Were NOT going 8-4. (Counter expectation thread)
This is the second "expectations" thread today that has not lived up to my inital expectations when opening the thread.
And while it would be my expectation to see no more expectation threads today I have come to expect the unexpected during peak OT season.
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I am not sure if you read the first expectations thread, but I have a feeling this will not be well-received.
EDIT: edited title seems to help a small amount.
We will not make an NY6 bowl game as a 9-3 team. The only way I could see that happening is if Michigan loses some tough games early (like to UF), and then rattles off really tough wins in Madison and Columbus to end the year. And even then I doubt that's enough.
Going to Columbus this year.
Whoops my bad. Well regardless, I doubt a 9-3 team makes it into an NY6 bowl. There is a precedent for it, granted, but I doubt it happens.
I could see it if the three teams we lost to turned in great seasons, like losing a nailbiter to UF who then goes and wins the SEC, and then losing a close game to a 10-11 win PSU team, but then we would need to go on a tear in November, whoopin' UW in Madison and then beating OSU in Ann Arbor if they were ranked #1 and undefeated.
are your friend
Paragraphs stole my wife, they're no friends of mine.
Apostraphes are nice, too.
about a period?
I know I got mine.
Is the year!
To hell with current expectations, everything lines up perfectly then.
I don't know, I heard 2022 is supposed to be better.
You're 9 baller. Never gets old.
If this is a response to that _CFB_Talk account on Twitter which sports an avatar of LSU's home stadium, then suffice to say the source of the irritation probably isn't worth a listen.
That being said, I've heard people say 8-4 inside the fanbase even before all that, although typically we seem to have the prediction thread glut in August when we run out of books and movies.
The NCAA should fund a Netflix FNL-type series to drop every August. Sate the masses!
Ballers? Seriously? Is this LaVar Ball on the other end?
Don't be surprised if we lose to one of those eight teams you mentioned we are completely superior too. Especially if its on the road. Upsets happen in college football all the time. A hapless Iowa team that lost to an FCS team and got clobbered by PSU the week before, who also plays football like its 1945, beat us. Clemson lost at home to a very meh Pitt team. FSU lost at home to UNC, a team it has a huge talent and coaching advantage over in every single phase of the game. My point is don't be surprised to see us lose a game next year that we shouldn't.
Those types of games happen to everyone at some point or another. What I want to see is Michigan finally win a game that its not supposed to win. We haven't scored a truly big upset in years. When was the last time? '08 against Florida?
How we lost to a bad Iowa team. The only loss so far in Harbaughs tenure that I cant make an excuse for. What a stupid, stupid loss
Just like everything else in life, you never really know what they're going to do. You can only guess.
Oh, and Speight missed a couple deep throws to wide open WRs in the first half. He hits even 50% of those throws and we're probably up 2TDs at halftime. And if that's the case, he probably doesn't separate his shoulder throwing a pass in the 4th quarter because we would probably still be winning by those couple of scores. And if he doesn't separate his shoulder, we win at OSU.
Iowa's only chance of winning that game was reducing it to an ugly slopfest between both sides. They couldn't compete with Michigan man to man, so they had to bring us down to their level. They succeeded.
Just one of those games where Iowa played like it had nothing to lose. They really did have nothing to lose. Their entire season prior to that was a disaster, and when you go up against an opponent that no one expects you to compete with, much less beat, there's really no pressure.
Meanwhile, Michigan had everything to lose in that game. I mean yeah, you can also attribute poor OL play and Speight overthrowing receivers on plays that would've iced the game, but there are intangibles to go along with that game too.
can stop or slow down Wadley, Iowa offense would get shut out yet the defense couldn't stop Wadley all day long. Wadley made every defender silly in space.
If you think the Iowa '16 loss was excruciating, you're lucky you weren't around for Purdue '76, Minnesota '77, and MSU '78.
Yes I am lucky.
'85 Iowa was certainly disappointing, but they were #1 in the country going into the game, and we were #2.
In those '76/'77/'78 games, we were undefeated and ranked #1, #1, and #5, respectively, and none of those teams we lost to were even ranked. Each of those losses were our only loss for the regular season.
saw that one in person. Uggg
Ya I saw that also. I figure if we beat them by fifty that will erase some of the frustration, much like losing to Rutgers before Harbaugh and then smoking them 72-0 in their house.
truly big upsets in that time, we haven't had many opportunities for a truly big upset since the RR era an no opportunities in the Harbaugh era, and I don't expect any soon. Only a couple OSU games and an MSU game were we underdogs by more than a score (OSU 2013 and 2014 and MSU 2014).
We need to start winning more of those tossup games, which we don't seem to be winning at the expected 50 percent level and certainly aren't getting the occasional year in which we outperform those expectations/get a little lucky.
This is the year! I'm on the bandwagon of this thread.
I love that it's OK to say OSU will always be good, as they will just reload, but that seems to not be true with Michigan. Last I checked, Michigan has had elite recruiting. Michigan will be fine and I expect 10+ wins again. Most people will likely assume Michigan will lose to OSU, PSE, UF, and UW, but I think UF and UW are wins. The toss up games are OSU and PSU and even then, I expect to beat PSU. Their QB does not scare me. The only guy who scares me on that team is Barkley. Michigan is far and away better than the remaining eight teams on their schedule.
I don't think "most people" look at the schedule and see 4 losses. It seems to be the overstated pessimistic side of the fan base/outsiders rooting for failure who say that.
I see 10+ too but wouldn't be shocked by a WTF loss this year given the youth. The bottom eight teams on the schedule all seem like easy wins so I have no clue who that could come against.
