So last night I was watching the evening news here in Utah when sports came on.  Of coarse the first thing they talked about was the Michigan-Utah game.  The sportscaster made the comment that Michigan hasn't said anything bad about Utah and that Utah doesn't have any bulletin board material to get them pumped up.  This got me thinking about how RR is preparing this team for Saturday.  Just a couple of thoughts...

I think that RR has convinced the team that if they don't respect Utah, they will lose.  When Utah is "on" they are a very good team and can play at a very high level.  RR is mentally preparing Michigan for a tough game.  I feel as if RR is trying to get them to believe in the "underdog" "us against the world" mentality that the Pistons usually have.  I think this is a positive thing.  How often has Michigan played with a chip on their shoulders, trying to prove to the world that they are good?  Whether they are a good team or not is yet to be seen, but they are playing with a little extra motivation. 

Secondly...how is Utah going to prepare for Michigan???  Listening to the Utah coach, he said they were watching WV film for offense and Stanford film for the D.  Do they really know what Michigan is going to bring to the table?  Yes and No.  We all know that we will not be running the WV offense because we don't have a running QB.  I predict our offense will only slightly resemble what WV could do with Pat White at QB.  However Utah prepares for Michigan, Michigan has an advantage.  Just like RR said in one of his press conferences there is no film out there of the QBs.  There are no tendencies that they can pick up.  How do they prepare for Michigan's passing attack??...Michigan has better WRs and passing QBs that WV has/had.  All of this is an advantage for Michigan.  We know exactly what Utah runs, they know very little about us.  I'm not sure if this is a HUGE advantage, but any advantage right now makes a difference.

The last thing is that this team knows what it COULD accomplish.  The believe in themselves.  Once again it goes back to the "us against the world" mentality.  The players know that they are young and inexperienced, but they also recognize that they can compensate for their lack of inexperience with their work ethic and talent.  Now I know that only takes you so far and the bottom line comes down to executing, but they are going to be prepared for Saturday.

I can't wait to see how they perform on the field.