Muttley

July 31st, 2015 at 1:49 PM ^

We're not talking NC contender, we're talking Top 25.  9-3, 8-4ish.

16-17 returning starters, including the entire offensive line, plus what should be a game-managing, turnover reducing upgrade at QB in Jake Rudock (or better if Shane beats him out), a team that's certainly well within the Top 25 in recruiting in the past four years, plus Harbaugh!

 

 

wahooverine

July 31st, 2015 at 2:49 PM ^

Let me get this straight...You're saying they are definitively, currently not very good based on the fact that they weren't very good the past couple years....years which featured different players at key positions, different team composition with regard to age and development, different schemes on both sides of the ball and completely different coaches with different philsophies and attitudes?  Seems like an airtight case.

BuckNekked

July 31st, 2015 at 4:16 PM ^

How in the hell is "it how it really is"? Thats pure opinion, speculation and conjecture. It is definately not how "it really is". 

People who make statements they hold out as fact when they have no fucking clue what they are talking about really piss me off.

BuckNekked

July 31st, 2015 at 4:16 PM ^

How in the hell is "it how it really is"? Thats pure opinion, speculation and conjecture. It is definately not how "it really is". 

People who make statements they hold out as fact when they have no fucking clue what they are talking about really piss me off.

HarbinDarbin

July 31st, 2015 at 1:16 PM ^

Michigan State 16th is a joke. Tennessee was 7-5 last year. No way are they better than MSU.

kurpit

July 31st, 2015 at 1:15 PM ^

That's absurd. For Michigan to get any votes at all is nothing but homerism by somebody and to put Michigan State outside of the top 10 is a denial of what they've done over Dantonio's tenure.

ifis

July 31st, 2015 at 1:21 PM ^

 this team has an excellent coaching staff and some of the best athletes in the country.  This team is certainly top 50, and I'd put them somewhere between 20 and 30 for a preseason ranking.  25 sounds fine to me, not that a preseason ranking counts for anything

CoverZero

July 31st, 2015 at 1:23 PM ^

This just in:  Brady Hoke is no longer the Head Coach of the football program at the University of Michigan.

swalburn

July 31st, 2015 at 1:29 PM ^

I'm not a big fan of drinking Kool-Aid after the last couple years, but I agree with you.  There are too many highly rated recruits that will be getting their coaching from what appears to be exceptional coaches.  I would bet money we are in the top 25 at the end of the season.

alum96

July 31st, 2015 at 1:37 PM ^

If I remember how this lame thing works it gives teams major credit for high level recruiting classes so teams like TN, UM, TX will show way above what they may actually do on the field.

Also 25th is not "outrageous" even excluding the dumb over reliance on recruiting ranks.  A typical 8-4 team which about 50%+ of this blog expects (most as a floor) is going to be ranked 20 to 30.

By the way in the updated ESPN "rankings" the projected win total is 7.7 i.e. just about where every national pundit has UM and about right with a 28-35 rank (the updated rank is 33)

The 27th ranked offense on the other hand smells of catering to blog readers.  If this team can pull off a top 30 offense it is going to win 10 games. 

unWavering

July 31st, 2015 at 1:39 PM ^

I honestly don't think there are 26 better defenses than the one we have, particularly with our coaching staff. I wouldnt be surprised in the least if they ended up top 10. That said, I think the offense's rating is too high (for now).

EDIT: And in case you think I'm being a homer on the defense, consider that Michigan was ranked 7 in total defense last year. We should only improve overall with minimal losses and the addition of Peppers.

alum96

July 31st, 2015 at 1:53 PM ^

#7 was in total yards given up in a shitty conf for offenses.  At 1 point deep into last year the Big 10 had 4 of the top 7 defenses and 8 of the top 25 based on total yards.  Do you think the Big 10 is just that elite on defense as a conf? Or maybe having only 3 offenses that ranked top 50 nationally helped all the defenses - and many teams in the west never played 2 of those offenses (OSU/MSU).  Total yards is misleading IMO.  ACC defenses had similar help from a bunch of crap offenses.

