Game Preview: Michigan

The Michigan Wolverines need little introduction. They are our hated rivals, the single team us and Ohio State could mutually agree to both smear out of the big 10 race every year. They would tell you this isn't a rivalry, but would reluctantly admit that Michigan State is the team they hate losing to most. As usual, Heck does an immaculate job summing up the hate from the Michigan State side. So, it's the Michigan game, on Saturday root for Greg Mattison to blitz his way off the field and maybe a drunken phone call to John Harbaugh seeing if maybe they could meet up for a cup of coffee sometime, you know, just to give back the stuff they still have of each other's?

This marks the third year in a row we're going to be playing Michigan's September Heisman Winner. This is the third year in a row we're playing an undefeated Michigan team that's going to beat us until we can't stand. In 2009, 2010 and 2011 Michigan's combined record coming into this game has been 15-0. We have been the Lloyd Carr to the JLS Wolverines the past couple of years and I'm good if we can pull this off a third year in a row.

Michigan's Passing Attack vs MSU's Pass Defense

Last year UM moved the ball on MSU until it got into the redzone and then D-Rob was more likely to complete a pass to us than he was to his own guys. This will be true again. D-Rob was such a good QB last year because Magee got D-Rob's receivers FILTHY open.

Denard is the best running back playing QB since Michael Vick. I seem to recall reading that MSU's defense has given up nine plays over 20 yards this season. Further, Denard has a real propensity for throwing moonballs, not manballs. So you have a strength of MSU's juxtaposed with a strong weakness of UM's. Denard is going to throw some picks, provided he throws at all.

Advantage: MSU

Michigan's Rushing Attack vs MSU's Rush Defense

Denard is the rushing attack too. Frankly, Denard's the whole damned offense. MSU has shown itself prepared to stop a rushing QB in Braxton Miller, but honestly, he's like Diet Caffeine Free Denard. The YPC is up across the board for their running backs, but at the end of the day stop Denard, stop the Wolverines.

MSU has been stingy against the run this year allowing an average of 64 yards per game and 74.5 against OSU and ND. I do not realistically expect us to surrender only 64 rushing yards against Michigan, but I do think we could keep them under 150. We only gave up 35 rushing yards to OSU and I think we're adequately prepared to stop a rushing QB.

Advantage: MSU

MSU's Passing Attack vs Michigan's Pass Defense

Michigan has the 39th ranked pass defense and has been real solid in the red zone. We've been moving the ball effectively, but kinda crappy in the redzone, 100th in the nation or worse. Mattison seems to run a high risk, high reward type defense with lots and lots of blitzing. So that makes this call a bit difficult. If Michigan can get the blitz home, MSU is in some trouble. If MSU can stop the blitz, Cousins could have a field day. Further complicating matters is that Cousins still has a brain fart when he's pressing. So, the key for MSU will be short, safe throws for 5-7 yards.

Advantage: Push. I think there are too many unknowns for me to call this with any confidence. Either side could massively outperform the other.

MSU's Rushing Attack vs Michigan's Rush Defense

The BBC backfield has struggled this year behind our woeful Offensive Line of Sorrow. I think the Woeful Offensive Line of Sorrow is turning into a Woeful Offensive Line of Patchworked Occasional Success. However, I don't see the OLine coming together enough over the bye week to turn the rushing attack into a scary juggernaut for this week's game.

Michigan's rush defense is ranked 58th, giving up 141.6 yards per game. Our Rushing Offense is ranked 79th. They're good in defending the red zone and we're not good at scoring in it so it'll be important if we're going to be good at rushing that it happens in their redzone. Bell will be a critical piece of this.

Advantage: UM. I think we have too many holes in our rushing game to be improved with a bye week.

Intangibles:

So we had a bye week before this, which means we had time to drop some wrinkles in the playbook. With a bye week the week before we might come out a bit rusty. MSU has been outscored 49-20 in the first half of the two post bye week games under Dantonio. Still, we have saved some of our best for Michigan the past few years and with an extra week to cook things up, I expect some very interesting stunts and blitzes. Maybe a Keshawn package?

Michigan on the other hand, is playing with house money at this point. I don't think anyone expected Michigan to be 6-0 and in such resounding fashion at this point. So winning this game would be icing on the cake for them I think. State needs to jump out to a quick lead and keep it because UM is a second half team.

Advantage: UM, but slightly.

