Week 2: Woo nonsensical happenings

Uhhh Arkansas? That was unexpected (kind of). Louisiana-Monroe was a 4-8 Sun Belt team last year -- a 4-8 Sun Belt team that got outscored by its three legitimate opponents 117-34 -- playing its season opener with a redshirt freshman quarterback. WTF? WTF indeed. And it was no fluke: ULM put up 412 passing yards (!) and outgained Arkansas 550-377. Tyler Wilson getting knocked out in the second quarter shouldn't have made that much of a difference but apparently did since freshman fill-in Brandon Allen went 6 for 20 as Arkansas blew a 28-7 lead. Also a contributing factor: Knile Davis was held to 62 yards on 16 carries. Oh, and that 412-passing-yards-allowed-to-a-redshirt-freshman thing. Never underestimate John L. Smith. That said, given Wilson's absence, I think dropping Arkansas out of the top 25 entirely (the largest drop ever other than LALALALALA) was a bit extreme. Just look at the teams toward the bottom; yikes. Anyway, Arkansas gets Alabama next, which ... ummm ... yeeeaaahhh. Wilson is questionable with a "head injury" but should really be held out for the sake of the rest of the season since the chances of beating Bama are somewhere in the vicinity of nil even if he plays. BTW, Arkansas is giving up 27 points a game after playing an FCS team and a mediocre Sun Belt team. It's possible that the defense is just awful, which would be bad given the schedule (and would make being unranked somewhat justifiable).

Play of the Week: This goes here since it's directly related to the above-referenced game.


That's a ballsy fourth-and-1 call (a field goal would've tied it) and a hell of a play by a guy making his first career start.

Oh hai Arizona: I've been telling everybody since spring that Arizona's offense is/will be pretty good. Putting up 59 points (woulda been 63 if not for some awful end-of-the-first-quarter officiating) is pretty good. Matt Scott and Ka'Deem Carey are both legit All-Pac-12 players, and the offense is already doing some stuff that Michigan was struggling with in Year 3; I'm not sure if that's a product of the personnel being a better fit for the system or Matt Scott having a better understanding of the offense or something else, but it's happening, which is why UA has over 1,100 total yards in two games against a decent team and a very good team. BTW, I totally nailed that "1,000 yards of total offense" prediction; there were 1,137. On a related note, the defense is gonna get lit up on the regular by good offenses, but Jeff Casteel at least has some idea of what he's doing with the 3-3-5; the oh-wow-this-is-actually-happening pick six early in the fourth quarter was a direct result of a perfectly timed/executed zone blitz on a big third-and-12. I have no idea whether UA is really a top-25 team yet but can't find a game other than the ones against Oregon and USC that's not winnable with an offense that's gonna put up yards and points like whoa.

Wisconsin just isn't very good: That Northern Iowa game was a harbinger of bad, bad things. To be specific: Wisconsin got held to seven points and 70 non-sack rushing yards -- Montee Ball had 61 of those -- by an Oregon State team that finished 101st in the country in rush defense last year and 89th in scoring defense. Through two games against relatively crappy comptition, Ball is averaging 3.85 yards per carry and has one touchdown. And that's not his fault; it's the offensive line's fault. Keep in mind that Wisconsin lost Paul Chryst and most of the rest of the offensive assistants (including O-line coach Bob Bostad) to Pitt after last year and replaced Bostad with longtime SEC O-line dude Mike Markuson, who came pretty highly regarded. How's that workin' out? Not good: Markuson got fired Monday and was replaced by a graduate assistant who has never actually worked on a coaching staff. Yeesh. Danny O'Brien has been about as expected -- by which I mean he's been OK -- but he isn't Russell Wilson, and even if he were, there's a huge situational/playcalling difference when most of the first-down plays are going for three yards instead of six or seven. I still think Wisconsin is the best (eligible) team in the division, but that says more about the division than it does about Wisconsin at this point.

UCLA haz quarterback? UCLA haz quarterback. I know. Brett Hundley absolutely torched Nebraska for 305 yards and four touchdowns to go along with 53 rushing yards, and while it's entirely possible that Nebraska's defense isn't good, it's also entirely possible that Hundley is good. The guy was a big-time recruit who's completing close to 70 percent of his passes with six touchdowns and one pick and averaging about 10 yards a carry (although that's skewed by a 71-yard touchdown last week). More importantly, UCLA is, like, scoring points; their 49 and 36 points are more than they scored against any non-Colorado team on the schedule last year with Kevin Prince and Richard Brehaut being meh. Having a quarterback has done a lot of things, most noticeably opening up some stuff for Johnathan Franklin, who's averaging an absurd 215 yards a game right now. The numbers obviously aren't gonna hold up for long but are at least indicative of something other than incompetence. That's progress. As for Nebraska, Taylor Martinez's newfound OMG NFL-ness lasted all of one week; he went 17 for 31 for 5.8 yards per attempt with no touchdowns and a pick against a not-that-good UCLA defense. Paging Rex Burkhead.

Was that worse than losing to Ohio? The good news: Penn State probably deserved to win Saturday and therefore might not be that bad. The bad news: Penn State did not win Saturday. Matt McGloin was fine and the defense was better than fine; everything was fine, really, except a kicking game that was a complete and utter disaster. Sophomore walk-on Sam Ficken had an extra-point attempt blocked in what turned out to be a one-point loss and went 1 for 5 on field-goal attempts, including a 42-yarder from the middle of the field on the last play of the game that went wide left by a good 10 yards. Fun fact: Last year's kicker, Anthony Fera, went 14 for 17 on field-goal attempts. He's now at Texas. NCAA 1, Penn State 0. It should be noted that Virginia put together an 88-yard touchdown drive in the final minutes that included four third-down conversions, one of which was on a third-and-16 and one of which was for a touchdown on third-and-goal from the 6. That is some clutch offense from a team that previously had 209 total yards and some whatever-is-the-opposite-of-clutch defense from a team that will desperately need clutch everything to be anything other than really bad this year. Penn State's next two games are against Navy and Temple; after that, they probably won't be favored again until the next-to-last game of the year against Indiana.

The Big Ten is awful: The only unbeaten bowl-eligible team in the Leaders Division: Indiana. Gah. Wisconsin isn't very good, Purdue isn't any better, Iowa has lost to Iowa State (a week after holding on to beat Northern Illinois), Nebraska has gotten lit up by UCLA and Southern Miss and Illinois has gotten totally pwned by ASU. Michigan State and/or Michigan might be good pending some development and some more meaningful data points; same with Ohio State, although it's irrelevant thanks to CheatyPants McSweatervest. Upshot: I'll take USC/Oregon to cover in the Rose Bowl.

