Opponent Watch News Today

Even given the many "thank you" posts I have seen in the aftermath of this Natty, I want to do a personal shout-out: Here is to YOU, Brian Cook. From me to you.

Bama Links: Preview, The Podcast, FFFF Offense (chart), FFFF Defense (chart). SPONSOR NOTE. We still need your help to keep our team. Last year, Champions Circle® launched the One More Year Fund to support key Michigan players like Blake Corum, Trevor Keegan, and Zak Zinter who elected to return to Michigan for One More Year. Now, we’re launching the Those Who Stay NIL Campaign. Our rivals are coming after many of our key players, trying to induce them to leave Michigan. It's time for th...

Hi, it’s me again. Bryan Mackenzie is taking a hiatus from Opponent Watch (hey should we change the title, by the way? It sounds so self-incriminating these days), so I volunteered for backup duty. Bryan, I gotta say, I really love what you’ve done with this piece. I apologize for all the gimmicky prompts you’ve faithfully preserved all these years (“Michigan can sleep soundly about” just screams undeveloped prefrontal cortex), so please feel free to change them when you return. I do h...

About Last Week Behold the progress Rutgers has made. This is JJ McCarthy running the ball. On purpose. Which he did FIVE separate times on Saturday. It was a clear sign of respect, and the understanding that Michigan couldn’t necessarily just romp seventy-eight-to-nothingishly over this Rutgers squad. Michigan had to turn the reads on for the first time this year and put JJ McCarthy in regular peril. And if you look through Patrick Barron’s and Bryan Fuller’s photo albums from this game, ...

Greetings! It has been far too long, friends. Please, have a seat. Can I get you anything? A drink? A burger? HAHA YOU HAVE FALLEN FOR THE OLDEST TRICK IN THE BOOK. You are hereby suspended for the first four weeks of Opponent Watch 2023. /places finger to ear …okay, I’m being informed that you are NOT suspended for the first four weeks of Opponent Watch 2023. But we’ll revisit this issue this summer. Rest assured that I am still QUITE cross with you. You shall get what is coming to you. A...

A sponsor note of a different variety. The long-term sponsor of this post, Richard Hoeg, is a good guy and and excellent lawyer who we've had on our podcast a couple times. He also recently suffered a stroke. His family has a gofundme up as he embarks on his recovery. It's already done quite well because Richard had spent years building his own online community, which you may know if you leaked over from here to there. If Richard was important to you in some way I encourage you to dona...

From BiSB's bonus round Opponent Watch: Michigan has never played TCU. Michigan has, however played three purple teams in recent years: Northwestern, Washington, and Kansas State (you probably recall Michigan defeating both Northwestern and Washington last season). Michigan is a combined 67-21 all-time against those 3 teams for a combined win percentage of 76.1%.

PSU Links: Preview, The Podcast, FFFF Offense (chart), FFFF Defense (chart) Something's been missing from Michigan gamedays since the free programs ceased being economically viable: scientific gameday predictions that are not at all preordained by the strictures of a column in which one writer takes a positive tack and the other a negative one… something like Punt-Counterpunt. PUNT By Bryan MacKenzie@Bry_Mac Microsoft Word has several features designed to undo errors and recover accidenta...

With Brian now steadily increasing he's written contributions to the site (yay!) and Alex emerging as a more than capable replacement to Ace (yay!) it got me thinking of weekly site features that are now gone, but not forgotten.  One's that I miss and would love to see brought back to their former glory if time and inclination from the MgoWriting team exists.  My top three are as follows: This Week In Schadenfreude: Brian

In the most-excellent and brilliantly written Opponent Watch 2022: Preview, Part 1, the author refers to last year's Big10 Championship, stating: "Iowa… was Iowa. They Iowa’d so goddamn hard that it is impossible to imagine anything Iowaing harder."