Overall: Earlier this week, I was a bit bearish on our chances this weekend, but it goes without saying that UM has not played a defense like ours yet. Further, they struggled in the early goings against every team they've played except Minnesota and SDSU. If MSU is going to win, it needs to come out early, get up big, and not get soft in the third and fourth quarters. If this were an away game, I'd worry about that a bit, but I think we'll be properly prepared and the rust will come off quick.I think the rushing game will surprise this week despite UM's perceived advantage in this arena. MSU's weaknesses seem slightly more likely to be overcome to me with the extra practice than UM's weaknesses.

Predicition: MSU 31 UM 28.

Rivalry Week: Michigan Facts and Inferences

I don't like going Meta, but feel it's necessary here. Due to an overwhelming flood of things at work and this weekend being my first ever half-marathon the blog is going to get about a third as much attention as I'd like this week. My sincere apologies, being slovenly was much less effort than trying to take care of myself.

It's rivalry week and time to address our friends down the road. Much will be made of what this game means. Was Jesus just a prophet for Denard? Is Brady Hoke the long-awaited successor to Bo? Does Michigan State even have a chance against U of M? If MSU loses are we destined to become a second-rate doormat all over again? If we win is U of M on it's way to Richrodding it's way through the season again? I think this is all a bunch of knee-jerk crap honestly, so let's stick to some facts and maybe some mild opinion and go from there.

Fact: Michigan has outscored it's opponents in the second half 114-21.

If you are not winning at halftime, it's unlikely you will beat these Wolverines. A key to success for the good guys will be being up early and making Denard play from behind. Frankly, this statistic is just stunning. Outscoring your opponent 5-1 in the second half over six games is no fluke.

Fact: Michigan State has outscored it's opponents in the first half 89-27.

While this involves us being up 58-0 on FAU and Central respectively, I do think it points to us being more of a first half team. Interesting to note, at halftime we've blanked three of our opponents at the half. So again, better be up at the half or else.

Fact: Michigan and Michigan State have scoring defenses in the top 10 nationally.

Normally this would be extremely impressive, but the Big Ten has half the top 10 scoring defenses nationally, so it's only kind of impressive. The turnaround is more impressive in the case of Michigan who finished somewhere around 2,000,000th in total scoring defense last year.

Fact: Michigan has the leading rusher in the Big Ten at QB.

We haven't yet played a QB in this mold in 2011. We of course played Robinson last year and shut him down very nicely, but until he is stopped we cannot write him off as a threat. A key to the game will be limiting him to taking only a few yards here or there and making him throw the ball.

Fact: Michigan State Football has improved under Mark Dantonio.

I bring this one up in case we lose and fans start jumping off ledges. MSU is better than they've been since Biggie Munn and aren't you lucky because they've been pretty so-so for a long time? Mark Dantonio's current record is 37-20 and 21-12 in the Big Ten. In order for Mark Dantonio to have a winning percentage equivalent to Duffy Daughtery he'd need to lose his next three games. He'd have to lose five to be as good as St. Nick Saban. On Saturday, win or lose Michigan State football is improving under Dantonio.

Opinion(But Strongly Supported): The Winner of This Game will have the inside track on winning the Legends Division

Neither program rises or falls based off of this game, but I think the winner has the inside track on playing in the inaugural B1G title game. Nebraska is already down a game in the Big Ten season and is unlikely to beat both MSU and Michigan. Iowa looks to be Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde this year. So it is my opinion that the loser does not become a second-tier program, but instead this might become a rivalry of who plays in the division title game.

The Unbearable Hypeness of Denard

Something I’ve always struggled with as a fan of football is when a player’s hype doesn’t match what I see to be his essential ability.  I’ve ranted over at The Lions in Winter about how Daunte Culpepper’s “MVP Caliber” reputation followed him around for years, even when that “MVP Candidate” season led a remarkably talented team to an 8-8 record.  I’ve ranted on The Fireside Chat that Michael Vick’s legendary elusiveness wouldn’t be needed if he could actually execute the offense well.  I’ve gotten in endless quarrels about Kurt Warner’s Hall of Fame viability; to me a player who spent half of his career on the bench (or belonging there) has no business in the Hall.  Believe you me, I’ve moaned and groaned on Twitter and elsewhere about Tim Tebow—the false quarterback prophet, whose role in the NFL will be primarily to sell jerseys.

