Predictions for Football Season?
I'm not optimistic. Even the Wolverine, which constantly hypes the football team, prints ridiculous analogies (i.e., Donovan Jeter could be the next Aaron Donald) and serves as primary apologist for the athletic department, says that the team has looked pitiful in spring practice and "lacks talent". I say 4-8 or 5-7, at best. What say others?
Pain.
Yes, but the short term pain of a 5-7/4-8 season will be short-lived and replaced by elation if it ultimately forces Warde to can Harbaugh.
If this sterling record of underachievement by Harbaugh:
- 0-5 vs OSU, covid saved us from 0-6
- 3-3 vs MSU
- 0 B1G titles, not even playing in the B1G title game let alone CFP
- best road win is against #20 Northwestern
- 1-4 in bowl games
- 0-15 when Michigan is an underdog
- 2-12 vs. top 10 teams
- worst halftime deficit in Michigan stadium history & 2nd worst loss ever at home
- home loss to an 0-5 team
- 4 straight home losses
- talented players transferring / leaving the program early
- questionable roster management and seemingly disorganized recruiting
- could not keep the players from missing the last 3 games
- 4th highest paid coach in the country
did not force Warde to can him, let alone give him an extension, nothing will. They will have the built in excuse of all new coaches / defensive scheme to keep Harbaugh!
If we had a real athletic department harbaugh should have been fired the Monday following the msu game. That game was the worst football game I have ever seen and I’ve been watching football since 2001 so believe I’ve seen some horrible seasons. The guy is by far the most overrated coach of all time. So much hype and zero results. A trophy case with a fictional division title and a citrus bowl. Regardless we’re stuck with harbaugh until the lemmings jump off the cliff with him. The good news is it’s inevitably going to happen. The bad news is it might not be until 2022
A real athletic department?
Lol, whatever man.
A real athletic department that was facing a real pandemic, with real million dollar consequences didn't want to pay a coach over $15M to NOT coach when it was furloughing and laying staff off.
An athletic department that was projecting revenue losses over $100M didn't want to pay a coaching staff to go away while paying a new staff to come in.
An athletic department that renegotiated these agreements so they LITERALLY could fire Harbaugh and his staff after this upcoming season and pay a FRACTION of what it would've paid if they fired him after last season.
Clearly you don't know what athletic departments do.
Warde was not going to "can" him in a pandemic after losing tens of millions of dollars and pay his enormous buyout.
Plus pay the buyout of a new incoming coach and all the ACs.
And for who? Who was out there that we should've hired that won't be an option after this season?
Last - the extension HELPS Michigan, what don't you people get about that? It makes it EASIER to get rid of Harbaugh and provides a false sense of security to recruits that he has more support than he does.
It was a win-win.
It's difficult to believe that people have not been seeing how good Ohio State really is. Alabama, Clemson and Ohio State are the elite of college football and there is really not very much separating those programs. So using Ohio State as your dipstick of success is an almost impossible standard. Do you believe Bo, Carr or any other coaching great would have produced better results?
Tossing in records from last season is meaningless. With no spring practice, a limited training camp, did you expect Michigan with 4 new starters on the O-Line and a new starting QB to tear up the B1G? Had Michigan had the 4 O-linemen they put in the NFL, plus Patterson that they would have gone 2-4 last season?
Players are going to transfer, it's the way of college football. Penn State has had more transfers than Michigan and they have a big win against Ohio State and a better bowl record. Would that make things all better?
Why do fans like you try to downplay what Michigan can do?
Yes I do believe any of those coaches would have fared better than 0-5 (would have been 0-6) against OSU with 3 blowouts. Bo beat an OSU team on a 22 game winning streak his first year, and Lloyd beat four OSU teams whos record were 9-0-1, 11-0, 10-0, and 9-1.
Auburn has two wins against Alabama (who just so you know, has been on a more historic run than OSU) in the timespan that Harbaugh has been here and they just fired their coach!
Currently Michigan has had the most players enter the transfer portal for 2021 in the Big Ten at 18 compared to Penn State's 11.
https://247sports.com/college/michigan/Season/2021-Football/TransferPortal/
I would guess that program expectations vary by the generation cohort of the fan. Many of us were raised during a time the UM expected to beat OSU more often than not. We had a winning record in the Game across my first 35 years of life and then the wheels fell completely off. OSU will always be UM's football measuring stick and vice versa.
I am tired of excuses and ready for some wins. Maybe Harbaugh can turn the rivalry around (stranger things have happened) but my sense of hope is greatly diminished. Yes, I believe Bo and Lloyd would have some wins against this OSU team in a 5/6 year span. Yes, beating OSU and winning more bowl games would make things (not all but significantly) better.
Yep and the recruiting services with tons of Michigan fans subscribed to them will continue to inflate rankings and then the fans will wonder why the players really aren’t all that good.
