Michigan at Indiana, Saturday, 11/23, 3:30 EST, ABC or ESPN

[Jeff Buchanan]

From the schedule I'm looking at I can't speculate whether it will be ABC or ESPN in my area (Atlanta) but it doesn't look like a mirror situation as there's nothing for it to compete with in the SE. We'll probably know sometime today or tomorrow.

Here we go. A road game - something Harbaugh does not seem to do well with. Moreover, this is probably the best IU team - both sides of the ball considered - that M has faced since the crazy shit IU used to do that was merely a pain in the ass. Tom Allen has a good all around team that runs a power spread offense that took PSU a while to put away. Besides, better than haskins, Peyton Ramsey is rounding into form. He's good.

I see a very tough road game rather than a tune up for osu heading M's way. Players and coaches better pay attention this week and prepare then play as intensely as it appeared they did v. MSU.

[*JD*]

This is big. Hopefully, we'll continue the play we've exhibited for the last 14 quarters.

[Hannibal]

This game will probably be agonizing.

[iam416]

Another HARBAUGH!!!! steamroll. M is playing as good as any team in the B10. Probably better, IMO. The offense has arrived. The defense is it's typical immovable force. This probably won't be as easy as it was againt Sparty or ND, but HARBAUGH!!!! will still win with lots and lots of cruelty. I'll say something like 45-17.

[lineygoblue]

This game will probably be agonizing.

I think you're right, Hanni.

Indiana has this game red-circled, and its going to be an intense game that is probably going to go to the final minutes before its decided. Indiana is a solid football team. Ramsey is as good as any QB we've faced all year, and he's got several good receivers that he can go to. Their OL protects him well, and they're big and mobile.

Indiana has been in a position to beat us the last 3 times we've played them. This time its at their place, and its at a point where Michigan may have an eye on the following week. Its a classic trap game scenario, and Indiana has been waiting all year for this game.

I've dreaded this game all year long. I'm getting the same sick feeling in my gut that I had before the Wisconsin game. I hope JD is right. I hope we can extend the good play we've seen for another 4 quarters so we can get these guys tucked away in the win column. A nine-win season, after how things looked earlier in the season is not a bad outcome for the year.

[iam416]

Whop Phylor was hurt yesterday. If he doesn't play against M, then that'll really hurt them.

[Tslisher]

Yes, I caught a bit of the Indiana game against Penn State last night. That was a back and forth struggle for Penn State, and they are no slouch. Hopefully this offensive renaissance we are seeing for Blue isn't a mirage and can translate to the road. If they play like they did against MSU, I think this could be a comfortable win, but I expect the road woes to continue and I anticipate a nervous slugfest with it only being resolved in the 4th quarter by 3-7 points. This is a total trap game and our coaches need to make the players realize that they need to take care of business here before their minds go to osu down the road.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Whop Phylor was hurt yesterday. If he doesn't play against M, then that'll really hurt them.

Perfect football player name ..... but seriously, he's been injured all season playing with a reported high-ankle sprain. He took a helmet to helmet hit v. PSU and left the game, also reportedly, in concussion protocol.

If that report is accurate, he won't play next Saturday. The typical protocol involves 10-14 days to get all the checks in the boxes.

Peyton, greater than haskins, Ramsey had a stellar day v. a below average (#84) PSU pass D. He was 31/41/2/0 for 371 yards. M's pass D is ranked #4 after the MSU game. Ramsey probably won't repeat that effort v. M.

PSU also throttled IU's run game holding the Hoosiers to under 100 yards (91) and forcing three fumbles, 2 of them recovered by PSU. PSU's run D ranks #4, M is at #17. I'd expect a similar throttling of IU's run game by M. M ran for 141 yards with Charbonett having a couple of chunk plays one of them for close to half of the total. Average was a shitty under 4 ypc just like it was for IU.

Indiana made a lot of mistakes, road game kinds of mistakes. I expect them to play mistake free at home with M making most of the mistakes. This is a different IU team than it has been in the past and M's defense matches up better with it than it has more recently when Brown had to deal with chaos and great QB play within a very spready pass to run offense. Allen is a bit more of a 50/50, balanced offense type. His problem is that while the pass game is efficient (370/3143/8.5/315.3) the run game isn't (349/1337/349/3.83/133.7).

