Guys, it's really hard to go undefeated in a season. LIke, really, really hard. Do you guys know how many times the almighty Nick Saban has gone undefeated at Bama?  Once. Once. Urban Meyer has lost at least one game every year at OSU except his first season (when they couldn't go to the postseason anyway).

Let's put it another way: Guess how many of the last ten national champions were undefeated. Would you believe it's three? We're talking about the best college football team in the country each year...and only three of the last 10 of those teams were undefeated after it was all said and done.

This is why the games are played. Not every game is going to go by the script of who's better than who on paper. 

The team isn't garbage, and y'all are really starting to get on my nerves with the weak ass "OSU is going to pound us" shit. Everything seemed to go Iowa's way tonight, and yet they only won by a point. Michigan looked off all night...and yet were one first down away from escaping with the W. Shit happens. Move on. We'll find out who this team really is soon. But the loss tonight doesn't change anything. Yet.

This game confirms something that I have been worried about since last year.

There are a stunning number of similarities between Jim Harbaugh and the coach that he succeeded.

Both had mirage first seasons that looked amazing at the end when really it was just extraordinary luck that prevented a team with talent from the previous coach having a lackluster season due to the current one. Brady had luck in games such as the Notre Dame home game and Harbaugh had tremendous luck not losing on the road to a shitty Minnesota and shitty Indiana team.

Really, in hindsight, if not for that extraordinary luck, Michigan would have went 7-5 last year. Not as stunning as our memory has revised it, huh? We got absolutely killed at home to Ohio State and got bailed out by playing an overrated Florida in our bowl game.

To start of this year, we had 7 home games and our only two road games were against teams who only reason any of them will have a B1G win this season is because they played each other earlier today. Sure, 9-0 and a #2 ranking in the AP poll looked impressive. Our recruiting class looked impressive. But it was all a fucking mirage. Like Hoke, we can beat nobodies at home, but once we go on the road, we absolutely suck. That's why Harbaugh almost lost  - and should have lost - to a bad Minnesota and Indiana teams last year.

Michigan has better talent than Iowa. We are a better team. But the coaches absolutely fucked this team and the fans over. Smith couldn't run the ball all night, yet he had most of the carries. Ty Isaac had 1 fucking carry all night. The pitch never worked, but we kept doing it. Jabrill hasn't had a dominate game at offense since Rutgers, yet we kept trying it (his faux Heisman campaign has done so much damage to this team). Speight couldn't hit a pass over 15 yards all game, yet we kept trying it. An absolute clusterfuck of a performance. Despite all of this, however, we actually had the ball with less than 2 minutes to go and the lead. It was at this point that Harbaugh decided to pull of his trick of the night and revert right back into Bo - who never won a national title and lost countless big games because instead of putting away a team when he had the lead, he would go ultra conservative and let them stick around long enough to win the game at the end. 

This is how Michigan lost when we were undefeated in 1985 at Iowa. I have heard the anger in my dad's voice when he describes how Bo cost Michigan so many games. Same with Lloyd. Harbaugh was supposed to be different. But deep in our own territory, he runs the ball with Smith, runs the ball with Jabrill, and then has Speight throw the ball dozens of yards down the field on the sideline - a low percentage throw even when Speight doesn't suck - and we got three-and-out again. A line drive shitty punt by Allen and a phantom face mask and our supposed awesome defense collapsing later, and we fucking lost to Iowa. At least Iowa was the number one team in the country in 1985. This team was 5 and fucking 4. And yet Harbaugh couldn't beat them.

Just like with Hoke, Harbaugh can't coach on the road. He can't beat inferior teams on the road. Like Hoke, his first season and a half were completely fradulent based on luck. Now we will get killed at Ohio State and once again dissolve into irrelevance - except for being made fun of nationally. 

Maybe Harbaugh should - you know - instead of calling into radio shows to talk about Spongebob and instead of going to baseball games and instead of buying gimmicky glasses and instead of going to political rallies, maybe he should prepare for the next fucking game. 

We have a coach who would rather be a celebrity than a coach. And it bit us in the ass tonight and will again in two weeks (hell, we'll probably lose next week, too). 

I can't believe I actually cared about this team. What a fucking joke.

I gave it 2-3 minutes and it appears to be just a song with no discernable theme. Unless that is a super-deep metaphor for our offensive gameplan...

I might have gone with Phil Collins

Just as i thought it was goin alright
I found out how wrong when i thought i was right
Its always the same its just a shame thats all

I'll try and look at it like this...

Even back in Bo's heyday, Michigan would forever lose a damn game like this with all sorts of weird shit....this was a littl too weird and a little too ugly but a small part of me is glad it's out of the way...

Well, I'm lying...but I am trying to find a possible silver lining.

This loss is mostlye on Harbaugh:

* Too much hype allowed to seep in gave team big heads.  Heisman talk etc. BS

* WAY too many trick plays and formations on offense disrupts the flow of the offense.  That is a fact.

* Defense lacks speed on the edge...killed them.  They also do not tackle well.

I hate to say it, but Michigan (and this goes back through the previous administration) has been a terrible road team. Consider last year, where we needed big late game comebacks to beat Minnesota and Indiana. Hoke basically didn't have a notable (not neutral site) road win his entire time here. I don't know what it is, but most of my painful memories of Michigan involve them in white.

The offense wasn't clicking. The play calling was way too cute for 2 quarters. Speight picked a hell of a day to have his worst game (and appears to be injured now). Every deep ball was over or underthrown. The deep bombs were all 2-3 yards long. 

The defense was gashed repeatedly on the ground and Don Brown got RPS'd at the worst possible moments by a complete failure of an OC. Speaking of OCs, holy shit what was that from Jed Fisch?

Just disappointing all around. At every single level there was more than enough failures to go around. OC/DC/Head coach/players. At least it's a team loss. 

I love the deep dive into the "fancystats" every week on the podcasts, and I understand how alluring and frequently useful they are. But I do find myself cringing sometimes at how Brian and Ace tend to dismiss the unquantifiable role emotion plays in football. A road game at your in-state rival that lives and dies only for the game against you should give you at least a little pause that they might overperform expectations. A night game at a historical Michigan graveyard (Kinnick) should give you pause and some concerns about a trap game after so many easy wins. The preview of Iowa on this week's MGoRadio was beyond dismissive, it dripped with contempt for the opponent's right to even be seen on the same field as Michigan.

Fancystats are great, but they have no idea what to do with emotional situations, so they ignore them or just do a rule-of-thumb "three points for being the home team." 

It's the second time in less than a week that some very, very, very smart people (who I hoped to all hell were right) fall in love with advanced statistics and mathmatical modeling only to have their analysis shockingly upended by the power of human emotions and randomness. If you ever read "The Black Swan," you'll find many examples of quants falling in love with numbers and thinking they can predict the likelihood of a rare event. They can't. Unexpected results happen a lot more than most people expect, and fancystats are also fancy blinders that cause bias.

If you've ever played a down of organized tackle football in your life, you know emotion matters. A lot. So does a lucky bounce here and there. Put those together and it's hard to ever dimiss a road opponent's chances.