12th Game Announced

In the future I would prefer teams like Delaware St. not be on the schedule, but think it is fine for this year. Like you said, it's a rebuilding year and we will take the wins however we can get them. We really need to make a bowl game this year and this will help get us there.

I have no problem with D State on the schedule this year. We aren't going to compete for a national champ or the B10 so the game is pretty meaningless. Unless we lose......

RR needs to get as many wins as possible this year. If for nothing else to help the confidence of this very young team.

I think after this year we need to get back to scheduling tougher opponents.

I thought K-State hired him back?

Oh what the hell, we could use the W.

for this year only we need to get to any bowl game at an absolute minimum. I'm glad we scheduled a real weak team. In a normal year this is a lose-lose situation. You beat up on them and you were supposed to, you lose and app st revisited. But who knows exactly how much we will improve and especially for as young as we will be any sort of confidence they can get is a great long term accomplishment.

seriously, just win as many as possible next season to keep the negative MSM conversation elsewhere (like South Bendover)

BM knows how to turn a profit but not how to be an AD. If you guys don't mind paying $60.00 to watch Del. St. or whoever he'll come up with next than go ahead. I hate the way Bill schedules and I hate the ND for the next 25 years too. You know why ND doesn't join a conference? Because the Big Ten keeps giving them one for free!

I like the scheduling of this opponent. However, over the next few years it would be nice to see a this 12th game gradually improve in terms of the opponent. Having a solid win over a non-conference top 25 vs. a FCS team team may be the difference from being left out of a potential NC game. Ahhh, all in due time.

Scheduling cupcakes has been shown to be a good way to rebuild programs. It instills confidence in your young players and at the end of the day the fans/media/recruits give more weight to your record than your SOS. Some argue that scheduling tough opponents is necessary to gain exposure and TV time, but that's not an issue for Michigan. Once RR has this team back in BCS bowls, I think UM should only schedule one FCS team per season

I'm in the "schedule as many wins as possible until the roster is stabilized" corner here.

When it is 2010 and RR and UM have a legit chance at a BCS bowl, then it will be time to schedule someone tougher to keep the computer happy. In the meantime, they need to schedule teams that aren't much more than live bodies for the inxeperienced QB's to play and develop confidence against.

The bareness of the cupboard at the QB position last year caused the "schedule" to be delayed a year. This year should be more like the transition year that many of us envisioned last year. And if we get surprised by a 3-9 to 9-3 turnaround, great.

I think scheduling what should be an automatic win was the right move for this year. Besides, the game will have intrigue because of the Appy State game; "David" Delaware State will be percieved as having a much better chance to knock off "Goliath" UM than they would have had UM not allowed Appy State to win in '07.

As for those who think WMU will beat UM this year: uh-uh. Ain't gonna happen. I know that last year's Toledo game has made it look like MAC teams are now a threat to beat the UM's of the world, but all it did was give RR something to hang in the locker room and make them watch film of during the week of games vs MAC teams.

I am guessing the Toledo game will be required viewing before playing MAC teams and the Appy State game will be required viewing before playing Delaware State.

And I am guessing that UM will never take anyone less than seriously again.

... I'm clearly in the minority here, but I'm in general not in favor of D State. Doesn't matter what I think anyways, it's done.

I just see games vs. FCS teams as non-win situation. We've already hashed what happens when you lose ala App. State. But even when you win, it's not like those wins count for anything. I'll give tater and aggie credit on their points about confidence.... but nobody else is going to give us "credit" for a win.

Maybe I'm thinking too narrowly about it, but I don't see how a win over D State is going to help us get into a bowl game. They don't even count towards the win total for bowl game eligibility, do they?

I don't know how comfortable I am with this game. On one hand, we desperately need to win at least six games next year to put a stop to the negative recruiting. However, if we actually did lose this game, then that would just lend credence to the negative recruiting...

No matter how you slice it, this is a MUST WIN, and maybe we would have been better off scheduling some one like UConn, where we don't look like complete idiots if we lose.

Bill Martin completely sucks the joy out of OOC scheduling. Jesus. Why not just schedule Hope College and remove all pretense. I won't miss him.

