Coaches poll: Michigan #13
October 30th, 2011 at 11:53 AM ^
Many highly ranked teams either lost or looked shaky, so here is my Top 25 after this week,
1)LSU 2)Alabama 3)Oklahoma St. 4)Stanford 5)Boise St.
6)Oregon 7)Oklahoma 8)Nebraska 9)Arkansas 10) Virginia Tech
11)S.Car 12)Clemson 13)Houston 14)Michigan 15)Penn St. 16)Michigan St.
17)Kansas St. 18)Arizona St. 19)Georgia Tech 20)Georgia 21)Wisconsin 22) Auburn
23)Texas 24)OSU 25) Cincinnati
October 30th, 2011 at 11:56 AM ^
@ 13
That's a bit high don't ya think?
October 30th, 2011 at 12:01 PM ^
yea, but what can you do when other highly ranked teams lose. I already think Michigan is too high. I mean all it matters is the final week ranking.
October 30th, 2011 at 12:02 PM ^
It seems too high, but who are you going to put ahead of us? As far as 1 loss teams go, we are already among the lowest ranked.
October 30th, 2011 at 1:49 PM ^
yeah, but Houston is probably better than about half the teams in the top 25.
October 30th, 2011 at 1:57 PM ^
They have barely beat shitty teams. They have won by one or two against teams much worse than EMU. They are fucking horrible. Minnesota would hand them their asses.
October 30th, 2011 at 1:45 PM ^
I'm getting an intense sense of deja vu...
October 30th, 2011 at 11:56 AM ^
#HALOL Michigan State
October 30th, 2011 at 11:55 AM ^
October 30th, 2011 at 12:09 PM ^
6th best rushing offense in the country.
8th best scoring d in the country.
Tied for the best record in the Big Ten.
Yea, I'd say they're worthy as of now
October 30th, 2011 at 12:13 PM ^
Kool-Aid please!
October 30th, 2011 at 11:15 PM ^
I'll have a glass and say a toast to the 8th best scoring D.
October 30th, 2011 at 12:15 PM ^
And one of them made our rushing game look like a total joke.
Other teams have already played better competition. We get our shot at knowing if Michigan State was a fluke or a trend in the next four games.
October 30th, 2011 at 12:39 PM ^
Who has Oklahoma State played? What about Boise State? K-State was 7-0 going into yesterday and got destroyed because they have played absolutely no one. Stanford had their first test yesterday and had to go to triple OT against USC. You can say we have played no one, but there are a lot of teams out there in the same boat.
October 30th, 2011 at 12:44 PM ^
LSU and Alabama have both played pretty legit schedules, but other than Clemson, other teams are ranked higher because their losses seem better than ours. Our SOS is as good as anybody not ranked in the top two.
October 30th, 2011 at 12:49 PM ^
I upvoted you for your avatar, I mean your rationale!
October 30th, 2011 at 2:23 PM ^
Boise beat Georgia in Georgia. I'm pretty sure Georgia is better than any team Michigan has played.
October 30th, 2011 at 2:52 PM ^
I don't know the numbers, but I would bet that if you look at Sagarin's rankings and get an average rank of teams played, Boise's schedule is nothing to write home about.
Edit: Sagarin has them at 31. Michigan is 60, but the games to be played are very different:
Michigan: Iowa (65), Illinois (43), Nebraska (12), OSU (29)
Boise: UNLV (148), TCU (31), SDSU (60), Wyoming (75), New Mexico (196)
October 30th, 2011 at 3:44 PM ^
The what about Boise State meme is getting old. BSU has beat every big time opponent they have faced. Who cares that they play out west. BSU would pick Michigan's defensive backs apart right now. You'll see when they play Moo U. next year.
October 30th, 2011 at 1:05 PM ^
what's the third decent team we've played?
October 30th, 2011 at 1:21 PM ^
Eastern Michigan. They're almost bowl eligible!
October 30th, 2011 at 4:48 PM ^
They're having a rough year, but they have a great offense and they are a real big ten team. SDSU was well coached but talent-wise was basically a MAC team. the game was never in doubt.
thus far Northwestern was the most convincing win I saw for Michigan, given the quality of the competition.
October 30th, 2011 at 2:35 PM ^
Stats are only relevant when everyone plays everyone else. The numbers that matter are the ones you put up against top teams.
October 30th, 2011 at 12:01 PM ^
That's a bigger jump than I expected... not that there's anything wrong with that.
October 30th, 2011 at 12:11 PM ^
Stanford at 3? I think they would get killed against Bama, LSU, OSU. Can't wait until Oregon kills them.
October 30th, 2011 at 12:25 PM ^
We're cracking the top ten after next week. This team is for real I think.
October 30th, 2011 at 2:31 PM ^
Michigan has one (narrow, somewhat freakish) win over a ranked team. That team is no longer ranked. Mostly M has beaten a bunch of mediocre, second-tier teams. That's an improvement over recent years. But it doesn't make Michigan a top-ten team.
