Michigan has nothing but huge question marks, so much so that fans are touting Orji without ever having seen him throw a pass in a real game.
The OSU 5-star you mentioned hasn’t thrown in a real game either.
OSU’s floor at QB is higher, yes. But you also can’t simply equate the two situations. U-M doesn’t rely on its QB to the same extent OSU does. We just had a top-10 (top-5?) pick at QB, and he still wasn’t the focal point.
Granted, OSU likely will run the ball more under Kelly. How well they can do that is an open question.
U-M has won 31 straight postseason games at Yost. Last loss was in 2004 to Nebraska-Omaha.
2024: W (ND), W (ND)
2023: W (Wis), W (Wis), W (OSU)
2022: W (MSU), W (MSU), W (ND)
2021: —
2020: W (MSU), W (MSU)
2019: —
2018: W (Wis), W (Wis)
2014-17: —
2013: W (NMU), W (NMU)
2012: W (ND), W (ND)
2011: W (BG), W (BG)
2010: W (LSSU), W (LSSU)
2009: W (WMU), W (WMU)
2008: W (UNO), W (UNO)
2007: W (NMU), W (NMU)
2006: W (FS), W (FS)
2005: W (ND), W (ND)
2004: W (UNO G3)
We barely beat them this year with our best team ever.
Michigan barely beat Maryland too. Should we read into the meaning of that as well?
There’s a tendency in college football to take the result of a single game as if it’s the precise distance between two teams. No one does this in the NFL—no one thought the Jets were better than the Bills when they beat them last season—but we do this all the time in college.
Last fall’s OSU game had all kinds of pregame and in-game variables that won’t be present for this year’s game. You can’t treat 30-24 as an immutable baseline.
Richard Florida made an interesting point a while back about how Ann Arbor needs to grow substantially for the state’s sake.
There certainly are pros and cons to that; to some, A2’s size is part of its charm. But when you look at its growth rate versus Austin’s, you wonder if the state is missing out.
Notre Dame’s bye is conference championship week. To win the national championship, ND would play in 16 games. Everyone else would play in either 16 or 17. (It’s 17 if you make a conference title game, lose and qualify.)
Yes, they always have to play a first-round game, but that game is comparable to a conference-title game. Plus they can host that game. And, unlike any team that appears in a conference title game, there’s no chance of them falling into the 17-game scenario.
Regarding the Texas line: Remember that U-M is a monster at home. They’ve played four one-score games in Ann Arbor in three years. (And of those, the only one they trailed in the fourth quarter was Illinois.)
In a free market people are paid EXACTLY what they are "worth".
People are paid what they have the leverage to get.
The rise in CEO pay has dwarfed even that of the 0.1% (link). That isn’t because CEOs are worth more than their 0.1% peers. They haven’t driven a corresponding rise in productivity, or in stock value, and they don’t possess rare talent (in the same way, say, a bankable actor or star athlete does). It’s because CEOs have more influence with the people deciding their pay (their boards).
Worth and leverage get conflated. They’re related—worth is one of the factors that leads to leverage—but they’re not the same thing. Worth is the value you bring. Leverage is control.
This is a case where attempting to quantify the issue muddles it.
Ohio State supposedly has an easy schedule. A major reason for that is they play the three teams that the article projects to be the worst (IU, MSU and Purdue). But fi you’re OSU, there’s no functional difference between playing those three and playing, say, UCLA, Minnesota and Illinois (three middle-of-the-pack teams). They’re not losing to any of those teams anyway. If anything, spending home games on Purdue and IU is a waste.
Meanwhile, Ohio State has road games against 2 of the league’s top 4 teams. U-M has only one.
While OSU clearly has stepped up its spending, money alone doesn’t explain their recruiting success.
They continue to fare better at certain positions (WR, CB) than others (OL, DT). Not that their line recruiting is bad; it just isn’t on the level of what they’re pulling elsewhere.
Given that they’ve long needed to improve in the trenches, it stands to reason that they’d have a pile of top-10 recruits there too if it were all about the money.
Orji might not be ready, but it still seems like he’s the guy. They put him on the field on 3rd down of the do-or-die drive. Even though he was just a decoy, you don’t do that unless you have serious trust in him.
