Sporting News Pre-Season Top 25, Michigan at 10
Sporting News released it's "updated" pre-season Top 25.
We have made all the adjustments, from National Signing Day to spring ball and media days. Here is a look at Sporting News' final preseason top 25 ahead of the 2019 season.
Here's their Top 10:
1. Alabama
2. Clemson
3. Georgia
4. Ohio St
5. Oklahoma
6. Texas
7. LSU
8. Florida
9. Notre Dame
10. Michigan
The Wolverines have the ninth-best record among Power 5 teams since Jim Harbaugh arrived at Ann Arbor in 2015, but the only record that gets air time is 0-4. Harbaugh still hasn't beat Ohio State, and the schedule features the same potholes with an early matchup against Army and road trips to Wisconsin and Penn State. The hire of offensive coordinator Josh Gattis builds some enthusiasm around quarterback Shea Patterson and a talented group of receivers that includes Donovan Peoples-Jones, Nico Collins and Tarik Black. Dylan McCaffrey might play a role in that success, too. The Wolverines still need to find a running back, and defensive coordinator Don Brown has several pieces to replace on defense.
Sporting News sees basically no change happening in Michigan from last year.
HatTip: WolverinesWire
How are Wisconsin and Penn St potholes when Harbaugh has a combined 5-2 record against them? And both losses came with his worst, most injured team
There are only two hurdles for M. Road games against decent teams (Wisconsin and PSU) and OSU. Hope we right the ship this year.
“Right the ship”?! You’re insane
I think so, too.
There was a huge gap (coaching, roster) between OSU and Michigan when Harbaugh arrived. He has (needless to say) been less-than-perfect as a coach, but he's at least brought Michigan back to a Lloyd level. (Remember, everyone, Lloyd got lots of his wins against the worst OSU coach in the post-'50s era. He was 1-6 against Tressel.)
I hope UM beats OSU this year. When I look at their roster, though, it looks like a difficult task.
(Remember, everyone, Lloyd got lots of his wins against the worst OSU coach in the post-'50s era.
Lol, 3 of those wins against that coach came against Ohio State teams ranked in the top 4.
Fine. What went wrong against Tressel? Read my post again.
Yep. The few OSU fans I know are sure this year is going to be at least as good as last year, from their perspective.
I see at least 2 losses for them. Maybe 3 even. :D
Exactly.
Michigan has the 9th best record in the P5 since Harbaugh arrived. Whether we like it or not, that is pretty much what Michigan has always been unless you want to go back 70 years to prove me wrong.
We can bitch and moan about Big Ten titles all we want, but the days are gone where you could go 9-3 and still win the conference.
Fans can complain all they want, but Michigan IS back. This is what Michigan has always been. What people ACTUALLY want, is for Harbaugh to take the program to a level it has never truly achieved (outside of a random year here and there). OSU achieving that level of success only makes the road more difficult for Michigan to achieve.
But to say “right the ship,” is a joke. He’s already done that. He has Michigan competing at a top 10 level nationally pretty much every year now. We’re at the point where 10 wins has people complaining. NY6 bowls has people wanting to fire the coach. It doesn’t get any more “Michigan” than that. Fans don’t want Harbaugh to “right the ship.” They want him to take it to uncharted waters. And THAT, takes time.
Not easy but maybe easier than OSUs. @Neb, Wis, @NW Is harder than @Wis, Iowa, Illinois if Nebraska is as good as they should be. Then OSU plays @ Michigan compared to Michigan @ PSU. We both have Sparty at home. Everything else is kind of irrelevant.
OSU < @ Michigan
@ PSU > PSU
@ Wis = @ Neb
Iowa = Wis
MSU = MSU
@ Indiana < @ NW
@ Maryland < @ Indiana
Illinois < Maryland
Rutgers = @ Rutgers
Cause road games at Camp Randall and Happy Valley are extremely tough even with a team with no question marks.
Winning in Happy Valley didn't become difficult until Lloyd left.
When his record on the road against them is 1-2...
Three words: On. The. Road.
Michigan has historically been awful on the road against good teams over the last decade or so. Until the MSU game last year, they didn't have a road win over a ranked team in over 10 years. And MSU finished the year 7-6 last year, so how much water did that win really hold?
I would also call a night game at Penn State a pothole in and of itself. Regardless of their talent level, crazy things happen there at night. Would not at all surprise me to see Michigan drop that game.
