Football Outsiders: Michigan Number.....6?

His preseason prediction for Michigan was a legends division championship. The numbers really liked Michigan coming into the year, and they were as down on Nebraska as anyone. That plus replacing GERG with OMGRAYLEWISCOACH and the season long tire fire that is OSU's qb situation were good signs

Regarding expecations.  With our previous undefeated starts, we won but we weren't getting any better.  Same mistakes and I feel like as we played we basically provided good coaches with a blueprint to beat us.  We also had the advantage of a totally new style of QB play each year (moving from Sheridan/Threet to Tate's wily nature coupled with accurate short throws and then to Denard's insane speed).  Once there was enough film in the can, everyone figured out how to beat us.  Our defense might as well have been traffic cones and coaches were finding ways to stall out our scoring offense.  

This year we've improved every game.  We're still iffty in a lot of places though.  However I don't think we shown anyone on film "Hey we're really bad at X, force us to do X and you can beat us".  I think we did that the last two years even as we went undefeated.

So I'm expecting us avoid any kind of blowout (short of Wisconsin smooshing us in the coference game) and a respectable bowl berth.  Enough we can call the season a success, everyone in the program is happy and there isn't any postseason grumbling that might scare off recruitings.  I'd love a two lose conference season, crushing some hapless ACC/Big East team in a bowl and riding into the post season on an "up and coming" hype wave.

End of the day though, this conference is so weak that even Lloyd's 5 loss team would have pillaged its way through conference play this year.  So while I love what I'm seeing on the field, I won't feel totally free of doom until I see how we do against Saban's Well Oiled Machine of Death.

But I'm seeing this is a small sample anomaly at this point (further, preseason expectations remain part of the ranking until after Week 7).  As was pointed out in the mgopodcast this week, we should have a much better sense for where the team stands after the next two games.

We're #6 to FEI and #9 to Sagarin (Predictor); Michigan State is #25 to FEI and #17 to Sagarin.  That game is on the road, and they'll have an extra week to prepare.

If we handle our business on the road these next two weeks, at that point I'll be comfortable putting ths team on the fringe of the top 10.  Which is something I never imagined I'd be saying this season.

Hoke uber alles.

I'm drinking more kool-aid than I can handle at the moment.  

*keep telling self: it was just Minnesotaaaaaaaaaa...*

be rated in the top-10 of any national type poll.  The data slice is way to small and subjective at this time.  After we play(beat) Sparty, then maybe I'll give Michigan that much in the way of credit. 

A comeback win over a wishy-washy ND team, a strong victory over the HC's former team and a drubbing of HS team masquerading as a Big Ten team, all at home, doesn't a top-10 team make for me.

Let's see how Michigan fares on the road and against our second-biggest rival on the road before getting too giddy.

I firmly believe Michigan can win every game they play this season,  but I also see the opportunity for a couple of slip-ups along the way.    The maturation of this team has been on a steady increase.  I'm curious to see how they handle their first road test.

the way this particular metric calculates SOS uses the likelyhood of going undefeated against the team's schedule. michigan's schedule is much weaker than expected this year because of the down year in the Big Ten, so we're more likely to win all our games.

may be the most comprehensive rankings out there.  They take so many teams into account when calculating particular team's strength against others.  Poorly worded, I know, but I think FO's methods are sound, I just think it's too early to call Michigan a top-10 team.   When we steamroll Sparty in EL and put up big offensive numbers against that defense, then I'll start talking about top-10 rankings.

The schedule certainly seems to be working in our favor at this point.  I think FO has osu ranked too high considering their Titanic-like offense though.

Good stuff.  I typically trust the FO guys, and looking at the future schedule I definitely see the possibility of this team winning 10 games.  I mean, OSU and Nebraska went from scary losses to potential wins after the past couple of weeks, and who else on the schedule looks that tough?  I'm sure they'll gack away a game or two, but this is still a legitteam.

Also, it is nice to get back to a time when UM being considering a good football team doesn't feel like a cruel joke.

The last column that states expected win total....



Is this projecting we go 10.7-1.3?



If so I like!