Threat level is fun watching Michigan football slowly fade into irrelevance like a mammoth stuck in a tar pit

Wild things, right? The undefeated, consensus top team in America lazily beat a C-tier team ranked 127th in college football’s offensive rating, 38-17. It’s not really a headline. Hell, Ohio State fans usually complain about games like this because it’s our non-conference September ambien and we’ve seen too many of them.

Michigan fans too, but the reason they’re wailing and gnashing their teeth is because they never expected to be on the losing side of one of these games. Or at least they didn’t expect that they would become food for speed bumps so soon after winning the national championship.

That’s essentially what Saturday’s game was like for the Ducks. They rolled into the Big House, led 28-10 at halftime, and then coasted the rest of the way. To Michigan’s credit, they didn’t give up and even made the game interesting briefly after scoring a touchdown on their first drive of the second half. The Wolverines almost made things even more interesting in the 4th quarter when they drove all the way to the Oregon 15 to potentially make it a one-score game.

Then offensive coordinator Kirk Campbell hit some bullshit and the drive stalled, but hey: this isn’t a very good football team. That’s what’s happening.

I’ll admit that it’s easy for me to be jaded here because I actively want to see Michigan fail and think it’s really funny when they do.

And as I try to remind everyone, this Michigan team is not really What terrible, and the reasons why they are actually as bad as they are good seemed pretty obvious to me from the start.

What are the right expectations here? Should Michigan fans scream at the sky, tearing their shirts and cursing the name Sherron Moore? Or should they just come to karaoke and dive in, just enjoying what they can before pretending to care about basketball?

See, I think the student section has the right attitude.

SHARRON MOORE! YOU CAN’T RUN AWAY FROM ME! I WILL FOLLOW YOU TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH!

Losing is a group effort, and repeated losses suggest more systemic problems that cannot be solved with One Crazy Trick. It’s funny because for most of this season, Michigan fans and Sherron Moore have been on the same page here: Moore believing that constantly spinning the quarterback’s roulette wheel will magically fix everything wrong with his team, while the fans just want his ass shot to achieve the same result.

There are some things that work here. Davis Warren is fine! He’s not very good (12/21, 164 yards and 2 TDs vs. Oregon), but he also hasn’t turned the ball over once since becoming Michigan’s fourth option at quarterback (two QBs removed after he was Michigan’s first) , and he can even make good throws sometimes! Alex Orji is finally getting into the running game to moderate success! Donovan Edwards was competent! Uh…Colston Loveland exists! Mason Graham is one hell of a wrecking ball!

All of this is objectively at least normal for Michigan football. Other things are wrong.

Running back Kalel Mullings figuratively slammed into a giant brick wall and then literally slammed into a giant post camera, rushing for just 34 yards on 21 carries in his last two games. The receiving corps remains lost in space, contributing almost nothing on a weekly basis. Star guard Will Johnson is out for several games due to an apparent injury due to a business decision (note: who the hell knows how injured this dude really is, but no one should blame him for prioritizing your health and possibly millions of NFL dollars). The offensive lineman somehow got injured on the kickoff. Offensive and defensive coordinators are trying to learn what works on the fly, with varying degrees of success. And so on.

Last three games of this drive:
Alex Orji’s 3-yard run on 2nd and 10.
Kalel Mullings’ 2-yard punt on 3rd-and-7.
Whatever it is?

— Anthony Broome (@anthonytbroome) November 2, 2024

THREAT LEVEL

Watching Michigan fans try to decide whether they were going down the toilet or clawing their way to freedom depending on the game was extremely entertaining, but we’ve now reached the point this season where it stops being cute schadenfreude and starts being an annoying nuisance on in the background as I try to figure out how to emotionally prepare for the Game.

That’s basically the entire threat level, but I’d feel a lot more comfortable if Michigan could pick a lane and stay there. If I get blown away by Indiana, it will be a positive step towards me finally being able to set my threat level to LOW as I ride off into the sunset cackling and flipping double birds as me, Thelma and Louise, ride off a cliff in my Honda Civic.

But to do that, I need to stop this “look competent every third drive” nonsense, and I still can’t shake the paranoia that Michigan is getting a little better every week. This will keep them in GUARDED, but Coach Sigs might be able to change the calculation next Saturday.

Headline photo: Junfu Han/USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Thanks to EAS Simulator for the video template.