The Athletic put out a 2024 top 25 recently. U-M has three opponents on it. Granted, those three are in the top 5. But two of those games are at home. (FWIW, Ohio State has four opponents from that top 25.)
People are having it both ways when they say U-M has an absolutely brutal schedule. They’re no doubt counting USC and Washington, but those teams were heavily reliant on QBs who are no longer there.
Harbaugh’s organizing principle is less about run vs. pass and more about only doing what’s necessary. You can tell because, even within the run game, Harbaugh wouldn’t do certain things (like run his QB1) unless he had to.
Surely he gets that you have to throw more in the NFL.
Just for the record, Milton and Orji aren’t comps. Milton is a relatively plodding runner (4.8 40). Orji’s primary asset is his running ability; that was never the case with Milton.
Harbaugh kind of gave it away when he likened Milroe to Orji. If he thinks he has a potential Milroe on his roster, that guy seems a good bet to be out there. (Especially since he got snaps in the biggest games.) This also will be his third spring camp at U-M.
Well, in defense of the Michigan fan base I'm not aware of any recent national championship team possibly losing their coach and their all world QB days after winning it.
The QB part of that is unreasonable. To be upset over a potential first-round pick leaving is akin to being upset over seniors graduating. It’s just a fact of life.
As for Harbaugh, that uncertainty has been there whether we’ve won the CFP or lost.
I get the sentiment—of course we’d prefer them to return. But essentially, what you’re saying is even winning the national championship doesn’t make up for uncertainty that is standard for this program (Harbaugh) and for college football (McCarthy).
The recruiting services are way over-trusted by many fans.
Indeed. It was interesting reading Eleven Warriors’ Ramzy (a thoughtful guy) describing Mizzou before the Cotton Bowl as “3-star heaven,” a team that would play super hard and lose. That statement is emblematic of what’s going on here.
Sure, the recruiting services get stuff wrong. But beyond that, there’s a misconception among all of us about what the star labels mean. When we see “3-star,” we think “try-hard.” We think every 3-star is a try-hard. It’s not just that some of them are underranked. It’s that, by definition, this is a guy with a low ceiling. In this view, even if that player maximizes his potential, he must in the end be trumped by a 4- or 5-star who is making something of theirs.
In reality, some 3-stars are try-hards. Some are athletic guys who haven’t put it together yet, or smaller guys who could be great if they can take on more weight. Some are over-ranked. A few are Mason Graham. It’s also worth noting that 3-star is a massive pile of players; the label makes you think they’re all one and the same.
In the end, what the recruiting rankings are doing is telling you the probability that you have a good player on your roster. They aren’t telling you that you definitely do.
I think it's funny how the consensus is that they're a fundamentally flawed team with serious problems.
I think people are misconstruing this whole thing a bit.
It’s not about whether they’re fundamentally flawed or whether 11-1 is unacceptable. It’s about this: Why is Ohio State doing less than Michigan despite having recruited more talent?
That’s a reasonable question to ask. And when you ask it, you do indeed see some issues.
As long as the national title is still a possibility, healthy players will likely play. We haven’t seen any change in that regard.
JSN is a special case. The OP’s summary mischaracterizes it a bit: He wasn’t just hurt early in the year—he got reinjured in Week 7 against Iowa. At that point, sitting out long-term made perfect sense. It wasn’t like he couldn’t go in Week 3 and called it a day.
The Team Talent Composite that the blurb cites is interesting, but it isn’t nearly sophisticated enough to gauge how much talent a team actually had on the field in 2023.
For instance, Ohio State this season had three 5-star WRs and seven more 4-star WRs. Any credit you give OSU for half of those guys distorts the picture, since half of them weren’t relevant at all this season.
The search for reasons why U-M has struggled in bowls is, at its core, excuse-making.
If traveling to the Rose Bowl is such a disadvantage, why has Wisconsin done so well there? If it’s so hard to play a bowl after a bitter rivalry game, why hasn’t this historically been an issue for Alabama?
It could simply be that the Michigan teams who’ve gone to these games haven’t been as good as thought. This was especially true during the Ten-Year War, when there was an echo chamber about how good U-M and OSU supposedly were.
