The realm of the possible (updated)

If your superstar theory is to come to fruition, you have to identify a potential breakout star who can instantly impact... I would propose Mike Martin is the only player with that potential on our team today. *IF* a competent 3-tech DT emerges, that might be the easing Martin needs to have a blowup year and become a Suh-like dominent force. A dominating interior lineman is the quickest way in my opinion to improve a defense as a dominating interior lineman can singly disrupt both an interior run game and timing passing game, leaving a DC to scheme around a quick passing game or outside running game. But Martin has to stay healthy and Big Will or Ash HAS to show up as a sufficient DT. If they don't, it's last year all over again where Martin gets double-teamed until his ankles break.

for this year. While I don't expect miracles we have all of the things that quantify a BIG statistical jump working for us. We return the most starters, our main rivals take a big hit in returning starters. We have the coaching change from several underperforming coaches to 3 stellar D line coaches, 2 with a long proven track record. We not only have emerging talent (Gordon-Ryan-Demens,) but we also have players who we all thought were ready to turn the corner, we have star talent returning from injury (Woolfork-Floyd-Martin) and we have overburdened talent (Martin-RVB-Roh) suddenly being taken off the leash and properly utilized. We're switching from a 3 man front to an (at times) 5 man front. We had a tougher road schedule last year and the easier home schedule this year. We have our main competitors offenses taking large steps backwards, while ours adds better clock management and it seems like the planets have aligned themselves just to give us a big statistcal jump. We'll likely not be where we ultimately want to be this year, but we couldn't arrange it much better to make a bigger 1 year improvement unless we switched to a weaker conference.

In 2007 they gave up an avg. of 37 ppg, including the embarassing 76 to Kansas.  Tom Osborne fires Callahan.  Brings in Bo Pelini, defensive background, to be head coach.  Nebraska's defense improves 31 positions. 

Projecting defensive performance for 2011 in terms of how big a jump in the rankings is required is, I think, somewhat misleading. It makes it seem like a statistical miracle is required to return to any kind of respectability. The remarkable statistical anomaly is already in the books: it is the epically, historically atrocious performance of last year's defense. That, let us hope, was an unfortunate outlier that Michigan fans will never again bear witness to.

If, instead, we simply forget all historical statistics and try to objectively compare the 2011 Michigan defense with the other 119 FBS teams in terms of talent, experience, and coaching, I think we would conclude that it is not a top 20 unit, but something like 40th would be a reasonable estimate. I don't think it is unreasonable or unrealistic for Michigan fans to expect a return to semi-normalcy following the recent excursion into the twilight zone of bad defenses.

I like stats -- a lot -- but I think there needs to be more discussion about WHY Mattison would be another 30 spots (I abhore straight rankings, but that's a different matter). In other words, you need a mechanism. In Brian's post the other day the mechanism was returning starters. In this diary, the mechanism is...nothing.

The only thing this data says is that we should expect the average improvement in ranking; we should expect nothing. Why isn't he worth 80 spots? How do we know he's worth anything at all?

Including a bowl game, this team could win 6 games or it could win 11.  There is a lot of "possible" this season.  And because of the wholesale coaching changes, we won't really have any idea until the games happen.  The games that really count will be ND (loss), MSU (win), Nebraska (loss), and Ohio (win). 

If Hoke continues the upward trend and they go 9-3, the bandwagoneers will all be satisfied that the program is "going in the right direction."  That would be a great start.

Thanks for putting in the work on this and posting. I have a note about a statistical issue that makes these numbers pretty misleading, though. Part of the reason that you so rarely see jumps of, say, 70 spots is that only a fraction of teams could possibly make that jump no matter how much their D improves. If a team's D shot from #65 one year to #1 the following year, that wouldn't qualify as extreme improvement with the way you've set this up. In fact, that would count as a team that failed to make a 70-spot jump (since it'd be in your denominator but not your numerator).



One simple analysis that might be interesting would be to take the handful of defenses that finished right around where Michigan finished last year (say 5 in each direction over 10 years for about 100 teams) and plot where they finished the following year. This might give a better feel for the distribution of past outcomes.

an improvement from 102nd to 70th seems realistic to me.  The 70th ranked team in PPG allowed last year was Idaho at 28.3.  With an easier schedule, improved scheme, coaching, and personell, that sounds about right.

I know that the board has had numerous discussions related to the defense and how much we as fans can/should expect it to improve. I find these posts to be very interesting. I hope the defense shows up this year.

One thing that a defense must do, and has been missing, is intimidate the players accross from them. I don't care if guys are out of position, or if they miss tackles, or the other side happens to be more athletic right now; but I do care about how much effort and physicality is being put into it. a lesser athlete can always make up ground by being more physical and simply intimidating the other side. When was the last time we had a Michigan defense where to a man you could say you would not want to be hit by any of those guys? I can't remember the last time I saw a solid de-cleater where a Michigan man was on the giving side and not the receiving side. I just want them to HIT SOMEONE.

As my college defensive coordinator used to say "find someone and make them your B$TCH!"

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