Washington Post thinks Michigan might make the playoffs. This year.
The gist of the article is that our defense is awesome and MSU isn't that good.
The Big Ten sets up well for Michigan this year, with three home games against Northwestern, Michigan State and Ohio State. And given how Ohio State has played on offense thus far, that game is also not projecting to be quite as lopsided as it did in the preseason.
EDIT: MSU not that good?
September 30th, 2015 at 5:06 PM ^
September 30th, 2015 at 5:27 PM ^
September 30th, 2015 at 5:00 PM ^
If MSU and OSU are undefeated when we play them and we win out, we will undoubtedly be in the playoffs.
Lot of ifs.
...but what a return to glory that would be....
September 30th, 2015 at 9:35 PM ^
NO! NO! NO!
Don't ever use the term "Return to GLory". That term is trademarked and is property of Notre Dame. They have been using it non-stop for 20 years.
October 1st, 2015 at 7:37 AM ^
If we go undefeated through the MSU game, this will become deafening.
Not ready for this...
September 30th, 2015 at 5:05 PM ^
Well that would be exciting.
September 30th, 2015 at 5:21 PM ^
At least the opportunity is there, not saying it will happen
Beat #22 . . . #16 . . . #2 . . and #1 and a quality loss. Just curious, where were the buckeyes after 4 games last year?
September 30th, 2015 at 5:31 PM ^
September 30th, 2015 at 10:07 PM ^
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September 30th, 2015 at 5:21 PM ^
An offense that ranks around the 50th is not going to make it t to the playoffs, even with a legit Top 5 defense. I mean, anything is possible, but this offense will have to improve a lot over the course of the season to be playoff worthy.
September 30th, 2015 at 8:26 PM ^
September 30th, 2015 at 9:39 PM ^
Notre Dame did not "contend" for a National Championship. They were given an undeserved slot in the championship game because they are Notre Dame and got promptly demolished.
September 30th, 2015 at 10:30 PM ^
I'm not sure if you're attempting to be contrarian or just inserting your thoughts here. Facts are still facts, regardless of how much you dislike them. Notre Dame was one of two teams in 2013 that played for a national championship, and they did so with a very mediocre offense. Michigan would get the nod in that same scenario.
October 1st, 2015 at 1:16 AM ^
This is a good example of the fallacy of using raw stats.
First - Notre Dame played the toughest schedules in the country that year. The numbers you are quoting included games against MSU (#10), Michigan (#18), Stanford, (#17), Oklahoma (#8), Miami, (YTM), USC (unranked), BYU and Alabama (#1).
They scored just under 27 points per game on average against that slate.
We are averaging 27.5 points per game so far this season, with the majority of those points coming against Oregon State and UNLV.
Second - The schedule adjusted stats show a very different picture as Notre Dame's opponent-adjusted offensive effeciency was still very good. Notre Dame was the 12th ranked offense in FEI and #7 ranked offense in S&P: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/feioff2012
If we manage do that, then yeah, I'd say our playoff chances look pretty good. But if you actually think we are anywhere near that right now, I've got some waterfront property in Columbus I'd like to sell you.
tldr; Notre's Dame's 2012-2013 offense was a helluva lot better than we are right now, and we will need to improve a lot if we are going to win out.
September 30th, 2015 at 5:28 PM ^
September 30th, 2015 at 5:35 PM ^
September 30th, 2015 at 5:43 PM ^
And you know Georgia will have 1 or 2 head scratching losses before the season's over. They always have under Richt.
September 30th, 2015 at 8:28 PM ^
September 30th, 2015 at 5:39 PM ^
It's because of Harbaugh. The media is hyping us as much, if not more, than our own fanbase.
September 30th, 2015 at 5:42 PM ^
So now we've become the "really overrated team based on one decent loss and a few wins over mediocre competition" that annoys me every season.
Ok, well better us than anyone else. But I'd rather us just kick butt on the field and worry about the polls later in the year. Right now we've destroyed one decent team (BYU) and lost to one team that looks really good (Utah). Those two things by themselves do not a playoff team make.
September 30th, 2015 at 5:45 PM ^
This is a group of guys who have seen some bad times and loses at Michigan so they need to keep fighting hard to prove that we belong at the top. Giving this team so much hype this early is not good, we dont want the team to hit cruise control thinking they are good now.
I like where we stand and I am not getting my hopes up, at this point i want them to keep getting better and destroy the next apponent. Next test is Maryland not msu not osu.
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September 30th, 2015 at 5:47 PM ^
Man. What does that guy have to do to get people outside of Ann Arbor to notice him? He is the best player on the defense and the only person anyone talks about is Peppers, who, for all of his Peppers-ness, still has a ways to go before being the definitive GOAT. Maybe Peppers is just an elaborate decoy to hide Lewis from opponents and NFL scouts?
September 30th, 2015 at 7:01 PM ^
Seriously doubt NFL scouts haven't noticed him. It's probably more about them keeping quiet so maybe the could have picked him up in a later round if Michigan had struggled this year. Probably not happening now, though.
