What do you expect man, love and respect? I'll remind you: this is a Michigan blog. If you want hugs and kisses then I suggest you stay on 11 Warriors.
Ohio St has a better football team. But I would rather be a Michigan grad and lose 20 straight to them than be affiliated with that bogus institution. It's not really much of a rivalry on the field these days. But it's never been a rivalry in any other respect. We are better.
I live out of state and sell a fair number of my tickets. But I donated my 4 OSU seats to Mott Children's Hospital. The community relations office there gifts them to a patient and family. Was fairly easy to do. FYI.
Well, you have to pick some timeline over which to measure something. Which would you suggest? 5 years? 50 years? Since the fall of Ancient Rome? Since I had dinner? What's the "official timeline?" And if you're going to state something like "Michigan is comparable to West Virginia," maybe you should present some data to support that. 20 years is arbitrary yes, but if I had picked 40 years Michigan's status would have been even better. If I had gone back to the beginning of college football it would have been better still. As I said, Michigan has never had a dynasty (ie a multi-year national champion contender) in modern times the way Alabama, USC, Nebraska, Florida St have had. But sustained excellence with no losing seasons over 40 years is pretty darned good. And better than Auburn, Georgia and West Virginia.
Past 10 years I agree, M is a B-/C+ program. I feel like 2007 was the last year we could reasonably claim Michigan was nationally relevant program (despite The Horror, we did beat Jesus in the Capital One Bowl.) Since then...nah.
But, are we deluding ourselves about what Michigan was prior to our recent downturn? I looked back at the 20 years prior to 2007 and crunched some numbers. Here's what I found:
Michigan
Record 185-57-4
Average place finish in conference: 1.95
Average final AP poll: 11.45* (only unranked once during that 20 year stretch)
*For AP poll if a team is unranked I arbitrarily counted it as #26 which in many cases is a vast overestimate.
Ohio St
Record 184-59-4 (amazingly close to M)
Average place finish in conference: 2.6
Average final AP poll: 14.05 (unranked 6 times)
Texas
Record 168-74-2
Average place finish in conference: 2.05
Average final AP poll: 16.5 (unranked 6 times)
Florida St
Record: 199-50-1
Average place in conference: 1.6
Average final AP poll: 8.8 (unranked twice)
I looked at a number of other big time programs but didn't have the energy to do the math. However I made the following observations:
1. Nebraska and Miami were the only other 2 major programs at FSUs level of dominance over that period of time. Florida was close.
2. Other big programs such as Alabama, Oklahoma, Notre Dame were all in the same ball park with Michigan and OSU.
3. USC was amazing in the last decade but totally mediocre throughout the 90s, they don't come close to Michigan on average.
4. Stretches of dominance which I define as maximum 2 loss seasons are typically short. USC, Texas, Florida the all had them but they rarely lasted more than 5 years. FSU, Miami and Nebraska were exceptions.
So, my conclusions are:
1. When Lloyd retired, Michigan had finished 2 decades of remarkably consistent excellence but not dominance.
2. Only FSU, Nebraska and Miami were clearly far superior on average. Florida was also probably better, Spurrier had a great run.
3. Multiple teams had short stretches where they were dominant and better than Michigan ever was, ie USC, Oklahoma, Texas, LSU. However, most of these teams also had down periods.
In my view, this data supports the conclusion that Michigan, though having no dynasties, was an elite program over the period 1988-2007.
This season the mgoblogosphere has been collectively experiencing a classic grieving process. What are we grieving? The fall of our once great power and subsequent banishment to the land of mid-level Big 10 team, a place virtually defined by MSU for the past 4 decades (until now) and a place Michigan hasn't visited since the 1960s. Using the Kubler-Ross model I'll break it down like this:
1. Akron/UConn: Denial. Wait, no, we're not actually this bad.
2. Penn St: Anger. Duh.
3. Indiana: Bargaining. Well...if our offense plays this well AND our defense can play like they did against Minnesota and Central, well, maybe....PLEASE?
4. MSU: Depression. This is happening. Fucking hell.
Let's just hope we can all get to Acceptance before November 30th.
Chesson is not yet a significant outside threat. Why don't the coaches line up Funchess and/or Butt as a wide out especially in the red zone? New Orleans does that with Jimmy Graham and it seems to work pretty well. Both guys are huge and unguardable by most college defensive backs.
Recent Comments
Yes.
What do you expect man, love and respect? I'll remind you: this is a Michigan blog. If you want hugs and kisses then I suggest you stay on 11 Warriors.
Not suprisingly, your posts are poorly written and hard to follow. Go troll somewhere else Son of Dubious PhD.
Ohio St has a better football team. But I would rather be a Michigan grad and lose 20 straight to them than be affiliated with that bogus institution. It's not really much of a rivalry on the field these days. But it's never been a rivalry in any other respect. We are better.
I live out of state and sell a fair number of my tickets. But I donated my 4 OSU seats to Mott Children's Hospital. The community relations office there gifts them to a patient and family. Was fairly easy to do. FYI.
I agree with that.
Well, you have to pick some timeline over which to measure something. Which would you suggest? 5 years? 50 years? Since the fall of Ancient Rome? Since I had dinner? What's the "official timeline?" And if you're going to state something like "Michigan is comparable to West Virginia," maybe you should present some data to support that. 20 years is arbitrary yes, but if I had picked 40 years Michigan's status would have been even better. If I had gone back to the beginning of college football it would have been better still. As I said, Michigan has never had a dynasty (ie a multi-year national champion contender) in modern times the way Alabama, USC, Nebraska, Florida St have had. But sustained excellence with no losing seasons over 40 years is pretty darned good. And better than Auburn, Georgia and West Virginia.
Pansy is a noun, not an adjective.
Past 10 years I agree, M is a B-/C+ program. I feel like 2007 was the last year we could reasonably claim Michigan was nationally relevant program (despite The Horror, we did beat Jesus in the Capital One Bowl.) Since then...nah.
But, are we deluding ourselves about what Michigan was prior to our recent downturn? I looked back at the 20 years prior to 2007 and crunched some numbers. Here's what I found:
This season the mgoblogosphere has been collectively experiencing a classic grieving process. What are we grieving? The fall of our once great power and subsequent banishment to the land of mid-level Big 10 team, a place virtually defined by MSU for the past 4 decades (until now) and a place Michigan hasn't visited since the 1960s. Using the Kubler-Ross model I'll break it down like this:
1. Akron/UConn: Denial. Wait, no, we're not actually this bad.
2. Penn St: Anger. Duh.
3. Indiana: Bargaining. Well...if our offense plays this well AND our defense can play like they did against Minnesota and Central, well, maybe....PLEASE?
4. MSU: Depression. This is happening. Fucking hell.
Let's just hope we can all get to Acceptance before November 30th.
Chesson is not yet a significant outside threat. Why don't the coaches line up Funchess and/or Butt as a wide out especially in the red zone? New Orleans does that with Jimmy Graham and it seems to work pretty well. Both guys are huge and unguardable by most college defensive backs.