LSU is still LSU: The LSU-Washington game wasn't a game so much as it was a trucking; LSU had 242 rushing yards, allowed 36 rushing yards and led 14-3 after four possessions, at which point the game was over because it was obvious that Washington had zero chance of scoring multiple touchdowns. The competitive portion of the game featured six Washington first downs (!) and one U-Dub drive that got past past midfield (and that was only nominally past midfield since the LSU 45 is basically midfield). More evidence to add to the "LSU and Bama are that much better than everybody else" pile: Washington is an above-average team with a pretty good quarterback and lost by 38 because of a physical discrepancy that made Michigan-Alabama look competitive. Prepare for The Gary Danielson Hyperbolic Game of the Century Part III (and maybe The Gary Danielson Hyperbolic Game of the Century Part IV).

That's an interesting quarterback thingy: Tommy Rees wwwhheeeee! The Notre Dame offense was relatively uninspiring Saturday until it had to be something other than uninspiring with two minutes left, at which point Brian Kelly decided that he trusted Rees more than he trusted Everett Golson; the NBC guys were saying throughout the final drive that Kelly said he'd probably go to Rees as his "closer" in a hypothetical situation in which the quarterback actually had to win the game. Credit Rees with a save, I guess. I'm not sure why he'd be a preferable option in that scenario but NOT the first 58-ish minutes, but whatever. Kelly does what he wants. As for the Michigan State game, Kelly said Monday that "there is no quarterback controversy," so it's apparently Golson's job unless it isn't. BTW, the Notre Dame rushing game that was awesomely awesome against Navy was probably a mirage; ND had 67 yards (with sacks excised) on 2.09 yards a carry against Purdue, a team that finished 82nd in the country in rushing yards allowed last year and just lost its best linebacker two weeks ago. I'm skeptical that the offense is gonna be able to produce consistently against the better teams on the schedule, which is just about all of them the rest of the way.

Savannah State really is that bad: That 70-point line might have been insufficient: Florida State led 28-0 barely seven minutes into the game. It was 35-0 when Savannah State got its first first down, and it was 48-0 by the middle of the second quarter, by which point FSU's backups had already been in for two possessions. They could've won by 100 if they wanted to; they won by 55 because the game got called for rain/lightning midway through the third quarter. And since you're wondering, all bets were refunded since the game didn't go 55 minutes (that's the minimum to be considered an official game in Vegas). That's pretty much the only interesting takeaway from Florida State's first two games, both of which were meaningless exhibitions that will have no bearing on the next 10.

Georgia by 20? Georgia by 20. To be fair, Mizzou was winning by eight in the third quarter and only trailed by four going into the fourth. Still, Georgia by 20 (21, to be specific). Aaron Murray is REALLY good, BTW; he was largely responsible for all of Georgia's 32 second-half points and ended up going 22 for 35 for 242 yards with three touchdowns despite having very little at receiver and going against a pretty good defense. Speaking of which, Missouri will be fine. Speaking of which ...

Tweet of the Week: This is from Georgia fullback Dustin Royston:

Ask and you shall receive, Mizzou. #respectyourelders
— Dustin Royston (@DustinRoyston42) September 9, 2012

Well played.

Colorado is so awful: This year's version of Colorado might be even worse than last year's, which I didn't think was possible until I realized Saturday night that Colorado had just lost to Sacramento State. A little context: Sacramento State is an FCS team that lost by 30 last week to New Mexico State. I can't possibly overstate how awful Sacramento State has to be to lose to New Mexico State by 30, which means I don't even have words to accurately describe the craptacularity of an FBS team that loses to that team. There is a legitimate possibility that Colorado goes winless this year.

Related Postgame Moment of the Week: This came from Sacramento State's official Twitter feed after the aforementioned Colorado game, which ended with kicker Edgar Castaneda hitting his third field goal of the night as time expired:

Walk-on kick Edgar Castaneda, who hit the game-winning FG, isn't a walk-on anymore! Coach Sperbeck game him a scholarship after the game!
— Hornet Athletics (@hornetsports) September 8, 2012

Good stuff.

Didn't Miami used to be good? I vaguely recall Miami being Miami and not the Miami that loses to Kansas State by 40 while getting outgained by 250 yards and being incapable of scoring a meaningful-part-of-the-game touchdown. I thought Miami might be pretty decent this year since last year's six losses were all by a touchdown or less; apparently not. Another 6-6-ish season beckons.

Worst Trick Play of the Week/Ever: I ... uhh .. I dunno.


That's a 19-yard loss on third-and-goal from the 1. I have nothing to add here.

Weird Line of the Week: Matt Barkley put up the following numbers against Syracuse: 23 for 30 (good) for 187 yards (a pretty mediocre 8.1 yards per completion) and six touchdowns. Yeah: six touchdowns. I guess it's not that weird considering that USC went off for 258 rushing yards (a lot of which came on a couple end arounds to Robert Woods and Marqise Lee) and Lee ran a punt back deep into Syracuse territory, which necessarily limited the distances needed on some of those touchdown passes, but man ... 187 yards and six touchdowns? That's, like, efficient.

Auburn's offense is a mess: For serious. Auburn finished with 216 total yards, averaged 3.5 yards a play, went 2 for 12 on third-down attempts and scored a total of three offensive points against Mississippi State; it wouldn't have been even remotely competitive if not for Onterio McCalebb's 100-yard kickoff return for a touchdown to open the second half, a touchdown that turned out to be purely cosmetic since Mississippi State won by 18. Kiehl Frazier looks like he might be good eventually but just isn't right now: He went 13 for 22 with no touchdowns and three picks and rushed for 22 yards on 11 carries. That's ... uhh ... not good. And the McCalebb/Mike Blakely/Tre Mason combo wasn't a whole lot better: The three of them collectively had 27 carries for 71 yards. There were obviously going to be some offense-related issues in the short term given Gus Malzahn's system/personnel preferences and Scot Loeffler's polar-opposite system/personnel preferences; the extent of those issues is the somewhat-surprising thing. It's kinda hard to envision a team that can't crack the top 80 in rushing yards or passing yards or scoring or basically anything else on offense being good enough against an SEC schedule to get to .500 and into the Whatever Bowl, which means Gene Chizik is probably a crappy 2013 season away from getting fired. SEC, baby.

