What’s your greatest hope for the upcoming season?
Mine is that Michigan has found the formula to beat the best teams in the country by combining top-notch practice techniques, all-in player led leadership, unparalleled strategic planning that exploits opponents’ weaknesses, and talent that can compete with anyone. This hope would include Michigan managing to beat both primary rivals including osu in Columbus en route to back-to-back B1G championships. It is worth pointing out that our head coach is the defending national coach of the year. This team is going to be very good, and I am pumped to watch them.
Greatest hope for the season? Win every game.
Perfection.
Nice counter to the negative post just before this one Pete!
My hope is to WIN IT ALL!
Thanks! The Flying Dutchman brought some heat and kind of inspired this one.
Awww, shucks.
I had a great day on the golf course yesterday, had little social lube in my bloodstream, and just kind of went for it.
I think that a lot of people are so pessimistic about the current state of recruiting that we forget how stacked the current team is. It has championship potential. I'd love to give a new generation of Wolverine fans a good memory in the Horseshoe for once.
Offensively, without a question. I’m curious to see how the D holds up this year. I’m slightly pessimistic when they lost two all stars and starting with a new D coordinator. I hope the transition is seamless but not sure who is going to step up to get to the QB.
I hope they don't leave anything short or shoot themselves in the foot. Both happened regularly in the twenty-plus years after the national championship. 2021 was a pleasant change of pace.
Well that was...negative? positive? neutral.
Michigan sleeping giant waking up and realizing it will dominate legal NIL-era
I heard Bacon say Michigan boosters are creating their own NIL platform independently. How successful that would be is a question. When their Michigan education kicks in, they will make it work, legally. I am hoping for a great NIL story about our rostered QBs to show what Michigan can actually do.
What I've been told from some in the know is that they were going to raise a lot more funds. But you still won't be able to weaponize a big bank account without the leadership and strategy of creating an efficient 3-sided marketplace of boosters, student-athletes, and corporations/charities that can cookie-cutter brand-enhancing, NIL income generating opportunities. That part of relative execution versus other schools is where Michigan seems to be lagging at the moment, not whether boosters are ready to contribute.
That our new coordinators can step up and improve upon last years play calling.
On offense, regardless of the fact that we will likely once again have a very strong running game, we can be so much more if we are just willing to throw the ball. We are loaded at wide receiver, tight end and our running backs (particularly Edwards) appear to be excellent receivers. Lets combine that with our running game to have the offense we have the players to be.
On defense, Macdonald was excellent at putting his best players in a position to succeed. I hope Minter is too. But I also hope that with his greater amount of experience at the college game, Minter doesn’t have the substitution challenges that Macdonald did.
Complaint is accurate on some early games- however, when you are averaging 8 yds/carry I say please keep running the ball.
Go back and watch the U of M, OSU game this year- Cade threw an early interception that could easily have been 7 pts had we just run the ball.
My greatest hope is a solid season that will put all the momentum back into the team that Harbaugh looking to leave for any NFL job took away. A really good year I think will do just that.
11-0 going into the Columbus Toilet Seat.
And 12-0 leaving it
Were going to repeat as B1G champions, and not even acknowledge that Paul Bunyan will be back in Ann Arbor by then
A W (with a punt return TD) at the toilet seat stadium under a low, late-November sky.
I want them mentioning Day and Cooper in the same sentence.😅
That's hot! I love that...
Cooper was born on third base????
No he tripped over first base.
This is a Big Ten Championship caliber team….and we probably need it more than ever.
I think we have better coaching and that’s not a slight on last years guys.
We are more athletic in the D Backfield overall except for Dax. In particular we will have better CB play than we have had the last few years. I like our young safeties.
Mazi is going to have a big year. Jaylen Harrell is going to have a breakout All Big Ten season. Morris and Upshaw will be better than expected. Jenkins could be a nice surprise of athleticism.
Colson having his experience match his athleticism will be a key. He can make incredible plays but needs to make the routine ones with consistency.
The offense should be better overall and hit the ground running. Is there a pun in there? I hope not because the pass game should be improved. The o- line might be the best in the Big Ten and that wins games.
Corum might be the best back in the Big Ten. Edwards might be the biggest change of pace mismatch.
Robbins and Moody!
Harbaugh is going to have an edge.
See you in Indy.
I’m thinking about getting a yoga rug for some reason.
This team enters Columbus undefeated and OSU feels the chokehold resuming from the 90s - pull out a tight victory. Before Columbus, the team solidly handles Iowa, pounds PSU and boat races MSU. Other wins by 10+ by controlling the game.
UM flips a large handful of top recruits with the momentum and UM marketing the NIL earned by the talent on the roster.
Dante decommits from Oregon and joins the good guys $5m richer. NIL well played.
And 6 jobs at Nike.
Biggest hope is that we continue to win and improve the current recruiting situation.
To remain competitive on the field.
That for this year, where we have two talented qbs, an army of very good receivers, two Uber-talented backs, and good tight ends who can catch and block that we take the gloves off and offense our way to a repeat title. I love old-school B1G football as much as the next guy but this year, with a rebuilt defense and a new DC, let’s bludgeon some motherf&@kers to death for once like OSU v Sparty last year. Make ‘em quit by halftime shit. 49-0 after your first 7 drives kinda shit. LIGHT IT UP! No more 1970s Michigan football. Gimme that 1904 Michigan football beating fools 122-0 shit.