October 30th, 2011 at 3:21 PM ^
October 30th, 2011 at 12:32 PM ^
We need to win out to prove ourselves. There should be no reason we can't win ALL games left on our schedule. Every team is beatable at this point, we just have to show up and play 100% Michigan football.
October 30th, 2011 at 1:34 PM ^
Every team is beatable, but everyone we play has a decent chance to beat us. We have 4 of our 6 toughest games left. I'd say we have a 60-70% chance of winning at Iowa and at Illinois. Then a 40% chance against Nebraska and a 50% chance against OSU. I think we go 2-2 to end the year.
October 30th, 2011 at 12:32 PM ^
Cincinnati wins out, we win out, MSU loses and we take PSU in the BTCG (only after OSU qualifies but the NCAA issues a bowl ban two weeks before the game and the B1G disqualifies them from playing in the title game) and play Cincinnati in the Rose after Stanford wins out and goes to the BCS title game.
October 30th, 2011 at 12:59 PM ^
what's the point of getting to go to the Rose Bowl if you have to play Cincinnati?
October 30th, 2011 at 1:06 PM ^
We need a win this season. I'm all for taking on the SEC team de joure when we've had a year in the system. A Rose Bowl win this year, even against weaker competition, would be much better than anything else I can imagine for this team.
Bring on LSU next season, but we need a winnable game this year, and we will not win a game against virtually any other BCS contender. If Washington made it somehow (beating Oregon next week and Stanford either winning out or losing two) that would be the only favorable Pac team I can think of with any semblance of a chance of playing in the Rose Bowl.
October 30th, 2011 at 1:13 PM ^
the point isn't to win the Rose Bowl. It's to play (and hopefully beat) an awesome team in the Rose Bowl.
Getting to go to the Rose Bowl and then realizing you're playing a Big East team rather than Stanford or Oregon would be awful.
October 30th, 2011 at 1:29 PM ^
Agree to disagree then. I'll be hoping for the most winnable game possible, because getting blown out by Stanford seems less desirable than being favored against a BE champ or Houston.
By the way, I don't think it's possible for us to end up in the Rose against the BE champion. It looks like SEC v Pac for the title again, which would have the Rose picking either first or second to replace Stanford. The Rose Bowl isn't going to take a BE champ when picking that high. If we don't get the autobid we're most likely playing the LSU/Alabama loser in the Fiesta or BE/Boise in the Sugar.
October 30th, 2011 at 1:23 PM ^
The big ten won't gain any respect by beating Cincinnati. It is basically the TCU situation from last year. If you win, so what. If you lose, it's embarrassing.
October 30th, 2011 at 1:37 PM ^
I'd rather play Cincy in the Rose Bowl than a team like Texas or South Carolina in an ok bowl game.
October 30th, 2011 at 12:57 PM ^
I think Wisconsin is still a top 10 team and probably the best in the big ten. They've been victim of two freak hail marys on the road in back-to-back weeks. If neither of those had happened, they'd be #3 or 4 and when they want to, they can play like a top 5 team too
October 30th, 2011 at 2:25 PM ^
I don't think the OSU loss counts as freak. The receiver/QB simply beat the defense on that play. Plus, Wisky was outplayed for most of the game, as it was for much of the Sparty game.
October 30th, 2011 at 1:01 PM ^
Do we have the best offense in the Big 10? Prior to the last two Wisconsin games I would have thought they did. There are a lot of bad offensive teams in the Big. Though the defense is playing much better they still seem in the middle of the pack relative to OSU, MSU, Nebraska and PSU. Is it the offense that gives us our advantage going forward if our defense is basically a push against the top teams?
This is of course based on a feeling about the conference as opposed to a detailed analysis of statistics. (very non mgoblog of me I know)
October 30th, 2011 at 1:41 PM ^
we're probably about even. Both offenses have had some difficult times early in games versus good defenses.
October 30th, 2011 at 1:59 PM ^
They have barely beat shitty teams. They have won by one or two against teams much worse than EMU. They are fucking horrible. Minnesota would hand them their asses. I don't swear much, but if these assclowns are going to vote at least look at their opponents on ESPN's website, for gosh sakes.
October 30th, 2011 at 2:05 PM ^
faith in pollsters than this year watching Michigan go up and down the poll. I find it really hard to believe this is a top 20 football team.
October 30th, 2011 at 5:35 PM ^
But you cant knock the fact that we have 1 loss. What do you want them to do? They have to penalize MSU and Wisconsin for losing 2 games now.
October 30th, 2011 at 2:53 PM ^
I watched the UM-MSU game (shudder). We got beat by a better team. Just sayin'.
October 30th, 2011 at 9:28 PM ^
They were the better team that day, but I'm not sure I'd say they are better in all situations. The wind certainly had more of an impact on our team that day, and being on the road certainly didn't help things. They are not a good team on the road, and I don't think we would lose to them at Michigan Stadium.
October 31st, 2011 at 8:44 AM ^
They certainly match up well against Michigan, but that doesn't mean they'll puy together a more complete season than Michigan