Michigan #15 in the BCS Rankings
Michigan is ranked #15 in the BCS poll.
Top 5
1. LSU
2. Alabama
3. Oklahoma St.
4. Stanford
5. Boise St.
Big Ten Teams
10. Nebraska
15. Michigan
16. Penn St.
17. Michigan St.
20. Wisconsin
October 30th, 2011 at 9:32 PM ^
Let's just hope we can end the season in the top fourteen. That would be awesome.
October 30th, 2011 at 9:34 PM ^
I can already hear the complaining in E. Lansing from here in Miami
October 30th, 2011 at 9:38 PM ^
but I can hear it too and I don't care. We scored 14 (and probably should've been more) in a trash tornado on the road. The scored 3 against a very sub-par Nebraska.
Oh, and no one cares about MSU football either
October 30th, 2011 at 10:03 PM ^
I dont think you can call Nebraska sub-par by any stretch.
They have only been beaten by Wiscy. at wiscy.
As you can see by the recent Wisconsin losses, playing on the road in the B10 is difficult.
Finally, their rb Burkhead has more rushing yards and TDs than Denard.
October 30th, 2011 at 10:05 PM ^
their running back having more rushing yards and TDs than our QB has anything to do with Nebraska's defense.
October 30th, 2011 at 10:09 PM ^
is ridiculous. It keeps peoples offenses off the field. It is a second form of defense.
Also, their D is about 35th or so overall and by the numbers (except pts allowed) they have about the same #s that our D does.
October 30th, 2011 at 10:17 PM ^
to piggyback on your point, nebraska's comeback win vs. tsio also looks much better now than it did at the time. osu has played pretty well since that loss, beating illinois and wiscy.
October 30th, 2011 at 10:30 PM ^
the same raw yardage numbers, Nebraska's defense has allowed 8 more touchdown's than Michigan's defense. That many more touchdowns is also despite Nebraska enjoying a much better field position advantage (19th nationally compared to Michigan's 71st). Our offense is rated 15th nationally by FEI, Nebraska's is 49th. Michigan rushes for 5.9 yards per play without removing sacks. Nebraska is at 5.2, so talking about their amazing rushing attack being like a 2nd defense...well no more than Michigan's. The raw numbers suggest similar defense (5.4 yards allowed per play by M, 5.1 by N), but Michigan has forced 20 turnovers while Nebraska has forced only 11. Their defense is no better than ours, and neither is their team.
October 30th, 2011 at 11:12 PM ^
The point is that it was inaccurate for that previous poster to call Nebraska "very sub-par." They're probably around the same level as Michigan and, if better, not significantly so.
October 30th, 2011 at 11:27 PM ^
October 30th, 2011 at 9:42 PM ^
cares if sparty whines. I just tune them out.
October 30th, 2011 at 10:01 PM ^
Water is wet.
Gravitation=9.8m/s^2
The sky is blue (the sky knows whats up, if only it was maize more often)
The world is at a balance once again.
October 30th, 2011 at 9:35 PM ^
Double post sry
October 30th, 2011 at 9:37 PM ^
Frankly, I just want to see Rocket Man again
October 30th, 2011 at 9:39 PM ^
Computers love the Big XII
October 30th, 2011 at 10:17 PM ^
We're not where we should be yet but everybody knows KState will be 7-4 in 3 weeks. South Carolina over Nebraska is pretty lame as well. Their habit of scoring 3 times or less and barely escaping against unranked opponents somehow overrode Nebraskas total domination of sparty immediately following sparties back to back wins over ranked opponents. Penn State doesn't look great, especially after the turnover marathon that was the sleet-bowl, but they look a LOT better than VaTech to me, and so does the quality of their opponents. I suppose Houston and Boise deserve some credit for failing to lose against Tulane and Rice and East Carolina, but the fact that Houston allows those tiny schools to score 30 and 40 points on them more often than not makes their #13 ranking "questionable."
On a side note: just because Auburn and Georgia beat Florida doesn't mean they should get ranked. Everybody beats Florida these days.
