Northwestern was generally bad but is one of those teams that’s always good for something freakish once or twice a season. This is far, far worse. Minnesota wasn’t good at anything without Decker. They weren’t even particularly good at anything with him.

The freakish sequence that led to their last score … wow. To sidestep the referee argument: the first call was probably right and the second absolutely was. The first, it looks as though he’s losing the ball before he ever gets hit (though it’s tough enough to tell that I had hoped it might not be “indisputable” enough to overturn). The second is just one of those freak plays that becomes the stuff of legend. The luckiest blasted thing I’ve ever seen, and that includes the Nebraska “Foot of God” catch. The receiver gets the ball, and his consciousness, dislodged, but the ball bounces up off his hand straight into the hands of another receiver who just happens to be cutting into the same area. (And nobody would plan that; multiple receivers running routes into the same area is usually a disaster because it draws more defenders and makes the catch harder in traffic.) Unbelievable.

And it wouldn’t have mattered if we didn’t have playcalling that made Debord-era Michigan look creative. Every first down, every third and short, every goal-line situation … 90% of the time it was “run up the middle for no gain”. When it wasn’t, the play-action stuff worked beautifully (at least at getting guys open; the catches didn’t always happen, but it was a play that actually stood a chance of succeeding) and the one outside run went the distance. On defense, Minnesota ran the same play-action on almost every first down and we bit on it every single time. Our pass rush was almost nonexistent. Our coverage was occasionally semi-competent, often terrible. I hesitate to use the term “schematic advantage” because of who it brings to mind, but I thought with the end of the John L. era that at the very least we would no longer be at a schematic disadvantage every game. That hasn’t been the case. To borrow a phrase from Brian, we throw rock. Rock, rock, rock. Rock. Why? Because eff you, that’s why. We mix it up just often enough to prove that we’re capable of doing so, but I don’t think the gain we get from breaking tendencies on the rare occasions we do so outweighs the constant losses from setting up those tendencies. At least with John L. you got some unpredictability (too much so, at times … there are reasons that certain plays are the percentage plays and get run more often).

It’s funny. QB was supposed to be our one weak spot this year; I’d expected to lose a game or two to QB inexperience. Yet Cousins has probably been the brightest spot on the whole team, outside of maybe Greg Jones. If you’d told me before the season that Cousins would be as good as he’s been (which isn’t spectacular but for a guy who had no college starts before, it’s pretty good), I’d have thought the Rose Bowl was an outside possibility and a New Year’s game a virtual lock. But not a single other position has lived up to expectations, and now if we manage to avoid Detroit it may well be because we don’t even qualify.

Up to this game I’ve had reasons to be optimistic, but I have nothing now. Giving up 42 to one of the worst offenses in the country with out their best player is just rediculous. Every time after we scored to cut into the lead or even take the lead the defense would give it right back. They killed us on play action roll out plays.

And the play calling/coaching is an issue again. Why we put in Nichol on that drive when we were backed up on the goal line after Cousins led us to a TD on the previous drive is beyond me. Like you guys have said, don’t we have a large enough sample size to realize the run up the middle doesn’t work in goal line situations for us? It’s not effective in other parts of the game either, but especially not in goal line situations.

I would love to have a power running game and I know that’s the type of offense this coaching staff wants to produce, but part of being a good coach is playing to your teams strength. I said from early on this year that if we wanted to maximize our talent on offense we’d be a team that emphasizes the pass. We should have at least 3 WR’s on every offensive play. We should have 4 guys (WR’s and/or TE’s) going out for a pass on pass plays. Cousins has proven to be an efficient accurate passer who can go through his progressions and we have a talented group of WR’s and TE’s….we don’t have a good run blocking o-line though and everyone besides the coaching staff seems to realize this.

I expected a let down, somewhat, after the painful loss to Iowa. Watching the Big Ten games this week, i can (sort of) take solace in the fact that at least the Wolverines played worse than the Spartans. But being the two worst teams in the Big Ten this week makes it a hollow victory…