The thread titles over at the RCMB today are quite enjoyable. Didn't even need to dive into the posts.

Now let's beat Rutgers.

They seem a bit upset with this Dave Warner fellow

Get Gary/Winovich/etc off the damn field

Can’t cover the spread against our rivals.

Sad!

Don’t have a lot of patience for Tarik Black hopping on twitter to back handedly whine about not getting the ball. The team’s 9-1 without you, either earn your reps or shut the **** up

19 year olds gonna 19 year old I suppose, but man this is bigger than you right now

Yeah that needs to be nipped in the bud. Bad look.

Not too excited about a rewatch but I suppose I’ll throw it on for noise while I do weekend chores.

Terrible angle by Hawkins on the long TD run by Rutgers. Also: Chase Winovich is really fast for a DE, he was gaining ground on the RB.

Meh. I have no clue what he said but I ****ing love this. Just further proof that he's 100% and further proof Ohio State is royally ****ed.

If Michigan is so lucky as to make it to Indy, anyone got an recommendations on where to stay? Group of 4. All like to drink

The Marriott in downtown Indy is pretty nice and a very short walk from Lucas Oil Stadium. Prices will probably be through the roof that weekend though.

Skip St. Elmo’s. Way overpriced and not very good even for Indiana food.

Will probsbly end up using airbnb and Uber to get around. Don't want to pay downtown prices. I think loosekannan is an Indiana native? Anyone got info on neighborhoods to avoid?

Tickets are purchased. Just waiting to pull the trigger in lodging

Lol. The PTSD is strong in this one. Even when it's obvious we're going to Indy unless a giant meteor hits our precious planet, we have to prostrate ourselves and use humble phrases like "If Michigan is so lucky" as if we're gonna upset some mythical evil god(s) out there. Come on bro. Get out of your shell. This is really happening. Soak it in. Bathe in our inexorable march to glory.

Wes. Are you going to Indy to see the game.

I hate traveling to the mailbox let alone Indy.

Speaking of PTSD, I still get nervous as hell when mgoblog goes down. It's like "oh what now, is Harbaugh quitting? Shea hurt? Some other disaster?"

Haha....god if shea somehow got hurt before/during Ohio State...... that would be colorado 94/Ohio St 16 devastation levels. Don't even wanna entertain the thought, but it's hard not to given the runbad/dark ages of this program over the last decade. No question the PTSD affects us all after what we've been through. The fact that Brian has to make up a term for it (BPONE) says everything. THIS TIME IT'S DIFFERENT THO!!

Seriously tho, I just try my best to block those worries out. Instead I focus on worries that are even more trivial! Like if ND & Clemson runs the table and Georgia beats Bama in the SEC championship game we are ****ed. And this nightmare actually has more equity than we think given Bama's shaky injury situation at QB. There's two QBs we desperately need to stay healthy, Shea and Tua.

Bama is a monumental favorite over anyone H2H, but if Clemson, ND, Georgia, and you guys all win out, then Bama has the weakest resume of the 5 despite being a clear #1 in eye test. I legit think you guys could correctly scream injustice. Remember, Bama plays like 3 x FCS teams this year (Hello Citadel this weekend)

Anybody remember the Mike's Hard Lemonade story?:

Source.

Now the question is how the hell is this story relevant to the hypothetical Michigan or Bama scenario? Here's how. It is a well known phenomenon that in certain institutional settings humans will follow rules at the expense of common sense. The Mike's Hard Lemonade story is obviously an extreme example of this dynamic playing out. That's why it made the papers. People arguing that the committee would choose Michigan over Bama are implicitly arguing that this phenomenon will again play out, that the committee will follow some sort of rules at the expense of common sense and therefore choose Michigan.

