Wanting it more [Patrick Barron]

PUNT

By Bryan MacKenzie

"Who wants it more."

You hear that from broadcasters and talking heads all the time. And it's usually a dumb trope to try to explain an outcome that was either unexpected or random. Who came out of the pile with the fumble? Obviously, it was the team that wanted it more. Who made the clutch free throws at the end of the game? It was the team that was hungry enough for victory to suddenly become more skilled at a particular task. That's dumb and oversimplified, right? Yep. Very dumb.

Except in Bowl games.

Bowl games are the one place where you can confidently say that, yeah, motivation is probably a huge factor. Bowl games are the only place in competitive sports where teams play an entire season, take more than a month off, and then play what amounts to a glorified exhibition game. Players finally get to dip their toes into a quasi-normal student life, then they've got final exams*, and then they're asked to jump right back into the maw to play one more game.

For obvious reasons, some teams come out, shall we say, less than fire emoji fire emoji fire emoji 100 emoji. Different people treat exhibitions differently, and you never know until kickoff whether your guys are Sean Taylor, or whether they are the poor damn punter who thought this was a game.

We saw this last year. Michigan probably wasn't 34 points better than Florida, but it was pretty clear midway through the Citrus Bowl that the two teams weren't playing the same game. Maybe it was the "Christmas Camp" that was reportedly unusually intense as bowl practices go. Maybe it was the knowledge that the competition for spots in Michigan's 2016 lineup had already begun. Or maybe Harbaugh just scared the living hell out of guys. Who knows. But Michigan showed up for blood. And with Jim Harbaugh being as Jim Harbaugh as any coach in America, I'd bet good money that Michigan does so again today.

And what do we know of Florida State's bowl show-up-ishness? The Seminoles got walloped by Houston last year in the Peach Bowl 38-24 despite being a touchdown favorite. The year before that, they lost the college football playoff semi-final to Oregon 59-20. Of course, the year before that, they won the national championship. So who knows what kinds of conclusions we can draw.

If both teams arrive in force, this should be a really good game, though I'd still favor Michigan. There is no realistic scenario in which Florida State's offensive line holds up against Michigan's defensive line. Deondre Francois has already had a Hackenberg-esque season of picking defenders out of his ribs (FSU has allowed as many sacks this year as Rutgers), and the odds of him being able to stand in against this pass rush are slim. FSU's back seven has been iffy, and will be without one of the best players in the country in Derwin James. And sure. Dalvin Cook is a scary, scary dude, especially if he's healthy, but the kind of effort he would have to put forth to beat this Michigan defense single-handedly would be superhuman.

That's if both teams show up. If only Michigan shows up, this could look a lot like last year's Citrus Bowl.

* [Note: yes, I know that at some schools, this means "it's final exams for the players' tutors and/or trainers." But the good news is that some of those schools don't have to worry about bowl prep. Because they are not bowl-eligible. Because they finished 4-8.]

Michigan 30, FSU 17

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COUNTERPUNT

By Nick RoUMel

It was the best of times, until the second play.

Michigan’s 1991 squad was #3 in the nation and featured Desmond Howard and Elvis Grbac, with Greg Skrepenak anchoring a monstrous O-Line that averaged 294 lbs.

Bobby Bowden’s Florida State squad was #1, and might have been defending national champions if not for a little “wide right” issue the year before against Miami. On this perfect September afternoon, Michigan was favored, and the home crowd was raucous.

It was the worst of times. On the second play, Terrell Buckley stepped in front of Desmond to pick off Elvis’ floater to the south end zone, and the Seminoles never looked back in thrashing the Wolverines, 51-31. At that time (nearly two decades before “The Missing Years” of R-R and B-Ho), it had been the most points ever laid on the home team in Michigan Stadium. It would have been even worse, but Florida State missed five points after touchdowns and lost a fumble at Michigan’s one yard line. (Michigan only gave up 118 points in its other 10 regular season games in’91, combined.)

It was the best of times. 1991 was the first year I had my season tickets. Before the FSU game, my Dad and I watched Michigan beat Notre Dame, with Desmond kickstarting his brilliant Heisman season with a diving TD catch on a fourth-and-one-foot play in the fourth quarter, in the corner in front of me and Dad.

It was the worst of times, the beginning of the Curse of Dino. My then brother-in-law suffered through the Florida State debacle with me, the first of a five-game winless streak for games he attended, broken only when Punt Classic and I performed a full-on exorcism before allowing him to enter the hallowed grounds of the Big House for the 1997 Ohio State game.

It was the best of times. It was the midst of Coach Gary Moeller’s successful five-year stint as Michigan coach, featuring three Big Ten titles, three top ten finishes, and four bowl wins. This run was cut short when Mo was unceremoniously fired for having an argument with his wife in a restaurant. (Just ponder that, Penn State fans.)

It was the worst of times. The Florida State “War Chant”, credited to Rob “Sweat” Hill of FSU’s Theta Chi fraternity in 1983, evolved into the Tomahawk Chop of today that was heard in Ann Arbor, for the first and only time, on that sunny fall day in 1991. (Unfortunately, Michigan fans cannot claim the moral high ground, with their own version of the chop ending in the stunningly crass “you suck!” shout, after the band plays “Temptation” - it’s almost enough to yearn for the halcyon days of marshmallow tossing.)

Twenty five years later, it is the best of times. Michigan is once again a top ten team, two cruel plays away from undefeated, and only kept from the College Football Playoff by a KGB-led conspiracy.

As for prognostications, Punt’s theory is correct. The edge cannot be determined by the players on the field, who are matched evenly enough. Instead it will be won by the team that wants it more, that has something to prove. Will Michigan flip the script from 25 years ago, and prevail in front of what amounts to a boisterous Seminole home crowd? Or will the ironically named JimBo MoLlo Fisher cunningly hand the Wolverines another stunning last-minute defeat?

Florida State is exciting, but flawed, and the metrics favor Michigan. But that hasn’t stopped the 2016 Wolverines from showing its dispirited side, even when it’s mattered most. This game gives me the same heebie-jeebies as when I first heard that war chant in 1991. I fear we cap 2016 with the worst of times.

Whoa, oh, whoa. Whoa, oh, whoa.

FLORIDA STATE 30, MICHIGAN 28