Is the Big Ten East Actually Going to Be a Crapshoot in 2021 (Besides Ohio)?
Just a precursory reading of various online "way too early" or "post-spring" previews seem to indicate the Big Ten East is going to be a relative crapshoot in terms of finish, besides Ohio State.
Maryland, Rutgers, Indiana... they all seem to be "trending up" with the sports bloggers / writers. Meanwhile U-M and Penn State have (some) talent on paper but appear to be middling based on the results in 2020. Penn State is breaking in a new OC and Michigan went full change on defense.
What say you? Is this a potential year of real parity, besides Ohio State, in the East? Could Ohio State lose a 'gimme game' to one of these teams? They'll be up for Michigan / Penn State but is it feasible that Maryland or Indiana gives them a surprise? Or is this just more hot air to fill the blogs while we wait for the inevitable Ohio State - Penn State - Michigan 1-2-3 "meh" finish? If Maryland were to win 7-8 games that means they likely are beating Michigan for the first time in many years and also topping Penn State. If Rutgers is going to become competitive then all of a sudden this conference is arguably as deep as it ever was.
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Yep. Ohio State seems like an absolute shoe-in again. I'd be surprised if Maryland, Rutgers, or Michigan State finished 2nd in the division, and I'd be surprised if Penn State finished in the bottom 2, but beyond that I'd say it's pretty wide open.
April 16th, 2021 at 11:25 AM ^
I don't really know what Penn State has coming back but didn't they lose a whole bunch of guys to the portal in the last couple years? Also hasn't their recruiting been really poor? I thought for sure after last season that Franklin was on the hot seat, but there was never a major squeak about his job security (maybe there was in PSU circles). To me they are going nowhere.
But then I think about it and they probably look at us in exactly the same way.
Really poor recruiting? Don't think so. They're ahead of Michigan on the 247 team talent composite.
Basketball season......I miss you.
You remember when these sports bloggers predicted Michigan basketball to finish 7th? Don't buy into the sillines..
That's what I'm saying! +1 for you!
College football is sooo wild and unpredictable. I know I'll be tuning in this year to see which of Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, and Oklahoma wins the champeenship.
I'm not sure about Clemson and OSU this year. Let's see if they strike lightning again at the qb position. At some point, they'll both miss on a guy and have a shaky offensive season.
Pretty sure Clemson is just reloading the the QB position. D.J. Uiagalelei was the No. 10 overall player in the class of 2020 and the top-ranked pro-style quarterback, according to 247Sports’ Composite rankings.
Last year in his two starts he threw for 914 yards, 5 touchdowns, 0 interceptions while completing 67% of his passes. He also rushed for two scores.
Not a for sure thing but pretty positive they caught that lightning in a bottle again.
I think that when a program consistently creates Heisman candidate quarterbacks they're no longer "catching lightning." Both Ohio State and Clemson will have at least all-conference quarterbacks.
OSU will be in because the Big Ten is pure dogshit.
I think Wisconsin could be good, but I sure as hell wouldn't bet on them to beat Ohio State. Wisconsin is barely more competitive with OSU than Michigan.
OSU hasnt missed on anyone since 2011 when Joe Bauserman started over freshman Braxton Miller. He was eventually replaced after a few games.
Before that 2007 starter Todd Boeckman was replaced by freshman Terrelle Pryor in 2008, and before that Justin Zwick was replaced by Troy Smith, the original Michigan kryptonite in 2004.
So good luck with that hope.
Yes, but they obviously the BB team has a great coach who can develop players, relate to the players, have the players WANT to play for him, and he can recruit great talent, and he is not in his 6th or 7th year, just imagine how good we will be CONSITENTLY by then.
OP, I think it will be a crapshoot. However, I don't see it as upside down as 2020 was. I think the potential is there for all of the East matchups (sans OSU) to be really competitive games.
I'm bullish on our beloved Wolverines, too. I think we'll be better than the prognosticators assume.
2020 really wasn't all that upside down. Ohio State finished first. Penn State finished 3rd. Michigan being trash and Indiana being a little better than usual were the most significant differences.
In the West division, Northwestern, Iowa, and Wisconsin finished top 3. Nationally, the playoffs were all teams that had been there before. I'd say that 2020 was pretty normal results despite an unusual schedule.
Eh, I'd say it was pretty upside down. Penn State may have taken third, but they did so while going 4-5. Indiana, meanwhile, went 6-1 in the conference. That's not just a little better than usual. There were four good B1G teams last year every everyone else was in a flaming pile of trash.
Crap is definitely the correct word.
It could be very interesting given the chaos that occurred last year. IMO 2020 was an incredibly dumb and meaningless season and life will largely go back to normal, with Michigan and Penn State fighting for second in the division. The Football Outsiders returning talent index suggests that MSU, Indiana, and Rutgers will all be on the losing end when it comes to talent retention. Meanwhile, Penn State and Maryland return about 1 standard deviation above the mean in the conference, and Michigan is at around 1 1/3 standard deviations.
