Where Does Michigan Finish?

Submitted by raleighwood on
If everything is "chalk"....can Michigan finish the season at #2? All of this is based on Michigan winning. Penn State (#5) and Washington (#4) would both clearly fall behind Michigan if they lose. Assuming OSU beats Clemson by more than an FG (not likely....but possible), then Clemson falls behind Michigan, too. That leaves OSU vs Bama. I'd contend that if OSU loses by more than seven (likely), then they'd fall past Michigan leaving the Wolverines at #2. This factors in the fact that Michigan lost to OSU in double OT on the road (with other dubious elements). This season seems similar to 1985 to me (generational defense, losing close game at Iowa, Harbaugh....) and Michigan finished #2 then. I'm looking for a repeat. Thoughts?
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MINajee et Trois

December 27th, 2016 at 10:39 PM ^

Highest I can see UM finishing is 4th. Thats if everything goes our way. #2 is completely out of the picture and we wouldnt even deserve that being honest.#1 and #2 goes to National Championship game teams. Alabama, OSU, Clemson, Washington, and Penn State are ahead of us

Lets say Washington loses and Penn State loses. Then MAYBE we could be at #4.

The most likely scenario is Washington loses big to Bama, Penn State wins and Michigan wins then Penn State takes the 4th spot and we get the 5th

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M-Dog

December 28th, 2016 at 9:18 AM ^

They don't have the defense to keep up with USC.  They couldn't even keep up with a still-developing Speight.

Stopping Ohio State's one-dimensional offense at home at night is not the same thing as stopping USC in the Rose Bowl.

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Hard-Baughlls

December 27th, 2016 at 10:40 PM ^

2 losses by 4 points on the road, 1 in double OT after getting robbed by the officials.

Really an unfortunate situation to not get into the playoff, but no excuses for the egg laid at Iowa in the night game.

I think we are the only team whose 1's could hang with Bama, but their depth would eventually beat us down head to head.  Their D-line vs. our O-line would probably be the biggest mismatch on the field.

That said, Harbaugh with a month to prepare a team has worked some magic, as we saw with last year's O-line.

If we beat down FSU and Bama blows everyone out of the water, I think we can jump to #2.  We most likely end up #3 though.

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Michifornia

December 28th, 2016 at 1:23 AM ^

The second best team in the country.  I think we would beat Clemson and Washington.  Problem is, nobody (except us) cares that we only lost by 4 points in 2 games on the road.  We have TWO losses.  Devil's advocate, how can we be the second best team if we lost freaking IOWA...

We can argue all day long.  At the end of the day, we blew it against Iowa.  The refs stole the osu game.  At this point, we play well and win against FSU and it's a great year.  We finish top 5 and starting hyping next year's team.

GO BLUE!!

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Hard-Baughlls

December 27th, 2016 at 10:50 PM ^

that we beat by 39 points get ranked ahead of us?

We've lost 2 games by a grand total of 4 points.  Vegas knows who the 2nd best team in the country is.  I expect that if we thump FSU, we will finish at #3, but crazy Bama blowouts could get us to #2.

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Mr. Yost

December 27th, 2016 at 11:04 PM ^

This just doesn't happen.

A team jumping from #6 to #2?

Again, why doesn't OSU get credit for beating Clemson? They're better than FSU.

Just because you lose doesn't mean you have to go down...or do we not remember what happened after we lost to Iowa? Hint, we didn't drop.

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Mr. Yost

December 27th, 2016 at 11:44 PM ^

Again...you're not counting their win over the #2 team in the country on a neutral field.

Now if they lose outright to Clemson? Sure. We jump them, that makes sense.

But if they beat Clemson and lose to the #1 team in the nation who hasn't lost all year? The chances are slimmer than slim.

They would have 2 losses, 1 to the national champion the other on the road to a top 10 team...they would've beat us head to head...and they would be coming off a victory over the #2 team in the country. This isn't even a question.

I'm not even positive we jump Clemson if OSU beats them and we beat FSU. IMO we should, but there is no certainty.

