Taking A Step Back (The Bright Side)
I know alot of us are disappointed after the results of the past four weeks of Michigan games. But after looking at the latest polls I got to thinking...how would I view Michigan if they were any other team?
Well here it goes. Close your eyes for a moment and think about the team I am going to describe for you. This team could be any BCS conference team that is not Michigan. They are a traditional power but have recently undergone a big transition both in coaching and program philosophy. Last year was an absolute disaster, a shocker ever to the most casual college football fan. Much worse is that at the end of the year they seemed to lose most of their best players on defense. On offense they really had no hope of improvement outside of the chance that a pair of true freshman could defy all odds and do more than Tim Tebow was ever asked to do in his first year.
Then imagine this team jumps out to a 4-0 start, already surpassing their win total from the year before. They come back to reality with a close loss on the road to a rival who is supposed to have their best team in years. They then lose 2 of their next 3. But those to losses are to the 7th and 12th ranked teams (AP polls) and one of them was a night game on the road and came down to the last seconds. Despite the skid, this team that had little real reason for optimism when the season started is sitting at 5-3 with a solid chance to get to a bowl game.
Once you've visualized this hypothetical team, open your eyes and realize that it's Michigan and that things aren't that bad afterall. I think the main reason for our disappointment is that we know that the team could have played much better and probably won one or two more games. But that's also a reason for optimism, because it basically means that at some point we are going to get it together, and when we do we can beat anyone on our schedule. It may not happen until next year maybe even 2011. But I think it can and will happen if we just stay the course. Personally I'm hoping that it happens in about 4 weeks. But even if it doesn't I think it's helpful to occasionally step back and see how far we've come.
October 25th, 2009 at 3:01 PM ^
If I close my eyes when you tell me to, how am I supposed to read the rest of your post?
October 25th, 2009 at 3:30 PM ^
Man, you need to close the eyes of your miiiiind, man. Let it goooooo.
October 25th, 2009 at 3:05 PM ^
Good post.
I've done a lot of thinking following the game yesterday. Michigan fans need to accept the loss vs PSU. I'm as unhappy as anyone else that the game got out of hand, it shouldn't have, but IMO Michigan was going to lose whether it was close or not. We simply don't have the talent, experience, or depth to beat what is likely the best team in the conference in Penn State.
Biggest problem I have is losing to a much better prepared Michigan State team. Michigan would have been 6-1 and bowl eligible coming into Penn State if the staff brought their A game into East Lansing. Read Brian's UFR's from that game. The loss of Molk and the predictability of M's offense led to an unfortunate loss for Michigan. Rodriguez has to circle this game on the schedule for next year, if we don't win in 2010 things could get ugly.
I just expect this team to win the games they should win. Michigan didn't beat a sub par MSU team. Ask yourself how mad you would be if Michigan lost yesterday but remained 6-2 and bowl eligible with losses to 2 TOP TEN teams in Iowa and Penn State!!!
October 25th, 2009 at 3:20 PM ^
I think a lot of the problem with the MSU preparation came down to Tate's shoulder. He didn't practice during the first two days of that week, when the gameplan is mostly put together. And the issue of MSU jumping our snap count was exacerbated by Molk being out. Changing the count at a time when Moosman was still figuring out how to snap might have been a bad idea.
Regardless, we took that game to OT. We had our chance at the end, and just fell short. (And I don't think MSU is nearly as bad as you make them out to be. They could have very easily won three of their four losses.)
October 25th, 2009 at 6:20 PM ^
I told people (not around here, so don't go looking for it) that MSU was huge. Put them down, end all that "lost the state" nonsense, go to 5-0, and even if you lose to Iowa, you're 6-1 coming into PSU, with Ill and Purdue left, so you can get to 8 and everything else is gravy. Plus you're 2-0 against the BIG rivals, and there's goodwill to spare. Laying an egg at MSU is costing them because pulling the upset vs. Iowa and PSU should have been harder (even though Iowa looked like an easier shot).
October 25th, 2009 at 3:42 PM ^
Michigan should not be into 'morale' victories, or satisfied with just "playing well" It shouldn't be this bad. Tressel and Urban Meyer won National Championships in their second season.
It wasn't just young, inexperienced guys yesterday. Senior Carlos Brown fumbled, Senior Brandon Minor fumbled (again), and Senior Stevie Brown got burned for 2 easy TD passes on simple out routes.
Its was sad to see the comedy of errors yesterday. It was sad to see Penn State waltz right into the Big House and take them to the woodshed for a whipping. Michigan played with very little fire or intensity. The team has no identity.
