Anything You Can Do We Can Do Better?

OP lost me when he said, "in Musberger's words," as if his words matter.

If tOSU plays Michigan the way Alabama played Miss State then Michigan can win.

The only way a team can win using an outdated offense is by assembling superior personnel.  It has worked for Alabama.  So, the question is, "Can Brady Hoke assemble enough superior personnel to win with a 20th century offense and mindset?"

Everyone on the staff still gets the benefit of the doubt from me.  Any bitching should be directed at Dave Brandon.

Maybe if we were in the AAC...

I appreciate the OP's optimism, but like others here, I see the same inconsistent team.  Even with Ohio giving up 35 to Illinois, Meyer isn't gonna let that happen against us.  On top of that, Devin is still all over the place and I don't feel confident in him at all.  Was great to see Green and Smith get the workload out of the backfield today.. they deserve a legit shot at at this point.  I would love to see what we can do with a new offensive staff.  Anyway, the bottom line for me when it comes to Ohio is that when Brady was hired he said that Ohio was the most important game on the schedule.  This sentiment is cleary echoed in every MIchigan fan's heart.  It was great hearing those words after watching Tressel wipe the floor with Lloyd all those years and RR, well was RR.  So what is Brady going to do to stay competitive with them?  We look light years behind that team, and have been for years.  I realize this is not all Hoke's fault, but he's in the fire now and its up to him to perform.  Meyer is going to have a top 10 team every year down there.  Its ashame what this rivalry has become the past 10 years.  1 win for us in 10 years?  If Brady can't get it done it will be interesting to see how important The Game is to DB because this rivalry isn't going to be one for too much longer if we can only pull out one miracle every 10 years. 

And USC has always had our ass in bowl games so I think they're still better and the better coaching gig just based on recruiting alone.

If we won out it would still not mean we are relevant yet bc there is still no big ten title game appearance, or a rose bowl which Hoke himself says is the benchmark.

For us to be relevant again we need to start beating the teams that we have superior talent against by 3+ TD's (UCONN, Akron, NW). We need to not just beat MSU, but do so in a manner that suggests dominance (such as how they best us this year). We need to beat ohio by actually beating them and not when they have an interim coach and freshman QB. We have to make opponents fear the big house again. after the App state game I can't remember who it was but they said Michigan stadium is the most quiet 110,000 you'll ever hear and that teams were no longer scared to play there. Thankfully Hoke has gotten us better at home though I'm still not convinced teams are scared to play there yet still.

Most important thing IMO for relevance is staff to player chemistry in the teaching and development of scheme and techniques. This is where we are currently failing our players. It needs to change. The staff needs to put these kids in a better position for success.

Hoke's recruiting has been excellent. Some of these kids are freaks. Please teach them to be the best they can be both on and off the field.

The responses in this thread are generally mlive level. The success of mgoblog had been great for Brian's bottom line, but the discourse here was so much better when mgoblog wasn't so popular.

I'm trying to stay optimistic. It's tough with 9 points in regulation. Offense still putters and you can't do that with good teams. I'm hoping something clicks with these guys and soon. Gardener needs some confidence because his mind is definitely messing with him.

I reality, that win just got us to bowl eligibility - we have a better chance at 7-5 than 9-3. I think most would agree that 8-4 was the floor for us (assuming no injury to DG) and we are scratching and crawling to that on all 4s.

this is a bad team who scored 9 in regulation against 0-6 NW- not 4-2 or even 2-4 NW. this was another in a group of bad performances in close wins.

Is it worth noting that USC "became relevant again" after firing their head coach?

You are a delusional homer if you think we will beat OSU. We were 0fer on third downs(excluding OT). Devin threw 4 interceptions, they just were not caught. The running backs looked better, but better than negative, woohoo. I am enjoying the win, but am not believing for a second we can beat them. Did you not see Hyde having 246 yards today? And of course, F.A.B.

I am predicting a fair amount of booing in 2 weeks unless, of course, there are more OSU fans there than UM fans.

The road back is long, treacherous, and the path will not be consistant nor smooth.  We started the current messy era at the end of the 2006 season with Bo's passing and then back to back losses to OSU and USC, and then the horror in 2007, the RR hiring and the 3 years of tire fire of 3-9, 5-7, 7-5 and the determination that was not the path back to where we wanted to be.  Now, in 2013, we have Hoke and a staff and a tire fire of an offensive line from the leftovers of the years of unfathomable sadness.  If anyone thinks that firing and hiring another new hot shot coach is the answer, just understand that the risk involved (see RR) is high in terms of recruiting and program continuity and the wrong hire experience shows you how it hurts your team for years in terms of talent and its development.

Patience and time is what we need, and whether we like it or not, and whether you decide to show that patience or not, and whether we scream for the heads of various coaches, reality is that we are left to wait and see.  We are stuck for good or ill with Hoke and DB, they are going to be here for the next 2-3 years at a minimum.  We had better hope they know what they are doing or we are going to be as we have been since 2007 with a few 2011's sprinkled in when we get lucky or experienced or whatever.  The leadership team either will or will not figure this out, we can only hope they do.

Realistically, who else would you actually be able to get and come coach here, especially now that DB is (in the view of football and basketball coaches outside our program) micromanaging and inserting himself in deep with the football staff by viewing film and whatnot with them.  Part of the issue is that after RR's experience, any intelligent and experienced guy you would want to bring here is likely to be very hesitant to come here, would not you? We must incrementally build our way back, and it ain't being fixed in 1 year or with 1 or 2 players.....

Reality sucks sometimes, but there it is.....

I think there is way too much doom here. It's not as if this team has averaged 9 points a game this season. They have had some success on offense and yet people hold up the failures as more predictive. These same people typically ignore the defensive lapses....look at what Indiana did yesterday. The fact is the staff has put the team in a position to win all but one game. And they have done it behind a criminally young OL and a QB whose confidence was reeling. In OT yesterday we saw a glimpse of good, DG suddenly showed his wheels again, the Butt TD, the defense getting pressure, etc. I don't think the Wolverines will beat Ohio this season but I think it will be the final regular season experience in a year that is building the future.

To the OP - is 'crisis' spelled in Chineses with characters that mean opportunity and danger, or is it a proverb that crisis is spelled in this manner, but not really so? There is a difference. If the Chinese actually use characters for opporutnity and danger to spell crisis, that would be quite wise, and quite interesting. 

We beat Northwestern in 3 OT.  They are winless and it took a perfectly executed FG with the clock running just to get it to OT.  Weird things happen in football, but as long as Al Borges is calling plays we won't do anything against Ohio.  I hope I'm wrong.