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Punt-Counterpunt Rutgers 2021
Rutgers Links: Miniprogram, The Preview, The Podcast, FFFF Offense (chart), FFFF Defense (chart)
Something's been missing from Michigan gamedays since the free programs ceased being economically viable: scientific gameday predictions that are not at all preordained by the strictures of a column in which one writer takes a positive tack and the other a negative one… something like Punt-Counterpunt.
PUNT
By Bryan MacKenzie
@Bry_Mac
The year was 1995. The Cold War was over. The Soviet Union had collapsed, and the world was breathing easier as the threat of nuclear annihilation seemed to have passed us by. Boyz II Men were on the top of the Billboard charts. Starter jackets were plentiful. All was right in the world.
Then, on January 25, Norway launched a rocket on a scientific mission to study the northern lights… and almost ended the world.
was it worth it?
You see, the thawing of global tensions and the spirit of Glasnost hadn’t changed the fact that Russia still had a metric crap-ton of nuclear missiles aimed at the West, and they were still attached to a vigilant but dysfunctional apparatus that was just ITCHING to launch them sumbitches. So, when their early warning radars told the Ruskies that this nerd-rocket was actually the first move of Armageddon, the Russian military prepared for all-out nuclear war. The only thing standing in the way of ultimate calamity was Boris Yeltsin.
[After THE JUMP: Asset bubbles and Russian drunk]
Boris Yeltsin was the first President of post-USSR Russia. And he was a drunk. An amazing drunk. An amazing drunk BY RUSSIAN STANDARDS. An LSU-tailgate-before-a-night-game drunk. I mean, if this was a story about your buddy…
Secret Service agents discovered Yeltsin alone on Pennsylvania Avenue, dead drunk, clad in his underwear, yelling for a taxi. Yeltsin slurred his words in a loud argument with the baffled agents. He did not want to go back into Blair House, where he was staying. He wanted a taxi to go out for pizza.
…you’d be like, “Boris, you need to get your crap together, man.”
And when Yeltsin turned the keys and fully activated the Russian Boom Boom Pow System for the first time in history, we were one mashed button away from the literal end of the world. We survived, but it isn’t clear how, or even how close we truly got, other than “really freeking close.”
This is far from humanity’s only nuclear near miss. If you want to never sleep again, you can fall down the rabbit hole of Able Archer, and the time during the Cuban Missile Crisis where a Soviet captain ordered the launch of a nuclear torpedo, and the time a dude named Stanislav Petrov broke all protocol to save humanity, and the time we almost nuked North Carolina (in the thermonuclear fusion way, not the basketball way) and later almost nuked Arkansas.
British mathematician and ardent nuclear disarmament activist Bertrand Russell argued that the problem with nuclear weapons wasn’t just that we might decide to use them, but also that, if we have the capability long enough, we might use them without really meaning to. His argument was that, “you may reasonably expect a man to walk a tightrope safely for ten minutes; it would be unreasonable to do so without accident for two hundred years.”
One can argue for and against the continued existence of Rutgers as a part of the Big Ten. We can look at them now, from the relative peace and stability of the year 2021 and say, “it is really dumb to have them, and we probably should never have created this situation in the first place.” But that’s easy in hindsight, when we aren’t trying to survive the Great Conference Realignment Wars of the early twenty teens. At the time, it seemed* like a necessary evil, and you can easily defend** the decision to go that route. But the dangers spawned by the sins of the past continue to haunt and threaten us to this day.
*No, it didn’t.
**No, you can’t.
Like nuclear weapons, Rutgers went off on Michigan once, in 2014. Since then, we have lived in an enduring but uncomfortable armistice. The chances of a Rutgers catastrophe in any given year remained remote, but the math says that on a long enough timeline, the odds are essentially 100%. And the consequences of such an event remain nothing short of dire.
some day
2020 brought us to the very brink of cataclysm. And despite the massive inferiority gap they’re trying to overcome, the Rutger continues to arm itself. Since the dawn of the modern (read: post-Hoke) era, they have knocked off five Big Ten teams. They added Michigan State to the conquered lands last year, and Northwestern seems primed to fall as well. This year seems safe, but eventually the wrong finger is going to be on the button… and then God help us all.
