Fremeau: Michigan most likely candidate for 2012 dropoff

I can see how you would say that after the way we played last night.  We just have to come back and bring the same intensity as this season and look for our first BCS championship.

Some crack thinking there.  What other 11-2 teams out there have our schedule next year, lose the core of their DL, and arguably overachieved by 2 wins this year?

He gets paid for this insider info? Will LSU also trend downward?

The schedule is certainly a fair point, because ye gods is it nasty.  But this is the classic weak point of mathematical projections, and why you shouldn't bury your head in them and only pop your head up to make a pronouncement.  The "five-year performance factor" thing doesn't apply here.  Yes, 2008 sucked, but the circumstances of this team are such that it's totally stupid to include 2008 in your calculations for 2012.

...isn't taking much of an intellectual risk by predicting a dropoff.  At 11-2, no team since 1997 has had a better record than this year's team.

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All lose enough starters that the schedule isn't as tough as it appears. D line is the biggest question on our team, if we can figure that out and Khoury can figure it out too, we're set.

Yeah.  This article is written by the proverbial "Captian Obvious".  Everyone knows the schedule is really tough next year.  I, and I think most others, are expecting some regression.  But I also don't like some of his thinking.  One of his largest predictors is how the team did the past 5 years.  Yeah, we didn't score very well in that category.  But all this doesn't factor in that whole, entirely new coaching staff thing.  Turns out those can really change things up.  Hell, Alabama was terrible from 2000 up until Saban's second season.  Bet their predictors had them way down even after Saban's second year with a 12-2 record.  Bet they were still down after Saban's third  year of undefeated.  But I do agree that the turnovers may step back.  Well at least the fumble recoveries might.  But who knows, we may make up for that with an entire returning secondary and increased interceptions.

the previous 5 years is a complete dingleberry. What the teams under LC and RR did is totally irrelevant.

One of the benefits of this season for Hoke is that it buys him some credit with the fanbase for the next season or two, in case there is a drop-off. If we go 8-4 or 9-3, anybody who starts yammering about firing Hoke is going to look sort of stupid.

Who said this and in what year?

“The schedule is too tough for them to have a great year.  In college football, you’ve got to have margin of error in there…You have to be able to have an off week.”

“Michigan has no chance to have a great football season, in my opinion.  They play too many good teams that are as good or better than they are, and a lot of them away from home.  That makes it more difficult.  They can stumble and be a really fine football team, losing three games at least.”

I think the schedule on paper looks really tough with road games at OSU, ND, and Nebraska, roadish game with Alabama, and an improved (and oh so annoying) MSU at the big house. With that said I think  MSU,  ND, OSU, and Nebraska are very winnable games, and depending on what Alabama brings back we've got a shot there. Denard's progression and replacing the leadership on the d-line are the two biggest areas of concern, and I have to think the coaching staff knows this, and will put in the added time developing these two areas.

We're easy pickings right now. Won a BCS bowl despite ourselves against a team no one respected anyway to get to be 11-2 and possibly be top 10 to finish, then we start next year with Bama and all the road games, etc. I'd be shocked if we weren't a near unanimous pick to drop off.

However, no one thought we'd be any good this year. Everyone said we'd be 7-5 or 8-4 and we proved em wrong so if there's one think I'm taking away from this year, it's that we've got a really good bunch of coaches

This article plays it fairly safe and makes some obvious points.   I agree that Michigan has strong potential to dissapoint next year based on the DL an OL losses.  

However, he goes on to use the fact that last year's BCS winning teams lost more games this year as some sort of proof that Michigan will do poorly.  This is plain stupid and there are too many variables.  Based on how they performed in the game as a whole, they really had no right to win.  They willed their way to an ugly victory.   Fremeau is basing his article on their performance in the game while also saying that since they won they will drop off next year.  

The real question is if he would have even written the article in the same light if Michigan had blown VT out.  Nope.

The week before they were predicting Michigan to be a sleeper team now a regress candidate. I skim through most of those articles and go "Okay but the game is played on the field not in the computers right?"

The hell??? That one dude just said the other day that we're gonna play LSU in the MNC next year!

Somebody's lying to me...

How about Alabama or Penn State? Both teams should drop off. 

WTF are "five year performance indicators"?

....we will return enough talent at many positions that, if others step up, there isn't any  reason we couldn't be 9-3 or so in the regular season, which is still good for a decent bowl bid, even if it isn't in the BCS. 

As for "five year performance indicators", this seems to be much like measuring distance in kilograms unless you've had a Paterno or a Beamer scenario,  and particularly in our case, it can't be all that accurate. 

Not sure about Alabama, but we could pull it out. They will be depleted based on attrition to the NFL, while we return a lot of offensive starters. Sure they have enough talent to fill in for the departed starters but a lot of them will be fresh. I think Mattison will do a good job with the D and the offense will, hopefully, do well. I am hoping for Nebraska/OSU game Denard. ND is a disaster and next year they will be without Floyd, their biggest offensive weapon. Nebraska loses a ton of people. State will be coming to our house and payback will be sweet. I wonder how the offense will be doing without Cousins. OSU is a toss up. i think we finish 10-2, potentially 11-1 if we can upset 'Bama or OSU.