Memorable U-M Football Seasons When Pre-Season Expectations Were Low
Spring practices came and went. Spring game played (or down-played, as it were). General fanbase expectations seem modest-to-low. Michigan isn't in many (if any) major publication top-25 lists (sometimes just outside the top-20, based on what I've seen).
Question for board... what seasons in the past stick out to you regarding a lower-expectation team that out-performed? 1997 obviously sticks out the most. Were there others? Maybe Hoke's first season... I think people expected a good team but not necessarily a top-10 team.
2021...my pre-season expectations are zero.
sadly, im in the same boat. here is to hoping my expectations are crushed by a tsunami of innovative coaching/playcalling. one can dream
Avatar matches the expectations.
I'm pretty sure he changed to that avatar shortly after the wheels fell off last season lol
Even though I'm not overly excited about the '21 season, I'm still interested to see if the new DC can get our defense to play better. Very interested to see how the competition goes between Cade and JJ at QB. I will also be interested in how the OL run blocks and if our talented running backs can finally get good yards per game. I hope we have at least one 1000 yard RB this season.
I expect at least 5 wins, but would I be surprised at just 4? Not particularly.
That's what I tell myself now in April. "Don't get sucked in and get all emotionally invested. And then be all pissed and disappointed when the season unravels."
End of August comes and it starts. "You know, they SAY these guys are looking really good: if everything breaks our way..."
If they really keep up the "apathy/trash" theme on the front page for the whole summer the site is going to be a tough read. You would think a couple disappointing seasons would make one more hungry for improvement or at least more motivated to look at the team under a microscope whether it results in an epic turnaround for the program or a post-mortem for whatever future regime may come.
At least that's how I feel.
Would we really need to dig into a post-mortem though? Chances are if the season goes south, it will be because of the same maladies that we're already aware of:
-Inability to recruit/keep a starting-caliber QB on the roster
-Weak spots on the DL, especially DT
-Inability to cover, especially due to weak CBs
-"Speed in Space" offense that is sloppy and incoherent
-Poor game management, especially with timeouts and two-minute situations
-General lack of composure in road games
If the team is successful it'll be because they fixed some or all of these things. I think the worst kept secret on the site is that Brian has spent years covering this team under a microscope and is clearly burnt out by covering the football team. I don't blame him! It's the same reason I don't mind when he skips out on charting terrible games. If it's a bad loss, it's probably one of the above reasons why and there are only so many ways to describe the systemic issues with the program.
Personnel is likely to be somewhat the same even with the transfer portal being a thing. The reps these kids get this year will affect their future development no matter what. Buck up y'all and pay attention! Football! 2021 is an important, high stakes season. Care and care deeply.
The reps these kids get this year will affect their future development no matter what.
Yup. I legit feel like I'll be watching Michigan football in 2021 to scout the team for what the next coaching staff may be able to build on.
This year is huge but I am not convinced a down year means a new staff. If a group of fans on a message board recognize the holes in the roster so does Ward. He is a football guy. I would be shocked if Jim does not get 2 years out of this extension. Not giving an opinion on whether or not he should, just saying from a rational perspective if you extend him with this roster and expect a championship season that's on you. '22 is the season you make a decision.
Why does the guy who is responsible for the holes in the roster get to keep his job when he was hired to be sure we dont have holes in the roster...7 years ago?
April 13th, 2021 at 11:24 PM ^
If Harbaugh finish below .500, I doubt he will be back in '22.
Well, duh. Back-to-back losing seasons in years 6 and 7 of your tenure seems like a real strong case for firing.
Add horrible play selection and execution on 3rd and short and 4th and short.
Fortunate, then, that we work around that problem by frequently avoid 3rd/4th-and-short situations!
Dont worry they will run the wild cat
April 13th, 2021 at 11:30 PM ^
Also add to the list:
-- Team morale so much in the shitter that they have to be told to clap for good plays. The transfers are not surprising.
That is a good question. I don't know that expectations were exactly low heading into 2015, but I think it's fair to say that the team outperformed what was anticipated that year.
Indeed. Coming off a 5-7 season (which included a loss to Rutgers), and the most news worthy thing Michigan did was play a guy who had a clear concussion.
I remember all the pundits saying that Michigan wouldn't be very good, and they "had no talent".
Losing the opener to a top 10 quality Utah team (which they were, before losing a bunch of key players to injuries), by a pick 6.
Should've beaten an MSU team that had dominated us for most of that last 7 years....only to lose by a fluke. That same MSU team who went on to play in the playoffs, that year.
10-3 was an amazing experience (especially after the crap tastic 7 prior years).
That season sure made it seem like the sky was the limit for Michigan under Harbaugh. Unfortunately things really haven't been much better since.