One thing to always remember about OSU-Mich is that, unlike almost all other major sporting events, it faces competition within its own sport in its time slot. ABC and ESPN both had a game on (A&M-LSU and UK-UL), which drew 3.5 million between them. The Game easily would’ve topped 20M if this weren’t the case.
I think they will (and should) end up ahead of the loser of Washington-Oregon
Why should OSU be ahead of 12-1 Washington?
Washington would have a victory over a playoff team (Oregon); OSU wouldn’t. Washington has 3 wins over current CFP-ranked teams (Oregon, Oregon State, Arizona); OSU has 2 (Penn State, Notre Dame).
OSU outgained Michigan in total yardage and on a per-play basis
OSU had 10 possessions, all of which started at least 65 yards from the end zone. U-M had 10 possessions, but one was a single-play kneeldown and another started at the OSU 7. U-M didn’t have as much of an opportunity to accrue yardage as OSU.
A fairer metric is percentage of available yards gained. OSU gained 52%, U-M 57%.
You don't go for two when you're down 14 because you don't need to.
You do indeed go for two when you’re down 14. Someone broke down the odds a while back (the NFL odds, anyway).
Assuming that you score the two TDs, going for two gives you a 60% chance of winning. Kicking two PATs gives you a 45.5% chance to win.
Going for two is superior because 1) the odds of getting it (plus a made kick) are roughly equivalent to the above 45.5% and 2) you get the additional chance of winning in OT (if you fail on the first two-point try but make the second).
If our tackles could not handle their edge rushers to the extent that would be could not throw the ball AT ALL we are in trouble down the stretch.
Totally get the sentiment, but we all engage in too much of this kind of thinking.
It’s fascinating how college and the NFL are different in this regard. In college, we read so much into everything that happens. A result is QED proof of one team’s superiority over another; a shortcoming in one game means you’re in trouble down the road. Meanwhile, no one looks at the Chiefs losing to the Broncos and thinks that must mean something is critically wrong.
It could very well be that we don’t have the OTs to beat Ohio State. It could also be that this was our first encounter with edge rushers of that caliber, and that it was a temporary shock to the system.
But then the other universities would complain that Michigan is getting off too lightly anyway and the commissioner would be compelled to add additional sanctions.
Exactly. Anything short of a postseason ban or vacating the past three years is unlikely to satisfy U-M’s critics.
The fact that people say the B1G must act immediately and that they believe the past three years are tainted indicates those are the two remedies they want. A ban isn’t realistic, but no matter what happens to Harbaugh, there will eventually be a ferocious fight over vacating 2021-23.
Historically, Washington (being a traditional Pac-10/12 power and a regional-cultural rival) is the mountain they’ve wanted to climb. Obviously Oregon has a lot of cachet today, but people forget just how downtrodden that program used to be. Oregon still doesn’t even lead its all-time series with Cal.
I think Sparty is better than the record indicates, but it has been many years (before this century, for sure) since a mediocre MSU team, as measured by year-end record, has beaten a good UM team. I think we have enough data this year to declare UM good and MSU mediocre or worse.
Totally agree on point one (Sparty is better than the record indicates). They played Iowa even and were up 24-6 at Rutgers and lost to both.
But respectfully disagree on point two (that mediocre MSU teams haven’t beaten good U-M ones). It’s kind of a tautology.
Since we never play State at the end of the year, there’s always a lack of data on how good each team is. But that’s the whole point: We don’t know. If U-M (somehow) loses Saturday, it’s quite conceivable they could wind up 9-3 with no wins over rivals or ranked teams. So you could again say, well, this was another instance of MSU beating a Michigan team that wasn’t actually that good.
The whole thing is a convenient narrative that seems aimed at explaining away the 2017 and 2020 upset losses to MSU.
State is a tougher matchup than their record suggests (even leaving aside rivalry juju).
They have more ability in the passing game and on the DL than what we’ve faced so far. Washington crushed them by throwing every down and winning 50-50 balls, but U-M isn’t that kind of team.
State has to play a much cleaner game than they have to date, and they just might not be capable of that. But if they knock off the mistakes for one day, they could be feisty.
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The OSU 5-star you mentioned hasn’t thrown in a real game either.
OSU’s floor at QB is higher, yes. But you also can’t simply equate the two situations. U-M doesn’t rely on its QB to the same extent OSU does. We just had a top-10 (top-5?) pick at QB, and he still wasn’t the focal point.
