Treating BPONE with Perspective
There have been far too many idiotic negative posts on this site and overreactions to the first two games. I just listened to Barton Simmons of 247 Sports say that he has Michigan 4th in the B1G East behind MSU as of right now because "MSU has an identity" (yes this was recorded after their loss to ASU).
The negative attitude around this program, both locally and nationally, is ridiculous. Michigan won handily in their first game DESPITE making several mistakes. They won their second game against a good and tough opponent despite making even more mistakes offensively.
When you can fumble 3 times in one game and have a TD called back incorrectly while playing a team who is made to punish those mistakes and still win...that's a great sign. For the team to be able to overcome that and still come out victorious says even more than a loss.
Both MTSU and Army are weird teams with their playstyle and are not the "cupcake" teams like an Akron, UCONN, or Central Michigan. Michigan still won both games and pretty much everything that held them back in those games are fixable.
Keep in mind these first two games were also without our best WR, starting LT, injured DT's, and an obviously hurting QB. The defense has honestly been fantastic given the circumstances they've had to play under (triple option, fumbles). The offense has been an adjustment, but I think they are much closer to the offense we saw in the 2nd quarter of the MTSU game than they are against Army.
Take care of the ball, get some players back from injury, and work out the kinks in the new offense and this team will be fine.
Even if they lose Saturday, the season isn't over. It's only the 3rd game of the year and their first road game against a top 15 opponent. Last year when Michigan went into The Game at 10-1, they still had tough games against Northwestern and Indiana.
This is college football, weird shit happens all the time and you will have frustrating games/wins. The important thing is that Michigan is 2-0 and the framework has been done for this team to truly do something special this year. Just gotta execute, and it starts with Wisconsin.
September 17th, 2019 at 11:05 AM ^
With each mention, I grow stronger.
September 17th, 2019 at 12:16 PM ^
Sorry. I'm a permanent resident of BPONE, USA until I actually see Michigan beat a good OSU team. I support the team, but I expect the worst at all times
September 17th, 2019 at 1:02 PM ^
I see what you're doing and I don't approve.
Trying to set our win against OSU in November up to allow you to remain in the BPONE, read: "beat a good OSU team"
September 17th, 2019 at 6:01 PM ^
Hate to say it, but OSU is a Playoff-caliber team that can be reasonably grouped with Clemson, Bama, and Georgia. I haven’t read any analysts that predict M in the Playoff this year. Not to say that it can’t happen, but we would need to catch some major breaks.
When OSU is objectively better than M, an 11-2 or 12-1 season that includes a loss to OSU is not a failed season. We should work our asses off all year to beat them, but the program is about more than one game a year.
September 17th, 2019 at 3:16 PM ^
Is this a record for time between threads with "perspective" in the title?
September 17th, 2019 at 3:22 PM ^
I need some help. Bpone? Please elaborate
September 17th, 2019 at 3:29 PM ^
most everyone here needs some help, its ok.
September 17th, 2019 at 7:39 PM ^
BPONE = Bottomless Pit Of Negative Expectations (I think that was your question)
September 17th, 2019 at 11:09 AM ^
What an oxymoronic thread title!
September 17th, 2019 at 1:37 PM ^
And content.
There is no treatment for BPONE. Those who think they have been treated were simply misdiagnosed.
September 17th, 2019 at 10:00 PM ^
There is a treatment-- it's tri-phasal and if anyone of the phases is unsuccessful, BPONE will come back stronger than ever. 1) Win all home games 2) Beat a ranked opponent (especially one in which UM is the underdog) 3) Beat OSU.
Miracle cures do exist, so hope springs eternal I guess.
September 17th, 2019 at 10:14 PM ^
*oxymoranic
September 17th, 2019 at 11:11 AM ^
Thanks, Brady Hoke.
September 17th, 2019 at 11:12 AM ^
Ahhh...Perspective season has come early this year. Without a doubt, my least favorite part of football season.
September 17th, 2019 at 12:31 PM ^
It's a bye week tradition!
September 17th, 2019 at 5:16 PM ^
And we get two bye weeks this year, yay
September 17th, 2019 at 11:12 AM ^
MTSU got hammered by Duke and Army barely escaped Rice. Its pretty easy to counter any of your points that you are just being optimistic by raising the value of the teams we played rather than addressing the fact that the team looked like ass.
September 17th, 2019 at 11:16 AM ^
I thought I made it clear by pointing out all the mistakes Michigan made with the fumbles and everything. We definitely looked awful, at least offensively.
September 17th, 2019 at 11:35 AM ^
I mean yes I think we can stop fumbling and that will help a lot. Our inability to get a consistent run game going against Army and Patterson's inability to read a defense behind a blitz and get the ball out early isn't something that is easily fixed.
September 17th, 2019 at 11:25 AM ^
The Duke score was 41-18. Michigan score was 40-21. Duke had ZERO turnovers, and jumped out to an early lead.
September 17th, 2019 at 11:34 AM ^
Of course the order of the score matters though. Sure Michigan wound up looking fine against MTSU but you can't compare a game where one team went into the half up 31-3 and the other was a 27-14 game. Duke stopped playing at the half because they had already won and got to 40 points. It took us 3.5 quarters with our starters playing to get there. The fancy stats cut out garbarge time for a reason, during the portion of the game that was competitive Duke easily outplayed us relative to our performance against MTSU.
