Revisiting the HTTV Pre-Season Predictions (Spoiler: Brian Said We'd Lose to Nebraska)
Truth be told, very few of us predicted at the beginning of the season that we'd be sitting here at 13-0 with an even BIGGER beatdown of Ohio State on our resume. But the only guys who actually put their pre-season predictions in print in the 2022 edition of Hail to the Victors were these five. Here were their predictions as to what our regular-season record and bowl destination would be:
ALEX DRAIN: 11-1 with a loss to Ohio State. Rose Bowl.
BRIAN: 10-2. He said that Ohio State would be "too tough." He also said, "The other loss is against Nebraska. Yeah. I said it." Rose Bowl.
BRYMAC: 10-2 with losses to Ohio State and either Penn State or Nebraska. Rose Bowl.
CRAIG ROSS: 10-1 heading into Columbus. He's the only one of the five who actually gave us half a chance of beating Ohio State. His prediction was 10.5 wins and the Rose Bowl.
SETH: 11-1 and the Rose Bowl. Seth said we would "get hosed in the Shoe." I don't know if "hosed" meant we would lose because of some bad calls or that we'd be blown out.
December 12th, 2022 at 10:55 AM ^
It definitely meant bad calls.
December 12th, 2022 at 10:57 AM ^
You've been absolved by everyone for being the only one to guarantee a win in the the Shoe.
December 12th, 2022 at 11:34 AM ^
I think you guys talked about it on the podcast, but that was one of the best-officiated games I remember watching. The only obviously wrong call I can remember was the Okie sack that should have been a fumble, and it was far too late in the game to matter.
It was a very pleasant surprise to get such fair officiating in Columbus.
December 12th, 2022 at 12:26 PM ^
The ghosts of 2016 officiating were finally put to rest - yes, that was a very cleanly called game. Even the grounding call on JJ, which wasn't called at first, was correct. The PI in the EZ was also correct - Ohio guy had his back to the QB and rushed into Bell. I think the only unsportsmanlike call was the TE head butt. In 2016, JH got a BS call against him for throwing his play card backwards.
I also think the refs were fair in the Sparty game this year. And minimal fighting on the field (but,but but the tunnel! and what about Juwan!)
December 12th, 2022 at 12:34 PM ^
The Okie sack would have been a huge miscall if the game were in doubt. It likely would have been 6 for Michigan if were not whistled dead
They missed an incomplete call on a the reception that Barrett made the hit on the screen- the completion was for 1 yard & ate up more time in the 2nd half so the miscall was to Michigan's advantage.
December 12th, 2022 at 12:51 PM ^
Yeah, they just need to swallow the whistle on those plays, let it play out, and then go to review to see if it was indeed a fumble.
December 12th, 2022 at 12:51 PM ^
There were a couple things they really screwed up but ultimately made right. For instance, the mixup with the game clock at the end of the third quarter was atrocious, but they got it sorted out in the end.
December 12th, 2022 at 1:54 PM ^
Where did THE_KNOWLEDGE go? His pre-season "season reviews" were the best.
December 12th, 2022 at 5:32 PM ^
...
yes
...
December 12th, 2022 at 10:57 AM ^
Will Seth interrupt Brian on the wtka podcast to remind him of his horrible Nebraska pick?
December 12th, 2022 at 10:57 AM ^
"Hosed" always means getting hosed by the refs.
December 12th, 2022 at 11:24 AM ^
in this case then, would the refs be hosers?
December 12th, 2022 at 11:43 AM ^
take off, eh, hoser
December 12th, 2022 at 11:56 AM ^
Blown out! By The Team Up North!
Blown out! Stroud got sacked by Ojabo
Blown out! By The Team Up North!
December 12th, 2022 at 11:43 AM ^
Oh ya fer sure bud
December 12th, 2022 at 12:15 PM ^
The origin of the term hoser, comes from old old hockey prior to the invention of the zamboni machine. The losing team had to clean up the ice and hose it down to ensure a smooth surface for the next game. So the losing team would be the hoser's.