Granted, OSU likely will run the ball more under Kelly. How well they can do that is an open question.
There was a story in the STL Post-Dispatch today about what a financial mess the Maryland Heights arena is in.
Was going to say the same thing. That comment by Fleck was an eye-opener.
U-M has won 31 straight postseason games at Yost. Last loss was in 2004 to Nebraska-Omaha.
2024: W (ND), W (ND)
2023: W (Wis), W (Wis), W (OSU)
2022: W (MSU), W (MSU), W (ND)
2021: —
2020: W (MSU), W (MSU)
2019: —
2018: W (Wis), W (Wis)
2014-17: —
2013: W (NMU), W (NMU)
2012: W (ND), W (ND)
2011: W (BG), W (BG)
2010: W (LSSU), W (LSSU)
2009: W (WMU), W (WMU)
2008: W (UNO), W (UNO)
2007: W (NMU), W (NMU)
2006: W (FS), W (FS)
2005: W (ND), W (ND)
2004: W (UNO G3)
Michigan barely beat Maryland too. Should we read into the meaning of that as well?
There’s a tendency in college football to take the result of a single game as if it’s the precise distance between two teams. No one does this in the NFL—no one thought the Jets were better than the Bills when they beat them last season—but we do this all the time in college.
Last fall’s OSU game had all kinds of pregame and in-game variables that won’t be present for this year’s game. You can’t treat 30-24 as an immutable baseline.
One of those NFL departures was the guy their offense was built around. Everyone said this wouldn’t be a problem against Mizzou; turned out it was.
Certainly U-M has more question marks on offense, but other teams have problems too.
Richard Florida made an interesting point a while back about how Ann Arbor needs to grow substantially for the state’s sake.
There certainly are pros and cons to that; to some, A2’s size is part of its charm. But when you look at its growth rate versus Austin’s, you wonder if the state is missing out.
…
That really isn’t a disadvantage for them.
Notre Dame’s bye is conference championship week. To win the national championship, ND would play in 16 games. Everyone else would play in either 16 or 17. (It’s 17 if you make a conference title game, lose and qualify.)
Yes, they always have to play a first-round game, but that game is comparable to a conference-title game. Plus they can host that game. And, unlike any team that appears in a conference title game, there’s no chance of them falling into the 17-game scenario.
Regarding the Texas line: Remember that U-M is a monster at home. They’ve played four one-score games in Ann Arbor in three years. (And of those, the only one they trailed in the fourth quarter was Illinois.)
Not necessarily. Bama lost Caleb Downs to OSU, so they had a spot to fill.
People are paid what they have the leverage to get.
The rise in CEO pay has dwarfed even that of the 0.1% (link). That isn’t because CEOs are worth more than their 0.1% peers. They haven’t driven a corresponding rise in productivity, or in stock value, and they don’t possess rare talent (in the same way, say, a bankable actor or star athlete does). It’s because CEOs have more influence with the people deciding their pay (their boards).
Worth and leverage get conflated. They’re related—worth is one of the factors that leads to leverage—but they’re not the same thing. Worth is the value you bring. Leverage is control.
This is a case where attempting to quantify the issue muddles it.
Ohio State supposedly has an easy schedule. A major reason for that is they play the three teams that the article projects to be the worst (IU, MSU and Purdue). But fi you’re OSU, there’s no functional difference between playing those three and playing, say, UCLA, Minnesota and Illinois (three middle-of-the-pack teams). They’re not losing to any of those teams anyway. If anything, spending home games on Purdue and IU is a waste.
Meanwhile, Ohio State has road games against 2 of the league’s top 4 teams. U-M has only one.
While OSU clearly has stepped up its spending, money alone doesn’t explain their recruiting success.
They continue to fare better at certain positions (WR, CB) than others (OL, DT). Not that their line recruiting is bad; it just isn’t on the level of what they’re pulling elsewhere.
Given that they’ve long needed to improve in the trenches, it stands to reason that they’d have a pile of top-10 recruits there too if it were all about the money.
Orji might not be ready, but it still seems like he’s the guy. They put him on the field on 3rd down of the do-or-die drive. Even though he was just a decoy, you don’t do that unless you have serious trust in him.
Is it?
