The Ace Pod 1.8: We Were Promised Jetpacks
The Ace Pod now has a sponsor! Thank you to the law offices of E. Jason Blankenship, whose website is now fully armed and operational.
This week’s mailpod tackles a number of questions—for some reason those weren’t hard to elicit this week—on topics including:
- Does the “Leaders and Best” attitude have a negative impact on the field?
- Were our expectations for the offense unrealistic?
- Which games on the schedule have had their W/L outlook swing?
- Can we have it all?
- Fast-forwarding life.
- Why does this sadness feel different from other sadnesses?
- Can this team be 2016 Penn State?
- When do we ask The Question?
- When do we open Michigan Bear College?
- And more!
If that’s not enough, I also made a guest appearance on The Seventh Circle Podcast, which was recorded before the Wisconsin game but published on Saturday, making a bit of my optimism at the end sound borderline delusional. But it was nice(?) to remember that we’ve dealt with much worse and I had a lot of fun being on the show, which I’d recommend even if they weren’t so kind as to feature my ramblings this week.
MUSIC:
“Someone Else’s Problem” — We Were Promised Jetpacks
Spend some time with your family or something. Pet a dog.
September 26th, 2019 at 7:50 AM ^
Love the title. These Four Walls is one of my favorite albums of all time.
September 26th, 2019 at 8:04 AM ^
One of the biggest issues with this season is the preseason expectations in relation to the "conditions on the ground." Essentially Michigan was ranked #7 because of good wide receivers and reputation. It is a team that legitimately collapsed in numerous ways toward the end of the season and lost a shit ton of talent to high NFL selections. It was a team trying to turn over an offense almost specifically because of what it was losing on defense in an attempt to be able to "catch up" with opponents who were inevitably going to score more points on us. It is a team that lost key assistants and who had their defensive coordinator realistically considering jumping ship for a head coaching position. Injury rumors were rampant and two pretty high profile transfers, one at our biggest defense position of need, had kind of zapped depth already.
I was among some people who thought the preseason ranking was kind of ridiculous. This was usually met with distain but I kind of had the position that I did because I thought the ranking was kind of setting the team (and the coach) up for failure. It almost felt somewhat "intentional" toward Harbaugh. It is easy to say that Harbaugh contributed to the unrealistic expectations, but really did he? What coach of a high caliber program is not going to say that he believes his team has the personnel to win the conference? That is not some bold declaration of dominance. In reality Harbaugh's preseason discussion of his team sounded more like "ehh kind of a shit show but we shall see. (And Ronnie Bell is awesome)."
Now that does not excuse them being like that so far, but at no time did this team look like a world beater on paper, yet by opening weekend people were talking national championship.
September 26th, 2019 at 10:14 AM ^
I think that Florida game was a lot more indicative of what this team would be than people accepted.
Obviously I thought there would be a lot more improvement, but the leaders and talent absent for that game are still clearly an issue for this team.
While I think it's an issue on D, I have a lot of faith they can find that leader and identity. Someone will emerge. The offense, however, I am very worried about. It's a total mess
September 26th, 2019 at 10:17 AM ^
Completely agree. How in the hell with a defense having 1 (Hill) or 2 (Uche) returning top contributors, and 2 most-critical assistants leaving, and _new_ offense with new OC and no RB unless some miracle Freshman or RS Freshman, at least one of whom coming off injury, is actually all-that for the first time ever... How in the HELL is that #7 team in country, dark horse for national champion? Ridiculous
(Now, also, as you also say: how in the HELL is it as bad as it's looked the first 4 weeks of this season either?)
September 26th, 2019 at 1:02 PM ^
I feel duped... I fell for all the hype, mainly because we finally had an offensive line, stacked at wide receiver and had a returning QB that performed pretty well in year 1 (plus two good backup QB's)
I also thought Don Brown had shown a history of exceeding defensive expectations (overall)
Man that Mattison departure seems to be crushing us.
I still think we beat Iowa and gain steam as we go. Now I think we'll be 8 and 3 heading into the game with the potential to be playing for a B10 title.
I still refuse to believe we are as bad as we've shown so far
September 26th, 2019 at 2:49 PM ^
I see no scenario where we have 3 losses and are playing for a BIG championship.
September 26th, 2019 at 11:12 PM ^
Scenario:
future losses to Iowa and ND, but win all of our B1G East games puts us at 9-3 and going to Indy.
Not suggesting this Will come to pass unless JH can make miracles happen, but it is not unpossible.
September 26th, 2019 at 1:50 PM ^
I mean I agree with some of this, but I don't think the hype was completely unwarranted. On paper the offense had 4 all conference or better o-linemen returning, 3 NFL caliber WR's, a QB who performed well last year in his first year who we thought was a better fit for the new spread offense than the old offense and a stud freshman RB coming in. Everyone knew the defense would take a stepback but we figured given Don Brown's track record with far less talented defenses would not take a big stepback. So preseason I think the ingredients all seemed there for some hype, they just have not worked out that way so far though.
September 26th, 2019 at 8:38 AM ^
How soon is now?
September 26th, 2019 at 10:34 AM ^
Deserved that.
September 26th, 2019 at 11:13 AM ^
Glad to hear things seem to be getting better with the cane! Anything that helps you get back on your feet and on the road to improvement is great! Hope things keep getting better and Michigan football follows suit with is performance this season.
September 26th, 2019 at 11:25 AM ^
Out of curiosity do many people listen to all of the podcasts?
I like the MGoPodcast, Ace pod, roundtable and the radio show but I'm a little overwhelmed by 4 hours of pods a week.
September 26th, 2019 at 12:11 PM ^
Drive a lot for work (sales). Listen to all of the podcasts, every week during the football season. I really can’t find anything that compares from a Michigan football analysis and general entertainment standpoint. I also really enjoy the staff’s sense of humor, especially during weeks after a crushing defeat like we’ve just experienced. Misery loves company, especially when fully embracing the misery together.
September 26th, 2019 at 12:46 PM ^
Seldom listen to any of them.
September 26th, 2019 at 1:43 PM ^
I can give you download numbers:
- Main Pod: 17,000 avg downloads, maxes at 21,000
- Radio: 16,000
- The Teams: ~6,000 right away, up to 32,000 (1980) because these are more evergreen.
- WTKA Roundtable: 9,000 to 10,000
- Ace Pod: 8,000
- Hockey: 4,500
- Politics (one on the regents and one with Abdul): both were ~3,900
September 26th, 2019 at 2:01 PM ^
Awesome I didn't expect the numbers. My curiosity has been sated!
It's all good stuff I just (thankfully) don't currently have the car time of mgogadget so I can't get them all in. More of an I missed out on that because I didn't have time than a too many pods sentiment.
Appreciate the evergreen addition to the portfolio.
September 26th, 2019 at 12:40 PM ^
Couldn't agree more re:reevaluating how people spend their Saturdays when it's obvious that a sizeable number of people seem incapable of enjoying a football season unless we win more than 10 games. When watching a game means swearing on the couch for three hours then sulking for the remainder of the day, it's not a good thing. Football doesn't actually matter. I say this as someone who loves college football.
September 26th, 2019 at 12:49 PM ^
First time listening to the Ace pod. Really enjoyed it, although I never realized how much Ace sounds like Kermit the Frog.
September 26th, 2019 at 6:27 PM ^
FINALLY someone brought up the bear idea.
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