Catch of the Week: I saw this one live and immediately closed the voting.


IMO, the holding-on-while-getting murdered part was more impressive than the one-handed-grab part.

Ridiculous Stat of the Week: Denard Robinson had 101 percent of Michigan's total yards Saturday. No joke. Denard's yardage: 426. Michigan's yardage: 422. Ermagerddddd.

Post-Week 2 top 10: This is gonna be pretty similar to last week's top 10 since the top two (and then the next two after that) are about eleventeen miles in front of everybody else and the remaining seven have almost no relevant data points to differentiate them. I'm moving Georgia up a couple spots based on the road win over Mizzou and dropping Arkansas (O RLY). Beyond that, I have no idea what to do; any of about 10 equally mediocre teams would be justifiable at No. 10. Whatever.

1. Alabama
2. LSU
3. USC
4. Oregon
5. West Virginia
6. Georgia
7. Florida State
8. Oklahoma
9. Michigan State
10. Clemson (???)

The end for Jordan Wynn

Utah quarterback Jordan Wynn is no longer a Utah quarterback:

Utah starting quarterback Jordan Wynn, whose career has been plagued by injuries, is giving up football and will not play again for the Utes, coach Kyle Whittingham said Monday.

In Friday's loss at Utah State, Wynn left in the first half after injuring his left non-throwing shoulder. Last season, he suffered a season-ending injury after four games to the same shoulder.

Also, in 2010, Wynn also suffered thumb and shoulder injuries.

Wow. Utah had released an injury update earlier Monday that included the word "indefinite," which sounded pretty bad but probably wasn't expected to be "forever."

When not hurt, Wynn was pretty good: He started the latter half of his freshman year in '09 and stayed in the "pretty good" range basically whenever he was on the field, which wasn't very often. His career numbers: 60 percent passing for 7.4 yards per attempt with 33 touchdowns and 17 picks in three half-seasons (plus a game and a half this year). Can't help but feel bad for the guy; can't blame him, either, seeing as how his shoulder apparently can't stay together any better than Mark Prior's. There's an alternate universe where Wynn is taking Utah to nine-win seasons and Holiday Bowls and whatnot and going into next year (when he'd have been a redshirt senior) as the second-team All-Pac-12 quarterback.

As for Utah, last year's team went 6-3 after Wynn went down but was an offensive crater in those three losses, putting up 14 points against ASU, 10 against Cal and 14 against Colorado en route to finishing a pathetic 109th nationally in total offense. It should be noted that Jon Hays was awful in the former two games but OK in the latter one; he definitely got better as the year went on, although he was pretty bad the other night (12 for 26 with a touchdown late) and ended up sharing snaps with freshman Travis Wilson. Hays (a senior who was a juco transfer last year) and Wilson are now listed as co-starters.

Utah was getting a lot of probably unreasonable preseason hype that's definitely unreasonable now that (a) the quarterback play has gone from "pretty good" to "mediocre enough to lose to  Utah State" and (b) the other previously mediocre teams in the division/conference are slightly less mediocre now that they have offenses. It's pretty hard to see Utah doing a whole lot against a schedule that still includes BYU, ASU (in Tempe), USC, UCLA (in Los Angeles), Washington (in Seattle) and Arizona unless John White becomes LaDainian Tomlinson circa 2000, which seems unlikely.

Too bad. Wynn probably deserved a better fate, and Utah wasn't gonna win anything this year (other than maybe the Best Team In The South Other Than USC Award) but might have been relevant next year with a good fifth-year senior at quarterback. Alas.

Yeah, that was horrifying

When I was a student at Michigan in '06, I had seats slightly outside the normal student section (I'm not sure why) and toward the center of the north end zone. I saw a lot of awesome stuff that year since Michigan went 7-0 at home. I also saw one inexplicably horrifying thing: Ball State (this was the year before Ball State was actually good) driving toward me in the latter half of the fourth quarter and getting inside the Michigan 10 with a chance to tie. Wha? I know.

There was no particularly good reason for that -- Michigan was a legitimately great team and Ball State was an above-average MAC team that got outgained by a 2:1 ratio and gave up about 350 rushing yards that day -- and the lack of reason basically allowed me to write it off as something irrelevant that had no bearing on my judgment of Michigan, which had already been established by nine weeks of crushing fools. It was a blip. Whatev.

What I saw Saturday was probably not a blip; it was a potentially pretty good team having its infuriatingly obvious weaknesses exploited by a service academy team with something like five returning starters that will probably end up about 8-5.

I wasn't sure exactly what the Bama game meant since it still seems legitimately plausible that Bama is just that much better than everybody other than LSU and USC. But I'm pretty sure what the Bama and Air Force games mean cumulatively: Michigan is a good-ish team right now that's not even in the general vicinity of great because of the aforementioned weaknesses.

To be specific, those weaknesses are (a) a front seven that just got physically, mentally and everything-else-ally dominated by a bunch of 260-pound aerospace engineers and (b) an offensive line that seems like it should be very good based on past performance but can't really create anything other than what Denard creates by being Denard. See this ...


... and this:


And a gratuitous picture of Denard outrunning 11 guys while missing a shoe (courtesy of MGoBlog's Eric Upchurch):

Wwwwhheeeeee!!! A team with that and a massive size/talent advantage just about everywhere else shouldn't need two fourth-down stops in the last five minutes* to beat Air Force by six. Michigan obviously did; again, the weaknesses.

I'm not gonna go crazy about the O-line since Denard ran for 210 yards at 10.8 a pop (that number would be around five even without the two long runs). I need a little more film review to figure out why Fitz Toussaint went for all of eight yards on seven carries (?), but it appeared live as if Air Force was selling out hard on any sort of run action ... which probably contributed to Denard going for 208 passing yards (at 8.3 per attempt) and two touchdowns along with a couple other "oh hey look there's a receiver and no defenders in the picture" plays. More data needed.

I am gonna go crazy about the D-line, though, because ... I mean ... yikes. Air Force averaged 4.1 yards per carry (which isn't that bad defensively), racked up 417 total yards and went a ridiculous 14 of 25 on third- and fourth-down plays (fake field goal excluded). It was infuriating/horrifying/pick an anger-based adjective. The stuff that happened against Bama apparently wasn't a fluke or just O-line awesomeness; it was indicative of a problem (quite possibly more than one) that was exploited again by Air Force and will be exploited again going forward without some not-insignificant development and/or adjustments: That problem: The interior of the line can't hold up and the linebackers either can't or won't fill (and thus account for the interior gaps) with any competency.