Playing at Camp Randall doesn't concern me as much, but you know what Wisconsin wants to do on offense, and that goes directly against a glaring weakness/depth issue we currently have on the DL. They're going to take one of the best RBs in America and try to pound him down Michigan's throat until the defense proves it can hold up against that kind of play. Another game I wouldn't be surprised to see Michigan lose.
Damn. I thought a decade was 10 years.
Slap happy valley is a difficult place to play during one of their white outs.
I'm not trying to be a jerk to point this out --- but the counterpoint is that U-M/Harbaugh has a combined 1-7 record in true road games against teams that finished the season w/ more than 7 wins.
There are reasons both (1) for and (2) against thinking U-M would win at PSU and at Wisconsin.
Correct. The one win came last year. As an optimistic fan, I see a new trend emerging.
Rookie Coach at OSU with inexperienced QB is being ranked in top 4 in most polls. I so hope the universe works the way it is supposed to work and bring down OSU with inexperience in coaching and QB.
The rookie coach had a pretty strong showing as an interim in the first 3 games last year and Justin Fields was the number 2 overall prospect in his class according to the composite. He's had enough time to get familiar with the system and should grow as the season progresses. OSU will likely have a loss or 2 before they face Michigan but they will still be super tough to beat as always.
edit: lets not forget the last 2 national champions have had true freshman qb's at the helm, qb experience is becoming less and less important as these guys get better in high school
"A loss or two" to whom? Unlike us they have UW and PSU at home. The only legitimate hope for a loss would be at Nebraska.
That OSU - Nebraska game will be a critical one for both those teams. I'm especially interested to see how far Nebraska comes this year. We could very well be playing them in the B1G championship game.
“A strong showing” is overrating him. He took one of the most talented teams in the country and beat three very overmatched teams. Really, the only thing you can say about him is he didn’t completely sh** the bed.
He may have a good or even great year or two, but how many coaches followed legends with a great couple of seasons only to collapse once the afterglow of the previous regime faded?
In this year's edition of Hail to the Victors, there's a piece about how teams do after legends leave. The basic finding was that teams almost always suffer at least some decline, in some cases dramatically so (think Nebraska after Tom Osborne retired, or Notre Dame after Lou Holtz left)
Fields could be good or great, but he couldn't beat out the starter (Fromm) at Georgia unlike the two guys you mentioned on their national championship runs.
Unlike previous years I'd say OSU is in for a potential disaster season if Fields is awful (admittedly unlikely) or gets hurt. Have you seen their depth at QB? It's a bunch of who-dat transfers.
I know everyone here is petrified that everything always works out for OSU. The general media sentiment last year painted Urban Meyer as some doofus - covering up lies by deleting text messages, (probably) faking headaches in the middle of games, etc but make no mistake that guy is a top 3 coach in CFB now and could go down as a top 10 coach of all time. A dropoff is inevitable. How much of a dropoff and how quickly it happens is certainly debatable. I actually expect their defense to get better as it was way worse than it should have been last year given their talent. They lost 3 starting WR's and a record setting QB, hard to see them matching last year's offensive output.
I forget if I heard it on Baumgardner's podcast or one of the MGoBlog podcasts, but Urban was/is one of the best in-game coaches of all time. He was able to squeak out close games against lesser opponents by making the right call at the right time. It's almost certain that Day will not be as good at this as Urban. Time will tell how good he (Day) is but I think you are definitely correct in assuming some level of dropoff.
EVERYTHING for OSU depends on Fields. I don't care who you are, if your quarterback sucks, you aren't winning anything in college football today.
As far as a general drop-off for OSU, there's a good chance it happens, but it can take time if there's enough talent on the roster. Remember Larry Coker at Miami?
Agreed. One could also point to Chizek at Auburn. He won the national title with Cam Newton, followed by a steaming pile of shit that got him canned. (However, I'd love for Day to skip the championship and go straight to the shitpile.)
If The Game was the season opener, perhaps. But by Thanksgiving, the "rookie" coach is no longer a rookie and the inexperienced QB is (presumably) experienced with an 11-game season under his belt. Lack of experience in August is one thing, by November it's another.
But we'll see how the season plays out. If Fields gets hurt....yikes.
I think the provided analysis is spot on...offense gives reason for optimism, road games at UW and PSU are very tough, defense has some holes, but I'm not as worried about the 0-4 as others. The spot could have gone either way and if Okorn is functional we win the 2017 game and we are talking 2-2. I have faith in Jim H and crew.