October 31st, 2011 at 10:28 AM ^
If besides Auburn and Georgia you mean LSU and Alabama.
October 30th, 2011 at 9:46 PM ^
If we win our next two games, we'll be in the top ten.
October 30th, 2011 at 9:49 PM ^
I don't see it happening that easily. Our next two are at Iowa and Illinois. Iowa just got done crapping the bed against Minnesota and Illinois lost to the Purdue team we just handled easily. I don't really see these as wins that move us up 5 spots unless at least 5 of the 1 loss teams lose.
October 30th, 2011 at 9:51 PM ^
I don't think it'll happen after two weeks, but every team ranked ahead of us (with the exception of Boise and one other [I think Clemson] has to play another team rated ahead of us. If we win out we should be securely in the top ten.
October 30th, 2011 at 9:56 PM ^
is pretty much how Michigan has moved up the poll every week. It's been much less about what UM has done, and more about what teams ahead of us haven't done.
October 30th, 2011 at 10:14 PM ^
Yep, and we need to capitalize on their losses and the open rankings because of them. As it stands now, our optimistic expectations should be ten wins with either a BTCG appearance or a BCS at-large bid. Nebraska and OSU are legit teams, but Iowa and Illinois don't look so good. We should expect no less than 3/4 remaining games to go down in the win column, IMO.
This is one of the weakest years I can recall in college football, and the Big Ten in particular.
October 30th, 2011 at 10:29 PM ^
It feels like the top teams from the 2000s would be destroy the top teams from today. Hell, the top 5 teams, maybe even top 10 teams, from the early-to-mid 2000s would kill the top teams today.
October 30th, 2011 at 10:10 PM ^
Your unresolved parantheses dig at my soul. It's like a never ending V7.
October 30th, 2011 at 10:12 PM ^
Can't edit it now, though.
October 30th, 2011 at 10:27 PM ^
Now I'm suffering too.
October 31st, 2011 at 8:42 AM ^
ditto.
October 30th, 2011 at 10:25 PM ^
#14 KSU @ #3 OSU
#12 VaTech @ #23 GaTech
#10 Nebraska @ #16 PSU
#9 SCAR @ #7 Arkansas
#8 Oregon @ Washington
#8 Oregon @ #4 Stanford
#6 Oklahoma vs. TAMU
There are a lot of 1-loss teams that play very tough games in the next 2 weeks. I'm not sure that we'll be top 10 in 2 weeks, but if we have two comfortable wins on the road the next 2 weeks, I don't see why we can't be 11-13. You are probably looking at KSU, SCAR/Arkansas, and Oregon losing with the posibility of Nebraska and VaTech. However, if Nebraska loses, PSU will jump us. That probably leaves us at 11 or 12.
It would be kind of cool to have the first meeting of Michigan and Nebraska as a B1G game be between two top 10 teams.
October 30th, 2011 at 10:24 PM ^
South Carolina will lose, KState will lose, not really sure why Houston is ranked at all but can see Michigan leapfrogging them with a convincing road win, and Clemson and Virginia Tech are on the bye.
October 30th, 2011 at 9:50 PM ^
I dont want to knock any teams..but wow, can someone actually explain to me how PSU is a 1 loss team? I mean their offense is currently below Michigan 2008 levels and that is scary.
Must be one hell of a defense they have or just a real soft part of the schedule.
October 30th, 2011 at 9:53 PM ^
Both. Every game is like 12-6 and they played soft schedule. I think they have osu, wiscy, and either msu or nebraska left
October 30th, 2011 at 9:53 PM ^
Right now its looking like a combination of the two. Other than Alabama their next best opponents have been Northwestern and Illinois who aren't exactly great this year. However, PSU's scoring D is ranked 4th, so they appear to be somewhat legit there despite their weak schedule helping that stat a bit.
October 30th, 2011 at 9:55 PM ^
for Penn State
Nov 5. OFF
Nov 12. NEBRASKA
Nov 19 at Ohio State
Nov 26 at Wisconsin
So yes, they have played pretty much the softest possible Big Ten Schedule.