The aforementioned development and/or adjustments might actually be happening already: By the fourth quarter, a large majority of the nominal front-seven starters were on the bench, having been replaced by guys who ended up producing the two stops at the end of the game that allowed me to breathe a four-hour-long sigh of relief. Hypothetical starters Will Campbell and Kenny Demens both got yanked at some point in the third quarter in favor of true freshmen Ondre Pipkins and Joe Bolden, and Frank Clark (at defensive end) and true freshman James Ross (at weakside linebacker) both played the majority of the last few Air Force drives. Their noob-ness might be problematic but is probably preferable to complete ineffectiveness, which is what Michigan got for the first seven and a half quarters of the season.

It's clear now that Campbell just isn't gonna be good regardless of how many stars he had next to his name four years ago or how much the coaches wanna talk about his work ethic and leadership and whatnot. Whether there's anyone better right now is far less clear, but I won't be surprised if the front-seven depth chart for the upcoming UMass game looks little like the depth chart for the Air Force game; getting those young guys some snaps (albeit meaningless ones against a UMass team that just lost to Indiana by 40) would be beneficial with Notre Dame next on the schedule. Anything other than meaningful progress among that group will probably put Michigan's ceiling somewhere lower than I expected before the year since getting dominated on the ground (which is definitely possible against at least four of the team's on Michigan's schedule this year) is something other than a recipe for success.

Also not a recipe for success: doing nonsensical things as a coaching staff. I'm torn on riding Denard into the ground** against Air Force; it shouldn't have been necessary but might have been given Toussaint's total ineffectiveness and what Air Force appeared to be doing with its front seven (or eight, more often), so I'm gonna limit the Al Borges-related complaints*** to one this week. Situation: It's third-and-3 near midfield with Michigan leading by 11 in the second quarter and driving with a chance to totally take control. As noted above, Denard was getting somewhere between five and 79 yards per carry. Playcall: Send everybody deep and have Vincent Smith leak out behind a bunch of guys roughly four feet taller than him. Result: A high checkdown throw that goes off Smith's fingertips and directly to an Air Force linebacker, resulting in probably a 14-point swing and thus a four-point game at halftime rather than a way-more-comfortable 18-point game. I won't blame Borges for the throw or even the decision but will blame him for creating that scenario in the first place.

Speaking of which, the clock management at the end of the half was so awful. Michigan ran five plays (all passes for a total of 34 yards) in the last 1:20 and ran out of time at the Air Force 47, eating two timeouts in the process, either one of which might have been sufficient to get one more play off and set up a field goal that would've been super awesome to have at the end of a six-point game.

Tweet of the week:

@Wolverine60614 Can we get Hoke a 13 year old who plays a lot of Madden to help him manage his timeouts?

I was also borderline stabby after Denard threw what was called a completion to Devin Gardner on third-and-6 with under three minutes left on a drive that could/should have ended the game. It was a low throw that looked pretty tenuous based on Gardner's reaction; the obvious thing would have been to run a play ASAP, eliminating any chance of a review.

Instead, Michigan got up to the line and then stood there for about 15 seconds killing clock before the whistle blew. You know the rest: call gets overturned, clock stops anyway, Air Force gets the ball, I go looking for a clean pair of shorts. Killing an extra 20-30 seconds there isn't worth it when running a play immediately means an extra set of downs, which in turn means that the game is probably over anyway.

RABBLE RABBLE HOKE RABBLE. I award him one ZookPoint, which brings him to one career ZookPoint.

That said, the RABBLE is a lot less RABBLY seeing as how, ya know, Michigan won and therefore did not lose. See: Arkansas, Wisconsin, etc. Winning in infuriating/horrifying/insert-anger-based-adjective fashion >>>>>>>>>> losing in any fashion. This is not debatable.

There was a time (2002, to be specific) when beating a meh Mountain West team in a way that made Michigan look like a slightly-better-than-meh Mountain West team would've produced several days of the aforementioned RABBLE and cynicism and negativity and an only-in-my-head impossibility that Michigan could possibly be anything other than the crappy, barely winning Michigan of the most recent Saturday. Perspective FTW. Some combination of The Horror and the RichRod era and (maybe) just not being 20 anymore has manifested in me an appreciation for games that end with Michigan having any number of points that's larger by any amount than the other team's number of points. My expectations can be adjusted accordingly without launching firebradyhoke.com.

There's also something to be said for the exponential improvement I witnessed last year, when Michigan went from the 2010 version of Michigan to Michigan. Brady Hoke + Greg Mattison + a crapload of big-time freshmen = the possibility of legit improvement in the front seven, and legit improvement in the front seven would probably be sufficient to revert my expectations to their original level. The Air Force game =/= the season as a whole (unless it does).

I have no idea if said legit improvement will actually happen; I do know that it kinda needs to happen since the alternative is probably 7-5 and a lot of uncomfortable wins like the one I watched Saturday. Going back to what I said above, those uncomfortable wins are fine as long as they're, ya know, wins. Beating Air Force by six isn't the worst thing ever; getting trucked by every quality team on the schedule kinda would be (even if my expectations have already been lowered incrementally and watching Denard be Denard is awesome in and of itself). Let's not do that plzkthx.

*It's probably worth mentioning that the really good 2010 version of Oklahoma -- the one that went to the Fiesta Bowl and obliterated UConn in a stupidly stupid mismatch -- played Air Force in September that year and did almost exactly what Michigan just did, needing an end-of-the-game stop to survive 27-24. Excerpt from the game-story lede: "The Falcons, the nation’s top rushing team, piled up 351 yards on the ground and scored 14 unanswered fourth-quarter points in a comeback bid that fell short." Familiar, yes? I guess I should acknowledge the possibility that playing a triple-option team that'll undoubtedly finish in the top three in the country in rushing yards might not have been much more meaningful than playing Alabama. Still, I saw what I saw on the D-line, and it wasn't good.

**Especially after the Alabama game, which makes even less sense now that Borges has either remembered or reminded everybody that Denard getting a large majority of the carries is almost always preferable to anybody else (or any other assortment of guys) getting a large majority of the carries.

