The Victors
Saturday, 24 November 2012
(№ 4*) Ohio State 26-21 Michigan (№ 20)
8-4, Big Ten 6-2

First, inarticulate frustration: Argh! Der! Grr! Argh! Second, affirmation: Now, as ever & always, it is great to be Michigan Wolverine. Third, the goat: The Devil take Al Borges! (Mr. Borges is the valiant Wolverines' offensive coordinator.) We win & we lose as a team ("The team, the team, the team."), & our purpose here is neither to assign blame nor to engage in emotionally-satisfying-but-ultimately-counterproductive recriminations. But we do ourselves a disservice if we do not seek to identify those faults in preparation or execution that lead to Saturday's ignominious defeat at the hands of the ancient foe. My great fear, & I freely admit that it borders on the irrational, fueled by the trauma of the '08 through '10 seasons, is that Brady Hoke is the reverse Rich Rod—whereas Rodriguez focused on the offense & almost entirely neglected the defense (to our great detriment), I fear that Hoke is focused on the defense to the virtual exclusion of the offense. These last two years, while Rich Rod-recruited defensive players have been transformed into fire-breathing monsters, a buzz saw of a defense that rates well nationally, the offense has displayed a variety of bizarre, doomed-to-fail schemes. Runs up the middle that are terminally delayed, runs to the outside that take so long to develop that geriatric D-linemen would have adequate time to thwart them, & passes behind the line of scrimmage that almost invariably lead to lost yardage. The perfect exemplar of this spotty play-calling was Saturday's fourth-&-three play. We went for it under ridiculously dubious circumstances: fourth-&-three, in our own territory, early in the third quarter, with the score virtually tied. Wait, what? What?! Fourth-&-inches, sure, I could see that, late in the fourth quarter or even in the third if we were desperately far behind, & on their side of the field. But fourth-&-three, there, then? Are you pulling my leg? What brain donor thought that was a good idea? Adding insult to injury, we attempted to gain the three yards—not mere inches, mind you—with a run up the middle, even though we had failed utterly to evince any interior running game up to that point in the game. They stopped us, of course, & we turned the ball over on downs. (A punt, the customary choice when facing a fourth-&-three, would most likely have pinned the hated Buckeyes deep in their own territory.) We were lucky to escape with them having only scored a field goal.

Specific plays aside, the greatest source of the opening, inarticulate frustration was our use of the "platoon" system at quarterback. Playing more than one quarterback, by choice, as more than just an every-once-in-the-while wrinkle? Doom. Doom! DOOM! I adore senior quarterback Denard "Shoelace" Robinson, & I agree that, even compromised by an arm injury that prevents him from throwing the ball, he's too slippery a runner, too dynamic a player to leave on the sidelines. But putting him in at quarterback, with both teams aware that he was unable to throw, for such a substantial number of plays bordered on the insane. Or at least on the inept. Missing our best running back, Fitzgerald Toussaint, Borges & the offensive brain trust (a term I use loosely) decided to insert Shoelace at quarterback, a clearly signal to the Ohio State defense that a running play was in the offing. Why? Shoelace had proved dangerous at running back the previous week, playing in tandem with back-up quarterback Devin Gardner. Why wasn't the same winning combination used more against the hated Buckeyes. Gardner & Shoelace were almost never on the field together. Evaluate this perplexing choice in the light of the early-season decision to play Gardner at wide receiver, to risk injury when he was clearly needed as back-up quarterback. Instead, of the junior Garnder, red shirt freshman Russell Bellomy was designated as second-strong quarterback, a fundamental error in judgment that possibly cost us the game against Nebraska, & with it a likely slot in this coming weekend's Big Ten Championship Game. Why weren't Shoelace & Gardner used as a dangerous duo against Ohio? Why was Gardner risked at wide receiver? Why was Bellomy the designated back-up over the vastly-more-experienced Gardner? As previously mentioned, the Devil take Al Borges!