I don't think IU can beat M passing the ball with a running game that isn't efficient. First, I think M is way better than PSU in foiling QB reads, getting pressure with multiple looks to do that and with very good coverage on the back end from Thomas, Hill, Gray, Metellus, Hawkins (who is playing really well) and a sprinkling of Dax Hill. IU does have decent red zone efficiency though with a balanced split between rushing TDs/Passing TDs/FGs (18/13/11) with 47 opportunities and 42 scores (90%). M ranks #89 (22/9/9) with 50 opportunities and 40 scores (80%).

IU ranks #71 in net punting, M is at # 35 - this isn't a good comparator for the kicking game b/c the net punting numbers are so close that it skews the rankings to nearly meaningless. Looking closer at it, M gives a 2X more return yardage than IU does. I'd call that concerning.

Look, MSU is a bad football team so, temper your enthusiasm with that win. Patterson had a great day, one great day among 9 rather pedestrian days if not downright shitty. He is BAD on the road.

I've offered this opinion before and there are others here who share it but the offense that we had hoped M would feature in 2019 requires solid QB play. Until yesterday, we haven't seen it. In fact, bad QB play has clearly held M's offense back necessitating a mid-season fallback to Harbaugh's 2018, create multiple gaps run game.

We won't even know in the first couple of M possessions if Patterson is on or off - he started slowly producing, "here we go again" moans and groans from the stands v. MSU. He got a hot hand after that with a couple of big plays that seemed to open up the play-book for Gattis, i.e., the RPO was in. I think he had 5+ ZR keeps that went for good yardage without putting him in bad, injury prone situations. When I watched replay yesterday, it looked like he might have had some keep only plays but I thought 3 of those plays he read the DE or WLB correctly and kept.

So, who the hell knows which Shea Patterson will show up. Back to back top QB performances from him would indicate that something has been fixed, a resolved injury, better film study, better prep, better coaching ..... who knows. But he was good yesterday and exactly who we though he would be when M opened the season. But, he unfortunately wasn't that guy which is why M has two losses and was out of the BT race last month. I have the same concerns going into Bloomington and if he plays badly, M will lose this road game.

[Jeff Buchanan]

M opened as a -7.5 favorite. If you use the Sagrin Predictor, M should win by 11.9. Odds Shark has the predicted score M 33.5, IU 31.4.

That's a big difference in predicted scores between the Sagrin model and that of Odds Shark.

I think this is a difficult game to predict a score. I predict a lot of randomness and high variance in this one. So far, it does not appear weather will play a roll in either of those. Partly cloudy, winds around 10. 25% chance of precip. High of 44, low of 28. A cold front passes through on Thursday.

[lineygoblue]

Yeah, I think we're actually supposed to see a bit of a warming trend toward next weekend, so weather shouldn't be an issue.

I'll never forget my one and only visit to Memorial Stadium in Bloomington. We had a steady 15-20 mph wind out of the NW just to our backs, and it was about 38 degrees. I got chilled down to my bones. I shivered in the back seat of my son's car all the way home.

Jeff used me as a wind blocker most of the game .... skinny little southerner ....

[maxreturn]

Look, MSU is a bad football team so, temper your enthusiasm with that win. Patterson had one great day among 9 rather pedestrian days if not downright shitty. He is BAD on the road.

True BUT MSU has had crappy teams before and the games have been uncomfortably close. Make no mistake, this was an impressive beatdown. This was the kind of win that I've been longing to see for quite some time. They not only handed Sparty their arses but they played with a level of emotion and passion that has been conspicuously absent for some time. The execution was also at a very high level, save for some off the mark passes by Patterson.

Of course the question is can Patterson sustain this into next week? If he does, I don't see how IU wins. The rest of the team offensively and defensively is playing at a high level.

[Jeff Buchanan]

It's ESPN. ABC is doing the UCLA/USC game.

[lineygoblue]

It's ESPN. ABC is doing the UCLA/USC game.

Oh goody. So we get Michigan-hater Steve Levy and wishy-washy Bob Greasy.

[Hannibal]

God Steve Levy is so bad.

"And he's tackled at the thirty yarrrrd liiine"

Classic example of a horribly shitty announcer that would never get a job outside of the Disney networks.

[WingsFan]

Oh goody. So we get Michigan-hater Steve Levy and wishy-washy Bob Greasy.

They could be the worst, Levy especially. Brian Griese just doesn't care for Harbaugh (he played for Lloyd remember) and it slipped out during the last game he did when he went on that little mini rant