Man, this is not good. This defense just screams 6-6, or 5-7 to me. 

Curious, and lazy. What were our numbers last year?  Am I correct in assuming that we are going to field an "older" team than in 2009?

but you have to factor in the offense, which should be one of the best in the Big 10.  Having a good offense makes your defense better because they're not on the field as much.   Having a great running team only emphasizes this advantage.  

I think what needs to be looked at is not just under/upperclassmen, but starting experience/ overall playing time.  Is a senior who's a first year starter better than a sophmore who's in his second year as a starter?  Maybe that actually is the case.  But I would certainly prefer the returning starter.

If they can just hold up and be semi-mediocre we could have a great year.

It's pretty much on our D Line to keep quarterbacks bothered enough that they don't wreak havoc on our secondary. The longer a quarterback gets in the pocket, the scarier this season is going to be. That being said, I have faith in Roh, Martin, and VanBergen. Also, it can't hurt that the young secondary gets to practice against a damn good group of receivers. 

By the way one of those upperclassmen was a fullback as recently as Spring.

The DL looks extremely solid with a very good DT rotation and Van Bergen plus AWESOME FROSH manning the end spot.

Death Roh has got that hybrid DE/LB spot on lock. Good depth in the LB corps (Fitzgerald/Demens/Jones/Leach).

Secondary looks atrociously bad unless Marvin Robinson and Cullen Christian are killers and Vlad Emilien is a world-beater.

Difference between being absolutely atrociously season-killing and below average is unfortunately, Jonas Mouton and Obi Ezeh.

The fact the season and RichRod's Michigan tenure may ride on those two is Texas Chainsaw Massacre-level frightening.

EDIT TO ADD: Probably a bad sign I used "atrociously" twice in the span of 2 paragraphs to describe the defense.

thick and thin, since spring. And I think that will be an accomplishment, that Brandon will know it, and the RR keeps his job even with that record. 2011, we kill. 

Greg Banks is definitely starting over Sagesse, otherwise you're correct there.

 What will stop the tsunami?  Damn, even IU is probably licking their chops after reading all of the banter on Mgoblog.

Revising my forecast to seven, maybe eight losses.  Won't matter how many points we score, we are in major defensive doo-doo.

And sadly, RR will be canned.   I hate to see this happen, but our defense is thin, inexperienced, and bad.  And there are no excuses after three seasons.  There aren't.  The head coach has badly underestimated what kind of defense is necessary to win in the Big Ten.  Period.

For the last two years after each tough loss, it's been "ehh, I Don't Live Today, just Wait Until Tomorrow." Still, when I read these numbers after a Long Hot Summer Night, it's easy to feel that my One Rainy Wish of a competitive defense is nothing more than Castles Made of Sand. In that case, I'm looking at staving off a Manic Depression.

What I have to do is remember the Burning of the Midnight Lamp as GERG and the rest of the defensive staff stay up late figuring out how to keep Michigan Stadium from becoming a Red House of blown assignments, missed tackles, and third-and-18 conversions.

If they can, Ain't No Telling how far this team can go with the increasingly potent offense we'll see over the course of the season.

If they can't, it'll be hard to prevent the mob from Ann Arbor Torch & Pitchfork from braving Crosstown Traffic to lay seige to David Brandon's office, screaming Fire RR or you'll see the Big House Burning Down.

My hunch all along has been that we'll only win half our games. If 6 was 9, then You Got Me Floating on this Third Stone from the Sun.

Can they possibly be worse then last year? One more year in the weight room and a simplified scheme should help, last years D had plenty of upperclassmen and we know how that went. I think the D will be improved enough to get us to a minor bowl with next year setting up for Big Ten contention.

Our coaches can coach these kids up. Lots of desire and heart. Thats where coaches need to give them the best chance to succeed.. 

Most of those numbers come from the secondary.  Up front we have veterans/upperclassmen.  We just need to blitz like hell and hope that forces bad passes.

As long as we are even mediocre we should be fine this season because I expect a lot less turnovers from the offense setting up our defense in a bad spot.

We'll have 9 upperclass starters on offense (if Shaw is the RB), the only underclass guys being Roundtree and Omameh.  If the numbers are similar for offense, then our offense will be great and our defense will be craptastic.  In other words, just what we've been expecting: shootouts.

Crashing and burning like the Jimi's guitar might be far fetched for our defense this year. I've been following our new freshmen's high school careers and checking the possible starters on defense and although this isn't a Bo's or Lloyd's defense, it might have a chance to be a middle of the Big Ten Pack defense this season.

At CB the fear is that JT FLoyd isn't great, well don't worry, he was going to play anyways, and as for the number 2 CB Fr. Cullen Christian is a super great athlete at that position, that means a lot at this point, James Rogers and Courtney Avery are great support also. As for Talbott and Jones, great support at DBs. Yes the position is thin, but still if we can keep these guys semi healthy during the season we can target being a decent defense this season in the B10. I think if Michigan plays contain defense and doesn't take much chances we can maintain having longer drives for the other offense, which means more snaps, more chances for mistakes, more time ticking off the clock and much more resting time for our offense.

The hope then is to get that offense to produce, we need an average of 28 to 35 points a game to win around 9 games this season. From what I see on Michigan's offense, I think that is very possible. we need to try to repeat what Michigan did in the 2000 season when Henson and the offense needed to SCORE big every game to be able to win. keep your fingers crossed and hope for the best... GO BLUE