Alas! For their many sins, the hated Buckeyes' season is over. They will play in neither the Big Ten Championship Game nor a bowl game. They're done 'til spring practices. The valiant Wolverines finish the regular season at 8-4, a hard return to Earth after last season's improbable, glorious 10-2 regular season (11-2 after the Sugar Bowl victory). There is cold comfort in all four losses coming to Top 15 teams: (№ 1) Notre Dame, (№ 2) Alabama, (№ 4) Ohio State, & (№ 14) Nebraska. Cold comfort, because we had every chance in the world to defeat the vile Fighting Irish, the hated Buckeyes, & the unwelcome Cornhuskers, & in all three contests we beat ourselves with stupidity & blundering. (I suppose I'll have to re-evaluate Nebraska's epithet in light of the Big Ten's preposterous decision to admit Maryland & Rutgers, but that's a mater for another day.) Now we await the bowl bids, amid hope that we can end the year a proud 9-4 instead of a disappointing 8-5.

Saturday, 17 November 2012
(№ 23) Michigan 42-17 Iowa
8-3, Big Ten 6-1

It was nice to see the valiant Wolverines, again under the direction of relief quarterback Devin Gardner, kick the snot out of the tenacious Hawkeyes. I don't care how bad an opposing defense is, forty-two points is an impressive offensive output. Your humble narrator was surprised by how long Gardner was kept in the game, especially considering how desperately third-string quarterback Russell Bellomy needs to recover some of the poise & confidence he threw away during our hideous shellacking by Legends Division-championship rivals Nebraska.

Saturday, 10 November 2012
Michigan 38-31 Northwestern* (O.T.)
7-3, Big Ten 5-1

Wow! There is nothing else in sport so thrilling (as distinct from exciting or pleasing) as your club prevailing in a tight, nerve-racking game. One is overwhelmed by a wave of relief once the tension is released; the flip side of this, the depths of misery once that tension is released, but by your side's defeat… well, the less said about that unpleasantness the better. The plucky Wildcats' coach, Pat Fitzgerald, himself a former plucky Wildcat player, is annoying as all get-out, & it does my heart good to see him again thwarted. He's not evil incarnate like that goon in East Lansing, he's just so proud that I love to see him taken down a beg or three. Victory in overtime time; I'll take it!

Go Blue!

007's Golden Jubliee
Thanksgiving was a day of leisure, a day with virtually all of free time spent watching television. Not giving a tinker's damn about the National Football League (A.K.A., the "No Fun League"), I alternated 'twixt T.N.T.'s Castle marathon & Syfy's 007 marathon, seeing parts of Octopussy, License to Kill, GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is Not Enough, & Die Another Day. Ian Fleming's James Bond canon has been extensively culled for the movies over the last fifty years (wow!), with bits & pieces woven here & there into a variety of other adaptations or original screen material. Those bits & pieces sometimes include nothing more than the title: the film Moonraker has naught to do with the novel Moonraker, whilst the film Die Another Day is largely an adaptation of the novel Moonraker. The exquisite short story "From a View to a Kill" is unrelated to the dreary film A View to a Kill, while the film For Your Eyes Only contains story elements from "For Your Eyes Only" & "Risico," plus original screen material. Quantum of Solace has nothing to do with "Quantum of Solace," while a sequence in The Living Daylights is adapted from "The Living Daylights," & so on & so forth. I liked Skyfall, & as the Fleming canon having been, as mentioned, extensively, possibly even exhaustively culled, I have not the slightest objection to new screen stories, especially as I wish very much to see the James Bond film franchise flourish for at least the next twenty-seven years. That said, I do wish they could find a use for the short story titles that have yet to be recycled. They are:

"Risico"
"The Hildebrand Rarity"
"The Property of a Lady"
"007 in New York"

(O.K., you got me. I'd rather there not be a film titled 007 in New York. "The Property of a Lady" has real potential, though, despite the short story's being adapted almost in its entirety in the film Octopussy. Bond 24, The Property of a Lady?)

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
First Aid Kit, "Emmylou" via iTunes, (free) Single of the Week (T.L.A.M.)

*The plucky Wildcats of Northwestern University were (at the time) ranked in some polls—№ 24 in the B.C.S. standings & № 21 in the coaches' poll—but we here at The Secret Base recognize only the Associated Press (A.P.) poll. Pumping up Northwestern, making them seem as fearsome as possible, might be welcomed in some corners of Michigan fandom, but here we strive ever not to be hypocrites, even at the cost of prestige. By the same token, the hated Buckeyes are ranked in the A.P. poll because of their on-field performance, whereas they are not ranked in the B.C.S. due to their well-earned N.C.A.A. post-season ban, a result of their off-field knavery. I include their ranking here not to excuse our defeat, but for the sake of consistency.