I Want To Believe

7-5 sounds just peachy to me. The only thing that makes me believe we could win the OSU game is Tressel ball. He was so conservative last year that we almost had a chance to win. If the offense decides to play mistake free, then we always have a shot at winning. Purdue seems to play Michigan pretty well as of late, so I'm cautiously optomistic about that game. I can't see us winning at Wiscy but I guess you never know.

There is Michigan football.  You saw it on Saturday, and you will see it again this Saturday.

Purdue - Should/will/must win

Wisc- I know past stats have a hard time predicting the future, but historically wisc has a hard time playing in the big house. I'd like to see the record of that. In class, and im not sure where exactly to look. Like this game because its at home.

OSU-  If we can sock them in the mouth, the D has shown they can hold on. They just need to keep this confidence rolling. Trust your reads boys. We are going to get points, just need to find a way to get to number 2. Last year says everything, we have a huge chance to win that game if it wasnt for the turnovers. I dont think we are going to see 5 turnovers in a game either aka. Last year vs. OSU and Illinois.

Believe man, believe.

Mark Dantonio is still not rooting for us to win out, even though if we do it means a BigTen title and Rose Bowl for MSU.

I see us winning at Purdue this weekend. It may be a close game if we turn the ball over like we have been doing, but if we reduce our turnovers I think we will win somewhat comfortably. 

Wisconsin could be a tossup depending on Clay and the rest of their offense. We have proven to move the ball against anyone, but our defense is the complete opposite (obviously). I would love to get a win against Wisconsin which would be a nice signature win for RR (adding to the win in 2008). 

tOSU game I have little confidence in us winning. Again I would love to go into Columbus and whoop the shit out of them, but it will depend on us turning the ball over and whether we come to play defense. Tressel ball could give us a decent chance to win like last year, but I will wait for complete judgement until after the next two games.

I believe we will be 8-4.  I think we win at Purdue, beat Wisconsin at home and lose to TOSU in a shootout in Cloumbus.  It will be closer than people might think.

is Oh So Winnable.  Michigan beat them in 2008.  Any team that Michigan beat in 2008 had their Good Card permanently revoked.  So no matter how good Wisconsin, Miami-OH, or Minnesota are now or in the future, the can never be "Good" again.  (Actually, they may be able to reapply for a Good Card in ten years or something like that, you would have to check the language of the rule)

I got ice in my veins.

Blood in my eyes.

Hate in my heart.

Love in my mind.

I seen nights full of pain.

Days are the same.

Who'll keep the sunshine?

Save me the rain.

9-3.

It be on mothah fuckah.

Beating a top 10 Wisconsin team will not be easy. We got killed last year.

Purdue is a must win and there is no reason we can't get that done, we are the better team.

Wisconsin and Ohio State are better overall teams than Michigan this year.  To have a chance there can be no turnovers and we must give our defense decent field position to work with.  We can't expect them to start at midfield and get stops half the time.  We need to get up early and often to stay in these games.

I see 7 - 5.....maybe 8 - 4.  Go Blue!

But with Denard and Co anything is possible

Go Blue

perhaps we can loan UM's yakety sax to the opposing teams

I thought 7-5 would be where we would end up.

After Illinois, who knows.

Wisconsin barely beat a so-so ASU team who missed a PAT that kept the game from going into overtime.   You can bet they will be up for Michigan.   As for OSU, I guess we will find out just how good their D really is.  It had better be good.

This is one of those years where predictions really don't mean much due to the explosive O and weak D.  We can be competitive against virtually anyone in the Big Ten as long as our O eliminates turnovers.

I believe that we'll  finish at least 7 - 5. I love watching Michigan, but they are so inconsistent they could end up anywhere between 6 - 6 & 9 - 3. 

Factors I still don't know:

1. I think something might have changed with the D at Penn State. I believe that was the beginning of a transition for the Freshmen, and the beginning of a transition for the coaching staff. I'd like to believe that between Demens, the rookies in the backfield, Mouton, Roh, Martin, and the supporting cast, we may finally see significant improvement in our defense.
2. Turnovers. Hold on to the Doggone Ball!! I don't think Wisconsin and Ohio State will beat themselves the way Illinois did.
3. Special Teams. Field position, coverage, field goals, will make a huge difference for both our offense and defense. I'm especially please with Hagerup. If Wisconsin and Ohio State have a long field, this gives our defense a chance. And if our offense can start from 25 yd line or better, they should be fine.

While I said 7 - 5 at beginning of the season, and still see that, I'd like to be proven wrong. What I can say is that if everything falls right, I can see us beating Wisconsin and Ohio State. Neither are out of the question.

25 comments in and no Fox Mulder poster reference or photoshop?

Someone photoshop me the OSU scoreboard at 0:00 reading Michigan 38- OSU 35 with the title of the thread.

with something other than complete dread, just look forward to them, win or lose.

Purdue - We should beat them.  Their defense is worse than Illinois, as is their offense.  They are just a crappy team that we should beat.  Yes, they will put up some points on our defense, but they have no hope of stopping our offense.  As for punishing Hope, I think that a part of him dies every time Roy Roundtree catches a pass.  I hope that Roy breaks his own record this week.