Michigan 28, Rutgers 24
----------------------------
COUNTERPUNT
By Internet Raj
@internetraj
Asset bubbles are a from of speculative mania that have persisted in economic markets throughout history. The hallmark example, and what is generally considered the first ever recorded bubble, was the Dutch Tulip Mania of the 17th century. At the peak of tulip mania in 1637, a single tulip bulb sold for
- (i) 4 oxen;
- (ii) 12 sheep;
- (iii) 4 barrels of beer;
- (iv) 2 tons of cheese;
- (v) a bed; and
- (vi) a suit of clothes and a silver cup.
Recent history is also littered with examples of bubbles, the most hilarious of which was the Beanie Baby craze of the 1990s. Beanie Baby mania hit such a fever pitch in the late 1990s that, at one point, 64% of Americans owned at least one Beanie Baby. The value of Beanie Babies skyrocketed because Ty, the company that produced the plush toys, would artificially restrict supply by suddenly “retiring” certain models. Like other fixed-supply goods such as trading cards or precious metals, the limited Beanie Babies in circulation surged in value – at the height of the frenzy, Beanie Babies accounted for 10% of all eBay transaction volume. These are staggering, mind-boggling numbers but nothing quite encapsulates the Beanie Baby Bubble like a picture: in 1999, a divorced couple divided their Beanie Baby collection valued in the thousands of dollars in a courtroom.
Economic bubbles are as a tale as old as time because asset bubbles are entrenched in basic human psychology: an intoxicating cocktail of euphoria, contagious hype and FOMO. To this day, we see bubbles all around us: AMC, Gamestop, Tom Cruise’s ass in the movie Valkyrie, and JPEG’s of apes fetching $26 million at Sothebys. But no bubble has me as nervous as the one gaining steam in Ann Arbor.
Bubbles for Days
A couple weeks ago, I wrote in this very column about my fear that Michigan’s 1-0 start to the season was a “dead cat bounce.” Then, Michigan steamrolled Washington. And then, Michigan whooped Northern Illinois. And now, after three straight dominating performances, the entire country is in love with Michigan.
FiveThirtyEight, the website famous for coasting on the reputation of correctly predicting one (1) election cycle and subsequently brushing off criticisms of its statistical models with the sophistication of a junior who scored a “4” on their AP Stats exam, recently made a case for “Believing in Michigan Football”:
Michigan fans, I'm sorry for doing this. I don't mean any harm and promise I'm not picking you to beat OSU yet.
— Alex Kirshner (@alex_kirshner) September 23, 2021
Michigan is good. I'm a believer. You should be too. I make the numbers case @FiveThirtyEight: https://t.co/b7qNyYmgP3
Meanwhile, ESPN’s Bill Connelly has officially deemed Michigan making the Playoff as not “unrealistic.”
2 B1G CFP teams (and neither is Ohio State)! 8-4 Clemson! P12 champ Washington! 2-10 FSU! B12 champ Texas Tech! UTSA in the NY6!
— Bill Connelly (@ESPN_BillC) September 20, 2021
I recapped Week 3 and walked through scenarios that are (a) not INCREDIBLY realistic but (b) more realistic than you think.https://t.co/BZryvkZKAe
And, of course, local sports anchor Brad Galli has started drawing comparisons between Jim Harbaugh and a fictional television legend whose own bubble is so inflated that it’s at risk of bursting to reveal its milquetoast comedic core.
this was literally the only thing that could have derailed our Big Ten title run and it happened pic.twitter.com/ZBSh0dEa8e
— raj (@internetraj) September 25, 2021
The bubble in Ann Arbor is swelling. We’ve seen this before. I want to say this time is different, but I am jaded by the crumbling façade of Septembers past. I know that the success of this season is in a perilous quantum state, constantly flitting between genuine and mirage. That my Princess Diana Beanie Baby may not be worth $10,000. That my Bitcoiin2Gen might not be a ticket to early retirement. That Michigan football is in as precarious a position as Tom Cruise’s prosthetic ass next to a thumbtack.
The euphoria is in full force and the bubble may well burst. But it won’t be this week, because if there’s anything that can pump more Hopium into the Michigan fanbase, it’s a game against Rutgers. We’re going to win by a trillion and when it’s done, I’m going to be scrolling through Expedia looking for tickets to Indy in December. If there’s one thing Michigan football fans deserve, it’s hope—whether it’s unfounded and short-lived or not. So enjoy the Rutgers beatdown, plug your ears, and ignore the haters until things get real next week in Madison.