I think most of the 4 loss people are people like myself that see 2-3 losses on the schedule, and because they've been following CFB for a long time, know that weird shit happens a good 2-3 games per season that gives you another loss or two you weren't expecting. So could they go 10-2? Sure. But its far more likely they'll go 9-3 and if enough weird shit happens due to a ton of inexperience on the field 8-4 also seems pretty likely.
But hey, if people want to predict double digit win seasons with wins over teams and situations we've done poorly in for the better part of a decade....more power to them.
And just for the record, I'm going with 9-3 (which as a reminder for how awful we've been, that would be their 4th best season in the last decade).
The games I'm most concerned about are UF, UW and OSU. Of those 3 I'm most concerned with UW and OSU since UF is being played on a neutral field and their starting QB is likely to be a redshirt freshman. Could UM lose at Happy Valley? Sure but considering their level of play there in recent years I doubt it.
So my take is that the most likely scenario is 10-2 with the potential if lucky to be 11-1 or if unlucky 9-3 overall.
OSU reloads with more 5-stars and high 4-stars who are typically much more ready to play, contribute and dominate from day 1.
Our elite recruiting (in years in which we've been highly ranked this decade) has been driven more by class size than an abundance of top-end talent, although our 2017 class was pretty good in terms of high 4-stars. 3 and 4 stars tend to take a bit longer to develop into the types of upperclass beasts we had the last two years.
Well that's just incorrect. We've been top 10 in average player ranking both years, and were top 5 last year (and that includes taking a punter). So this notion that our recruiting rankings are inflated by class size is wrong
Not sure what you're looking at, but 247 composite has our average player ranking for 2017 at 91.03, which is below 7 teams to put us at 8th in average player rank. It was the biggest class in the top 50 at 30 (!!) signees.
8 > the team ranking of 5, so yes, it is inflated by class size, although I will admit not by much as 2017 was a very, very good recruiting class. I would say not "reload" elite like Bama and OSU's classes that had significantly higher average player rankings.
And in 2016 we were also not top 10. We were 11th in average player ranking with an 89.86 ranking. 11 > the team ranking of 7. Again, a big class of 28 which was tied for the largest in the top 35.
Sorry, 11th is close enough to top 10. And I may have missed Stanford in 2017, but again in 2017 we took a punter which hurt our average player ranking.
Point is, we're not taking classes of 30 developmental 3 and 4 stars as you suggested. We're getting plenty of top end talent.
to top 4 for the Playoff? I kid, I kid.
But the point remains: have our overall recruiting rankings the last two seasons been inflated by class size? Unequivocally, yes. So that notion is not wrong, it is fact.
Did I suggest all 30 guys are "developmental"? No, I said 3 and 4 stars take longer to develop than 5-stars and higher 4-stars. Do you deny that lower rated guys are less ready to contribute to top teams than higher rated guys, on average? If not, it is irrefutable that OSU and Bama recruit more players that are ready to contribute earlier in their careers than we do. Hence their ability to "reload". Which brings us back to the original point about our elite recruiting. Whatever your definition of elite recruiting or whether we get "plenty of top end talent", the cutoff of which is entirely subjective, we don't get as much as Bama and OSU, and that's why they rightfully have the reputation of "reloading"/always being good, and we don't yet. That was my only point.
Then your point is that no team except Bama and OSU can reload? Because no team recruits at the level of those 2. Considering that there are a few teams outside those 2 who seem to be in the national title hunt year after year, I find that notion to be untrue.
As far as lower rated guys being able to contribute right away, we did get varying levels of contributions from guys like Evans, McDoom, Bush, Metellus, Hudson, all of whom were 3/low 4 stars. Harbaugh found ways to get contributions from a lot of freshmen last year regardless of how highly they were rated coming out of high school, and I trust he will do so again and keep us at a top 10 level.
other than OSU and Bama can reload. As you point out, there are exceptions to the recruiting rankings in terms of talent.
If you hit on a lot of lower 4s and three stars, certainly you could reload without elite recruiting. It's probably not a sustainable way to reload, but if anyone has a track record of finding those overachievers it's Harbaugh. Obviously, much easier to reload with better talent and I can't beleive this is even an arugment.
Other than Evans, none of those guys listed played much or did anything other than specialized roles, occasionally. So not sure how that does anything but strengthen the original point.
And remember, if we're recruiting in the 7-11 range, there are still a handful of teams recruiting at levels better than us but not as well as Bama/OSU (USC, LSU, Clemson and FSU) so they are reloading to an extent as well.
There is NO DOUBT in my mind that our recruiting and coaching will consistently keep us at a top 10 level as you say...but again, we're not at that elite level of almost being a certainty in the CFP...yet.
I don't think anyone suggested we are. The biggest issue is that we have a gap from the 2014 and 2015 recruiting classes which came right as Hoke was starting to fall apart and during the coaching transition. That's not something OSU and Bama have to deal with. It's not that we haven't recruited well enough in 2016 and 2017. The talent is there for us, that's why pretty much every rankings system, even ones relying on advanced metrics like S&P+, are projecting us as a top 10 team again.
That's exactly what started the entire thread. Sydney wrote "I love that it's OK to say OSU will always be good, as they will just reload, but that seems to not be true with Michigan. Last I checked, Michigan has had elite recruiting."
This is directly suggesting our recruiting is as elite as OSU's and suggests people should think we will just reload in the same way.
So the point of my initial response was that Michigan isn't expected to reload the way OSU does because they have recruited better for a while in terms of top end talent, even in the last two years.
To stringer's point there's OSU/Bama reloading and then, as you stated, there's USC/Clemson/LSU/FSU reloading. I think he was pointing to the latter and you were to the former.
Yep and I bet they all get drafted. Imagine that. The rating services are not spot on on all these kids and some kids changs a lot from age 17-22.
Our last two classes were championship caliber. It's the 2014 (20th nationally) and 2015 (37th nationally) classes that will hold us back this year.