In an effort to stay out of the "RichRod sucks/Harbaugh is God" or "Harbaugh is a hack traitor/RichRod will win 20 MNCs" camps, I decided to refocus my attention on a possibly relevant topic: given the completed 2010 season, what should our expectations for 2011 be?  More specifically, is there hope in recent Michigan history?

I began by comparing Michigan's results from 2010 with those from another recent 7-5 year, the 2005 Year of Infinite Pain (little did we know), a season that was widely heralded as Michigan's "once per score years down-year."

	2005	2010
Win #1	NIU, 33-17	UConn, 30-10
Win #2	EMU, 55-0	ND, 28-24
Win #3	MSU, 34-31	UMass, 42-37
Win #4	PSU, 27-25	BG, 65-21
Win #5	Iowa, 23-20	Indiana, 42-35
Win #6	Northwestern, 33-17	Illinois, 67-65
Win #7	Indiana, 41-14	Purdue, 27-16
Loss #1	ND, 10-17	MSU, 17-34
Loss #2	Wisconsin, 20-23	Iowa, 28-38
Loss #3	Minnesota, 20-23	PSU, 31-41
Loss #4	OSU, 21-25	Wisconsin, 28-48
Loss #5	Nebraska, 21-25	OSU, 7-37

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While at first glance I want to be able to look at this and say "we followed that 2005 season with a 2006 season led by a beast of a defense and a powerful offense, and came within a late-hit penalty of playing for the national championship," I can't see a similar turn-around for 2011.  Outside of the records, these teams were night-and-day.

It's true that the 2011 team will be bringing back more guys than we did in 2006, but that's where the comparison ends.  The 2005 team didn't lose a game by more than seven points, and lost their five games by a combined 21 points while outscoring their opponents in their wins by 122.  The 2010 team suffered each loss by at least ten points and lost the five by a combined 87 points, while only outscoring their opponents by 83 in the wins.  For those of you keeping track at home, that's a +101 scoring differential versus a -4.

So if we can't learn from 2005, what does progress really look like year-on-year from 2009?

	2009	2010
Win #1	WMU, 31-7	UConn, 30-10
Win #2	ND, 38-34	ND, 28-24
Win #3	EMU, 45-17	UMass, 42-37
Win #4	Delaware St., 63-6	BG, 65-21
Win #5	Indiana, 36-33	Indiana, 42-35
Loss/Win	Illinois, 13-38	Illinois, 67-65
Loss/Win	Purdue, 36-38	Purdue, 27-16
Loss #3/1	MSU, 20-26	MSU, 17-34
Loss #4/2	Iowa, 28-30	Iowa, 28-38
Loss #5/3	PSU, 10-35	PSU, 31-41
Loss #6/4	Wisconsin, 24-45	Wisconsin, 28-48
Loss #7/5	Ohio State, 10-21	OSU, 7-37

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other than UConn being a marginally tougher opponent than WMU, we ran the table against ND and some cupcakes in the non-conference schedule.  In both years we beat Indiana close and lost to Wisconsin by about 20.

In the positive column, we turned a 25 point Illinois loss into a 2 point win, and turned a 2 point Purdue loss into an 11 point win.  We closed the gap with PSU from 25 points to 10 points.

On the negative, however, our three conference losses against the better Big Ten teams got much worse.  Instead of losing in OT to MSU, we lost by 17.  Instead of losing by 2 to Iowa, we lost by 10.  Instead of an 11 point loss to OSU with five Tate Forcier turnovers, we lost by 30 in a game wherein OSU ran the ball on the final 16 plays and didn't attempt a pass in the 4th quarter (mimicking Wisconsin's performance the week before).

A sad stat for those arguing that 2010 was a strong step forward - the 2009 team was actually a +24 in scoring differential, which is four touchdowns favorable to the 2010 team that supposedly took a big step forward.  If David Brandon keeps Rich Rodriguez on for a fourth year I'm rooting hard for him to succeed and for us to compete for a championship, but it appears he'll be doing it without the benefit of recent trends or history.

Go Blue!