But we weren't 2-2 were we?
No, but some people act as if we're not even in the same universe as OSU. That's not true, either.
OSU beating Michigan 16 of the last 18 tries says different. Michigan hasn’t beaten a good OSU team since most if not all of the kids on the current roster were in diapers.
Not saying that’s the way it always will be, but that’s Michigan’s current reality.
Not trying to drum anything up, but here is a list of the "good" M teams OSU beat since 2003:
2004, 2006, 2016, 2018
I could argue that 2006 and 2016 were both coin flips, and that 2004 and 2018 were the two good UM teams that OSU distinctly outplayed. Those two days both completely sucked, but Michigan's woes against OSU have been mainly self-inflicted or the result of sacrificing too few chickens (Henne 2007, Denard 2012, Gardner 2013, refs 2016).
You will also notice that our last four "good" teams all happened in years where we played OSU on the road. It has been a seemingly unending run of bad timing for us, good timing for them.
That’s exactly how it looked last year. OSU treated our defense like we treat Rutgers’.
Very good with this ranking as opposed to some of the higher ones. We should be ranked around where we finished last yr. 10-15ish. No comprehende TX at 6 tho.
Agreed. This is about where I would put Michigan pre-season.
That was my same reaction. Texas at six? Don’t they have to get by Maryland?
When was the last time Michigan actually matched the hype of a pre-season poll? Asking for a friend.
2016 basically did. Tanked at the end but that team was as ferocious as advertised for most of the year.
That team was better than advertised. Most pundits were predicting that as a down year for Michigan and they were ranked fairly low.
Michigan was pre-season #6 that year, rose as high as an undefeated #2 in the country and was never ranked outside the Top10. That was not supposed be a down year.
I don’t think “tanked” is the correct term.
That team lost 3 games by a total of 5 points, and in most people’s opinion beat Ohio st straight up. An unbiased spot puts Michigan in the Big Ten championship game, with a strong chance of going on to the CFP. At any rate, it was a series of unfortunate events that truly derailed a remarkable season.
The only real head scratcher was the underwhelming performance against Iowa (albeit on the road and losing by a mere point).
That team tanked. The Iowa loss was not just underwhelming, it was completely incomprehensible. Michigan was dominating every opponent it played. Iowa had just gotten obliterated by both Wisconsin and Penn State. We were dropping balls, fumbling kick-offs, roughing the kicker on back-to-back(!) punting attempts.
Michigan was also a much, much better team than Ohio State but allowed the game to be close enough to let the refs have a say. Even the FSU game was bullshit. It was 14-0 before Michigan realized that a game was occurring, and then when they woke up and miraculously took the lead they fell asleep on a kick return when the thing should have been all but sealed.
That team choked. Much of the season is a very fond memory but they blew it big time down the stretch.
The Iowa loss is excusable. It happens in college football. Remember that earlier that day Clemson lost at home to a mediocre Pitt team.
The prevailing wisdom is that great coaches peak in Year 2 - usually winning the title or making the CFP. I maintain that Michigan probably should've made the CFP in 2016, but Wilton Speight had the worst game of the year. Mostly self-inflicted. He throws two picks that lead to the only two Buckeye scores before the 4th Quarter and fumbles on the 1 yard line. That game could've been 24-0 going into the 4th (or at worst 24-3 if OSU makes one of their two FG attempts) and it's over at that point.
I believe on one of the picks the ball was deflected at or close to the line. Also, if I remember correctly, the fumble on the 1 did not end up really hurting that bad, as we got a stop and scored on the following drive with the ball never crossing Michigan's 50 on the exchange.
Speight had a bad game but there were other really frustrating issues that seemed to be a continuation of the Iowa loss. Neither Chesson or Darboh could catch a short third down slant to save their life in the fourth quarter when we really just needed one to salt it away. The "pep-cat" package was again either not used or used in completely predictable fashion with no creativity or ingenuity. We did not do one single unpredictable thing on offense. Speight wasn't great but Michigan should have won despite it, without even considering the refs.
I also disagree that the Iowa loss was excusable. You Tube that disgrace if you get a chance today. An excusable upset loss is a game where a team plays above itself and you can't quite match it. In the Iowa loss, Iowa sucked exactly as much or more than advertised and we just pissed the game away. There were moments in the fourth quarter where it appeared that Michigan may have actually been losing the game intentionally.
Preach!
Last year. (Preseason 14th In AP; finished 14th in AP)