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1 percent

December 28th, 2016 at 8:47 AM ^

All assuming we win ...

Alright so New Years weekend Michigan wins, PSU, Washington lose we would move up to number 4. lets say Clemson get's woodshed'd we could possibly be number 3 (especially against a team that we 'lost' to in OT) or even OSU gets whomped, at worst we would be number 4.

the next week lets say Bama wins convincingly over OSU, like by 16-17 ... you're saying there is no shot that the number 3 team jumps in front of them to number 2?

Not trying to be a douche but has the loser of the NC game ever finished 2nd in the rankings?

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Mr. Yost

December 27th, 2016 at 11:51 PM ^

If we had beat them head-to-head...no question. But you can't fault them for losing what would be an additional game that Michigan doesn't play to the undefeated national champions.

Okay, I give in, I suppose if OSU loses 0-100 and Michigan wins 100-0 then we'll be #2.

I'm trying to be realistic. Realistically they beat us, they would've beaten Clemson which some of you are forgetting, so basically they're losing an additional game we're not even playing in to #1 undefeated Alabama.

If we won head-to-head, I'd say yeah...maybe a 42-21 type Bama win drops them below Michigan. But there's no way since they beat us. Basically even if it's a close decision, the close decision always goes to head-to-head.

By putting OSU over PSU and PSU over Michigan, they're saying it wasn't close enough that head-to-head outweighed everything else.

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Mr. Yost

December 27th, 2016 at 11:02 PM ^

OSU lost to PSU and they're ranked WAY ahead of them.

This is an opinion, so I'm not going to argue...but your logic in forming your opinion is flawed.

And it especially doesn't make sense because you're not giving OSU credit in your scenario for beating Clemson...a team that is much better than FSU rankings wise.

I don't see any way OSU could be in the national championship, lose to an undefeated team by however many points...and drop lower than 2 after just beating #3 Clemson.

None of this matters anyway, finishing #2 or #3 means nothing. Just beat FSU and let everything else take care of itself. But you can't bring up PSU over us when we won and not bring up OSU over PSU when PSU won. You can't give us credit for an FSU win and not count OSU's win over Clemson in your scenario.

 

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Perkis-Size Me

December 27th, 2016 at 10:49 PM ^

My guess is we get no higher than 4. That's predicated on us winning, along with Penn State and Washington losing.

If either Clemson or OSU lose badly as well, we could go as high as 3, but we won't crack 2.



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fksljj

December 27th, 2016 at 10:55 PM ^

I hate to be "that guy" but it doesn't matter where we finish. We could finish 2,3,4 etc and it wouldn't mean a thing. Sorry to be so negative but these are my feelings. Watch the downvotes in 3, 2, 1...

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LSAClassOf2000

December 27th, 2016 at 10:59 PM ^

If we win, I imagine we can find ourselves in the 4-5 spot in the final rankings, which to me is fine, truth be told. I don't foresee being able to crack the ceiling of #4, but then a lot depends on how the playoffs and Rose Bowl go, I would think. 

In any case, we can argue about the usefulness of the ranking, but we can get sone decent momentum program-wise from a strong finish. 

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UM Fan from Sydney

December 27th, 2016 at 11:01 PM ^

OSU will, unfortunately, beat Clemson. Depending on how the title game with Bama goes (Bama will beat them), they will finish either second or third. I think if Michigan can smoke FSU, OSU gets crushed by Bama, then Michigan can definitely finish second, not that it matters anyway. Just beat FSU. That is what matters. Final rankings (except who finishes one since that team wins the title) are as meaningless as preseason rankings.

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YouRFree

December 27th, 2016 at 11:10 PM ^

I would care less about final ranking at this point. the performance vs FSU would speak itself. I hope we can beat FSU soundly and everybody is healthy after the game. Then a few high profile recruits left on the board commit us. That's more meaningful than a meaningless ranking.

 

I don't even know why nthose rankings exist any more. They are useless. The worst is coach poll, they could have been abandoned even in BCS era. Those coaches watch no game every week.

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