***I'm also pretty intrigued by the discovery/implementation of Devin Funchess, a freshman who's a receiver in a tight end's body and might turn out to be this year's Junior Hemingway (the designated guy Denard can throw ridiculous jumpballs to who will just go up and take them away from dudes since he's like 6-foot-5 and has an NBA-level vertical). I don't think Michigan's ever had a guy like that at tight end; he'll be useful.

Catching up annexes Gainesville

An unfortunate ending for Brandon Jenkins: Some not-so-good news for Florida State:

Florida State defensive end Brandon Jenkins will miss the entirety of the 2012 season with a Lisfranc injury to his left foot.

Jenkins left Saturday's game in the first half after a teammate stepped on his left foot. Trainers worked with Jenkins on the sideline, and he was able to walk to the locker room under his own power.

Ouch. Jenkins is/was one of the two or three best defensive ends in the country; he was a preseason All-Everything according to everybody after putting up eight sacks as a junior and 13.5 as a sophomore. He's legit. He's also probably done with his college career since he's a senior this year and would've been a first-round pick last year if he'd have bailed early.

That said, the hit to Florida State's defense will be less severe than it would be for almost anybody else's defense just because of FSU's absurd depth at defensive end. Bjoern Werner also was a preseason All-ACC dude (he had seven sacks last year) and had a ridiculous four sacks (!!!) in the opener, and former juco transfer Tank Carradine will take over Jenkins' starting spot after putting up 5.5 sacks in not-insignificant playing time last year. So Jimbo Fisher's comment the other day ...

"Tank's not really a third defensive end. They're 1A, 1B and 1C."

... wasn't entirely coachspeak. BTW, there's also Mario Edwards, ESPN's No. 1 overall recruit last year who didn't play against Murray State but could have his redshirt pulled off if necessary. Depth (especially five-stars-everywhere depth) is fun.

Upshot: Florida State probably won't lose a game specifically because of Jenkins' injury; they'll lose a game because of a lack of consistent productivity on offense (pending James Wilder Jr. becoming unstoppable) against the non-Murray States of the world.

Maybe Taylor Martinez can really throw now (lol): Rex Burkhead has a knee sprain of debatable severity that might keep him out for a few weeks or might keep him out not at all. The former sounds more likely given comments such as this from likely replacement Ameer Abdullah ...

Hopefully he has a speedy recovery," Abdullah said. "You never want to see someone like that go down. I've got to make the most of it. I've got to run the ball for my team. I'm probably going to be the anchor on Saturday, so I've got to step up."

... and this from Bo Pelini:

"You're thinking about the season and, obviously, not only the future of the team but Rex's future."

So yeah: Abdullah is probably the main guy for the next couple weeks. He's fast and a pretty excellent kick returner but isn't big; he's kinda the anti-Burkhead. The alternatives are former big-time recruit Braylon Heard, who's somewhat similar to Abdullah in terms of running style/ability, and 225-pound freshman Imani Cross.

As for relevance, Nebraska plays at UCLA this week, which might actually be an interesting game since UCLA appears to be offensively competent with Brett Hundley running the show. If Nebraska can get past that one, though, Burkhead will have some time to heal: The next couple games are against Arkansas State and Idaho State, so he won't really be needed til Wisconsin comes to Lincon on September 29.

Calling experienced receivers to Aisle Blacksburg: Virginia Tech wideout Danny Coles is done for the year:

D.J. Coles will miss the rest of the season with a knee injury, the school announced Thursday. Coles hurt his right knee in the first quarter in an overtime win over Georgia Tech on Monday night and did not return to the game.

Coles will be eligible to apply for a medical hardship waiver for an additional year of eligibility. He has not redshirted, so if the waiver is granted, he will be able to return for a fifth season in 2013.

First things first: Coles was one of Va. Tech's three returning receivers with any meaningful experience (albeit not starting experience), the others being Marcus Davis and Dyrell Roberts. Coles and Davis each had about 30 catches for 500 yards last year as the third/fourth guys on the field behind the since-graduated Jarrett Boykin and Danny Coale, whereas Roberts averaged about 20 catches a year for his first three seasons before missing all but the first game last year with a broken arm. With Coles out, the guess here is that Va. Tech just goes with more two-receiver sets since the two guys at the top of the depth chart represent minimal drop-off. The options for a third guy: redshirt freshman Demitri Knowles, whose first career catch the other night was for a 42-yard touchdown, and former Kansas transfer Corey Fuller, who had five catches for 82 yards in the opener and would seem to be the likely starter on the outside in three-wide sets.

Secondly, I'm not sure the above note about Coles needing a medical waiver is correct. My understanding is that a player who hasn't taken a redshirt can just take one if needed, medical or otherwise, although Coles might not be able to do so since he appeared in a game rather than just sitting out the entire year. Regardless, he should be back next season, and his loss this year won't be devastating since Va. Tech has basically already clinched the division title.

An intriguing assessment: This is Missouri defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson's totally reasonable response when asked about playing Georgia this week:

“It's old-man football. (Georgia) has got a Heisman candidate at quarterback. OK. So we're going to get some and do what we're supposed to do. We create our own pressure. That's it, man. Don’t nobody put pressure on us. We come out there for every game. We do what we're supposed to do. If we execute, nobody in this league can touch us. Period.”

Uhh ... dude. DUDE. You went 8-5 last year. You lost to Arizona State, got obliterated at home by Oklahoma State and beat Miami (the one in Ohio) by 11. Y U CRAZY?

Georgia by 20? Maybe. Alabama by 30? Definitely.

Speaking of which: Somebody associated with Texas A&M has a bunch of money and likes to use said money to put up super-obnoxious and houty-touty billboards:

As for the former claim, Vanderbilt would like a word. As for the latter ... ummm ... right. Vanderbilt would like another word.

It's early: I would just like to point out that Boise State, Michigan, Houston, Hawaii and Washington State are among the bottom 20 in the country in scoring offense. I'm guessing that won't last.

On a related note: Florida State opened with Murray State and next plays Savannah State, which lost 84-0 to Oklahoma State last week. Legitimate question: Why? Isn't one FCS sacrificial lamb sufficient? Ughghgh rabble rabble real games rabble. BTW, the one sports book that actually lists FBS-against-FCS lines has Florida State as a 70.5-point favorite (!!!!!), which is allegedly the largest line in the history of ever. Great googly moogly.

