7-5; losses to MSU, Iowa, Neb., OSU.

Little secret:  These articles are always laughably wrong.  None offer any insight aside from projection and opinion.  All subjective.  No one can tell the future, though pretty much every news outlet fills the offseason with stuff like this.  

Why?  Because, little secret, newspapers have to fill space.  The Freep does it, the News does it, AnnArbor.com does it, the Daily does it...  It's an easy fill.  Now, if you're taking issue that it's being published in January, well, yeah, go right ahead.  But let's not pretend like this is something incredibly novel or unusual.

This is just another excuse to start a Freep thread.

When is a boycott a boycott?

this early are retarded.  Until I see a marked difference defensively, I would not count any game an automatic win - with the exception of Western and Eastern.

It is way to early to make a call on next years Michigan team but I am not sure where he is getting the love for Iowa they lose 5 starter on offense including rick Stanzi, and six starters on Defense including future first round pick Adrian Clayborn and a great kicker in Ryan Donahue.  They have three really good players in Mike Daniels, Marvin Mcnutt, and Riley Reiff but after that they have a huge drop off in talent.

I'm beginning to think that you are a closet Freep lover and that this is some kind of reverse psychology on your part to get us interested in viewing their site. 

Michigan will win 8-9 games. They'll curbstomp MSU!

I'll root for them in all their games.  I hope the defense can make some big strides this year! May be we'll have a great season which will help out next season's recruiting. One game I know is already circled on the calendar and that is the last home game against OSU. I have a good feeling that this awful streak could be coming to an end in 2011 season.

I get tired of people and all the negative talk. Especially if your supposed to be true to the colors. You have troubles my friend! Get over it.

screw the freep, the horse they rode in on, all their writers and the people who pay for that rag of a junk pile.

Secondly -  I have to agree that we should probably wait and find out

1. Who is really staying/going from our current team.

2. Who will make up the remaining guys to sign with UM soon

3. What other coaches will be hired.

4. What we look like at the spring game.

Even with all this info the record will be hard to guess at, but right now it's like trying to open a can of tomatoes with sticks of butter.

The first question is "what do Hoke and Borges mean when they say they will adapt the offense to Denard?" 

I will use a very simlar turnaround at USF as an example.  They went from Leavitt's spread to an offense that looks a lot like what they ran at SDSU last year.  They looked like the hiring was a terrible mistake the first half of the season.  But as they became more familiar with the offense, they beat a couple of teams they usually don't beat at the end of the year. 

If Hoke and Borges don't have many spread plays in their book, and they just plan on calling a few runs for Denard each game to make him happy, the curve could be similar.  Luckily for Michigan, most of their tough games are in the second half of the schedule.  If they get lucky, they may lose only to ND and beat little brother to start out at 6-1. 

I would expect them to suffer one stupid upset somewhere along the line, but I think they will start doing a Tressel and practice a little bit every day for OSU.  At this point, I think they should get to eight or nine wins, and if OSU's Memorabilia Five don't come back, Hoke could make everyone very happy come November. 

Denard staying is incredibly huge for the program, and the teams that were really strong last year were senior-laden and will sustain heavy losses due to graduation. To me, it looks like ND and Nebraska are the only "sure losses" on the schedule.  But, as we all know, shit happens, and they will lose a game or two that they "shouldn't lose." 

I know it's early, but I'll take 8-4 and see if the depth Nebraska provides to the conference gets Michigan matched up against a bowl opponent they can beat.  It isn't the 11 games I thought they might have won with RR, but it will be enough to keep a lot of people happy. 

For this year, that will probably have to be enough. 

For one thing, not a single one of these predictions shows anything but conventional wisdom. Last year, under RR, we managed to do the unthinkable: live the conventional wisdom and win exactly the games people thought we would, and lose exactly the games people thought we would.  But that's not normal.  Most mediocre teams win at least one upset, and lose at least one "sure thing."  

I do expect us to be middling good next year, and doubt we'll win fewer than 6 or more than 9, but I think the least thing the writer could have done is go a little deeper than "well, gee, it looks this way this year, so next year's gotta be just like it..."

The one place he does that is with Notre Dame, who do look to be better than they were this year.  How about Northwestern?  They return most of a good offense, but what about their defense?  How about Iowa, which will be missing Stanzi, Robinson, Clayborn, Johnson-Koulianos and a whole bunch of other starters?  We played them close the last two years and now we get them without these guys.  How about MSU?  Sure they don't lose a lot of guys, but one of those guys is Greg Jones, and we should be in that game.  Finally, we've got to consider a Nebraska team that looked sharp early but really limped to the finish this year.  Can they handle the increased physicality of the Big 10?  We play them late, when they were at their worst this year.  Sure, so were we, but we've got a new coaching staff that aims to emphasize "toughness" and looks to have more bodies in the secondary than we did this year.  

Not saying anything will necessarily play out differently--it's just too damned early to say much of anything--but just that the writer shows little imagination and less depth in tackling the subject.  

prediction threads?  Who the fuck cares what some liberal so called "sports writer" thinks anyway.  Arent we all "sports writers" for being on MGoBlog?

I don't know Section 1 but it is literally IMPOSSIBLE at this point to speculate on this year's team when last year's team just finished playing, we just got a new coach, we're still recruiting, and we don't know how good or bad the offense or defense will be. So we really can't assume ANYTHING at this point. 

to make a story like this.  But, whatever sells that rag works for them I guess.

Most accurate time to predict the next season? Right when the last one ends, of course! No need to wait for signing, the spring game, or to hear how practice has been going.

And, if you're reading this, congrats! You've made it all the way to the third page like my comment! I came a little late to the His Dudeness downer party.

I think the losses next year will be closer and at least competitive, I can't see Hoke's team getting blown off the field. I heard a lot of "we just didn't execute" last year, bet that will change next year.

up to Notre Dame.

...looks like we won't have to actually play the games now. It's all decided.

Yeah, right.

That kind of garbage reporting is to be expected from the freep!  When I read it I was not surprised that he didn't stick his neck out on at least one big win.  I mean, anyone can predict 7-5 against that schedule.  He rolled with the opponent on every tough game!  How about a big U of M win at Notre Dame and an upset win at Iowa?

We will struggle against Nebraska, MSU and Ohio State, but of those three I think we could win against MSU (you never know when it comes to our in-state rivals) and Nebraska, depending on which team shows up.  OSU unfortunately should still own our asses next year.

Maybe the reason why you're not so good at predictions is because you do them waaayy too early.  I think the majority of us don't try until at least after the spring game.

I think that 7-5 with the losses pointed out in the article should be the floor, assuming we don't have any more attrition. At least, I think that would have been the floor for Rodriguez. If hiring Hoke was the right choice, I would like to see him at least replicate what would have happened without a change, especially considering how much this coaching change will hurt our recruiting.