October 30th, 2011 at 10:03 PM ^
the Nittany Lions will be able to say that they beat OFF
October 30th, 2011 at 10:09 PM ^
OFF scored 5 points last week. That means, they can hang with the PSU offense. Just sayin' . . .
October 30th, 2011 at 10:41 PM ^
NSFMF as "not safe for motherfuckers"?
October 30th, 2011 at 11:00 PM ^
ha HA! I get it!
October 30th, 2011 at 10:37 PM ^
That is brutal. But I just hope they keep doing what they're doing. If we can manage to get into the conference championship game I'd much rather play Penn St. than Wisconsin.
October 30th, 2011 at 10:06 PM ^
It's both. The do have a top ten total defense (282ypg) and a top five scoring defense (12ppg). This is paired with an 88th ranked total offense (357ypg) and a 101st ranked scoring offense (22ppg).
Their schedule so far (by FEI) has included FCS Indiana State, Alabama (2), Temple (32), EMU (111), Indiana (97), Iowa (39), Purdue (69), Northwestern (63), Illinois (35). Against a fairly weak schedule, they have the above offensive rankings. We'll see how good they are this month when they play Nebraska (37), MSU (5) and Wisconsin (9).
Edit: 2010 M offense with 2011 PSU defense would be a legit BCS title contender, 2010 M defense with 2011 PSU offense would be praying for a win against Minnesota.
October 30th, 2011 at 10:42 PM ^
Temple is tougher than (at least) 6 B1G teams...that's insane.
October 30th, 2011 at 10:22 PM ^
All it matters is we need MSU to lose ONE more game to give us a chance for the Championship game. Plus, we're not guaranteed to win the rest too. So, I don't see Spartans upset or anything at the moment.
October 30th, 2011 at 10:25 PM ^
Shouldn't Stanford have been penalized for having to go to overtime to beat USC? Going to overtime is like half a loss (using Les Miles' argument back in '06, counting LSU's overtime loss as half a win), is it?
October 30th, 2011 at 10:39 PM ^
They were on the road against a good team. There is no reason to penalize them for that.
October 30th, 2011 at 10:40 PM ^
Well, USC just looked pretty legit after smashing ND, and there is a lot of bad blood between the two teams - I can see the close score not hurting so much.
Overall, I'll be pretty happy if we win against Iowa and/or Illinois, finish with 8-9 wins, and at least stay competative against OSU. I just realized that we only scored SEVEN points in our last derp-fest against them.
October 30th, 2011 at 10:32 PM ^
Don't over look any road game in the big ten. Everyone is talking like we already beat Iowa and Illinois. Talk about it after we actually have the W
October 30th, 2011 at 10:52 PM ^
If we win out we're a lock for a BCS bowl in my opinion. And depending on what happens with some of the other B1G teams, even if we go 10-2 there could be a slim chance we sneak in somewhere as an at-large as well.
October 31st, 2011 at 10:02 AM ^
funny in relation to the perennial BCS or bust Irish
wonderful as a first year / comeback feel good story after the past four seasons
and
scary, because I don't think we're really there yet (Maybe the extra weeks of bowl prep would iron out some of the kinks though)
October 30th, 2011 at 11:06 PM ^
I need both MI and MSU to win out, just so MSU can go the the Big Ten Championship game and lose. This would place MI in a BCS game and sparty would be looking in from the outside.
Edit: And this is apparently "off-topic" b/c you struggle with reading comprehension. Good stuff, bro!
October 30th, 2011 at 11:08 PM ^
What makes you think that MSU will lose? They beat Wisconsin, they beat OSU. PSU has a 2 game lead in their division and doesn't look like a great team.
October 30th, 2011 at 11:30 PM ^
Sparty has a past history of being unable to consistently win big games. PSU has not played anyone at this point in the big ten making their record somewhat misleading. They have Neb, OSU, and WI(in Madison) remaining on their schedule. Penn State maybe wins one of those games but could very well lose all three. WI should win out with their remaining schedule of MN, ILL, and PSU. This would place them in a double jeopardy matchup vs Sparty(if they win out). I do not see MSU beating(getting lucky on a hail mary) WI twice in one year.