Of course: Washington is contractually mandated to play at LSU this Saturday. Obvious preparatory strategy: Bring a live tiger to practice. Seriously.

I was gonna make a witty remark here but got don't have to since Mike Leach is awesome:

"I think it would be impressive if they let that tiger out of the cage," Leach said. He had another idea though. "The other thing they could have done was they could have stuck a husky in there with that tiger and let that husky outduel that tiger inside that cage, and that would send a message to everybody."

Mike Leach is awesome.

Read this thing: Penn State will probably be terrible this year (and next year and the year after) but also will be pretty interesting, which makes this following-the-coaches-around thing from ESPN worth a read. BTW, it's always a good idea to give the media tons of access ... right? RIGHT?

NO WAY: I am shocked and appalled:

The University of Oregon is implementing random drug testing of all its athletes following a media report earlier this year that estimated from 40 to 60 percent of the football team smoked marijuana.

Oregon's previous drug policy allowed for testing when there was reasonable suspicion. A recent decision by the general counsel gives temporary permission for random testing effective this month.

I have nothing to add here.

Kentucky football in one glorious gif

This is too amazing in too many ways to get buried somewhere; it needs to be displayed adequately and saved for posterity's sake forever and ever and ever. I can't even properly introduce it. I mean ...

... wow. There is so much going on here. The definitely-not-missable guy in the middle is just the main course; there's a very-last-frame EPIC HORROR face on the woman getting crushed by said middle guy, a hilarious high-five derp toward the bottom center, an even worse high-five derp at the very bottom right, a random arm on the right side that gets left hangin' and two other dudes with arms/hands extended but seemingly no idea how to continue with this celebration-type thing ensuing around them. I could go on, but why?

I am waiving the standard waiting period and inducting this into the gif Hall of Fame posthaste. There is so much greatness here (which makes it pretty much the exact opposite of Kentucky football).

Speaking of which, why are you even reading this? Get back to the gif.

Week 1: The games I didn't bother DVR-ing

Holy Lord: Alabama. That is all.

Boise won't go unbeaten (or score points against legit defenses): I know it was Joe Southwick's first actual game and it was in East Lansing and yadda yadda yadda, but man ... Boise had two drives that went anywhere, and one of those ended with a goal-line pick. Of their 13 points, 10 came directly off mind-blowingly awful interceptions by Michigan State's Andrew Maxwell, who was actually worse than Southwick but got a win because (a) Boise's offense was totally and completely nonexistent and (b) Sparty figured out that giving LeVeon Bell the ball 100 times (roughly) would produce a lot of yards and probably enough points. I was a little surprised when the preseason polls came out and Boise was ranked 24th; that makes more sense now that the personnel losses on offense have manifested themselves. If there's any good news it's that there's nobody left on the schedule comparable to Michigan State defensively. Boise's offense might be nothing close to last year's yet still be good enough to run the table in the Mountain West. As for Michigan State, I'm not sure a win could've been much less impressive given that it was at home and against a team that didn't get to 200 total yards until the final seconds. Bell looked pretty good, obviously, and the defense had a lot to do with the aforementioned Boise crapitude, but Maxwell and the receivers were very meh. I have no idea what to think about the top half of the Big Ten.

Oklahoma might still have some issues: I watched significant portions of the game against UTEP and saw basically the decent-but-far-from-great version of Oklahoma that existed for most of the second half of last year. The same compound modifier would apply to any team leading UTEP 10-7 after three quarters and needing a couple late touchdowns to put it away. I don't understand what happened to the offense in general and Landry Jones specifically. Was Ryan Broyles that important? BTW, Jones went 22 for 36 for 222 yards and two touchdowns; those are respectable numbers but not the 400 yards and four touchdowns the guy was putting up regularly until halfway through last season. I dunno. What I do know is that Oklahoma's offense is gonna have to be better for that 11-1 prediction to work out since most opposing quarterbacks aren't gonna go 6 for 23 (!) for 39 yards (!!!) like Tennessee transfer Nick Lamaison did for UTEP.

Wisconsin WTF? I don't know, man. Wisconsin looked like Wisconsin when I was watching and was up 20-0 midway through the third quarter. Montee Ball was fine (120 yards and a touchdown, albeit on 32 carries). Danny O'Brien was better than fine (19 for 23 with two touchdowns and no picks). The defense was fine (for about the first 50 minutes). The fourth quarter wasn't fine: Northern Iowa just sorta hung around by forcing a bunch of field goals, got a bomb for a touchdown, got another bomb for a touchdown and was all of a sudden back within five with the ball in Wisconsin territory with three minutes left; a batted-down fourth-and-1 pass ended up being the difference between Northern Iowa having a legit shot to win and Wisconsin running out the clock. I can't really point to anything other than the Wisconsin secondary since Some Quarterback put up 265 yards with three touchdowns and no picks, but ... I mean ... Northern Iowa? Again: I have no idea what to think about the top half of the Big Ten.

Oklahoma State 84-0 ridiculousness: The score would probably be sufficient here but will be backed up by some similarly amusing numbers: Oklahoma State had nine rushing touchdowns, two players with three rushing touchdowns each (neither one of whom was Joseph Randle) and 682 total yards, with only 121 of those belong to starting quarterback Wes Lunt, who went 11 for 11 and was done before the end of the first quarter since it was 35-0 about 12 minutes into the game. It was not a game as much as a behind-the-woodshed whoopin' of epic and laughable proportions. BTW, I'm calling 1,000 total yards next week between Oklahoma State and Arizona. As for Savannah State, things will definitely get way easier next week against Florida State. Yeesh. Sacrificial lambs, they are.

Penn State's badness will be badder than expected: Getting outgained by 150 yards and outscored by 10 points at home by Ohio goes beyond "pretty bad" and into the realm of "awful." Maybe that shouldn't be surprising with a converted wideout starting at running back and the actual wideouts being guys with zero experience and the quarterback being Matt McGloin, but yikes. Barring significant improvement at basically everything, I'm having a hard time envisioning the tire fire of a team I watched Saturday beating anybody on the schedule other than maybe Navy, Temple and/or Indiana. That's three wins; that's not a lot.