Wisco - tough game.  They look very good.  But, here is why I think we have a shot.  Illinois scored on most of their possessions against us.  As did Indiana.  You can't do more than score on just about every possession.  So while we will get rolled on defense, no more so than in any other game.  Maybe Wisco scores quicker than Illinois or Indiana, but each score is still worth 7 points.  The game will be won / lost by whether the offense can "hold serve".  If our offense finds a way to finally beat a thumping B10 defense (we didn't do so well against MSU / Iowa), we will be in basketball game trading baskets, and the game will be come down to turnovers and who has the ball last.  Given RR's dominant rock paper scissors against Illinois (we looked like Oregon on offense), I am confident. 

OSU - same reasoning as Wisco.  We will never hang with them on offense.  Their receivers will be open all day.  So?  They will get the same 7 points per series that every opponent has gotten.  Maybe less, because I don't have much confidence in Pryor to hit his open receivers consistently.  As for OSU's defense, same meme as above - I think that we can score on just about every team.  I also think that RR will have some special packages in place that will catch the Vest off guard.  Again, while a probable loss, but we will have a shot.

One point to note:  my opinion is being overly influenced by last weeks game.  But, I don't think that this is unreasonable.  Until now, our offense has put up gaudy numbers against some crappy defenses, been stopped by the only 2 good defenses that we played, and had success by being about as one dimensional as possible.  Against Illinois, this all changed.  We manhandled a good to very good defense.  And, we did it my doing a hell of a lot more than just running Denard.  in fact, our air attack was far more deadly.  And Denard (while still far from perfect with his arm) looked like a legit QB who was able to create on the run, use his quick release and throw some balls that would have been impressive even for Henne.  RR broke out about 5 new wrinkes, and the offense just looked awesome.  Do we regress?  Maybe, but at least we have now seen that the potential is there even against a good team to be scary good at far more than "Denard run fast." 

Let's just please not look past this Purdue game.  It's a road game in the Big 10, and the 7th win is so huge for us a program.  In addition, the level of confidence that we will have after 2 consecutive conference wins going into a home game vs. Wisconsin will possibly give us a boost to hang with a superior team at home.  

I think the way that we beat Wisconsin and OSU is just going to come down to turnovers and field position.  Our kicking game/turnovers allowed Illinois to start the ball basically at an average of midfield the entire game.  We were just barely able to get away with that against a decent Illinois team, but we couldn't get away with it in our 3 losses.  Gotta put the defense in as many advantageous situations as possible and just hope they can string together some stops here and there.

I'm calling 8-4 with a win against Purduh and Wiscy at home, it will be the last home game and the place will be rocking. I think the key in any of the remaining games is that we either get the kick and score or get a stop on D,  get possesion and score. It does a shit ton for confidence with a young team like ours. I think that was the biggest factor in the Illinois game, game out of the game and landed a big punch on the first play, it seemed to set the tone for the rest of the game.

This fan base is schizo

The defense can't get any worse, and the offense is only going to get better. 

We've always played Wisconsin tight and The University of Ohio State doesn't appear as invincible as they seemed at the start of the season.  Our offense gives us a puncher's chance against just about anyone.  Last year's game against tUoOS, with a freshman QB, and 5 turnovers that I just don't see happening again, actually gives me hope for this year's game.

I (have to) look at it like we're 7-3 and playing with house money for the last two games.

Let's keep the expectations where they should be, I think we, as a fan base, get too caught up in ratcheting up/down expectations based on one game. This is the same team that layed an egg at PSU on the road a week before the Illinois game, they are a young team with high variance in their production. I saw progress last weekend, but I think an amount that would only lower the variance factor and make 7-5 seem much more likely, not anything that would vault the team straight into an 8-4 or 9-3 finish. Progress was evident right alongside the gaping holes that still exist.

The more sober and realistic pre-season predictions for the season where right at 7-5 and we would seem to be right on target for that, so we should be, to varying degrees* (depending on your view of 7-5 as + or -), ok with that. Let's not get ahead of ourselves and manage the expectations in such a way that we don't cause people to go all sour in 3 weeks if we 'fail' and end up 8-4 or 9-3. I agree it looks more possible to potentially beat a Wiscy or OSU if we execute flawlessly, however we have yet to do that this year, so playing the percentages means that it still not likely to happen and is gravy if it does.

*This excludes the 'unacceptable!, fire him now!' crowd who aren't going to be happy with anything...RR could go undefeated next year and they would still be disappointed because he isn't Harbaugh and they would STILL point to Freep headlines and complain about so-called sanctions then opine about how candy bars used to only cost you a nickel, how they liked the creamy style mashed 'taters they used to serve in their extended care facility cafeteria more than the chunky-style new ones, or perhaps how 'we need a man like Herbert Hoover agaaaaaain'.

We need one (1) win of the remaining three to keep people from jumping off the bell tower. 6-6 represents 1) another three-game losing streak; 2) a shitty bowl; 3) accusations that a narrow win against a DII was the only thing that got us to said shitty bowl; 4) a non-winning record before our shitty bowl game; 5) the opportunity for a loss in said shitty bowl game which drops us to 6-7.. 

OTOH, RR will not look past Purdue.  Two straight losses, Hope is an asshat, etc.  7-5 was a comfortable expectation from the outset of 2010.  The only possible way 7-5 feels bad is if Wisc/OSU hands our asses to us, but Wisc will not be able to show enough imagination on offense on the road to blow us out. 

(BTW, if you read the last paragraph in a "Bo" voice - with clipped words and phrasing - it'll kind of fire you up for the remainder of the work day.  It worked for me, anyway.)