Dominate 1 sport or be really good at many?
What would you prefer?
Bc right now it seems like Michigan is the jack of all trades in the team sports but not quite at the peak of any of them.
Secondly, which program has the most potential moving forward? (Softball, basketball, baseball, football, hockey)
Basketball probably has the highest ceiling of all of them given who we hired imo.
Hockey seems to be recruiting well. The football program is in a “put up or shut up” kind of season given last year’s results and this year’s gauntlet of a schedule.
Over the last decade, Michigan is tied for 2nd in national-championship game/series appearances in the big 4 sports at 4 and they're the only one to appear in at least one in 3 different sports.
Of the 7 universities that have made at least 3 national-championship game/series appearances during this time, they're 1 of only 2 that have done it in multiple sports and they're the only team not to win at least 2 of them, let alone 1 (Alabama: 5-2, all in football; Minnesota Deluth: 3-1, all in hockey; Vanderbilt: 2-1, all in baseball; Virginia: 2-1, 1-1 in baseball and 1-0 in basketball; Clemson: 2-1, all in football; South Carolina: 2-1, all in baseball; and Michigan: 0-4, 0-2 in basketball, 0-1 in baseball, and 0-1 in hockey).
Still beats being 0-18 in the CWS. Can’t imagine being an FSU baseball fan especially when your rival Gators win it in less than half the attempts lol.
Isn't Florida Michigan's rival?
Even since they joined our conference back in 2016.
For more context, since college football adopted a national-championship game in 1999 (also the first year removed from Michigan's last national title in a big 4 sport), 64 universities have played in at least one championship game/series in football, basketball, hockey, or baseball. Of those 64, 15 have made an appearance in at least 2 sports. Of those 15, Michigan is one of three to go winless (Michigan: 0-4 in baseball (2019), basketball (2013 and 2018), and hockey (2011); Notre Dame: 0-3 in hockey (2008 and 2018) and football (2013); and Georgia: 0-2 in football (2018) and baseball (2008)).
In this span, Florida is the only other school other than Michigan to make a national-championship game/series appearance in at least 3 sports (2-1 in basketball (2000, 2006, 2007), 2-0 in football (2007, 2009), and 1-0 in baseball (2017)).
If you include softball in with the big 4 sports, then over the past 9 years, Michigan has played in a national-championship game/series in 5 of them. Hockey in 2011, basketball in 2013, softball in 2015, basketball in 2018, and baseball in 2019. That's unprecedented success. A team playing for the national title on average every other year. The only problem is, Michigan is 0-5 in those games/series. Which makes for a very, very, very hollow feeling.
Final Four in Soccer too.
We're turning into mother effing Bridesmaid U... 0-4 last four basketball finals, 0-1 baseball, 0-1 hockey. I realize the baseball team played over it's head this year but still... this is definitely getting ridiculous, or as they spell it in Lansing, definately rediculous.
I really disagree about basketball having the highest ceiling. Not saying it will be bad, but I think that's a little disrespectful to the other 3 coaches that have actually done things.
And it's fun to be a Michigan fan in a general sense. And it's not like we're only getting eighth place a bunch - the teams are nearly winning national titles.
Edit: the other 4 coaches* I didn't see softball at first, because that obviously is the best program of any of them. The answer is softball.
No disrespect to Hutch, Mel, JH or Bakich, but all it takes is one or two players for you to win it all in basketball and now we have a coach who has the ability to attract said player at a much higher rate
On top of that, Michigan doesn’t have a regional disadvantage in basketball in addition to the academic and non-cheating problems the AD faces as a whole.
That non cheating problem is way bigger in basketball though. Most big time basketball recruits get paid nowadays and it looks like Michigan is going to try to hold itself as the paragon of integrity under Howard - just as it used to be under Beilein.
And while I’m high on Howard, I would slow your horses a bit. He hasn’t landed a single recruit or coached a single game of basketball as a head coach ever. I want to see what he can accomplish this year before I set any future championships expectations for him.
The non cheating problem becomes less of an issue in 2 years when the NBA goes back to allowing high school kids to be drafted.
Franz Wagner’s impending decision will be a huge one for Howard’s tenure here. According to Brendan Quinn, his academic papers have been submitted to the school. Hopefully, that’s good news!
Cube, I hope you’re not messing with us about the papers.