The Athletic put out a 2024 top 25 recently. U-M has three opponents on it. Granted, those three are in the top 5. But two of those games are at home. (FWIW, Ohio State has four opponents from that top 25.)
People are having it both ways when they say U-M has an absolutely brutal schedule. They’re no doubt counting USC and Washington, but those teams were heavily reliant on QBs who are no longer there.
Harbaugh’s organizing principle is less about run vs. pass and more about only doing what’s necessary. You can tell because, even within the run game, Harbaugh wouldn’t do certain things (like run his QB1) unless he had to.
Surely he gets that you have to throw more in the NFL.
The Lions?
The Bucks came to bury the Wolverines
But Michigan wasn’t dead!
Michigan did win the B1G in 2021 without 5*s starting at any of those positions.
Stover is gone
Just for the record, Milton and Orji aren’t comps. Milton is a relatively plodding runner (4.8 40). Orji’s primary asset is his running ability; that was never the case with Milton.
But even then, the second point still stands: A post-spring transfer would be way behind.
Still definitely all for bringing one in, but Orji may very well end up being the better option.
Harbaugh kind of gave it away when he likened Milroe to Orji. If he thinks he has a potential Milroe on his roster, that guy seems a good bet to be out there. (Especially since he got snaps in the biggest games.) This also will be his third spring camp at U-M.
Yeah, we definitely ran some wishbone. It just wasn’t our base set like it was for Oklahoma.
The QB part of that is unreasonable. To be upset over a potential first-round pick leaving is akin to being upset over seniors graduating. It’s just a fact of life.
As for Harbaugh, that uncertainty has been there whether we’ve won the CFP or lost.
I get the sentiment—of course we’d prefer them to return. But essentially, what you’re saying is even winning the national championship doesn’t make up for uncertainty that is standard for this program (Harbaugh) and for college football (McCarthy).
Jenkins was a true freshman in the Covid year, so he had a year of eligibility remaining.
Indeed. It was interesting reading Eleven Warriors’ Ramzy (a thoughtful guy) describing Mizzou before the Cotton Bowl as “3-star heaven,” a team that would play super hard and lose. That statement is emblematic of what’s going on here.
Sure, the recruiting services get stuff wrong. But beyond that, there’s a misconception among all of us about what the star labels mean. When we see “3-star,” we think “try-hard.” We think every 3-star is a try-hard. It’s not just that some of them are underranked. It’s that, by definition, this is a guy with a low ceiling. In this view, even if that player maximizes his potential, he must in the end be trumped by a 4- or 5-star who is making something of theirs.
In reality, some 3-stars are try-hards. Some are athletic guys who haven’t put it together yet, or smaller guys who could be great if they can take on more weight. Some are over-ranked. A few are Mason Graham. It’s also worth noting that 3-star is a massive pile of players; the label makes you think they’re all one and the same.
In the end, what the recruiting rankings are doing is telling you the probability that you have a good player on your roster. They aren’t telling you that you definitely do.
I think people are misconstruing this whole thing a bit.
It’s not about whether they’re fundamentally flawed or whether 11-1 is unacceptable. It’s about this: Why is Ohio State doing less than Michigan despite having recruited more talent?
That’s a reasonable question to ask. And when you ask it, you do indeed see some issues.
As long as the national title is still a possibility, healthy players will likely play. We haven’t seen any change in that regard.
JSN is a special case. The OP’s summary mischaracterizes it a bit: He wasn’t just hurt early in the year—he got reinjured in Week 7 against Iowa. At that point, sitting out long-term made perfect sense. It wasn’t like he couldn’t go in Week 3 and called it a day.
Accurate right down to carrying the ball in his left hand
The Team Talent Composite that the blurb cites is interesting, but it isn’t nearly sophisticated enough to gauge how much talent a team actually had on the field in 2023.
For instance, Ohio State this season had three 5-star WRs and seven more 4-star WRs. Any credit you give OSU for half of those guys distorts the picture, since half of them weren’t relevant at all this season.
(Duplicated post)
Username also checks out because of the reference to “the stadium.” Not the Big House. It’s just the stadium.
It really is amazing. And it’s not even “losing.” It’s a loss.
The search for reasons why U-M has struggled in bowls is, at its core, excuse-making.