1997 was supposed to be average - Won a National Championship
Michigan was preseason 14 and 13 in the AP and coaches poll in 1997
Obviously exceeded them but I wouldn’t call those expectations low
It was our fourth straight season starting the season outside the top 10 after being a top 10 preseason team for the previous million seasons (or so it seems). 1995 and 1996 we started around the same as 97, but ended up with mediocre seasons. So I would say expectations were still pretty low at the beginning of 97, especially considering we lost 3 of our last 4 games in 96.
I think we’re into another tier of low expectations now
As I recall the 1997 pre-season, about 2/3 of folk were picking PSU (AP Pre-Season #1) to win the conference, the other 1/3 were picking OSU. Their mid-October game in Happy Valley was anticipated to be the conference game of the year.
Almost nobody had U-M (or anybody else for that matter) winning the conference. U-M was considered more a peer of "Iowa, MSU, Northwestern, & Wisconsin" in that particular pre-season.
Michael Bradley had his somewhat infamous "What is wrong with Michigan?, Michigan can't compete in the Big Ten any longer" article in that summer's Sporting News preview magazine.
They were low expectations from that POV. Almost always in the 1990s U-M was a serious player in the pre-season "who will win the B1G discussion", but 1997 was an exception.
I still have that article.
Yep, I have the magazine still too. And it's odd looking back --- nearly all of the 1997 pre-season consensus was wrong.
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For instance, the 4 new B1G coaches entering the 1997 season: Ron Turner (Illinois), Cam Cameron (Indiana), Glen Mason (Minnesota), and Joe Tiller (Purdue).
In terms of expected future success, the hires were ranked Turner, Cameron, Mason, Tiller.
Turner, after all, had an NFL pedigree and had been a successful OC with the Bears. He was moving down I-57 to a program with some recent success, and he would presumably recruit Chicago well with his ties there.
Tiller, meanwhile, had had success at Wyoming. But --- that was Wyoming. The B1G was a "man-ball meat and potatoes" conference and all that throwing the football around that worked in the Wild Wild Western Athletic Conference wasn't going to translate to the B1G.
In actuality, of course, Tiller was the most successful of the 4, followed by Mason, then Turner (who did at least win the B1G once in 2001) and Cameron. Nearly the exact opposite of expectations.
Tiller is one of the most underrated coaches of all time. He taught the Big Ten to change its very DNA . . . that you could indeed pass the ball and win in a cold-weather climate. Amazing job.
1985 - Coming off a 6-6 season, Michigan was not ranked in preseason polls. If not for a last second FG in a loss to Iowa, Michigan probably wins national title.
1997 - Only 15 in preseason polls. We know what happened.
2006 - We thought 2005 was as bad as it could get (we were so naive). Lost our last two, but a very good team.
2011 - Unranked preseason but sat on a horseshoe somewhere along the way.
2015 - Unranked preseason, lost the opener on the road but ended up having a solid season and if not for the unluckiest thing to ever happen, we would have been in a big bowl game.
2018 - The year before was a disappointment and we lost the opener to Notre Dame. Had 10 fun games after that. Last two, we won't speak of.
Yea 2011 came to my mind and I was scrolling down to see if anyone had posted it before I did. I remember being excited about Hoke but thinking he'd take a couple years to get "his guys" and they would likely be mediocre his first year. How wrong were we all?
Burned bright in year one then got worse and worse.
I expected the opposite tbh. I expected 2011 Michigan to be good based on team trajectory under RR and they had a lot of returning talent on that team.
"If not for a last second FG in a loss to Iowa, Michigan probably wins national title."
Not sure that would have been the result, unless other teams lost additional games—this is one scenario that having the automatic Rose Bowl tie-in would have hurt Michigan.
If Michigan beat Iowa, they would have risen to #1, but if they still tied Illinois two weeks later, they would have dropped out of the #1 spot. Meanwhile, PSU was en route to an undefeated regular season, and assumed the #1 spot after Nov. 9 and entered the Orange Bowl #1 against #3 Oklahoma.
The only way Michigan could have ended up the NC would be if they were #2 going into the bowl game. The problem is that as BIG champs, Michigan goes to the Rose Bowl and would play #13 UCLA, which was 8-2-1. Even if Michigan beats UCLA, there's no guarantee that the pollsters would put Michigan ahead of an Oklahoma team that convincingly beat the #1 undefeated PSU 25-10.
To pursue the scenario, IF a #2 Michigan had pounded the snot out of UCLA along the lines of 49-14 or something similar while Oklahoma just barely squeaked by PSU, Michigan would have been well-positioned to get a share of the NC.