As you said --- 2020 was an incredibly dumb and meaningless season.
2020 had a recent doppleganger, however. 2014.
In 2014 (2020):
(A) There was a clear #1 in the B1G East in Ohio State (Ohio State).
(B) There was also a clear #2 in Michigan State (Indiana).
(C) The other 5 teams played each other in a series of games. There wasn't a great degree of separation between the 5 teams, and every single one of the games between them was dumb and sloppy and comical and stupid in some fashion or another.
(D) Maryland finished 3rd in the B1G East both years but by no means were they a particularly good team. They were simply slightly better than the other 4 mediocre-at-best teams.
Anyway, I think 2015 could be a good doppleganger for 2021.
(A) OSU & Indiana should remain good in 2021. Similar to OSU & MSU in 2015.
(B) U-M & Penn State should be better in 2021 and on Indiana's level or better. Though not OSU's level. Similar to what occurred with each in 2015. Both U-M and PSU inherently have talent on a year-over-year basis.
(C) Maryland, Rutgers and MSU have the most risk in 2021. Similar to Maryland, Rutgers & Indiana in 2015. They inherently have less talent than U-M or PSU on a year-over-year basis..
I don't think identifying one year with some similar traits is a good means of prediction.
Fair enough - almost no analogy or similarity is ever perfect. I admit that.
But there is a similarity. Both the 2014/2020 seasons saw the B1G East break out into distinct 1/1/5 tiers, with 2 of the teams in the "bottom 5 tier" being programs with long-term structural advantages over all of the non-OSU teams in the division.
Before I saw that Returning Talent Index from Football Outsiders, I wondered how the pundits would predict where Michigan would finish this season, especially those who rely primarily on returning talent and starting experience because it’s doubtful that any of these pundits will have seen practice films that will offer any value to them. After reviewing the Returning Talent Index, now I wonder whether their way of defining “talent” has much, if any, value in predicting outcomes.
In terms of returning talent, Michigan returns no All-Conference players on offense or defense from last season and its only possible All-Conference returnee from last season, kick return specialist Giles Jackson, has left the program. Michigan’s most experienced returning players are punter Brad Robbins and kicker Jake Moody. There currently are 58 first and second year players on the roster.
On defense, Michigan returns two well-regarded players (S Dax Hill and DE Aidan Hutchinson who was a third-team All-Conference pick by the media in 2019), the rest of its starting secondary (Brad Hawkins, Vincent Gray and Gemon Green) and a couple of starting linebackers (Mike Barrett and Josh Ross). Hutchinson missed most of last season due to injury and did not play in the spring scrimmage. The rest of the experienced defensive linemen have a combined total of 12 starts among them (Christopher Hinton-5, Donovan Jeter-4, Taylor Upshaw-2, Jess Speight-1).
On offense, among players with some experience, Michigan returns a junior quarterback who has played in four games and completed 43 of 71 passes for 425 yards and 5 touchdowns but who’s not even mentioned by Football Outsiders as a possible starter for this season (Cade McNamara), a starting running back who has rushed for 997 yards in 16 games over the past two seasons while averaging 5.5 yards a carry (Hassan Haskins), its top two wide receivers from last season who have a combined career total of 102 receptions for 1619 yards and 8 touchdowns in 50 games (Ronnie Bell and Cornelius Johnson), a junior tight end who has 13 career receptions (Erick All) and six offensive linemen who have a combined total of 28 starts among them (Andrew Stueber-8, Chuck Filiaga-6, Karsen Barnhart-4, Andrew Vastardis-4, Zak Zinter-4, Ryan Hayes-2).
The only season since they went to the East/West divisional format that at least one team hasn't been within a game of the division champion was 2019, when osu was 9-0 and psu was 7-2 (Michigan was 6-3 that year).
osu has won or shared the division crown every single year. msu shared/tied twice, and psu and Michigan once each.
If by crapshoot you mean that some team other than osu, psu, or Michigan is strongly in the mix, Windiana is the only logical contender. Rutgers, Maryland, and msu all suck pretty hard.
Not trying to be funny, but I really wish Indiana was Windiana. What a great name for a state that would be.
I am sure that in more repressed times, Intercourse, Pennsylvania thought about a name change, but lately, it simply seems perfect the way it is. Indeed, I imagine it has become their mission, in fact.
April 16th, 2021 at 11:55 AM ^
Always wanted the big beaver exit sign as a teen.
Cheers.
Feels like OSU will take a small step back but the gap is so vast it won't matter. I'm actually not as high on Indiana as some since they're losing Philyor and Scott, two of their better offensive players. I think they'll be fine next year and probably beat UM, but I wonder if last year might have been their best bet.
