THIS WEEK IN SCHADENFREUDE, the Big Ten’s ref conspiracy against 1 of its 2 biggest programs continues

Michigan gave up a 42 spot and got clobbered at Penn State on Saturday. The Wolverines fell into a tie with Rutgers for fourth place in the Big Ten East as we near the end of October. But it’s fine, because UM can claim undisputed possession of fourth place if it manages to beat the Scarlet Knights next week.

Jim Harbaugh will run his streak of not winning the East to three years out of three since arriving in Ann Arbor. Let’s check in with some Michigan fans.

Someone takes the time to track how frequently message board posters type curse words. The data is fascinating. Excerpts:

The State Of Our Open Threads: After Penn State

First and foremost, the most surprising thing about last night’s data - we didn’t break any season highs. The 560 fucks we gave does not top the MSU game’s 621, but it is good enough for 2nd highest this year. The shits we gave experienced their third second straight week of decline from a high of 233 in the MSU gam to onlt 138 shits in this game.

Not too many fucks or shits. So everyone was cool, right? Wrong. It’s firing season.

The only thing that really took a jump in the upward direction was the talk of firing people, most notably Pep Hamilton, Tim Drevno, the younger Harbaugh and yes, there were a few truly inane people that questioned whether or not Jim himself should have the job. Of course, as there is no plan B and the univesity has made it clear that this talk is a non-starter, we can discount those particular thoughts, we can’t discount their disappointment. We were all definitely disappointed - to the tune of “fire” being 1.61 standard deviations above the season average.

And in general, word-tracking indicates people were furious.

R-squared for “fuck” with respect to all tracked language was 0.93, which is typical of past seasons and shows the slow realignment of our feelings about the season with “fuck”. Interestingly, overall swearing efficiency was only up slight from the Indiana game at 2.07, representing 1,262 tracked instances over 2,613 total posts.

After seven games, the largest portion of our frustration is summarized in these:

“fuck” - 34.78% of all tracked words

”shit - 12.52% of all tracked words

“offense” - 15.87% of all tracked words

“Harbaugh” - 9.94% of all tracked words

“damn” - 6.14% of all tracked words

That’s nearly 80% of all tracked words right there, which amounts to something like “fuck shit offense damn Harbaugh” or something. I am pretty sure someone somewhere said that last night. Pretty sure.

One thread was devoted to being a “repository for your thoughts and hot takes on the offensive performance in our game vs. Penn State.” It’s an ever-flowing open wound of misery directed at Harbaugh and coordinators Drevno and Hamilton:

Burn it to the ground in the off-season. 4th and 11 play action says it all.

That really did happen. Here’s how it went:

I’m glad I wasn’t the only one ready to fling something on that play call. Who the fuck do you think you’re fooling??

Yeah I commented the same in the game thread. What. The. Shit.

That was an lol moment for sure. What a fucking joke.

Fuck everyone. That is all

Worst offensive staff ever.

That’s a play call you might make by accidentally hitting the wrong button in Madden, but not one you’d expect to be made in an actual football game at this level.

Another thread wonders whether Harbaugh’s powers simply don’t work at night:

Night Game W/L

L Utah 17-24

W Minnesota 29-26

W Rutgers 78-0

L Iowa 13-14

L FSU 32-33

L MSU 10-14

L PSU 13-42

Overall record: 2-5

Most of those games were away from Ann Arbor, most of those losses were by single scores, and most of those games were against teams that would finish ranked.

There’s an excellent chance that Penn State or Ohio State will make the Playoff while the Wolverines play in the Outback Bowl, or some such.

A key element of a post-big loss response cycle: the unearthing of a ref conspiracy.

Michigan is consistently getting more penalties than their opponents

[a bunch of penalty totals listed here]

I don’t even remember the last time Michigan’s DL drew a holding penalty. Obviously UM needs to play with more discipline, but there is a fairly consistent pattern emerging. Very hard for me not to believe there isn’t a bias against Harbaugh and Michigan.

The last time Michigan’s defensive line drew a holding penalty was two weeks ago against Michigan State. But I want to encourage this kind of thinking, so I’ll note Brady Hoke’s Michigan teams all finished in the Big Ten’s top three at avoiding penalties, while 2017’s is second-worst.

A similar thought at Michigan’s Scout board: Did the ref conspiracy come down from Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany himself, in a bid to infuriate one of the largest fan bases in the country and one of the two most important schools in his league?

Refs Discriminate Against Harbaugh

Penn st had one penalty tonight. Herbie called out the refs on the obvious intentional grounding. Rashan Gary was tackled from behind multiple times. Almost no holding penalties have been called against opposing o-lines the last couple of years when Michigan has many big time NFL d-lineman. The MSU game and OSU last year were very biased against Michigan.

The best refs we’ve had this year were in the Florida game - non conference. Why is Michigan getting the short end of the stick? Are refs out to show up Harbaugh? Did Delaney give a directive? What are your thoughts?

There are a lot more threads about unfair officiating. Michigan fans alleging a ref conspiracy: not a new thing.

In general, though, there is only sadness.

Since 2004

Since our last Big Ten Title in 2004 ( yes thats right, 13 years ago) Michigan has 62 losses, an average of 4.77 per season.

The first reply:

Omg you’re so insightful.

Fuck off

The Hogs are 2-5 after losing 52-20 at home to Auburn.

This was how Bret Bielema dressed:

ENHANCE.

At Hogville.com, someone posits the question: “What kind of tool bag Coach wears a windbreaker with his initials on it?”

(Bill Belichick has done this, too, but he’s not 2-5 at Arkansas.)

Arkansas was later roasted (fairly) by the head coach of Arkansas State, which is better this year than Arkansas.

I’m not even talking about Jon Gruden, in this case.

Let’s throw it to VolNation.com. Here is a thread that purports to be about realistic coach candidates to replace Butch Jones, who is nominally not fired yet but will probably soon be fired. Yes, it includes Mike Gundy, who turned down the job in 2013.

Realistic potential new head coaches

Sean Payton

Assuming that New Orleans misses the playoffs again this year, he could be available.

These poor people.

We’ll divide this visit to GSUFans.com into two parts: one before the Eagles fired head coach Tyson Summers on Sunday and one after.

Before the firing:

Some fans were trying to numb the pain:

Drinking Game.....

Well...

Now that our team has been completely destroyed, let’s have some laughs and turn this into a drinking game....

I’m thinking a drink each time TS plays with his headset volume would be a good start...

(may as well carry through to rules regarding the post game interviews and whatever else our special, special HC does.)

Hell, Maybe we really could get ripped and make a rule for double drinks per targeting call.

Other ideas?

After the firing:

Joy joy hallelujah. Let’s pretend the last yr and a half was a mass hallucination!!!

And this food for thought:

I want Hugh Freeze.

And this was the in-the-moment response in the comments section of the GameThread at SB Nation’s Barking Carnival:

The Trojans will check this box for us this week:

Dear any major Boosters

Chip Kelly is available. Now is your window to make this happen. Don’t let utla make the better move.

Good idea! But there is one hitch.

You actually trust USC boosters? They would try to hire Jeff Fisher

The most devastating thing about that is that it’s true.