Scheduling a Winner
As many of you know I have been cup really full guy for the 2011 season for about 2 years. We're getting close to some real football and I can't wait to put my money on the over 7.5 wins for Michigan(Easy Money). Denard will be in the gun and the defense will look completely different. We get past ND and anything is possible. I got an Insider at ESPN on the wagon as people are starting to look at us more closely. It's an Insider so I'll just post the snippe about us. Basically he looks at teams that have decent talent but a schedule set up to make a run if they play well. He uses the Sparties from last year as a perfect example which we know all about.
2. Michigan Wolverines
Keep Hoke alive! The Wolverines break in a new coach and buy into the Pure Michigan tourist campaign in clever fashion: They leave the state once before November, and that's a trip to distant Evanston, Ill., a short drive outside the border (where they'll see a 50-50 crowd, at worst). If Michigan gets by Notre Dame, it has a great shot to start 6-0 before a visit to East Lansing.
Full Article here
The ND game is big, and a 6-0 start would be awesome. Lots of momentum heading into EL.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Even if we beat ND, SDSU and Northwestern are not gimmes by any stretch of the imagination.
Nah, I'm cool with getting ahead of myself.
ND is huge. It's the 2nd game under 2 new systems, it's primetime, they want to end the losing streak, and recruits will be there (some choosing between us and ND.) Northwestern and Sparty look to be tougher road games then Iowa and Illinois surprisingly.
Denard+Hoke-GERG+Woolfolk-Ezeh=BCS
times Mattison = ???
I think it is ^Mattison
There's going to be a ton of hoopla surrounding the game with perhaps College Gameday being there, it being the ESPN night game, and the fact that there are going to be A LOT of recruits there. I'd circle that as the game of the season because I think it means a lot for THIS TEAM in terms of their confidence as well as a gauge for their season in addition to future seasons (with potential commits).
Flexible.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Hi, you must be new here. Nice to meet you.
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If we lose to Sparty this year, I am going to move to Haiti for the rest of the football season. At least they won't have Sportscenter. We have a countdown clock and a DC who isn't bat shit crazy so I got that going for me, which is nice.
If we could beat one of ND and MSU, obviously I'd like to win both, but if we could take out one of those two we'd have a really good shot at starting 7-1. We finish with four tough but winnable games, and going 2-2 in those would put us at 9-3 regular season. I could dig that.
Up 10-2. I know its a bit of a stretch but the schedule is in our favor. The only games I'm really concerned about are Nebraska and Northwestern.
Not ND, MSU, Iowa and Ohio?
<br>Nah, those are nothing to be concerned over...
Notre Dame. I'm not concerned with Iowa in the least bit. Ohio State depends on which qbs is starting for me too be worried.
All of those games are going to be tougher than you think. While I'm optimistic, ND, MSU, Iowa, Nebraska, and OSU are all very very tough games that I could see us losing. However, if everyone takes to the system and we get some momentum, have some good luck with injuries, and have a few bounces go our way, I could see us having a really nice season especially with ND, Nebraska, and OSU at home.
Don't kid yourself though, the defense will probably be stable enough compared to last year, but to go 10-2 or something like that, Denard is going to have to be even better this year and win some tough rivalry games a la ND 2010 to challenge for the B1G title.
I'm being really optimistic though. I think 8-4 is more realistic but you never know.
Is this Tom?
Before Pryor, osu used to be really good at beating people with an extremely average qb. I'm still quite worried.
I think I may concur
I detest Sparty as much as anyone here, but Haiti?
Haiti isn't far enough. I could imagine myself moving to Haiti, then throwing Haiti on to Mars if we lose to Sparty again. Seriously, I don't know if Mars is far enough away.
I should have thought it out a little better Haiti won't work at all. I would probably end up running into one of their recruits. With their global reach in recruiting, Mars really is the only place that makes sense.
you will still be seeing MSU recruits
All your planets are belong to Sparty.
I don't think that's correct. While there would otherwise be potential MSU recruits in a jail on Mars, it would be financially impractical for Dantonio to send a shuttle to pick those recruits up in time for the first day of practice.
Oops, wrong university....
