“Congratulations, you beat Eastern. Now explain the 304 passing yards.”

No. Nope. I’m not doing it. I know what you people want from me today. You want me to come on here and say, “Dave, you were too negative. Dave, you were wrong. Dave, the kid coach is 2-0.”

They beat Eastern Michigan by 22 points at home. Great. Wonderful. Put it on a plaque. Send it to the museum.

You are impossible.

Am I? Am I impossible, or am I the only adult left in East Lansing who can remember when this program had standards higher than “did not combust against a MAC team”?

One rushing yard. Fantastic. I’ll give them that. I loved that. I love linebackers hitting people. I love defensive linemen ruining someone’s afternoon. But Noah Kim threw for 304 yards in your building. Three hundred and four. We’re throwing a parade because they made Eastern Michigan abandon the run? They didn’t need the run in the third quarter. They were playing catch.

They also intercepted him three times.

And thank God they did. That’s why it was 35-13 instead of everybody calling in here with smoke coming out of their ears.

Tre Bell made a gorgeous play. Gorgeous. I’m not taking that from him. Nikai Martinez in the end zone, beautiful. Nijhay Burt, great. But if you’re asking me to ignore all the completions because the turnover column looked pretty, I’m not doing it.

I think you’re trying to have it both ways. You spent all week saying, “Just don’t look sloppy, just don’t look like a circus.” They won 35-13. They’re 2-0. Hannan threw two touchdowns. Cam Edwards looked like one of the best backs in the league. The defensive front destroyed the run game. At some point you have to say, “Okay, that’s a good Saturday.”

It was a good Saturday. There. Clip it. Dave said it.

Now here comes the part where I do my job. Why did the offense disappear in the third quarter? Why did they wait until the fourth quarter to remember Cam Edwards exists? Why is the center whiffing on a third-down protection early in the game? Why is Fredrick Moore dropping both targets? Why does a 75-yard touchdown happen on the first snap after halftime?

You don’t get to win by 22 and declare the questions illegal.

That’s fair, but this is where your bit gets old. Nobody is declaring the questions illegal. Mansour answered half of them at the podium. He literally said, “Yes, we got away from Cam.” Coaches don’t usually give you that.

Oh, the podium. Here we go. The press conference fan club has arrived.

I’m serious. He was good. Again. He protects the players, takes the heat for the operation, gives detail without turning it into a TED Talk. That matters.

It matters until a better team starts running by your defensive backs. Then we can all sit around and applaud the sentence structure while the other band plays.

You sound like Urban Meyer’s burner.

Urban Meyer is a jerk, but he’s not always wrong. That’s the worst part. He’s a jerk and then you have to sit there and go, “Damn it, I see the point.”

Look, I like Cam Edwards. I like Tre Bell. I like the linebackers. I even like the quarterback more than I expected. Hannan has got something. That throw to KK Smith was not fake. But this whole town is desperate to believe, and desperate people make bad reads.

Or maybe desperate people can still watch a team improve.

Maybe. But improvement is not the same as arrival. And I’m going to keep saying that until somebody shows me this thing travels.