December 12th, 2022 at 12:37 PM ^
I didn't know this and am very glad to have been enlightened. +1.
December 12th, 2022 at 12:12 PM ^
Unless you're a Sweathog
December 12th, 2022 at 10:59 AM ^
I enjoy looking back at predictions. Aside from Madhatter, not many predicted this outcome.
enjoying everyday ! Let’s Go Blue!
December 12th, 2022 at 11:51 AM ^
Sure but who among us is gonna take a guy seriously who has severe mercury poisoning?
December 12th, 2022 at 1:38 PM ^
I'll have you know that mercury is a safe and effective treatment for any number of ailments.
December 12th, 2022 at 11:07 AM ^
To be fair, publishing in print means having to look reasonable to the world.
I begin every season believing that we are going to go 15–0. It made last year such a JOY (especially considering how dreary most predictions were at the beginning of that season). This year, it feels like a PROPHECY.
I appreciate all that the staff does for us here, and Nebraska being so horrible that it could not have been forecasted was a real bonus to this year's pleasure. I don't think failure to prognosticate it constitutes lack of vision on the staff's part.
December 12th, 2022 at 11:23 AM ^
For 2021, I had one of the more optimistic pre-season predications for 9-3. A lot of people were just hoping to get back to a bowl game. I thought we'd look back on the covid year as a weird outlier, and thought we'd bounce back better than most people assumed, but obviously I was blown away by the result.
December 12th, 2022 at 11:38 AM ^
Funny. I'm the opposite. I begin every season hoping we'll go, like, 9-3. I just tend to overrate the talent of our opponents -- and fear how much they prepare for games against us (and Ohio State, I guess) as their Super Bowls.
But it's ok. That makes seasons like this one, and last one, such delightful surprises.
December 12th, 2022 at 2:52 PM ^
I went into 2014 believing (and this is not a joke) that we'd go 12-0 regular season. I mean, we got the OC from Alabama! What could possibly go wrong?
December 12th, 2022 at 11:08 AM ^
Brian was high on Nebraska in the pre-season for cogent reasons; namely that SP+ had liked Nebraska far better than their record the prior year, and they'd been on the wrong side of a lot of close games. The thinking that their luck could even out by expanding the sample size into 2022 wasn't far-fetched.
Of course, LOL Scottie got fired and Nebraska completely collapsed is what actually happened. But the prediction reasonably made sense at the time.
December 12th, 2022 at 11:12 AM ^
If you watched those games, you would know that their close losses were not truly random events, but a product of ultimately a terrible football program.
December 12th, 2022 at 11:23 AM ^
Yeah. They were simultaneously better than their record in 2021 and a team with serious coaching problems.
I mean, they had two different quarterbacks sacked in the end zone for safeties in games they ended up losing by one score or less. That's a coaching problem.
(And "better than their record" means that if they'd gotten lucky they'd have finished 6-6 or 7-5.)
December 12th, 2022 at 11:33 AM ^
A number of people were high on Nebraska in the summer. Their over/under back in the summer was 7.5. Yes, that's with a B1G West schedule but it was also a schedule that included 2 pre-season Top 10s (Oklahoma & Michigan).
As it happened - Michigan goes undefeated and their only victories by less than multiple scores were against teams that had a summer over/under of 6 (Maryland) and 4.5 (Illinois)!
If Brian had predicted that everyone dismisses him as a homer with an insanely high regard for Maryland & especially Illinois. But it would have been spot on.
December 12th, 2022 at 12:01 PM ^
Brian had more faith in Frost than most Nebraska fans. Entering 2022 Frost's record in one-score games was something like 5-20. That's a large enough sample to conclude that it wasn't just simple variance. Frost's teams had enough talent to compete, but his game management was brutal.
Beyond that, Frost had never posted even a .500 record in four years at Nebraska, despite consistently outrecruiting the rest of the Big Ten West. The only time he'd ever fielded a halfway decent defense was in 2021, when he had a bunch of Covid seniors. The body of evidence suggested he wasn't good at his job.