Seeing Harbaugh fired after a 4-8 season would bring you elation? It would be a sadly necessary thing to do, but I would be far from elated, more like deflated. We just went 4-8 and canned the coach we thought would take us to new heights! I feel great!
No publication in their right mind would compare Donovan Jeter to Aaron Donald, so without a link or some sort of proof, I'm calling BS on your analogy. I read the Wolverine and they have been a little bullish in the past, but no one expects this team to do better than 8 wins.
Why is it that if you say pain you get thumbs up but he says 5-7 and he gets negged??
Mr. T
Mr T "Pain" reference = Kind of funny
5-7 = not at all funny
It was such a nice day, why ruin it?
You're right, it is a nice day. So I'm going to go out and enjoy it instead of hanging around here listening to people piss and moan about things that haven't happened yet.
Adios, muchachos.
We will complain about it
I predict that I will be attending football games and have a blast doing so with my family.
Go Blue!
That will make it a good year. I cannot wait for that day to come again.
I wish my caveman brain would allow me to fully enjoy a day with the family while watching Michigan get curb stomped. That seems really hard.
Love the attitude. The team will be better then some on here think.
The better question is....how long until fire Harbaugh will be splattered all over this website?
That's easy, October 31st.
2020.
It’s incredibly sad that I knew exactly what day that was and who we played. Scary Halloween indeed
For the first time in my life, I am not looking forward to the start of college football. Normally this time of year I would have read hours about spring camp. I've read like 5 minutes worth.
Don't know if it is more from covid changing life patterns or how disappointing last season was.
There's only about 5 minutes worth of content this year. Typical submarine.
This is the first time since late RichRod that I have no optimism about the upcoming season.
I feel the same way. It’s last season. Definitely the disappointment of last season. Covid has changed much, but it doesn’t have the power to diminish the excitement that the anticipation of a Michigan football season typically brings. The kick in the teeth week in and week out of last year did that. So for me, it’s last season. I’m still excited for Michigan football, I just have very low expectations. I would describe it as a bottomless pit of negative expectations. I hope to be pleasantly surprised.
For the first time in my life, I am not looking forward to the start of college football.
I find that hard to believe. Were you really excited going into RR's second year in 2009 after he went 3-9 the year before? I know I wasn't.
I actually was excited at the start of RichRod's 2nd year.
I thought RichRod would turn it around and we had 2 QBs to fit his system in Forcier and Denard, which was an exciting uograde over Threet and Sheridan.
It was certainly exciting for me because we had an offense that was attempting to break a mold and try new things. And there was the hope that the defense would start to click because our defense was always good. Big letdown in the end but I always looked forward to the Rich Rod teams playing. Call me crazy...whatever.
I think last year finally broke me on spring camp news. I'd learned over the last 10 years to develop a conversion chart for spring rumors (e.g. "X player is on pace to have an all-time great season!" = "X player will be a pretty good starter"), but after last year with the Milton hype and it being a disaster I'm just done. I'll pay attention when the first game kicks off
7-5
Wins: WMU, Rutgers, N Ill, Neb, NW, MSU, IU
Losses: Washington, Wisconsin, PSU, MD, OSU
If this is how things transpire, the pressure on Warde is going to be intense.
The pressure will only be intense if we can't fill the stadium.
O/U 6.5 wins
i guess if pressed Id take the under
We’re not losing to Washington or Maryland. I wouldn’t pencil in an IU winning though.
Michigan has a long and nearly unbroken tradition of losing all September games to PAC 12 teams with a pulse.
Ah, the old we’ll never lose to a Pac12 team canard. Guess what? We almost always lose to the Pac12 team.
And this one will come in with a ton of returning starters and ranked in the Top 10-15 - well ahead of us. We will be the dogs in this game.
Since 2000, Michigan is 3-9 against PAC12 teams. We're 3-7 in September games.
I will certainly root for Michigan during any given game. But I would almost rather see them go 4-8 than 7-5. I am not eager to be in the limbo that 7-5 would put us in.
No chance Michigan beats MSU this year.
MSU will come out fired up and better prepared. Michigan will look lost and if by some positive variance ends up in the game in the second half they will self-destruct anyway because even when he has talent that’s an all-too common outcome with Harbaugh teams.
I think Payton Thorne is being slept on. Looked impressive the few times I've seen him.
I'll be glad when the last bits of Dantonio recruiting magic (like this one ... getting an apparently decent QB in the 247 four-figure level: https://247sports.com/player/payton-thorne-46040161/ ) work their way through the MSU roster. It's unclear whether Mel has the same magic.
Michigan? I'm getting a little bit of a bad "expectation is for the position" vibe with the linebackers. I'm picturing a bunch of big, sturdy guys that will stand up a Wisconsin fullback but hopelessly chase an OSU slot or running back.
You know what's really sad?
I'd be content if that's how the season went down.
Username checks out!
7-5, should have gotten a true rebuild with a new coaching staff.