Considering Bo's miserable record in the Rose Bowl, anything other than a close win over UCLA seems a bit of a reach to me.
IF Michigan had ascended to #2 by the end of the season and wasn't restricted to playing in the Rose Bowl, a match with #1 Penn State would have been an natural choice for the NC, and would have been a ratings bonanza.
1964 (my freshman year). Michigan had been bad for about 10 years and was coming off of a year when they had the strange record of 3-4-2.
They were 9-1 heading into the Rose Bowl with only a fluke 21-20 loss to Purdue. They crushed Oregon State and finished 10-1. Would have been a National Championship without the Purdue loss. They defeated five teams that were ranked in the top ten.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Michigan_Wolverines_football_team
Good question that i don't think I have an answer after your two. Honestly, this scenario is what I'm really hoping for this year. I know the negative nancys are going to complain regardless of the record, but I'd really like to see them steal a game this year. It seems like its been forever since they pulled of an unexpected win.
2006.
Expectations should have been pretty low for 2020 but I think general expectations (to start the season) are lower than they have been since maybe during the Rich Rod years? Even in the last year or so of Hoke the talent on the team was enough to generate expectations.
Having lower expectations is not a bad thing - I think this year's team is an unfortunate transition with coaches and players coupled with lack of experience at vital positions. There is going to be a lot of pressure on the coaches to produce so hopefully lower expectations will allow players/coaches to develop without as much pressure from alums, fanbase and the media.
1985
Agree with this - unranked and coming off of a 6-6 season (Bo's only non-winning season in Ann Arbor). Ended up #2 (I think 11-1-1) in the country and capped it off with a really great win over Nebraska in the Fiesta Bowl.
Yes! My junior year. Jimmy got it done for us.
Look no further than 2020-2021 michigan basketball. Preseason ranking in the mid 20s and picked to finish 9th in the B1G.
Like the optimistic vibes for the upcoming year. This is why I am fan...I secretly hoping for a great year but remain cautiously optimistic.
one thing going for this team is the lack of hype and hot seat talk with harbaugh.
I'd say 2010, RR's last year. Make fun all you want but I think a fair amount of people think if he was given another year, he may have duplicated what Hoke did.
Side note - I always felt bad that RR left WVU (where he was proportionately successful and well liked) for UM. It was likely never going to work out for him and he really went down hill after Michigan.
WVU was a natural fit for RR—they played in a conference where defense was somewhat of an afterthought, he wasn't expected to contend for the NC every year, and he could recruit kids to WVU that he wasn't able to at Michigan.
The problem was that RR had a terrible relationship with WVU's AD at the time, and much of the discord revolved around money, or lack thereof for the football program.
Don, when you say RR could recruit kids to WVU that he wasn't able to at MIchigan, what do you mean? Are you referring to academics? I was listening to Pat McAfee the other day, and he said that the kids RR recruited to WVU didn't have other options like the kids recruited to Michigan. He basically said that RR could treat them worse because they lacked options, and they were therefore harder/tougher than the Michigan players. This, of course, was pre-portal.
when you say RR could recruit kids to WVU that he wasn't able to at MIchigan, what do you mean?
I was referring to admissions standards at U-M. Take it from RR himself:
"Rodriguez dove into the admissions process at the school. Michigan has higher academic standards than perhaps any other school in the conference aside from Northwestern. These academic standards are also in place at schools like Notre Dame and Stanford, where as a lot of Power Five schools could recruit athletes that couldn’t pass admissions at the school.
Rodriguez reflected on those standards when he was the head coach, and pointed out how Harbaugh is forced to navigate them.
“There were some guys we fought to get in,” Rodriguez said, via Wolverines Wire. “Our thought was, if they’re NCAA eligible, we should be able to get them in if we can vouch for their work ethic. Sometimes guys didn’t get the same kind of high school education because of where they lived, but they’re gonna have success in college with all the help they can have and the type of mentality – you know who they are. And we had to fight for a lot of guys. And there were some guys – I’m not gonna mention their names – there was no way that Michigan was gonna let them in. They met the NCAA standard, but they didn’t meet the so-called Michigan standard."
I think RR may have only won another game or two and finish at 7-5 or 8-4. Hoke brought in Greg and he was able to make the D respectable again. RR would have still had a shitty defense.
April 13th, 2021 at 10:19 PM ^
Hoke had a bigger budget and was able to buy more coaching talent. Rich Rod's teams quit once they got behind. Hoke's teams won with defense. They actually stopped opponents when it really mattered.
I think RR may have only won another game or two and finish at 7-5 or 8-4. Hoke brought in Greg and he was able to make the D respectable again. RR would have still had a shitty defense.