December 12th, 2022 at 11:20 AM ^
You can only go with the information you have at the time, and all of those prognostications were reasonable things to project. Who amongst us hasn't had hot takes that aged like milk?
I thought that we'd be a Final 4 team in 2015 with LeVert, Walton, Irvin and McGary.
My mom thought that I was so talented and smart that I'd be successful and make some woman really happy.
December 12th, 2022 at 11:27 AM ^
These things are entertaining but tough to even reasonably predict.
I mean look at Russell Wilson to the Broncos. Everyone thought they'd challenge the Chiefs for the division with that move.
... and they're 3-10 even though they have the 5th best scoring defense in the entire league.
December 12th, 2022 at 11:34 AM ^
None of these preseason takes were particularly bad. You can point to Nebraska but most felt they were better than thier record indicated last year. The hiring of Mark Whipple as OC didn't really make a lot of sense though. Not sure he and Frost share the same vision of a college offense.
December 12th, 2022 at 11:35 AM ^
It's fun to throw incorrect predictions in the faces of haters. But obviously these guys aren't that. They're just fans who don't drink Koolaid in such quantity as to lose objectivity. I certainly didn't see 13-0. I thought the defense's draft losses were too much to avoid a step back, and that the offense would be bordering on elite but would experience hiccups with McCarthy overtaking McNamara for the starting job around midseason.
Everyone WANTS their team to go undefeated, but even when they're really good, that's usually a bridge too far for the passionate, but still objective, fan to predict. 13-0, even for the best team, requires some luck at at least a couple points in the season. And, especially with this fanbase, BPONE is, or at least was, a thing.
December 12th, 2022 at 11:42 AM ^
Agreed. Plus, you never know which team is going to blow up, both in terms of their own season, and in terms of their games against us. Rutgers in 2021. Illinois, for God's sake, in 2022.
An unexpected gust of wind comes up at the wrong moment, or the snap slips through the holder's hands, and we lose that game against the Illini.
There are always some games like that. To go 13-0 means somehow not just winning all the "big" games, but somehow avoiding the unexpected quicksand as well. Luck was with us, this year. (And last year, except for the MSU game).
December 12th, 2022 at 11:37 AM ^
Not a single one of those predictions looks unreasonable based on the information we had at the time. Hell even the week of, most of us thought the team would get crushed.
December 12th, 2022 at 12:14 PM ^
Losing to nebraska is unreasonable to me. MSU or PSU was more plausible from a preseason standpoint. Hell even at kinnick was more plausible from preseason standpoint before Iowa horrendous offense revealed itself.
December 12th, 2022 at 11:46 AM ^
It's easy as a fan to say "we're going to win all the games."
As a sport's writer that relies on people reading their takes and taking them seriously and finding them interesting, you have to try to be somewhat unbiased and be more analytical and reasonable with your predictions. I don't necessarily have a problem with the Nebraska hot-take. Sometimes you shoot your shot. Again, if you predict chalk or all Michigan wins, it's really not that interesting or different from reading Vegas predictions on win total over/under or WD's predictions that we'll win the next 10 National championships
December 12th, 2022 at 11:51 AM ^
I definitely thought losing to Nebraska was plausible. End of the season, possibly looking ahead to OSU, going against a team that has a pretty good, or at least very creative offense, against a desperate coach who may be coaching for his job.
Nebraska always seemed like they were just so close to breaking through under Frost, and I figured he was (at least before that Northwestern debacle) going to find a way to do it eventually. With as much bad luck as he had in one score games, you figured eventually his luck would start to even out, but it never did.
December 12th, 2022 at 11:53 AM ^
Preseason Vegas win total was 9.5. So all of these guys took the over, and they still undershot it
December 12th, 2022 at 11:54 AM ^
Once Brian got around to writing the "Heuristics and Stupid Prediction" portion of the preview series, he no longer saw Nebraska as a threat. They were listed as "Likely Win" and did not appear as one of the dumb games that Michigan could potentially drop pre-OSU. He ended up sticking with 10-2 and said 11-1 was more likely than 9-3.
