The tenor of this game in terms of how we felt about it can be summed up in the following factoid - there was all of one "awesome" used in the game thread last night, and it was used in a manner which was clearly sarcastic. We're normally rather sparse with effusive praise, but when one of the words tracked to indicate that is used sarcastically, you get a great feel for the rest of the analysis.
There was a season-high usage of "fire" too, come to think of it, but much of it not so much directed at coaches. It was used mostly in complaints about Michigan's perceived lack of intensity or urgency in a game they should theoretically win handily (and did win, but maybe not handily). There was a tie for the season-high usage of "suck" too - most of that was directed at O'Korn and strangely towards the one bright spot on offense - De'Veon Smith.
Never let it be said that didn't give a good amount of fucks, of course - there were 263 fucks given in this game, which is actually the third highest total of the season. We also gave exactl 100 shits, which is the fourth highest total for the season. It seems like any way you slice our reaction to this game, it was not one which would make you think we were waiting enthusiastically for The Game.
The advanced metrics tell the story too:
FART Rate - 1.315, which is the fourth highest rate on the season
SHART Rate - 0.500, which is the fourth highest rate on the season
SQUIRT Number - 2.630, which is actually the sixth highest on the season
FAP Rate - 1.992, which was the sixth highest on the season
So, overall reaction to this game is - in season terms - kind of mild. It definitely was not the visceral reaction to the frustration of the Iowa game, but certainly not the comfortable reaction to Rutgers. This game sat sort of in that middle tier of games which can be best described as, "I think we're just happy that we won".
As for the thread size and efficiency, there were 739 tracked instances across 1,888 posts, which turns into an overall efficiency of 2.55 - that is consistent with a stressful win in the new Harbaugh-era version of the efficiency metric. Far and away, the two highlights when it comes to sheer volume and size this year are MSU and Iowa, but we have The Game coming up. One of the things that has held true in this analysis as in The Game, is that unexpected things happen and we see things which make us think "Where the hell was that all year?".
I fully expect some data to be skewed and some records to be broken, especially because this game matters....like, a lot this time.