Michigan 51, Rutgers 10.
September 25th, 2021 at 9:42 AM ^
Obligatory: ???
September 25th, 2021 at 9:49 AM ^
And to set us up for more disappointment, no doubt ND steamrollers Wisconsin today pushing our expectations through the roof.
September 25th, 2021 at 10:39 AM ^
That would be the situation that scares me the most. You’d have an angry and desperate Wisconsin team, at home, trying to salvage its season and beating a top-20 Michigan team would get them right back on track.
I’m just hoping for an ugly game where they both beat the hell out of each other, where neither team deserves to win, and Wisconsin is too banged up to beat Michigan the following week.
September 25th, 2021 at 11:24 AM ^
100% this. Also, beating Wisconsin is many people's threshold to believe this team is legit. It will give people an excuse to hang onto their doubts.
September 25th, 2021 at 1:35 PM ^
Watching this game …Wisconsin offense is trash. Mertz is supper inaccurate
but their D looks legit. Big boys
beat rutgers
hail
September 25th, 2021 at 9:50 AM ^
Command and Control, by Eric Schlosser. Great book, informative and terrifying.
Keep the rutger genie in the bottle. Down with the bonjovi nights.
Let’s Go Blue.
Michigan 38, rutger 13.
September 25th, 2021 at 9:56 AM ^
We also almost killed ourselves off over engine knock, hair spray, and now with global warming, we’re back in the woods again. When it comes to our species’ self-annihilation, that it hasn’t happened yet is the ultimate selection bias. We need to “succeed” only once. And then that will be it.
Same for this bubble season. It only needs to come crashing down once, and the CFP bandwagon will empty like one of my farts wafted through it.
In the distant future, OSU will be defeated by Michigan. When the roster is all evolved apes in winged helmets. (It’ll probably happen before then, too, but who knows if it’s this year.) Brian, transported to that era, will see that it’s a meaningless exhibition between two cellar-dwellers of the Rutgers-SEC Superconference presented by Rocket Mortgage and exclaim, “God damn you all to hell!”
September 25th, 2021 at 9:57 AM ^
Great history lesson about the danger we have with nuclear weapons in this world and how someday a Rutgers might go off on us. To keep my hopes guarded for Michigan this year, I am treating this year as 3 separate seasons. September, October, and November. Each season has 4 games and they get progressively harder. I grew up watching the Bo coached teams and know there can be a loss or two in there but also can hope the team continues to improve and rise to the challenge. Great writing and analogies this morning.
September 25th, 2021 at 10:23 AM ^
Let's win September today!
September 25th, 2021 at 10:15 AM ^
Go Blue!!!
Annihilate Rutgers!!!
September 25th, 2021 at 10:16 AM ^
So in combination, you’re saying we’re facing the end of the world AND you’re telling me there’s a chance?
September 25th, 2021 at 10:17 AM ^
I had a semester and a half at Rutger. I understand "Bubbles" as a concept.
Michigan 45- Rutger 10
September 25th, 2021 at 10:26 AM ^
Such funny, creative, and intelligent writing from the both of you. Easily my favorite column of the week, and it’s what separates this blog from everywhere else.
I wish we could do a basketball version of this. At least for the bigger games.
September 25th, 2021 at 11:57 AM ^
Block Counterblock?
September 25th, 2021 at 1:11 PM ^
Not bad. What about Dunk/Counter-Dunk
September 25th, 2021 at 10:29 AM ^
Great stuff as always!
September 25th, 2021 at 10:42 AM ^
I’ve been living on Hopium since Bo was taking teams to Rose Bowls only to end the season on the wrong note. One season started 0-2, yet we won that years Rose Bowl. Go figure.
Then “can’t spell Lloyd without two L’s” Carr followed, giving us one spectacular year. But the hope faded and we got RR.
Hoke got us the Sugar Bowl win and things were back on track! But they weren’t.
“It’s Happening” kick started the Hopium once more, but my Charlie Brown is again flat on his back.
September 25th, 2021 at 11:10 AM ^
At least Yeltsin wasn't an angry drunk.
September 25th, 2021 at 11:19 AM ^
Doesn't everyone feel much safer with a teetotaler in charge at the Kremlin these days?