December 12th, 2022 at 12:11 PM ^
Love Brian but he’s got an odd blind spot for spread, tempo coaches whose teams are not fundamentally sound: RichRod, Dan Mullen, Scott Frost…
December 12th, 2022 at 12:44 PM ^
Not a blindspot at all, because we are so bad at defending it. You forget all those spread/tempo OSU teams that killed us. App State. Indiana (how many times did we eek out a win against that team?!), Oregon, etc.
December 12th, 2022 at 2:26 PM ^
Yes but that is in the past- this defense is not the Carr/Hoke/Richrod defenses. It is so nice going into games expecting & seeing a high level of competence in all areas!
December 12th, 2022 at 12:12 PM ^
The general outcome of the predictions was everyone believed that we would be really good yet stuck with "losing to Ohio St in Columbus", which honestly a vast majority of the country believed. That meant Rose Bowl by default.
Not too many sane people went into this season feeling really good about our chances in Columbus. And some small traces of BPONE remained with the prediction of of dropping a second game against an inferior opponent. Again, very undrstandable.
What will be interesting is in next years HTTV, will any of them go out on the limb and predict a 12-0 season and a repeat. The schedule sets up nicer and Michigan does have plenty of talent coming back....
We shall see in August, but for now all that matters is TCU on the 31st....
December 12th, 2022 at 12:13 PM ^
My guess was 10-2, with a close loss at Iowa (we can thank Brian F. for his ineptitude - Iowa has been where top 5 teams go to die). Also, a competitive loss to Ohio where we give up a late score trying to stop them from running out the clock and lose by 10-14 points in a game that was mostly one possession.
Off to the RB to play UCLA, who I thought would win the P12. Would have been interesting to see Zach vs. Blake rushing stats.
I expected Cade to start and JJ still to get over 25% of the snaps, but Cade lose his job with the loss at Iowa. The irony is we did lose (Cade) to Iowa after all.
I expected Frost to get his 1st signature win over Oklahoma at home and play us competitive, but we'd win at home by a score in a game similar to last year.
Even in my wildest dreams, never saw Mel going as bad as 5-7. That just added joy to this season.
December 12th, 2022 at 1:56 PM ^
MSU was more like a 7 or 8 win team last season that got insanely lucky and won every coin flip game they were in. Not to mention the fact that Kevin Warren fixed a key game for them. They were probably about the same this season but they fell back to earth as far as getting lucky in close games. They also had way more injuries this season and had to play out west which is basically an automatic loss for a Big Ten team.
December 12th, 2022 at 12:19 PM ^
I predicted that we’d go 9-3 or 10-2 with losses at Iowa and OSU and possibly a WTF home loss to PSU so I’m the last knucklehead in the world to poke fun at the predictions of the MGoBraintrust.
December 12th, 2022 at 12:27 PM ^
What is more fun is rereading the 2020 HTTV section that said that due to recruiting differneces there would be 3-4 top teams and then everyone else and that Michigan didn't have a chance-
I'm very happy that this take has been proven quite wrong.
December 12th, 2022 at 12:41 PM ^
Several points as to why Michigan was better than most thought:
-No one thought the defense would be better overall, though some position groups were thought they could be better (DL, CB).
-No one thought Corum would be one of the best backs in cfb, and especially one who was essentially 2.5 games not played away from potentially winning the Heisman. Most thought the running game would be really good but not great.
-Speaking of the running game (and pass pro), most didn’t think the oline would be better than last year (they arguably were), and especially not when multiple o linemen started missing games here and there. This bodes very well for next year, even if zinter and/or Keegan go to the nfl.
-How many freshmen did most predict would be entrenched starters at the end of the season? Maybe one (Johnson)? Michigan has 3 (Johnson, Graham, and Loveland), all of whom would start on 90-95% of all cfb teams. That is truly a luxury that most teams don’t enjoy right now.
-Lose two coordinators and end up with better overall coaching than last year? And that isn’t a knock on Macdonald either. Hitting on just one of those would be thought of as a win, but getting both? Awesome.