September 17th, 2019 at 11:38 AM ^
Correct?
Not sure what the point is here. Duke was up 31-3 at the half. Outgained MTSU 247-98 at the break. It was a beating. MTSU is not good. They weren't good against us. They weren't good against Duke. Where are you headed with this?
September 17th, 2019 at 12:22 PM ^
Its an orientation through which results are viewed. The OP attempted to frame MTSU as better than a regular cupcake. Through that lense, overcoming the mistakes and putting up 40+ points looks good and just cleaning up the turnovers means Michigan's offense is actually solid and the defense giving up 14, even on short fields is justified. If you think MTSU is bad the fact we had to punt 4 times with our offensive starters in when Duke didn't have to punt a single time until the 4th quarter with their backups in shows that offense wasn't performing even outside the fumbling issues which is a cause for concern when coupled with the second half performance of the Army game and its not ideal that our defense couldn't stop MTSU from scoring touchdowns even on short fields given their inability to punch the ball into the endzone against the duke starting defense.
Michigan has had red flags outside of the fumbling issue that this narrative is seeking to avoid. They aren't problems that can't get fixed, but Shea patterson having zero pocket awareness or the ability to read a defense blitzing him and getting the ball out quickly are issues that are independent of opponent quality.
September 17th, 2019 at 12:55 PM ^
"Is not good" is not very descriptive. "Is not good" could apply to both MTSU and CMU, but MTSU would probably be a 10+ point favorite on a neutral field.
September 17th, 2019 at 1:32 PM ^
Explain. Leave your feelings out of it.
MTSU - Got smoked by Michigan, despite our sloppy play. Got smoked by Duke. Beat an FCS team by 19.
CMU - Got smoked by Wisconsin in embarrassing fashion. Beat Akron by 3 TDs. Beat an FCS team by 17.
MTSU is 103 in SP+. CMU is 119. There's no chance that's a 10 point spread. This weekend Georgia State (118) is at Texas State (110). That's a 3 point spread and it's at Texas State. So basically a pick em on a neutral field. Odds makers see virtually no discernable difference between 100 and 118. Yet your feelings feel there are 10 points between 103 & 119. There are not.
Your post is exactly my problem with the OP. Just blindly throwing out nonsense like "MTSU is a double digit favorite over CMU" when there are tools at your disposal to see if that's true. Quit talking out of your ass. MTSU is not good. Sorry if that hurts your feelings.
September 17th, 2019 at 1:56 PM ^
SP+ rankings don't matter as much as SP+ ratings do:
MTSU -10.9 vs average team
CMU -19.8 vs average team
So about a nine point advantage for MTSU. If you want me to adjust my statement to "9 point favorite" instead of "10 point favorite" -- fine.
Then again Pi Ratings (which outperformed SP+ vs spread last year) has MTSU as a 12.6 point favorite. So maybe 10 is too low.
These are formulas that examine a lot of factors (yards per play, etc.), not just eyeballing final scores, editorializing ("despite our sloppy play"), or treating all FCS teams equally, as you have done.
Those are the things I was looking at. My feelings are not involved at all.
September 17th, 2019 at 3:18 PM ^
Quality retort. You and I both know that those rankings have little to no correlation with betting lines (which was what you stated - not SP+, not Pi). I started amassing examples to blow it up, but there are too many bye weeks, the differences found are only a couple of points and who actually cares anyway.
My point is that the OP tried to paint MTSU as a different class of football than CMU, Akron & UConn. I still disagree wholeheartedly, regardless of whatever estimated neutral site point spread your advanced analytics site of choice provides you. If you think Michigan's overall strength of schedule is better than Wisconsin's because of the difference between MTSU and CMU, say that.
And then we can fist fight.
September 17th, 2019 at 4:00 PM ^
It's all hypothetical, but it should suffice that my "10 point difference" statement wasn't so out of line. Again, it's about the ratings (which are indeed used to compare to or simulate betting lines), not rankings. For example there is a difference of 16 ranking slots between Alabama and Oregon in SP+ -- but a 20 point difference -- the same as between MTSU and CMU (9 points), or between Utah State and Cincinnati (4 point difference). Which point differential you want to call meeting the threshold of "different class of football" is up to you and the OP, it wasn't my phrasing, I was just noting a difference between MTSU and CMU.
I think perhaps you tried to mind-read me as a Michigan apologist defending fragile feelings? That was never my goal here. Earlier in the week I cited SP+, Pi, and Sagarin in response to someone who said Army was just as good as Pitt (in comparing Michigan favorably to Penn State).
My goal was simply to add some precision in comparing weaker opponents. I wouldn't necessarily claim Michigan's SOS is better so far since Wisconsin did play a road game.
September 17th, 2019 at 4:39 PM ^
I think perhaps you tried to mind-read me as a Michigan apologist defending fragile feelings?
Yes, I did. Classic mix-up.