Virginia Tech is still Virginia Tech: I don't even have anything insightful to add here. I watched basically all of the Virginia Tech-Georgia Tech game and could have been watching any Virginia Tech-Georgia Tech game from the past five years, although Logan Thomas is better than any quarterback Va. Tech has had since the Vick family stopped producing really fast kids. Crazy stat: The winner of the Virginia Tech-Georgia Tech game has won the Whatever Division and played for the conference title every single year since the ACC went to its current alignment. Another crazy stat: There had never been an overtime game at Lane Stadium before Monday night. How does that happen?

Oh so Andrew Luck was kinda important? Stanford got outgained and finished +2 in turnover margin and still needed two fourth-down conversions and a fourth-quarter field goal to beat San Jose State (San Jose State!) 20-17 in Palo Alto. Whaaaaa? For reference, Stanford beat San Jose State 59-0 last year. I would be totally confused if Andrew Luck and half of last year's O-line weren't playing in the NFL right now. Josh Nunes went 16 for 26 for a whopping 125 yards (4.8 per attempt) and a touchdown; that's not awful but not good enough to produce many points, especially when the running game is putting up all of 3.8 yards per carry. Given the schedule, I could see Stanford losing four or five games this year.

Notre Dame woo: Obliterating Navy doesn't really mean anything other than this: Notre Dame's big guys are far superior to Navy's big-but-not-as-big guys. That in and of itself doesn't really mean anything either seeing as how Notre Dame beat Navy 56-14 last year in a game in which ND finished with seven rushing touchdowns and allowed only 196 yards on 50 carries. Being able to run the ball with some consistency would help Everett Golson a lot; the question is whether that consistency will continue when the opponent has D-linemen who weigh more than 240 pounds. We'll see. This game was basically the same as last year's game and thus equally meaningless, although it was probably helpful to get Golson a few game reps (in a road-ish setting) that had little to no bearing on the outcome.

Marcus Lattimore yay: Insightful analysis: Marcus Lattimore is still awesome. South Carolina lightened his workload a little bit against Vandy by running a lot of zone read and thus getting Connor Shaw 14 carries, but it was obvious from the 23 carries he did get (for 110 yards) that the guy hasn't lost much from the ACL dealie; he's still the most physically dominant running back I've seen since Adrian Peterson. He's also gonna get a crapload of carries against a couple teams later in the year and will either put up huge numbers on those carries or put up so-so numbers and see South Carolina lose since the passing game is still pretty uninspiring. Remember when the OBC was, like, not Bret Bielema?

Game of the Week: Northwestern 42, Syracuse 41. I wish I'd have seen this one live. ARGH. Northwestern led 35-13 midway through the third quarter, at which point Ryan Nassib went ham; he threw four touchdown passes in a span of less than 15 minutes of game time to put Syracuse ahead 41-35 with 2:40 left. Given the 931 yards of total offense, it probably should not have been a surprise that the lead didn't hold up (although Kain Colter apparently pulled himself in favor of backup Trevor Siemean for the final series). Northwestern drove to the Syracuse 33, got stopped on third-and-15 and then got bailed out by an awful unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty; the next play was a 9-yard touchdown pass to Demetrius Fields that I can't show you because ESPN and YouTube are lame. Game over. BTW, Nassib finished with a respectable line: 44 for 65, 470 yards, four touchdowns.

Player of the Week: Sam Durly, who I had never heard of before Saturday since he plays for D-III Eureka College in Illinois. Numbers: 34 or 52 for 736 yards (!!!) and five touchdowns in a 62-55 win. LOLOLOLOLOL. And In the Guys You Might Be Familiar With category: Geno Smith, who went 32 of 36 for 324 yards with four touchdowns and no interceptions. It's not the yardage volume that's amazing so much as it is the laughable touchdown-to-incompletion ratio against a not-totally-awful Marshall team. On a directly related note, West Virginia has now scored 139 points in its last two games. Yeah.

Catch of the Week: Obviously:


Well played, Vincent Devin Smith.

Nonsensical Score of the Week: Texas State 30, Houston 13. Texas State. The Googles will tell you that Texas State (a) is coached by Dennis Franchione and (b) had never played an FBS game prior to Saturday. Houston went 12-0 in the regular season last year and at one point was ranked in the top 10. Like ... I just ... wow.

Similarly Nonsensical Score of the Week: Youngstown State 31, Pitt 17. Yup. Youngstown State led by either 11 or 14 points for basically the entire second half. It was not close. YSU is a top-10 team in the FCS poll, FWIW, but still ... yeesh. I assume it was somehow Todd Graham's fault.

Tangentially related nonsensical stat: Why did Washington State finish with six points and 224 total yards (including -5 rushing) against BYU? The offense looked awful, which made no sense whatsoever seeing as how Mike Leach is Mike Leach and Marquess Wilson is one of the best receivers in the country and Jeff Tuel is at least average. No comprendo.

Nonsensical Play of the Week: You've seen this at least 37 times. And I bet it hasn't gotten old yet.


BTW, I have no idea how/why any of that stuff happened. I try not to think about it.

They're obviously 7 years old: The unedited version of the why-is-this-being-bleeped-out booth conversation between Brent Musberger and Kirk Herbstreit while Alabama was pwning Michigan:


Tee hee. Brent Musburger is no Lee Corso.

Post-Week 1 top 10: As always, this is a who-would-beat-who guesstimation and therefore not a projection. The top is easy; everything after that is not.

1. Alabama
2. LSU
3. USC
4. Oregon
5. Umm ... West Virginia?
6. Oklahoma
7. Florida State
8. Georgia
9. Arkansas
10. Michigan State (only because I have to pick somebody from a group of about 10 equally uninspiring teams)

In hindsight, the DVR-ing was unnecessary

So that was fun. And by "fun" I obviously mean "the worst thing* ever."

I don't even know whether the worst part was the complete offensive ineptitude, the utter obliteration that was allegedly Michigan's front seven trying to tackle any of Alabama's eleventeen uber-recruit running backs or listening to Brent Musburger fellate Alabama for the last hour while trying to figure out whether Michigan would lose to everybody in the SEC or just everybody other than Ole Miss.

Pick one of the above. If you picked one of the above, punch yourself 100 times. You now look like a Michigan defensive lineman.

This will be relatively brief because ... I mean ... obviously. I actually DVRed the game, and at some point during the second quarter, my wife said to me, "You're recording this?" I responded with something along the lines of, "Yeah, but I could probably stop now since I'll never, ever, ever want to watch this again." I stand by that statement.