Likewise, I still say that Barry Sanders never got his due—even as a first-ballot Hall of Famer, people are largely ignorant about just how remarkable he really is.  I am completely mystified by Brett Favre being lucky to crack most people’s top ten all-time quarterback lists—when his name is at the top of the heap in every statistical category—and legendarily, he played with more heart and grit and gusto than any of them.

All of this is bad enough, but with today’s twenty-four hour sports media cycle, and the prevalence of blogs, podcasts, forums, Twitter, etc., once a thought takes root (i.e., “Vick barely beating the Lions means he’s a lock for the Pro Bowl”) it’s repeated over and over and over and expounded upon and analyzed and broken down and debated and parroted and #TT’d and #FF’d and OH MY GOD MAKE IT STOP.

Such it is with “Shoelace,” the Denard Robinson phenomenon.  It’s not that Denard is not talented; he unquestionably is.  He’s extremely fast, has good vision, and runs in very well in open field.  Unlike last season, he has excellent running lanes thanks to a mightily improved offensive line.  Also, he’s gotten much better at throwing the ball.  In fact, he’d have to have done so, if for no other reason than he couldn’t have gotten any worse: in 34 dropbacks last season, Denard was sacked three times, threw four interceptions, and completed 14 passes for only 188 yards.

Clearly, though, he’s taken a big step forward—and so have his teammates, and so have his coaches.  Denard’s statistical production has been simply incredible: he’s decimated several U of M single-game records, and Denard is on pace to demolish several NCAA FBS records, as well.  However, he’s done this against UConn, Notre Dame, UMass, Bowling Green, and Indiana—and wasn’t uniformly incredible, as many currently believe.  Even with Indiana’s doormat conference status, cracks in the Shoelace facade began to grow.  In the fourth quarter, with the game on the line, the Wolverines had to punt three consecutive times—thanks to a Denard run that came up short, and two poorly-thrown incompletions.

Yes, the drive after that was the game-winning drive, and Denard scored the game winning touchdown.  But this was Indiana; it didn’t need to be nearly as close as it was—and if Denard were truly a Dilithium-based lifeform, he wouldn’t need four bites at Indiana’s apple to get the one touchdown he needed.  It’s exactly that kind of Culpepperian first-quarter awesome, fourth-quarter not-so-awesome that makes people who don’t look past the box score repeat and expound and analyze and break down and debate and hype and parrot and #TT and #FF and OH MY GOD MAKE IT STOP.

Part of the problem here is the bed that the NCAA, its conferences, and its member institutions have made—the one that we are forced to lie in.  The college rankings (and postseason) have always been awarded based on number of losses: Undefeated = “National Champion”, 1 loss = “Great Bowl”, 2 losses = “Good Bowl”, etc.  The pressure to reduce the number of losses has forced every team into a race for the scheduling bottom.  Teams schedule tomato cans they have absolutely no intention of losing to for three, and sometimes four, nonconference games out of four—and conferences have created unbalanced schedules, bye weeks, and division splits to make sure nobody even kind-of decent faces a strong test more than two or three times a year.

The upshot of this?  Nothing that happens in September really matters.  The whole first month of college football is completely immaterial.  Except for a preseason national title favorite losing to an FCS school (e.g., “The Horror”), there is no single loss that can’t be overcome, and likely no single win that will mean as much as people think it does (e.g., “Boise State beat VT, they are now the prohibitive favorite to win the BCS Championship, unless they lose to Oregon State”).  Let me underscore that: the college football season, as it currently exists, is designed to make sure everybody looks good, especially in September.  If your team doesn’t look great in September, your team is horrible—and even if your team does look great in September, that doesn’t mean it is not horrible.

In the intervening three games between Denard’s coming-out party against Notre Dame and tomorrow’s Big Chill, Michigan has done nothing other than beat teams they were nearly assured of beating—and Denard has done nothing other than continue to break long runs, be really fast and get people to repeat and expound and analyze and break down and debate and hype and parrot and #TT and #FF and OH MY GOD MAKE IT STOP.

Unfortunately, while this schedule has given Denard—and Michigan—a great platform for success and exposure, it’s also robbed them of the ability to really legitimately crow about it.  Until Denard looks amazing against multiple better-than-average BCS-conference teams, doubts will continue to be cast upon his achievements.  The NCAA’s schedule dilution ensures that everybody looks at least pretty good for most of the year, and it keeps fans keep buying tickets and coaches employed—but in the process, true greatness is obfuscated.

 

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