September 17th, 2019 at 12:11 PM ^
Duke sucks. People want UM to beat OSU and “better than Duke even though we fumble nonstop” won’t get it done.
Michigan had to play hard against MTSU and they injured our starting QB. That’s concerning to anyone rational - even if the offense looked much improved at times.
September 17th, 2019 at 12:17 PM ^
Our QB injured himself because he doesn't know when to slide.
September 17th, 2019 at 11:35 AM ^
Maaaaaan, stop with this BS. This argument is so tired. You are essentially saying that the transitive property is the end all be all, right? This is literally never true. If it was, Michigan should've beaten tOSU last year because Michigan beat Maryland handily earlier in the season and tOSU struggled badly. BUT, they didn't.
2 games have been played. Michigan won both of them. The Defense looks like a top 5 unit. Charbonnet looks like a dude. Shea has missed wide open receivers for TDs at least 5 times that, if caught, would've drastically changed the narrative around this team. Fumbles allowed the Army game to be tight. RELAX.
September 17th, 2019 at 11:38 AM ^
I didn't say transitive property means anything. I'm saying the available evidence doesn't suggest that MTSU or Army are actually any good.
September 17th, 2019 at 12:03 PM ^
Okay, but the basis you are using for your argument that Michigan is not good, are the results MTSU/Army had against other teams. This isn't a good way to judge future results for Michigan.
September 17th, 2019 at 3:23 PM ^
Transitive does mean something but one must weigh all relevant transitive events not just select games.
September 17th, 2019 at 12:48 PM ^
The Defense looks like a top 5 unit.
Not to me. The defense looked solid but the lack of interior DL pressure is a huge red flag, especially given how the last few games of 2018 went.
September 17th, 2019 at 2:06 PM ^
Agree to disagree. Can't really use the Army game as a gauge given their style of play. I'll grant you that DT could've looked better against MTSU - but overall this group looks like they will keep Michigan in games just like they have the past few years.
September 17th, 2019 at 2:24 PM ^
It's not really an opinion, but feel free to disagree if it makes you feel better. Last year's defense ended up S&P+ 9th: https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaadef/2018
I don't know what you've seen in the last two games to suggest this year's defense is going to end up better than 2018 Alabama (S&P+ 7th), but I think you're pretty clearly wrong here.
September 17th, 2019 at 4:24 PM ^
Ok. Sounds like things have escalated a bit here. If it isn't an opinion - then what have you noticed from the play of the defense through 2 games that makes your thoughts a fact? So far all you've shared is last year's final ranking for Michigan and Alabama (why?).
Happy to share what I think. The Run D has only allowed 3 ypc on the year and kept Army's output as a whole to a 5 yr low (you might not find that impressive, but it is). The pass D hasn't been challenged much yet, but are only allowing 138.5 ypg. And those numbers are skewed by an irrelevant 80yd drive against 2nd/3rd stringers against MTSU. I'm missing where M's defense hasn't been impressive in the early going.
FWIW, stating "I think you're pretty clearly wrong here" is in fact, your opinion.
September 17th, 2019 at 5:36 PM ^
ok. You’re right. Our defense that was forced to start a converted fullback who got abused by MTSU is most definitely BETTER than 2018 Alabama’s.
September 17th, 2019 at 5:53 PM ^
I've quite literally never brought up Alabama's 2018 defense. I have no idea why you find that a relative talking point in a discussion about the outlook for Michigan's 2019 defense. Has nothing to do with what we've been talking about.
September 17th, 2019 at 5:01 PM ^
Agree 100 percent we have some spots that look weaker than last year
September 17th, 2019 at 3:48 PM ^
More concerning than Shea throwing bad passes to wide-open receivers is him not even seeing other wide-open receivers quickly enough or at all. He has not yet shown improvement in this part of his game since last year. And I seriously doubt the injury has squat to do with it.
September 17th, 2019 at 4:35 PM ^
No doubt, Shea's play is concerning for a variety of reasons. If he's truly hurt - don't start him against Army. The reads and overthrows are tough to comprehend because those were his bread and butter last year. I think Shea is the guy and will turn this thing around - but - if it continues into this weekend, JH has got to look at the alternatives.
September 17th, 2019 at 8:08 PM ^
Charbonnet is a 5 star freshman who is forced to be the Dude, a subtle difference. He is a beast and capable and will be a game changer, but carrying 33 times a game is also because there are no other options. The #2 back misses a blitz and causes a fumble. Tru Wilson is hurt. Putting 33 carries on a freshman in game 2 against Army is an indictment of the RB room.
Charbonnet is a stud but he was also playing HS football last year. Carrying the ball 33 times in the B1G as a freshman is going to grind him down by late October.
September 17th, 2019 at 11:48 AM ^
Army was on a ten game winning streak. They are 23-6 the last two+ seasons. They are currently one spot above MSU in the AP poll at 28th. But sure, a close win vs a bad team is how we should define them.
September 17th, 2019 at 12:40 PM ^
Plus, their offense isn't designed to score points. It's designed to eat clock and keep the other team's offense off the field (and make up for their team's recruiting disadvantages). To that affect, they were extremely successful against Rice. I imagine Army would be quite content winning every game 14-7.