September 30th, 2015 at 8:32 PM ^
September 30th, 2015 at 11:37 PM ^
I really believe that Lewis is the best player on defense, based on what we've seen so far. Peppers' athleticism does allow the defense to do some extra things, but he has shown weaknesses in certain areas. Lewis has been lights out from start to finish.
September 30th, 2015 at 5:48 PM ^
When some of the fanbase jums op on a pulpit and starts proclaiming that we're heading to the playoffs or we're back it makes us sound like other fanbases that we've been so critical of in the past.
We're good, we're getting better, stay the course and we'll get there........
September 30th, 2015 at 5:50 PM ^
September 30th, 2015 at 5:54 PM ^
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September 30th, 2015 at 6:06 PM ^
This rise is the reason why Michigan can still find itself in playoff contention come the end of the year. Michigan won’t look past Maryland, but I will. Their next true test comes against Michigan State, a top-5 team in the polls led by star quarterback Connor Cook. But keep in mind that Sunday’s Oregon-Utah game made the earlier results for State and Michigan look a lot different.
Articles like this, when they appear four games into the season and under a new coach - even if it is Jim Harbaugh - make step back for a moment usually. It's a nice thought, to be sure, but there is the entire conference schedule left and if the defense can continue on this track and the offense can continue to improve a bit each week (and be consistent for four quarters in doing so), then especially if it is people ultimately making these selections, you have a puncher's chance like a lot of teams might.
The question to me is this - how likely is it? Difficult to know with eight games left, at least in my opinion.
September 30th, 2015 at 8:48 PM ^
It was the Utah result @ Oregon that put Michigan into the conversation. When that game happened, you could then say, "Michigan controls its own destiny" ...
Until that game, you couldn't really say that, even as a 12-1 B1G champion. But Utah still has a lot to prove -- the good news is they will have a chance to prove it.
As an antidote to all this, I'd recommend the 538 article today on the absurdity of the speculation about New England going 16-0, just because they have beaten a couple of good teams early in the season:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/new-england-patriots-probably-will-n…
Now, the NFL is not college football (longer season, more parity) and unbeaten teams happen all the time in the NCAA, and the Patriots do not have the NFL equivalent of Michigan's defense, but winning out (and Utah winning at least one versus UCLA or USC) is still not at all probable at this point, no matter how well the season has begun.
September 30th, 2015 at 6:28 PM ^
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September 30th, 2015 at 6:34 PM ^
September 30th, 2015 at 7:08 PM ^
September 30th, 2015 at 9:57 PM ^
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September 30th, 2015 at 7:19 PM ^
Even talking about the playoffs at this point is crazy. We have yet to play a single big ten game this year. Glad to see most Michigan fans arent getting ahead of themselves...and Harbaugh has the team buying into one game at a time. Maryland is not a good team but over looking any team in the Big Ten is a huge mistake..This team is way more composed this year than anything we have seen in the past but lets not forget the last time we played the terps we lost. That being said I love the focus and blue collar mentality of this team...GO BLUE!
September 30th, 2015 at 8:29 PM ^
September 30th, 2015 at 7:38 PM ^
The fact that this article can be written and not considered laughable or satire shows how far the program has come in four games.... that said... realistically we are not there yet.
September 30th, 2015 at 7:53 PM ^
I want to drink that Kool-Aid so bad but I am refraining. The meat of the schedule starts now. Consider that the four teams we've played do not know our personnel nearly as well as the teams we will face in the B1G schedule. This is simply because the B1G teams we will face have in-game experience playing against most of our starters. So it will be a tougher road in conference, no doubt. That said, I like our chances in every game but I can't discount the odds that we'll have a game, maybe two, where it's close and the bounce just doesn't go our way.
EDIT: and that said, I have $1 on Michigan to win the B1G to win $16. I also have $1 on Michigan to win the national championship to win $150. FYI, Michigan's odds to win the NC went from +15000 to +5000 after the BYU win. So yeah, maybe I sipped a little of the red stuff.
September 30th, 2015 at 7:56 PM ^
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September 30th, 2015 at 8:21 PM ^
They are fucking with us. This is just Dantonio disrespect fodder.
September 30th, 2015 at 8:28 PM ^
September 30th, 2015 at 10:48 PM ^
September 30th, 2015 at 8:23 PM ^
Guys please. It's September and we beat an OKAY BYU team that neede two hail marys to go 2-1. Ys, we look good, and the Kool-Aid is oh so tasty, but I think we can pump the breaks abit. We got a long way to go, and I don't want all of Michigan's fan base to get ahead of themselves--the complacency might find its way into the lockerroom.
September 30th, 2015 at 8:26 PM ^
If we were to lose a game to MD or NW, the band wagon will turn over on us and analysts who think we are NC contenders will also turn on us. Then Coach will have to change gears again!
Just one game at a time. Stay focused.
I know Coach will keep the team focused on the next game at hand.
September 30th, 2015 at 10:04 PM ^
Thanks to DJ Durbin's (sounds like the name of a wack hip hop producer) defensive genius!!
September 30th, 2015 at 10:12 PM ^
well duh, my cousin is a big shot at the paper....
September 30th, 2015 at 10:34 PM ^
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