I know I do.
September 25th, 2021 at 11:26 AM ^
Who was the blogger that always posted nuclear mushroom clouds with his posts. I expect Michigan's offense will overwhelm Rutgers defense.. M 51 - R 24.
September 25th, 2021 at 11:26 AM ^
Who was the blogger that always posted nuclear mushroom clouds with his posts. I expect Michigan's offense will overwhelm Rutgers defense.. M 51 - R 24.
September 25th, 2021 at 1:15 PM ^
You can post it twice, but Rutger does not get 24 points today. 12 max and all in garbage time.
September 25th, 2021 at 11:34 AM ^
this is an interesting game.to me.
Schiano will have Rutgers as a good/decent team eventually...and they came damn close to upsetting Michigan last year.
I am expecting a solid two score victory over an improved Rutgers squad...Michigan has blown out the spread in its first 3 games. So they could very well do that again
Great work on the punt/counter punt
September 25th, 2021 at 12:51 PM ^
I’m not so sure Rutgers win last year would be considered an upset
two flailing teams, someone had to win and lose
September 25th, 2021 at 11:38 AM ^
Extreme positions between the pickers. I just want a win and no injuries. Beat the Knights.
September 25th, 2021 at 11:55 AM ^
I see we’re back to our long winded irreverence
And it’s so pedantic!!
September 25th, 2021 at 12:12 PM ^
Rutgers is a currently a middling team that is 3-0 because they've beaten an unremarkable FCS team, one of the worst P5 teams this year, and then Temple, who would lose to both Delaware and Syracuse by double digits. Unless Shiano has been prepping only for Michigan this entire season, we easily cover the spread. If he has been only prepping for Michigan we win still by 17.
Michigan 48
Rutgers 14
September 25th, 2021 at 12:44 PM ^
This year feels different from the last few ... aside from COVIDyear, even when we won most games the wins felt like ugly hard-fought things against opponents who should have been stomped, and just-barely-won scores reflecting that. This year, the folks we are supposed to stomp, we are actually stomping. I don't foresee that ending today.
Michigan 45; Reuters 10
September 25th, 2021 at 12:55 PM ^
Love these. Impressed that they keep delivering.
September 25th, 2021 at 1:42 PM ^
A wonderful job as always, guys!
Sweet, sweet Hopium.....but I see you, Lucy, and I'm not fully on-board yet. We have a game this week against a team who is probably still smarting from losing last year, whose no-armed QB lit us up for almost 4 bills last year. We then enter the "pain" part of the schedule.
Nope, I'm not fully on-board, but it's been fun, and it will probably be fun this week too. At least 6-6 is likely off the table, and 7-5 is progressing that way.
As in Field of Dreams, "Look for low and away, but watch out for in your ear." I'm looking for more Hopium, but I'm watching out for Lucy.
September 25th, 2021 at 1:55 PM ^
Cruise ass joke (with photo!) made this my favorite P-CP yet, despite the nuclear annihilation nightmares I'll surely suffer.
Thank you guys - hilarious as always.
September 25th, 2021 at 2:34 PM ^
I've heard but never read that there is an econ paper out there that argues that the tulip mania wasn't crazy. The thing about tulip bulbs is that they make more bulbs. If you lucked out and got the bulb that has the hot, unique color, you'd make a mint. It was like a lottery ticket; most of them didn't pay, but there was the chance of a payout.
Probably doesn't mean anything, but there you go.
September 25th, 2021 at 2:52 PM ^
This reminds me of a hilarious Simpsons episode where Homer is captain of a nuclear submarine.
Russian ambassador: The Soviet Union is pleased to offer amnesty to your wayward vessel.
UN: Soviet Union… I thought you guys broke up?
Russian: Yes, that’s what we wanted you to think.
September 25th, 2021 at 8:16 PM ^
People can clamor for a new OC. They can beg for Cade to be replaced by JJ (I pray that doesn’t happen this year. Harbaugh will ruin that kid). They can get mad at the defense. We are broken records. It’s the same stuff every single year under Harbaugh. He is the problem. Not the QB. Not Gattis. Not Jay Harbagh. It’s Jim.
We are going sneak into 8 wins and I pray, that’s not enough for Jim to stick around but I’m afraid we’ll be right back here next year begging for the backup QB and whoever the OC is, to be fired.
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