I'm with you! I would LOVE to see the handcuffs of the 'run game first' mentality of Michigan yore be put solidly onto the back burner. Get the ball all over the field, quickly, and let speedy play makers do there thing in open spaces. Finally realize that offense wins games in modern football, and that good defense merely slows down a good offense. Understand that to win, you must outscore your opponent knowing that your defense won't drive a win. Because it can't, not in modern football.
We saw that on display in 42-27. We also saw it on display in 34-11 (when we were forced into playing catch-up).
WIN AT THE SHOE
Everybody has fun.
My hope is that we beat OSU by exactly the same score as last year. This would inflict all manner of permanent damage on the psyche of Buckeye Nation.
Honestly, my biggest hope would be to go undefeated but the absolute pleasure of just beating OSU at home and seeing the proverbial meltdown realized once again would make my year. The sheer amount of OSU schadenfreude would bring me untold joy.
42-27! part duex: the flushing in that giant toilet in Central ohio. Ryan day cries and asks the people of ohio for forgiveness before retiring for "health reasons". This is my greatest hope.
Day sticking around for several more years might be best for Michigan. I think Harbaugh was on to something when he said that turd was born on third…
My hope and expectation is that we will see the best offense we’ve ever seen in our lifetime.
We have a solid to possibly great OL. 2 quality backs with the possibility to be all time greats. 2 proven QBs; one who won us a B1G championship and beat OSU, and another who may be the most talented QB to play here since Henson. Our WR room is stacked. We have outside threats in Anthony and CJ. Swiss Army knives in Bell and Wilson. Slot ninjas in Henning, Edwards, and maybe Sainristil moonlights there too. An NFL TE in All who is a phenomenal blocker, and Schoonmaker who is solid.
My expectation is to be 11-0 when we go to Columbus. There is not a team in our first 11 weeks who should stop us
Beat Ohio.
We should win the first six games, though a night game in Iowa City may be tough but still our team will be superior to that of Iowa. MSU and PSU could be toss ups but playing at home, we should win. NE, Rutgers and IL should be wins. OSU will be our very tough game. If the D can gel and our offense is playing well we will have a chance.
Worst case: Lose to Iowa on the road, lose close games to MSU and PSU at home and lose to OSU on the road. 8-4.
Best case: 12-0.
2nd best case 11-1 close loss to OSU but get into the playoff as the 4th team and we beat OSU in the semifinals.
Realistic case. We lose one of the MSU/PSU/Iowa games and lose a close game to OSU. finish at 10-2 with a NY6 bowl game.
That we severely kick Sparty’s ass, in The Big House 10/29/22. We simply have to protect our turf, on that day.
My biggest hope is that 2021 was a genuine breakthrough and a true program-transforming season (a la 1969) and not a one-off or a flash in the pan.
My greatest hope for the season is that Michigan has finally realized what it takes to win big games. Not Iowa at night big. Not MSU big. Not PSU 'White Out' big.
The real games - at Columbus for the B1G. Playoff games.
We figured it out enough to roll OSU at home, but couldn't carry it forward. All Championship teams have a learning curve where they lose to the best teams. But they all learn from those losses - learn what they need to do to get better. Develop the drive and desire to get those wins.
I hope 42-27 instilled the desire and 34-11 the drive, to get better. Get back in the playoffs and make it a competitive game. Make opponents respect what you did, what you're doing. Make them fear you.
12-0 regular season.
Win the BIG10 Championship.
Win in the 1st Rnd of the Playoffs.
At least look competitive against Alabama in the National Championship, and maybe, somehow, some way, win.
Ronnie Bell has been one of my favorites, and I can't wait to see him put together a Heisman-worthy campaign. His one-handed catch / no catch vs. WSU was brilliant, and if there's more where that came from, sign me up! The last time I was in Michigan Stadium was the 2019 Notre Dame trouncing; giving Ronnie a standing O after his first catch - one week after PSU - is on my list of great Michigan Stadium moments.
Michigan beats OSU 66-30
I hope that we still have a pass rush. If we do, another conference title/hopefully a better playoff appearance seems realistic.
I think we'll have a pass rush. There is talent there, but we should all expect it to take several steps back from where it was last year. Short of being Alabama, Clemson, OSU or Georgia, you don't lose the second overall pick and a guy who would've been a top-15 pick if he didn't tear his ACL and expect to carry the same production into the following year.
I think the pass rush should at least be serviceable, and with four tomato can games to start the season they'll get time to figure things out, but it definitely won't be as good as last year. That's just not happening.
The good thing though is that barring any big injuries, the offense should take even more of a step forward from where it was last year. So to a certain degree, you can realistically hope that the offensive progression will get close to offsetting the production we lose with Hutchinson and Ojabo. They should be in a much better position to win a game in Columbus by trying to fight in a shootout, because they won't be able to pressure Stroud the way they were able to last season.
I think just seeing how the offense continues to progress. Michigan has the best RB room in the conference, arguably one of the best in the country, the WRs should take another big step forward with getting Ronnie Bell back, and then if McCarthy is the guy and takes a step forward, the offense could really kick into another gear. Honestly even if McNamara is the guy I'll be really happy, as he'll have another year in the system and can only get better. He won 12 games last year, beat OSU, and did more than enough to beat MSU. The OL should be able to hold serve as well, and the TEs should be good as well, especially with All coming back.
If the offense can continue to progress and get better than it was last year, that should be enough to keep Michigan in every game it plays. Even the OSU game, although as always, that game would require the offense's best performance of the season to win.
Barring major injury, this offense should be the best one Harbaugh has fielded in his time here. My only real hope / concern is if we will see a more balanced attack.