Wagner had to submit them to have the option to commit. It means he's considering Michigan. It doesn't mean he's coming.
I think I prefer them being "really good" at multiple sports, as long as one or more of the teams are at least contending for national titles with some frequency.
I live in Ohio and I gotta say that most OSU fans obsession with the football team while not giving a single fuck about anything else to do with the university feels pretty pathetic to me.
I have to say, whatever station I was listening to yesterday was talking to MSU fans, and a surprising number of them said that - outside of football and basketball - they didn't really care, and indeed, some of them expressed mild support for Michigan baseball. One person used the "I want to see the state of Michigan do well", which I always found irritating...
If a couple msu fans say they dont care, no reason to believe it isn't true for every single fan. MooU when will you learn???
Michigan fans: "we're proud to be the #1 public university in the world for the umpteenth year"
OSU fans: "LMAO BUT IN FOOTBALL YOU SUCK"
They're a special bunch that's for sure...
I really think people overinflate OSU not caring about other sports. They just went to the Frozen Four the same year as, won the national title in wrestling four years ago, and made 3 final fours under Matta. When their basketball team is good they get 17,000 to their games. We still struggle to fill 13,000 seat Crisler consistently.
Basketball has the highest potential. I dont expect Harbaugh to ever put it together for a myriad of reasons some out of his control.
Howard can build a juggernaught, stronger recruiting grounds, alot more luck.
Dominate football and basketball and be pretty good at all of the other sports. Michigan has actually been pretty good at everything but football recently. Baseball: CWS and national championship series, Softball: CWS appearances and national championship series, Hockey: couple of frozen fours and national championship game, Basketball: two final fours and national championship game appearances, 2 big ten tournament titles, and two big ten regular season titles. Football hasn't come up with anything except for a couple of wins over Michigan State.
I think football has been "pretty good" lately. What the football team hasn't been able to do that the others have is win some games they weren't supposed to.
Football has returned back the the Carr level minus the '97 season. I think Jim has turned the football program around where we will probably never lose more than 4 games per season and as he builds depth we will eventually beat OSU (hopefully at home this season) one of these seasons, win the B1G and make the playoffs.
1997 completely warped everyone's historical sense of Michigan football. In the past 30 seasons, Michigan has had 2 seasons with less than 2 losses: 92 and 97. In the last 30 years they have had 7 seasons with less than 3 losses: 89, 91, 92, 97, 99, 06, and 11. Michigan has lost 3+ games in every season this century but two. At some point it's no longer an aberration. It's a trend.
Both.
Why not!?
I’d say we’re at the peak of baseball right this second. Sports aren’t “national championship or nothing”.
Dominate Many
You'd rather be competitive in a lot of sports because it gives you more chances are winning titles. Yes, Vandy is really good at baseball now, but in the very real situation that they trend downward even a bit (like they did the past couple of years before this one), they don't really have anything else to cheer for. It's more lottery tickets that can pay out if you're competitive across the board.
Precisely correct. If your model is _____ or bust, you bust way more often than not. The most important statistic correlated with winning the championship game is winning the semi-final, and so on down the line. (In sports speak, "one game at a time.") As an aside, that's why Alabama in the BCS era was so annoying. They got to lose one more game than anyone else and still get into the championship game based on their history of winning the championship. But hey, just getting invited more often than everyone else perpetuates that record.
We have BPONE because of our unlikely run of losses in championship games, coinciding with our unlikely run of finding ways to lose to OSU. (And two rabbit out of the hat, damnedest thing you ever saw losses to MSU at the same time). We should be familiar with this phenomenon; remember when the Big Ten couldn't buy a win in the Rose Bowl? It will continue until it doesn't, and after it stops, we'll all wonder what was the big deal.
False choice.
All! I want to dominate in all sports.
As much as I hate being the bridesmaid these past 10+ years, I have loved all of it. People who are only one sport fans baffle me.
Having to care about Michigan sports past March Madness is awesome.
I would love another run in volleyball. That '12 run was fun.
Love this question. And it’s personal to me. To me, there are dozens of schools and programs that have teams, departments or degrees better or more prestigious than Michigan. But to me the mark of Michigan is that Every program, team and department is great.
