As the old adage goes
As the old adage goes, going 1-11 and beating your rival is better than going 11-1 and losing to your rivals.
Let's see if this is true. Now that we are officially out of bowl contention, let's focus on player development as well as gameplanning for OSU the next couple of weeks. Although we probably have no shot in hell, I wou;d still like to see the team come out and play a well-executed gameplan and throw the kitchen sink ala Florida 2008 at the Buckeyes. And if we do miracleously pull of the win, it will give the program a ton of momentum going into the offseason (players, coaches, and recruits).
By the way, if this season has taught anything, it's that the old saying is definetely NOT true. I'd mucher rather have the 2006 season than the 2008 season.
November 2nd, 2008 at 5:24 PM ^
I think OSU is one of the teams that Michigan matches up better against. The OSU offense has been very vulnerable to the blitz. Pryor is really something, but he is just too young to go through his reads that quickly. If Michigan can blitz early and often, perhaps they can conceal the weakness in their secondary. Granted, if they can't tackle on the edge or keep contain, we are going to Pryor run for a ton of yards.
On the other side of the ball, the Bucks have had all kinds of trouble replacing Gholston, so perhaps they won't be able to totally exploit Michigan's poor offensive line. Jenkins will be a non-factor as the role of the downfield passing game is diminished. Their linebackers are blockable.
That being said, they are much, much better than Purdue or Toledo. If Michigan performs the way they did in those games, expect a loss by five scores. But, if Michigan is fired up and OSU is already thinking about Pasadena, then they could keep it close.
November 2nd, 2008 at 11:56 PM ^
I wouldn't call Jenkins irrelevant; if we only run it OSU will stop us for sure (see: Michigan State), so we will have to pass to set up the run. Every team has been trying to stop the run, and have almost always succeeded. This will cause a lot of problems.
To win, we would need something like:
-Special teams magic (Odoms, Cissoko)
-Pryor freshman stupidity/sackage
-Little to no Threet freshman stupidity
-Healthy Threet, while we're at it; it's hard to believe he's getting worse throughout the season, so I think he's still fairly injured. Lack of QB backup supports this theory.
-More Inexplicably Effective QB runs; Threet has some great opportunities that he passes up
-Make them throw; even though we could make Morelli/Boeckman look like a good QB this year, Wells pounding = certain death
-Zoltan!
That being said OSU is not going to overlook us; not only do they need to win to make a BCS bowl, they have a historic opportunity to bring their win streak to a record five in a row.
November 2nd, 2008 at 5:29 PM ^
....not that I am expecting we can now even come close to "winning out," but I think some reasonable goals for the remainder of the season would be:
1) Retaining the Jug
2) Not finishing with a worse record than ND 2007
3) Upsetting OSU at the Shoe.
November 2nd, 2008 at 7:26 PM ^