October 25th, 2009 at 3:46 PM ^
Oh come on. There is no possible way that this group of players was going to challenge for a MNC this year. Ever.
Beyond that, you're right. It's frustrating to see all the errors. The team has an identity, but right now that identity is a team that makes a lot of mistakes in their execution, and that gets amplified when they're physically outmatched like they were yesterday.
October 25th, 2009 at 5:21 PM ^
Box Score
I don't mind the rant, but get the facts right.
October 26th, 2009 at 10:42 AM ^
First of all look at the qb's they were dealing with. In his second year Urban Meyer had Leak. Tate and Denard have a little bit less experience than Leak had. You can't compare a team w/ freshman qb's to one w/ veterans. No matter how good Tate and Denard are it is going to take a while for them to be able to read defenses at the college level with absolute proficiency.
October 25th, 2009 at 4:59 PM ^
Every year tams with subpar talent, teams with less experienced talent, teams that make more mistakes, step up in big games and beat the better team. This is something that I don't think this team is capable of. For some reason as long as the team Michigan is playing is considered "better", I just have a feeling that the "better" team is going to win. I just don't see this version of Michigan football pulling off the upset or winning the big game that could vault them to the next level. I know I might get back, "what about ND?", I think deep down everyone knows that ND is an average football team. Looking at the results of their games this year and their competition, it's hard to argue that.
October 25th, 2009 at 6:42 PM ^
The ND team we (and Nevada) faced was better than average. With Michael Floyd (probably the best receiver in the country) playing opposite Golden Tate, their passing game was absolutely lethal. They're still pretty good without him, but they can be held in check now.
October 25th, 2009 at 5:12 PM ^
The loss of Molk after the first drive seemed to greatly affect the running game.
This year our goal is a bowl, and if we get that it is a success. We have two flawed Freshman QBs (Tate's being dinged, Denard's being inexperienced passing), a lackluster defense and zip in terms of a defensive backfield outside of Warren.
I'm okay with a 7-5 year if it means we're better in the future.
October 25th, 2009 at 5:33 PM ^
The team yesterday didn't execute well, it may be that
Penn St. is that good, but the dropped passes and fumbles
just sucked the life out of the offense. After our
fumble when Graham recovered, things really began to
unravel.
Yesterday was a step backward, I hope we can get it
turned around in the next couple of weeks. Right now,
5-3 is good, but we really need to get to a bowl, with
execution like yesterday's, it won't happen.
October 25th, 2009 at 5:46 PM ^
I'm really disappointed with yesterday as well, but at this point I'm really just looking to make it to a bowl game. If we can get it together to win a couple more games that would be great. We're already better than last year but yesterdays game brought back memories of what we used to look like. I'm not too worried though, we shouldn't look that bad for the rest of the year (just hoping anyway).
October 25th, 2009 at 6:13 PM ^
We a giant step back yesterday, not because we lost, but because we played so poorly in all facets of the game. Our offensive line was physically dominated the same way it was against MSU, and it was widely assumed before the game that we'd be able to run the ball on PSU as successfully as we did last year, if not moreso. Looking at how badly our defense is playing, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if we lost all four of the remaining games. Winning even two of them will be a significant accomplishment.
October 25th, 2009 at 11:56 PM ^
I think that everybody just tried to do too much yesterday. Players fumbled fighting for that one extra yard, receivers looked to make a move before catching the ball, linemen jumping the snap to try and get a good block, etc. I think that they felt that they were going to have to have a perfect game to beat PSU, and as the momentum turned towards PSU they got a little too desperate too soon.
It was a tough matchup for us, with our freshmen QB's (and offense in general) going against a tough D, their 5th year QB going against our brutally bad pass defense, our best O-lineman returning for only about 4 plays before getting hurt, and it was all made a lot worse by lots of bad bounces and our own errors. I still think this was a bit of an anomaly, and I still like our chances against Purdue and Illinois, and give us about 50/50 against Wisconsin and OSU.
October 25th, 2009 at 7:45 PM ^
We came within a FG of beating Iowa on the road. Two weeks later we got drubbed badly by PSU. The final score was shockingly unexpected but PSU is a good team. And unfortunately these are the cyclical growing pains of a team that is young and thin (depth chart). We turned the ball over at the worst possible moments and as a result could never get any momentum on offense. Defensively, our secondary was exposed by an experienced, efficient and talented PSU QB. It seemed like whenever PSU needed a score, they just went to the air. I still think our D line is playing well. They did a decent job of getting to Clark and containing Royster for much of the game. I don't agree at all with the belief that our D line is being "manhandled".