One can correctly surmise that this is what happened to Ohio State in 2015. Ohio State was the clear best team in the game that year. It was known before the season that this would be their best team in terms of talent of all time. And that's coming off a year in which they dominated Bama and Oregon to win it all. After the season they broke NFL draft records confirming what those who follow the program closely already knew. That team of course lost a fluke sideways rain coin flip game vs MSU with their best player recovering from a fluke potential life threatening staph infection, and the rest is history. Despite the fact that Ohio State was the better team than MSU or Oklahoma, becuz of some arbitrary decision making matrix the latter two got to go to the show instead. Common sense in this regard failed, predictably failed and the winner of the national title that year will always have an asterisk by their name becuz the best team in the game--one of the best teams in college football history--wasn't even invited to defend their title.

Ok, so then the question naturally gets begged: If Ohio State got ****ed over by this "rules vs common sense" dynamic, why won't this happen to Bama too?!?! Here's why summed up in one word: Perception. What Bama has done over the last 10 years, what Bama has done in the playoff era, and what Bama has done this year having a superstar at QB for the first time since the 1960s, has created a perception that this team is one of the greatest if not thee greatest team of all time. And this perception is so strong it has transcended the sport. IOW, Alabama has been dominant for so long that even people who don't watch college football just know they are the best. We'll call this the Michael Jordan effect, I.E. when even your grandma who doesn't watch sports knows he's the best. The Crimson Tide have reached that cultural level. Ohio State 2015 never came close to that level. In fact outside of the midwest, most people probably weren't even aware they were the best team in 2015. To this very day, many serious 2+2 posters still don't know Ohio State was the best team that year. That Ohio State team simply didn't have anything near the social cachet that this Bama team possesses.

Now here's the thing. Yes in certain institutional settings humans have a tendency to follow rules at the expense of common sense but only to a point. Humans aren't completely braindead. The bizarre Mike's Hard Lemonade story is probably at the very end of the spectrum of possibilities. That Ohio State team was a victim of this "rules over common sense" dynamic, but their story isn't even close to the Mike's Hard Lemonade story. Allowing a 1 loss Michigan team to go over a 'goat in everyone's mind' 1 loss Bama team would be the equivalent of that stadium guard putting a bullet between the father's head for buying his son the wrong lemonade. It's too absurd to even contemplate. The perception that this Bama team is historically special is simply too powerful, and furthermore it's a difficult perception to counter because it is correct.

No Michigan fan should scream injustice when Bama gets picked over them should this nightmare hypothetical play out. Anyone who thinks resumes should have anything to do with this is grossly misjudging this situation. Look, I am as die hard a Michigan fan as you can find. I'm 40 years old. I refuse to grow up. If you put me on that committee, even I would choose Bama over Michigan. I simply couldn't live with myself otherwise. I'm not gonna allow the greatest team of all time to be sidelined on my watch no matter how much I love my team. I would pick Bama for the same reason I don't murder people. It's the morally right thing to do. Assuming way more objective committee members, who know Bama is the goat cuz everyone knows, will do otherwise is betraying an embarrassing lack of comprehension of basic human nature. Betting on an even more absurd version of a Mike's Hard Lemonade story to happen isn't a wise look.

Common sense would favor the team higher ranked in the computers nad H2H.

Uh no. Everyone who is paying attention knows that ND is as fake as 2012 and that this is a completely different Michigan team than on 9/1. If Michigan played them again they would crush them. Common sense clearly has Michigan ranked higher but the "rules" (rank the team with the better record higher) favors ND.

Well **** man. I guess the ‘85 Georgetown Hoyas, the 2002 Miami Hurricanes, 2005 USC Trojans, and the 2001-02 St Louis Rams are all the common sense GOATS—so why even play the games?

FPI *does not equal* on field resumes. And that’s OK.

Bama has to lose somehow, but the perfection of the delicious Michigan tears that would cascade if ND were to beat Michigan in the first game of the season *and* the Playoff Final would be so unbelievably transcendent and unable to ever be matched as to make me retire as a sports fan forever. The ILP’s missives about how ND really is the same as Rutgers *this time* would be all the sweeter.

syracuse

No I was talking about Sparty that year but same difference. No one cares about whom was better when they lost the big game.

I can’t tell what’s wrong with the offense. They seem to be blocking ok, Shea is just missing throws?