Some reading on the subject: http://mgoblog.com/diaries/are-big-10-defensive-stats-inflated-bad-offe…

Here were the top 25 defenses in 14 per football outsiders FEI.  I dont see many teams outside Utah State I can say UM was clearly better. UM had a decent defense that faced some of the worse passing QBs in the country in the conf -- guys like Leidner, Siemian, CJ Brown, and a true freshman in his 2nd game from Indiana.  It also faced a broken down Hack who was sacked 44x last year - and that excludes the 100s of pressures that dude faced.  The 10th 11th best Pac 12 QB  in 2014 would have been the 3rd best in the Big 10 (if you combine all the OSU QBs as 1 player)

It made Nova look like a 3rd round NFL pick, made Gholson look like a 1st rounder, and Cook only had to throw 4x in the 2nd half as MSU was so in control of the game.  It was a decent defense but nothing special and lost arguably 2 of the top 3 players off it in ryan and clark.

Neb, Wis, MSU and OSU were better in the conf.

UM was in Minn/Northwestern range in just about all advanced stats on defense.

Some of the teams below gave up a lot of pts but if UM gave up 31 to ND and 30+ to Minn you can imagine what facing Oregon, Arizona State, UCLA, Baylor, TCU would do to our stats.  They played exactly 2 good offenses all year in MSU and OSU.

And I dont want to hear about how the offense destroyed the defense at UM. UM had >30 minutes a game of possession and played like molasses on offense giving defense plenty of time.  PSU Florida and Texas had just as shitty offenses as UM did last year and all had top 20ish defenses.  UM was nearer to 40.

DFEI DFEI

Rk
Team FBS

Rec
FEI

Rk
DE DE

Rk
FD FD

Rk
AY AY

Rk
Ex Ex

Rk
Me Me

Rk
Va Va

Rk
DSOS Rk
-.928 1 Clemson 9-3 14 -.712 1 .487 1 .254 1 .097 24 .052 2 .182 1 .008 1
-.718 2 Virginia Tech 6-6 23 -.413 12 .574 10 .378 21 .117 47 .068 3 .353 42 .009 3
-.700 3 Mississippi 8-4 11 -.503 6 .625 33 .344 8 .074 9 .118 33 .246 4 .038 25
-.644 4 TCU 11-1 6 -.578 3 .506 3 .323 3 .125 57 .100 23 .268 8 .107 54
-.605 5 Florida 6-5 33 -.451 8 .606 25 .361 13 .102 30 .102 25 .272 9 .038 23
-.601 6 Louisville 8-4 22 -.576 4 .526 4 .334 5 .109 39 .077 8 .284 13 .059 38
-.600 7 Ohio State 14-1 2 -.321 18 .581 12 .337 6 .105 31 .081 11 .247 5 .034 17
-.599 8 Alabama 11-2 3 -.414 11 .635 43 .378 20 .095 21 .182 113 .280 12 .044 30
-.560 9 Penn State 7-6 46 -.609 2 .497 2 .293 2 .043 1 .092 15 .204 2 .175 71
-.549 10 Virginia 4-7 35 -.257 26 .629 38 .384 25 .091 19 .106 26 .288 15 .011 4
-.537 11 Stanford 7-5 18 -.431 9 .664 56 .360 12 .080 11 .160 96 .250 6 .037 19
-.519 12 Utah 8-4 16 -.261 25 .624 32 .402 31 .121 51 .148 74 .313 24 .031 15
-.455 13 Missouri 10-3 20 -.302 22 .686 79 .379 22 .098 25 .157 91 .297 18 .039 26
-.441 14 Oregon 12-2 1 -.056 59 .724 101 .485 83 .125 59 .184 114 .396 74 .020 6
-.429 15 Georgia 9-3 5 -.203 33 .614 27 .385 26 .079 10 .150 78 .325 32 .026 13
DFEI DFEI

