is not a single entity that must maintain consistancy.  Posts are by individuals with individual opinions.

It's not quite apples and oranges, but maybe two different kinds of apples. I haven't seen anyone on here claim that we'd beat MSU or Iowa 9 times out of 10. (Because we wouldn't.) We have said that if a few plays had gone a different way, we'd have had a chance to win right up until the end. I haven't seen anyone claim that we're a better team than Iowa or MSU.

........."we beat ourselves". It's more about stating that "everyone knows we would win 9 out of 10 times". Everyone knows? Kind of hard to make a statement starting with that phrase when you played one game and Wisky beat them, had them beat nearly the entire game and yet he qualifies it further by stating that OSU would win 9 out of 10 times. This isn't a scrub team they played who just got lucky. Wisky is a decent team, with a pretty good defense and solid running game. This is Pryor talking, who just got done beating a terrible Purdue team and he still threw 2 Int's in it.

As for UM fans lamenting about MSU and Iowa, I don't think I saw anyone make a statement saying "everyone knows we beat them 9 out of 10 times". Most have said that if we didn't make the stupid mistakes we made in those game that it could have turned out different. Quite a bit of difference in the statements made.

For one thing, it is entirely different for this statement to come from a player.  For someone who is on the field and in control of his own destiny, a statement like this comes off as exceedingly arrogant and whiny. Hubris! The masses back home can pontificate as they like about why ze Germans are advancing against the French and it is only so much noise. But for your field commander to make excuses as to why the battle was lost reveals a genuine lack of character when that role requires true fortitude, and is cause for alarm among French and delight among Germans. So, there is a difference: People in a role to determine outcomes of interest are held to a different standard than mere passive observers.

That said, I am mostly in agreement with you. It is quite stupid to say, "M would have beaten MSU and Iowa if not for those turnovers and penalties!!!" Those people are morons on par with Pryor -- but with less athletic ability, so even lower overall. It is quite another thing to say, "If M hadn't committed those penalties and turnovers, those games would have been different." Which, yeah duh. It's somewhat stupid due to circularity, but true nonetheless.