If traveling to the Rose Bowl is such a disadvantage, why has Wisconsin done so well there? If it’s so hard to play a bowl after a bitter rivalry game, why hasn’t this historically been an issue for Alabama?
It could simply be that the Michigan teams who’ve gone to these games haven’t been as good as thought. This was especially true during the Ten-Year War, when there was an echo chamber about how good U-M and OSU supposedly were.
Isn’t that FSU’s best win? LSU is ranked ahead of Louisville in the CFP.
One thing to always remember about OSU-Mich is that, unlike almost all other major sporting events, it faces competition within its own sport in its time slot. ABC and ESPN both had a game on (A&M-LSU and UK-UL), which drew 3.5 million between them. The Game easily would’ve topped 20M if this weren’t the case.
Why should OSU be ahead of 12-1 Washington?
Washington would have a victory over a playoff team (Oregon); OSU wouldn’t. Washington has 3 wins over current CFP-ranked teams (Oregon, Oregon State, Arizona); OSU has 2 (Penn State, Notre Dame).
OSU had 10 possessions, all of which started at least 65 yards from the end zone. U-M had 10 possessions, but one was a single-play kneeldown and another started at the OSU 7. U-M didn’t have as much of an opportunity to accrue yardage as OSU.
A fairer metric is percentage of available yards gained. OSU gained 52%, U-M 57%.
Indeed!
Small fix: Ohio State allowed 61 points, not 68
You do indeed go for two when you’re down 14. Someone broke down the odds a while back (the NFL odds, anyway).
Assuming that you score the two TDs, going for two gives you a 60% chance of winning. Kicking two PATs gives you a 45.5% chance to win.
Going for two is superior because 1) the odds of getting it (plus a made kick) are roughly equivalent to the above 45.5% and 2) you get the additional chance of winning in OT (if you fail on the first two-point try but make the second).
Totally get the sentiment, but we all engage in too much of this kind of thinking.
It’s fascinating how college and the NFL are different in this regard. In college, we read so much into everything that happens. A result is QED proof of one team’s superiority over another; a shortcoming in one game means you’re in trouble down the road. Meanwhile, no one looks at the Chiefs losing to the Broncos and thinks that must mean something is critically wrong.
It could very well be that we don’t have the OTs to beat Ohio State. It could also be that this was our first encounter with edge rushers of that caliber, and that it was a temporary shock to the system.
Exactly. Anything short of a postseason ban or vacating the past three years is unlikely to satisfy U-M’s critics.
The fact that people say the B1G must act immediately and that they believe the past three years are tainted indicates those are the two remedies they want. A ban isn’t realistic, but no matter what happens to Harbaugh, there will eventually be a ferocious fight over vacating 2021-23.
Go Adams!
It’s a big brother/little brother dynamic.
Historically, Washington (being a traditional Pac-10/12 power and a regional-cultural rival) is the mountain they’ve wanted to climb. Obviously Oregon has a lot of cachet today, but people forget just how downtrodden that program used to be. Oregon still doesn’t even lead its all-time series with Cal.
Totally agree on point one (Sparty is better than the record indicates). They played Iowa even and were up 24-6 at Rutgers and lost to both.
But respectfully disagree on point two (that mediocre MSU teams haven’t beaten good U-M ones). It’s kind of a tautology.
Since we never play State at the end of the year, there’s always a lack of data on how good each team is. But that’s the whole point: We don’t know. If U-M (somehow) loses Saturday, it’s quite conceivable they could wind up 9-3 with no wins over rivals or ranked teams. So you could again say, well, this was another instance of MSU beating a Michigan team that wasn’t actually that good.
The whole thing is a convenient narrative that seems aimed at explaining away the 2017 and 2020 upset losses to MSU.
State is a tougher matchup than their record suggests (even leaving aside rivalry juju).
They have more ability in the passing game and on the DL than what we’ve faced so far. Washington crushed them by throwing every down and winning 50-50 balls, but U-M isn’t that kind of team.
State has to play a much cleaner game than they have to date, and they just might not be capable of that. But if they knock off the mistakes for one day, they could be feisty.
USC hasn’t played at ND in November since the 1950s. The game is in October when it’s at ND and at season’s end when it’s at SC.
Cornelius Johnson is 6-3