Sparty is coming off an 11 win season, and we're coming off a 7 win season where we got stomped by every good team we faced. I don't want to lose to sparty, but doing so is not the end of the world considering we're installing a new system on both sides of the ball.
No, I'm Pretty sure losing to State would suck donkey balls.
I can't imagine losing 4 in a row to Sparty. We need to win that one.
I have a feeling State comes into our game 3-2 (beating 2 FCS teams & CMU...losing at ND and OSU). Remember, they didn't leave the state of MI until November last year and only beat ND (at home) with a trick play. Their 11 win season could easily have been an 8 win season. They need to replace a few of their convicts and (while their RBs are good), they'll be one of the most disappointing teams (for MSU fans) this season.
Do we beat them...I'm 50/50...but they weren't as good as their record last year (and neither were we for that matter).
Exactly on the last point about us. If we say MSU was almost an 8 win team, then we can also say that UM was almost a 4 win team.
Yup. And that's what leads me to my 50/50 guess for the game this year. MSU lost a number of important parts of their squad and lost very important coaches. At the same time, we return almost everyone and bring in a vastly improved coaching staff. In any event, if we lose, I expect it to be the last loss to MSU for a long, long time.
Maybe that's because Rodriguez had nothing to do with developing our defensive players.
His biggest fault was whiffing on Casteel and hiring GERG.
It is really hard to develop players on D when they are literally on campus for about a month before the season.
There were times that the average age of our defense was barely above the age to vote.
Im not arguing that RichRod did not develop defensive talent, however that was not his job as a head coach especially with an offenisive focus. His job is to coach and develop the offense while hiring a guy to tend to the defense (this was his failure, hiring GERG). Thats what assistant coaches and coordinators do, they isolate one side of the ball.
As for the players you mentioned, there is almost no question in my mind that you picked some buzz names. That being said, I dont see any of those guys taking significant strides this year. I think Will Campbell will be serviceable, but to be honest Im more excited about Richard Ash and Jibreel on the defensive line. At linebacker, I think Marell Evans will suprise people, and Jake Ryan will probably be taking the starting spot from Cam at some point this season.. I also look to Demens to take some strides in pass coverage.
In the defensive backfield, if Carvin Johnson doesnt take a huge leap I wil be shocked. Same goes for Courtney Avery.
I'm wondering if they will start Demens , Cam and Ryan at LB this year. Does'nt seem like much of a stretch to me at all especially if Mike Jones ( who?) Mike Jones is still looking more like a safety than a LB.
I've thought about this. Who do you put where? Cam has been good at SAM but I think he could play WILL better than Jake Ryan (but maybe not) so I would think it went SAM - Ryan, MIKE - Demens, WILL - Cam. But Cam and Jake could be switched.
This gets me thinking, how amazing would it be if your LBs were actually named Sam, Mike and Will? And then how confusing would it be if they didn't play their corresponding positions?
It's a tough call especially if Cam is getting tired of musical chairs on the position chart.
I'd move Ryan to SAM , Cam to WILL for a few reasons. Cam is playing out of position really no matter where he plays , with his skill set from play safety and being a WR you would think he would be an excellent weakside LB ( where is Magnus when I need his input) and Ryan being a natural SAM I'd pull the trigger. I'm just a fan tho and don't know the ins and outs of every position on the field.
If I wasn't worried all the computers in the world would crash by logging onto MGoBlog.
Well I hope the season starts the same as the past two years. I'll just take a different ending please?
That was before the whole OSU thing, but we do have a hard schedule. MSU and Nebraska will be top 25 teams throughout the year (probably), ND, OSU, and NW could all be ranked when we play them too. Iowa will still be ok despite losing some pieces. That's 6 tough games. I think 2012 is the year we can win 9 or more.
2012 is worse neutral/at Alabama, at ND, at Ohio and at Nebraska. Odd years are our good years.
Air Force. We shouldn't underestimate them.
Never underestimate the power of the Air Force. The new F-22 and the F-35, plus all the smart bombs, dude we could be in trouble.
Damn forgot about Bama. That is going to be a brutal schedule. Hopefully we can win a few big games.