Rk
Team FBS

Rec
FEI

Rk
DE DE

Rk
FD FD

Rk
AY AY

Rk
Ex Ex

Rk
Me Me

Rk
Va Va

Rk
DSOS Rk
-.423 16 Washington 7-6 42 -.312 19 .671 62 .418 40 .082 15 .146 71 .350 41 .041 29
-.406 17 Mississippi State 9-3 17 -.290 23 .630 40 .407 35 .130 63 .084 13 .307 22 .020 7
-.394 18 LSU 7-5 27 -.309 20 .588 15 .358 11 .110 40 .088 14 .294 17 .037 21
-.393 19 Arkansas 6-6 21 -.225 29 .575 11 .382 24 .108 36 .125 40 .321 27 .024 11
-.391 20 USC 9-4 9 -.116 52 .701 90 .444 57 .089 18 .159 95 .359 47 .038 24
-.384 21 Texas 6-7 73 -.363 14 .610 26 .364 15 .071 8 .156 89 .287 14 .034 18
-.356 22 Arizona State 9-3 13 -.158 40 .671 64 .428 45 .132 65 .138 59 .357 46 .066 40
-.352 23 Wisconsin 10-3 24 -.331 17 .558 8 .346 9 .129 62 .068 4 .244 3 .092 50
-.324 24 Utah State 9-4 60 -.408 13 .623 31 .363 14 .099 27 .093 16 .277 11 .307 98
-.317 25 Tennessee 6-6 34 -.164 39 .604 24 .376 18 .134 68 .074 6 .272 10 .051 32

 

Sledgehammer

July 31st, 2015 at 2:25 PM ^

I found this at a different place. The work was not my own.

Taking a look at the preseason coach's poll compared to ESPN's "Preseason FPI rankings"

Coach Poll Rank...........FPI Rank......Difference

1.......Ohio State.........1...Ohio St....(NA)

2.......TCU..................2...Alabama....(+1)

3.......Alabama............3...TCU........(-1)

4.......Baylor...............4...LSU........(+9)

5.......Oregon..............5...Baylor.....(-1)

6.......Michigan State...6...Oregon.....(-1)

7.......Auburn..............7...Notre Dame.(+4)

8.......Florida St...........8...Ole Miss...(+7)

9.......Georgia..............9...Georgia....(NA)

10.....USC..................10..Arkansas...(+10)

11......Notre Dame......11..Tex A&M....(+16)

12......Clemson...........12..UCLA.......(+2)

13......LSU..................13..USC........(-3)

14......UCLA................14..Tennessee..(+11)

15......Ole Miss............15..Oklahoma...(+4)

16......Arizona State.....16..Mich. St...(-10)

17......Georgia Tech......17..Stanford...(+4)

18......Wisconsin...........18..Auburn.....(-11)

19......Oklahoma...........19..Clemson....(-7)

20......Arkansas.............20..AZ State...(-4)

21......Stanford.............21..Fla St.....(-13)

22......Arizona...............22..Miss. St...(+4)

23......Missouri..............23..Ga Tech....(-6)

24......Boise State..........24..Mizzou.....(-1)

25......Tennessee...........25..Michigan...(1 vote in coaches poll)

26......Miss. St

27......Tex A&M

Of the 11 teams that were ranked higher in the FPI than in coaches poll, 7 were SEC teams.

Final disparity between polls by conference (# of spots moved):

ACC......(-26)

Big 10...(-10)

Big 12...(+2)

Pac 12...(-2)

SEC......(+46)

I don't see how anybody could argue that ESPN is unbiased.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/CFB/comments/3fa7ff/coaches_poll_vs_espn_poll/

CoverZero

July 31st, 2015 at 3:32 PM ^

25th is usually about an 8-4 team.  Id take the over on that with this squad and Harbs at the helm.