Schlissel touts 100 top ten programs at U of M. No one, not Harvard, Stanford, Cal, USC, or anyone else can touch that. If you’re a student on campus, the person next to you is probably an expert in their field and we have more of those fields than anyone. I love that Michigan is about a high level of excellence, even if no team wins a title in any given year — frankly, I expect it. And I hope future generations of Wolverines do as well. The titles and accolades and wealth will follow.
This!
Broad spectrum excellence in all majors + broad spectrum excellence in all sports + excelling at the top in the revenue sports... while doing it with integrity and having a national (international?) reach (LA to Manhattan) Leaders and Best!!
Oh.... and best college town, best fight song, biggest stadium, rocking uniforms/helmet...
The best university in the world!
This is the best post I’ve read in a while in terms of putting what is important in perspective. The real Michigan Difference is the opportunity afforded every student lucky enough to pass through our doors. Everyone knows about our prowess in sports, but the real work of Michigan is the diversity of lives we change for the better. Hat tip, Mr. Stubbs.
this is Michigan right here. Athletics in 18-19 has done exactly what academics have done in A2 for the last 50-100 years.
Baseball: compete with some of the #1 programs in the country - Vandy and UCLA
Football: compete with OSU for the B10
Hockey: compete with UM-Duluth, and the rest of the best in the country
Softball: compete with UF, UCLA, Zona, Etc
Law: at the top with the best in the country - Harvard, Yale, Columbia, etc
Medicine -at the top with the best in the country - Hopkins, etc
Engineering - at the top with the best in the country - MIT, etc
Michigan is in the top 10 discussion with most sports and most academic programs - every other school is in that discussion in ONE sport or ONE program. A friend of mine years ago was thinking about engineering programs for a MS and I told him to look at A2 and he suggested that a lot of bigger schools might just be OK at a lot of programs and wanted to look at GT cause he knew they were good. I told him that's true at every big school except M - all their programs in A2 are top 10 lol. He was a bit taken aback and was surprised to find UM up there with GT.
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate-chemical
etc etc etc
TL;DR: You don't see Harvard at the top for Engineering and you don't see Illinois at the top in the humanities and law. But you do see Michigan at the top in all 3. You don't see UF at the top in hockey and you don't see OSU at the top in baseball. You don't see Minnesota at the top in hoops and you don't see Duke at the top in football. You do see the block M at the top in everything
That's Michigan.
I'm not sure we are purely #1 in anything.
But from sports to academics to college town to overall college experience, we are like top 5 in everything.
Alabama has been asleep for 6 months. Duke won't wake up for 6 months.
We are always in season.
And I won the pick 4 lotto last night. Sometimes your ping pong ball gets picked
They are a good team that does what most B10 teams do - nothing in the NCAAs. they have one 40 win team under the current coach who has been there for 2 years more than Bakich. They haven't had more than 35 either. M had this years 50 (!) win team, a 42 win team and 2 more 36-39 win teams. Not to mention the drft picks over the last 4 years.
I'm talking about M competing at the national level here
The Greek term "arete" ( ἀρετή) is what we strive for. Excellence, in all pursuits, without moral corruption.
I geniunely enjoy Michigan being very good in several sports for several reason, incluing the story about my uncle last week. I guess my love for Michigan goes well beyond the basketball and football teams' successes.
This is really nice. It's fun to have things to be excited about in all seasons. Basketball has given us a lot of joy over the past decade, and I've been a huge hockey fan for 20 years and will remain so.
But I'd trade it all to beat OSU and win a national title in football.
Fortunately for all the other sports, that's not a choice fans get to make.
Alabama's season is over in January.
Duke's season does not begin until December.
Vandy's big season is when everybody has left campus.
But from September to June . . . Michigan's season never ends.
Love this post but you could change September to August since Athletics season begins in August with W Soccer then M Soccer, Volleyball and Field Hockey before Football begins.
Seriously. There is probably something significant going on even in July. Solar Car (#1 in the country, #2 in the world), or something.
Our season is never over.
UM just had an academic year with...
NY6 Bowl Game
Sweet 16
CWS Championship Series
That's incredible.
I'd take beating OSU 4-5 times a decade and be satisfied. Don't care about other sports nearly as much as the desire to see football be competitive again with our those bastards.
Well then FUCK Billy and his basic-ass water cooler
User name checks out and literally lol'ed at this with the all cap emphasis on the FUCK. Thanks, Michigan Arrogance. You have a splendid Thursday good sir, knowing you made some random guy on the blog laugh out loud.