Do you like nachos?

This one was hard to watch. It's funny you titled your post as such. I was griping to my wife during the 3rd quarter, saying the only good explanation for this game is that I just went back in time to last year. Ok, so maybe there are better explanations, but I couldn't see them through my disappointment. Again, hard to watch. But you're right, 7-5 still looks possible and it's what I was hoping for before the season started. For me, it's harder to watch because of the 4-0 start. But you know what? 5-3 is already better than 3-9. On to Champaign.

Welcome to TWIS.

It seemed like today was a day of poor personnel choices. Molk had no reason to be in the game. I'd prefer him not playing when he only had one week of practice on his knee. Denard was put in at a bad time. Cissoko was FINALLY put in to dam the gushing bleed caused by Mike Williams being at Safety. Warren just... idk what the fuck he was doing, his head wasn't in the game, which is a first. Penalty-wise, I disagree. Besides the one holding call and the roughing the kicker (which wasn't really roughing the kicker), we didn't have any penalties worth mentioning.

True. This one game really, really sucked. Thank you for not projecting this suckitude onto the entire season. But today sucked and it was made worse by PSU totally not sucking.

The game might have been over right when we lost Molk. And wow do I feel bad for Junior Hemingway he is an injury magnet.

This isn't anything like last year. Last year we lost to Toledo. This year we've lost to two highly ranked teams and a likely underrated MSU team. Today was ugly, but we were outmatched on both lines. We're currently a 3 loss team, we play Illinois next week, and unless something goes horribly wrong, we should be bowl eligible very soon.

i agree with the OP. usually, there's at least SOMETHING to take stock in. some kind of spark or hope. there was nothing in this game, other than BG's standard excellent effort. this was an awful game. it really was a flashback to last year. I've been a staunch Tate supporter from the beginning, but he really started to annoy me today. I think it's because I see a total lack of progress in his game. Since I feel the same way about Denard, i'm starting to become concerned with the coaching of these guys. I quite understand that they are freshmen and all, but usually you see some signs that things are starting to click. I know it's unpopular to criticize RR around here, but things are definitively not happening with these QBs. So yeah, I'm pretty annoyed by this one. What annoys me even more is people looking at the schedule and STILL calling Illinois an 'easy win'? REALLY? We SHOULD win, sure, but I'd bet the house that they will smack us in the mouth next week, and I wish I could be more confident that we'd strike back. we looked like a flimsy, tired & wet football squad out there today. I can't believe more people haven't seemed to care that our passing game is totally without a true receiving threat. Our leading wideout right now, Odoms, is a tiny target who MAYBE averages 3 catches a game. 3. That won't work. Opposing D coordinators don't need to know the names of any of our receivers when they draw up a gameplan. And that concerns me. The ineptitude of our guys to make routine catches bothers the crap out of me. It's like our wideouts assume someone else will make a play or, eh, the ball's probably not coming my way anyway, what's the point. I think mathews could be an excellent posession guy, but without a number one downfield/playmaking wideout, he's been largely ineffective. YARRRRGHHHH. i'm out. i hope this team can pull it together to eek out another win. anything more than 2 wins would be shocking, b/c this looks like a team without a shred of confidence at the moment. one positive: I'm glad RichRod left in Tate in garbage time. even though that series ended in the bad INT, we desparately needed to try to get any kind of rhythm/practice in the passing game.

that we've got one big upset win in us this year and I'd rather it be against TP and the Senator than today.

I'm about 7 El Salvadorean beers deep (surprisingly delicious) so maybe that has raised my optimism meter, but after about 5 minutes of screaming terrible things about Carlos Brown and his family at the screen (that fumble gutted me) I think I'm able to put a positive spin on the game. The reason this game is so frustrating is because all that is keeping us from beating very good teams like Iowa and Penn State are self-inflicted wounds (bad snap for safety, putting the ball on the ground, dropped passed, etc.). The fact that this is the case so early in a massive rebuilding project (and yes, this is a massive rebuilding project when we still have roughly 75 scholarship players on the roster) is a testament to the players and the coaches we have. If we had won today we would have been looking at a likely 9-3 (if not 10-2) record and a big time bowl game. The fact that we all kind of expected it (even uber-realist Brian picked the Blue), shows just how far we've come in such a short time. This team has two true freshman quarterbacks, a couple of physically outmatched OT's (don't mean to bag on presumably great guys like Ortmann and Dorrestein, but under normal circumstances they would have no business starting at Michigan), underclassmen throughout the receiving corps, and underclassmen (plus a RS freshman walk-on) throughout the defense. There is also pretty much zero depth (except maybe at RB). We shouldn't expect a BCS bowl bid from this group (but the fact that they gave us that glimmer of hope is AWESOME). Also, Notre Dame is STILL our bitch. Now let's just beat the Buckeyes and we'll all remember this as the super-fun roller coaster season that brought us back to the top (I'll stay positive even if we don't, but goddamnit beating those cocksuckers again would be fun).

"...and represents a huge step forward from last year." That's what we are all thinking and hoping, but we won't know for sure until next season.

You forgot about 38 snaps at or below Tate's knees. Other than that it looked pretty complete.

It was a horrible second half, but I do think this shows how good PSU can be on defense and offense when everything falls together for them. This PSU team was a far cry from what we've seen all year, but I think this is closer to how they'll play going forward than the first few games of the year. This was a probable loss at the beginning of the season, and I see no reason to discount that now.

Did not see this one coming!!!! I felt this would be the game where it started to all come together. Instead, it all fell apart and we looked as bad as last year. I have a few paranoid concerns going forward, maybe some of you can help talk me off the ledge and validate which worries are realistic and which are reactionary..... 1) Is it possible that all this southern speed and California/ florida qbs are going to continue struggling in wet cold weather? This game was eerily similar to last year's ND game. Do warm climate kids have trouble handling the ball in crappy weather or is this a myth? 2) Outside of Brandon Graham and Donovan Warren the defense is terrible. I have hope for a couple of the younger players...Roh and Williams...but are we are in trouble there for years to come? 3) Do we need more plodding meat-heads to compete in the Big Ten? At least on the lines it appears the answer is yes...PSU was running up the middle on us for 5 yards a pop. 4) Does the DR experiment need to end? I know RR promised him a shot at qb, and Tate is injured and not playing well right now, but it’s obvious that DR is not college qb ready. We need to find other ways to get him the ball. 5) Does this game hurt us in recruiting? It's already been a tough recruiting year. 6) I was one of the loudest when it came to criticizing Lloyd in the last 5 years of his tenure. I gave RR a free pass last year, and in many ways just wanted to see improvement this year before making any judgments. But with today's game is it fair to start bitching? I think it’s still too early, as for the most part we have seen a lot of improvement thus far this year and this was just one game. So I ask the board, at what point in time of a new coach's tenure is it fair to start bitching....Do we need to wait four years....an entire recruiting cycle? I like RR and think he will succeed at Michigan, and he definitely deserves the fan support, especially with the free-press lynch mob after him. That being said, he is the coach and ultimately responsible for the program. So I ask…What should the expectations on the team be right now, so that we can fairly judge RR’s performance. Go Blue.