out of the hands of the officials.  If we're looking for a positive from the Michigan side, it's that the defense did not allow a touchdown yesterday.  Yes, they had trouble getting off the field, and that is deeply troubling for the rest of the season, but they did not allow a touchdown.  If even one of Western Michigan's drives ends in a touchdown, they take this upset all the way back across I-94 and forever become the first Michigan MAC school to have taken down Michigan.

Michigan got the ball back only to go three-and-out after just seven measly yards and a well-earned chorus of boos from the 110,879 announced crowd.  The defense once again did its job, forcing a punt that pinned Michigan deep on its own 7.  A nice Jordan Marshall run, the first real sign of life in the offense in the entire second half, was followed by a one-yard run that featured Marshall trying to do too much and bouncing to turn a three-yard gain into a one-yard gain.  Then Bryce scrambled and, as he was going down, lost the ball.  A fumble, a turnover, and all looked lost, and Michigan fans were left to contemplate just how long this season was going to be.  Michigan's defense almost broke, allowing an 11-yard run on first down, but managed to hold Western to another field goal.  It was, admittedly, a curious choice as to why WMU did not just try to get a first down on fourth and four, but the field goal at least forces Michigan to go get a touchdown to beat you, and what exactly in the second half would have led anyone to believe Michigan could go the length of the field in under a minute.

About that...

After two incompletions, Underwood found JJ Buchanan for 28 yards, stopping the clock for the first down, and getting set up at the Western Michigan 47 at 0:11.  Bryce spiked the ball, and somehow, three seconds came off the clock.  The officials put a second back on to set it at 0:09, setting Michigan up for a Hail Mary attempt.  (I would have thought they were going to do the ten-yard out to the sidelines to try and make the Hail Mary a little more manageable, but they did not).  My family and I walked down the stairs of Section 7 to the main level portal, watched the Hail Mary fly out of the back of the end zone, and I began contemplating how long a season this was going to be and how many points Oklahoma was going to put up on Michigan next week.

Then a curious thing happened.  As we walked from Section 7, we were joined by some people, but not enough people to indicate that the game was officially over.  We heard that there was a replay review, but it kept lingering.  We did not hear the official say that there was one second left on the clock.  Eventually, around Section 41, we ducked back up a portal, just in time to see Bryce uncork a second Hail Mary throw, find JJ Buchanan, who amazingly held on to the ball, and suddenly, impossibly, Michigan had won.  It did not make any sense in the moment; it doesn't make any sense twelve-plus hours later, but Michigan won.  How?  I can't explain.

Naturally, the entire sports world is angry, outraged, disheartened, and conspiratorial about how the Big Ten "magically" found one second on the clock to protect one of its big brands.  Even the video the conference released showing the conversation among the replay officials has been dismissed by those who want to dismiss it.  But having been on more than my fair share of "questionable" calls from Big Ten officials (The Spot, Spartan Bob, Hutchinson's Strip Sack overturned in the 2021 MSU game, to name three off the top of my head), I'm not going to question it.  It may be a worthless miracle, but it's a win.  It's arguably the ugliest win I can remember in Michigan history, but it's a win.  There's a LOT of work to do before the Sooners get here on Saturday. Michigan gets to move back into the villain role for a minute, but while I may not be celebrating the win, no one's making us give it back either.  Sometimes the drum major drops the mace and you don't lose.  Who knew?

More like win improbability chart, am I right? (ESPN)

Tales from the Spreadsheet

• 13-12 is NOT a Scorigami!  It also happened against Chicago in 1937.  Since I was asked, 7-12 also would not have been a Scorigami, as it happened against a MAC school in 1913, except the MAC in question was Michigan Agricultural College (now MSU).
• Win 1,022
• 110,879 were in attendance for the game (hilarious that the last three numbers line up with the founding of Michigan football), the 40th-largest crowd in Michigan Stadium history.
• Michigan moves to 9-0-0 all-time against Western Michigan University (including one game when they were Western State in 1917).  Michigan remains, barely, undefeated all-time against Western Michigan/Eastern Michigan/Central Michigan.
• Michigan moves to 2-1-0 all-time on September 5 (A loss to Notre Dame in 1998, a win over Western Michigan in 2009)
• Michigan moves to 20-17-1 when scoring exactly 13 points (the tie is against Ohio State in 1991, one of the greatest victories in Ohio State history).
• Michigan moves to 16-4-2 all-time when allowing 12 points to the opposition (This is the first time Michigan has allowed 12 points in a game since...2002 Western Michigan).
• Michigan has won 27 games all-time by precisely 1 point, the most recent example being the 2014 Northwestern game, aka the M00N game.