Western loses a bunch on defense, and a couple of their WR's. Hiller is a good QB but is just a traditional drop-back passer. I know about Toledo and App State, but I gotta think we win that game. ND will be interesting. They are stacked on offense. No two ways about that. Defensively, though, they are pretty weak. Our D really needs to step up in that game. We will find out a lot about Robinson in that game.

Get ready for lots App. State talk leading up to and during the game. That's the biggest drawback, in my mind.

When you're in the process of developing players and learning, not even mastering, the playbook...you play teams you can have success against and learn from. You have to be very careful not to disenfranchise the young men who are brought in and asked to do everything immediately. Show them they can have success with this system. You can't do that if you're putting freshmen and sophomores up against 5th year seniors of BCS-caliber teams in the trenches. When Michigan has players who've been under the RR tent for 3 or 4 years, then the marshmallow schedule will be offensive. For right now, relax and enjoy watching Michigan put together the pieces.

I am 32 years old and knew not of a bowl-less Michigan football team until now. Anything to get back to 6-6.

to those complaining about "the computer" and being "left out of a national championship game:" quick, name one bcs team kept out of a major bowl because they loaded up on d1aa schools. seriously. name one.

i can wait.

then I say let's play the Ivy league.

We can count 1 win against an FCS team to become bowl eligible. Delaware State is our only FCS school, so if the rules allow, and we need wins to get to a bowl, I say good job BM and RR!

"The NCAA allows one victory per season over a Division I FCS (formerly I-AA) team to count toward an FBS team's bowl eligibility, so long as the FCS team has supplied financial aid for football averaging out to at least 56.7 full scholarships (90% of the limit of 63 allowed to FCS schools) over the preceding two years. This prevents teams from scheduling multiple games against FCS teams in an effort to pad their win total."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowl_eligible

I like where it comes on the schedule. If this were game two of the season it would piss me off a bit. However, by mid-October this team will have the usual bumps and bruises and having this game at that time might afford the team the opportunity to rest some folks to recover from some of these minor injuries to get ready for Penn State the following week. Yes, I know we need to win the game and after App. State and Toledo there is no longer such a thing as a "gimme". However, we should be gelling a bit by this time in the season and we should, SHOULD, be able to put this team away in the first half and allow our starters to rest a bit for PSU.

On the other hand, lose this game, and we will all be lining up to jump from the top of the new luxury boxes.

I view it as necessity more than anything. They can't NOT play a 12th game because of the money the AD will lose. I just hope this doesn't become the norm.

Florida played the Citadel in Week 11 and that didn't make Tebow any less Jesusy.

Plus, as long as we're scheduling a I-AA team, I'm glad to see it's an HBCU. I have no idea if their band travels with the team but I desperately hope so. I went to a Howard-Hampton game two years ago and I've never experienced anything else like it. Not at a sporting event, anyway.

2 of the last 3 BCS National Champions have played I-AA teams en route to the crystal football.

We went 3-9 last season. I think this cupcake game is what we need this year if we want to make a bowl game. Our recruit class is nasty, but they're going to be freshmen. We're going to see freshmen mistakes on both sides of the ball (remember McGuffie, Odoms, Koger? We all groaned at dropped passes and fumbles this year). RR and BM cannot afford another sub .500 season. Smart move scheduling D State

Any idea when the game will be played?

FOR ONE YEAR ONLY.
Get the necessary 6+ wins. Fill in that ridiculous 12th game.
After that, true blue fans should boycott the 12th game if it is patently absurd, such as a team like Delaware State (or Wofford --- never heard of them, but they're the UW Badgers 12th game).

Crap. Just set up an alliance to play even the basement dwellers in the Big 12. Might help recruiting and they'd probably go for playing only at Michigan.

I would rather stay home than take the ugly girl to the dance just to go. Regardless of what happened last year you have to do better than Deleware St.

Why exactly is everybody unhappy with the decision? From this we get:

1. (Hopefully) A win
2. (Hopefully) A week where we can tune the offense against relatively week opposition.
3. Money
4. Parents Weekend!

Look into scheduling bottom feeders. They want increasing cuts of the money and/or home and home deals. A situation like getting Vanderbilt in 2006 probably won't be able to happen again. Bottom feeders from BCS conferences just demand too much money.

So yeah, its going to suck to pay $60 to watch UM vs. Delaware State, but how much different is it than UM vs. EMU?