PSU will be better than this year, and Maryland feels like a wild card. They might be able to just blow people out of the water but they Also finished last year with the 64th offense per SP+ and 44th defense; for comparison UM finished 42 and 36, respectively. So who knows how that'll end.
My guess is UM finishes beyond 3rd and 5th in the division, with an outside chance at 2nd if the defense gels and the offense takes off. I'm not holding my breath for that.
Absolute best case scenario is second in the division if absolutely everything breaks right and Michigan catches some lucky bounces in critical games. There is definitely talent there. They are probably neck and neck with PSU as being the second most talented team in the B1G behind OSU.
But this team will probably finish closer to third or fourth. Maybe even fifth. They're losing to OSU. Nothing, absolutely nothing between now and November 27th is going to change that. PSU is probably a loss because its almost certainly their White Out night game next season. Wisconsin is a loss, too. MSU is on the road, and they already gained that huge confidence booster for Mel Tucker's program to go on the road last year and completely outclass a top-10 Michigan team. Gun to my head, I say Michigan loses that game in an ugly slopfest where neither team looks any good but MSU feeds off of having the chance to turn the tide of the rivalry back in their favor in front of their home crowd. I also don't have any faith that our secondary got any better and they got abused by a very bad MSU offense last year.
IU got over its huge 30 year Michigan mental hurdle and is arguably a better overall team right now. Northwestern will always give Michigan problems, and while Nebraska is a dumpster fire, I honestly have no faith in Michigan's ability to execute well on the road. I haven't for a decade plus. That to me is a game Michigan should and probably will win, but Nebraska will have every opportunity to steal it and will cough it up in the final minutes.
There are very few teams on Michigan's schedule that I look at right now and say "I'm not worried about them."
Shit, I'm worried about Western. I don't know that Michigan won't come out looking totally lost in week 1. Wisconsin feels like almost as much of lock for an L as Ohio State. The Badgers fucking dominate our front 7 and this definitely doesn't look like a team to be flipping the script there.
I feel good about beating Northern Illinois.
Couple the fact that we haven't won in Madison in just about as long a time as since we've won in Columbus. But yeah the only reason I have any remote amount of faith in being able to beat Wisconsin is because they're not a new age high-powered offense like OSU is. They still run an old school offense from the 70s, but they're actually able to execute it. But I digress.
If Michigan can somehow strike first and put up some early points they stand a chance. But yeah otherwise this has got 42-21 written all over it.
Doesn't northern illinois have rocky lambardi at quarter...oh mama!
April 15th, 2021 at 10:04 PM ^
Eh... I'd rather just not play him again.
April 15th, 2021 at 11:50 PM ^
Hopefully MacDonald has figured out how to stop the, "take two steps back and lob up a moon ball" offense.
Holy shit!
MSU is really flipping the roster this offseason...over 40% new players (recruiting and a lot of portal). Will be interesting to see how they perform.
Yes it is basically a crapshoot...
1. Ohio state
2. Penn state
3. Indiana
4. Michigan
5. Maryland
6. Michigan state
7. Rutgers
2-7 are totally up for grabs imho
I think Michigan dominates against the mac. Beats nw, Nebraska, MD...Rutgers, msu...and beats Washington because it's in ann arbor. Ohio, wisky and psu are double digit losses. Indiana is a 10-14 point loss sadly. 8-4 not much more sadly ?. Jj McCarthy would have to ball out like crazy to get 9 or more wins!!!
8 wins including a win over MSU! Sign me up! Fucking tag a bowl win onto that season and I'll feel like I'm dreaming.
April 15th, 2021 at 10:01 PM ^
And if a fella really wants to start dreaming...JJ McCarthy beats Ohio state! 10-3 beat osu, msu and an sec bowl opponent!!! Pinch me kurpit...
April 15th, 2021 at 10:02 PM ^
Too far. Now you've just made it completely unbelievable.
April 15th, 2021 at 10:06 PM ^
Donovan edwards runs for 257...jj throws for 300+
#Believe
April 17th, 2021 at 11:21 AM ^
If OSU has a defense like last year, that is certainly possible.... but even with that performance will it be enough to keep up with their offense?
April 15th, 2021 at 10:04 PM ^
Good post...but IMO would bump Maryland above us and not expect anything more than 7 wins tops, but your list looks pretty good.
I dont want to be a debbie downer but our offense is broken. 100% just dead and we are running off some talented players recently. If we had Harbaugh's absolute best defense at Michigan this coming year we might be able to get to 10 wins. Thats not happening and even if the D shows improvement and some fight they are constantly going to be put in bad situations. We are staring down Hoke after his 8-5 season type situation. How the #%$& did we get here? I want to be wrong and see a killer running game that dominates. Maybe that’s the thing that changes everything. Come on Mr Hart work some magic.