Obvious takeaway: Alabama >>> Michigan. There's an alternate universe in which every close play/call goes differently and Michigan is competitive to the point where a win wouldn't seem totally implausible. Unfortunately, this is not that universe. Basically everything** that could go wrong did, and the result was a paddlin':


The thing that's unknowable without any additional context is whether Alabama >>> everybody. Michigan has somewhat of a rebuilt D-line but also has all three linebackers back after finishing sixth in scoring and 17th in yardage last year under one of the undisputed best D-coordinators in the country. This defense will not be bad; it will probably be somewhere between "good" and "very good" pending the development of the rebuilt line. And Alabama's O-line basically did this for 60 minutes:

That gif in numerical form: Minus sacks, Bama averaged almost 6.2 yards a carry. I was gonna post another picture here but can't find any that are accurate since all the ones on Google Images feature a Michigan dude both in the picture and making a tackle.

And the other defense ... yeah. Michigan had two pass plays that (due to one busted coverage and one "derp I fell down" moment) resulted in 115 yards; the other 54 plays resulted in 144 yards, which means the typical play from scrimmage produced about 2.5 yards. And it was actually worse than that since there were eight penalties for 99 yards, meaning Michigan had 160 net yards (not a real stat).

Did I mention that it was 31-0 when Michigan crossed the 50 for the first time? Ughghghghgh. That's an 11-letter groan; it would probably be at least 20 letters if not for the acknowledgment that Alabama might be the equivalent of the Steelers, and by "equivalent" I do mean "equivalent" and not "college equivalent." Good Lord. I don't even know what else to say other than a thankful prayer that I will be nowhere near Gary Danielson at any point in the foreseeable future.

It probably wouldn't have mattered given the defense's general inability to not have the ball shoved down its collective throat, but whatever chance Michigan had to hang in was gone whenever Al Borges drew up a gameplan that involved Denard having two designed runs in the first half. Two!!! No comprendo. I mean, trying to get the linebackers on their heels or whatever makes some sense, but there are things Denard (and Michigan, by proxy) is good at and things Denard is not good at; asking him to do nothing but the latter makes no sense if the intent is to, like, have any chance of winning (especially given a relatively uninspiring group of receivers who didn't get open much save for the two massive plays that produced half of Michigan's total yardage).

BTW, I can't/won't accept the suggestions that (a) Michigan was "saving" him so he didn't get killed or (b) Michigan bypassed the run game entirely because Alabama's defense is/was just too awesome to bother with it. Nay. Denard running against a physically dominant front seven > Denard throwing to mediocre receivers against a really good secondary.

The confidence I gained in Al Borges over the final month of last season (in terms of using Denard in a logical way) was pretty much entirely eliminated in the span of about an hour Saturday night. Useful comparison: Denard had 26 carries (for 170 freakin' yards) against Ohio State last year, most of them of the veer-option variety, and he had 10 carries against Alabama, none of them of the veer-option variety and almost all of them in the third quarter when the game was already totally out of hand. Michigan's first three drives -- when the game was still kinda competitive-ish -- included five designed run plays, and all of them were to Devin Vincent Smith and Thomas Rawls. Y NO DENARD??? I don't even know, man.

I'm just not sure Borges is ever gonna be able to wrap his head around the idea that he has maybe the best runner in the country playing quarterback rather than the idea that he has a quarterback who happens to be one of the best runners in the country. I thought he'd already started to do so based on the Nebraska and Ohio State games last year; apparently not. I'm guessing this will happen again at some point this year and be similarly infuriating, at which point I'll just have to remind myself that Mike DeBord once existed and having a guy who's down with throwing it around via an NFL-style passing game will probably be swell eventually.

That said, I told everybody who would listen that my expectations going in were for a Michigan loss by a touchdown or two (depending on my confidence on that particularly day), so my expectations based on a somewhat-worse-than-expected loss have changed little. Michigan should still be one of the better teams in the Big Ten; Michigan might actually be the best team in the Big Ten, which really says more about the Big Ten than it says about Michigan. Michigan State beat an obviously rebuilding Boise State team at home by a field goal, Wisconsin had to stop a late fourth-down play to beat Northern Iowa (!), Iowa had to rally from 10 down in the fourth quarter to beat Northern Illinois (?) and Nebraska might be better but is still largely the same team Michigan beat by four touchdowns last November. Ohio State could actually win the whole thing oh wait lol yeah. A not-inebriated Al Borges + something resembling resistance on the defensive line = a pretty good team.

Whether those things actually happen (and, if so, when they happen) will basically determine whether "pretty good" means 7-5 with a bunch of losses to similarly pretty good teams or 10-2 with a bunch of wins over similarly pretty good teams.

Brian at MGoBlog wrote this on Friday:

We have a moment to not have those crushing expectations, to look down and think Michigan can't do it but hope they can, hope they can write themselves into lore as champions.

Here between the trough and the peak there will be a moment in which "can't" becomes "did." Maybe tomorrow.  

Maybe tomorrow.

What really sucked about that game wasn't losing or even losing by a lot; it was the sinking-in-way-too-deep realization that Michigan is not very close to being a national-title-caliber program. That crazy-but-maybe-not-that-crazy thought that's always there at the start of the season -- the one that says "maybe this team can win that one game it probably shouldn't win and then win that really tough road game and so on and so forth" -- was gone after 20 freakin' minutes. And it was gone with authoritah. I like it when that thought lasts til October (or, ya know, January).

The right-now version of Michigan is not the right-now version of Alabama or LSU*** or USC or even Oregon. There are deficiencies that will exist until the O-line/D-line two-deep is actually full of scholarship dudes and the coaches don't have to hold a redshirt bonfire because of a lack of non-freshman alternatives on special teams and the like. Fortunately, those things will go away and (based on a recruiting class that's unquestionably one of the best in the country) the talent level will approach that of the teams mentioned above, at which point happy times will be had by all me. Unfortunately, those things are still here now, hence 41-14.

Now let us never speak of it again. There was misery that should not be brought up.

*The Horror notwithstanding. 

**Starting corner Blake Countess blew out his knee (he's done for the year) and All-Everything left tackle Taylor Lewan suffered a leg injury of unknown severity. There's only one way it could have been worse, and that way will go without saying since I'd prefer not to even open up the possibility of manifesting such a horrifying future.

***It's worth pointing out that last year's pretty-dang-awesome version of LSU didn't cross the 50 even once against Bama in the title game and produced nine total points in two games. Again: Alabama might just be >>> everybody at this point.