But did Michigan deserve to win?

Who Cares? We won.

I didn't deserve the free muffin I was given this morning. But damn was it delicious.

We were outplayed, but we won. So, like, yes? Happens all the time.

guys are lucky and some ain't.

"The ole" thrown the ball of the other team to the long snapper.  That is good stuff.  I am still not sure if that was a designed fake or not.

Did we deserve to win? No, not by looking purely at the stats. But we won and that's all that matters. I would rather win looking ugly than lose looking pretty.

but if any group of seniors deserved to finish their careers with a major bowl victory and a top ten finish it was these guys. 

And in regards to the actual game: We were lucky, they made some huge mistakes and we made just enough plays to pull it out. I don't mind saying we were fortunate because we were, but that's football. I'd rather be on the side that won and didn't "deserve" it than the side that lost and did "deserve" a victory. 

Ohio didn't deserve to get away without a LOIC charge, but they did. Shit happens. Sometimes it's good; sometimes not.

LSU still won.   I don't feel great about the lack of style points, but I feel great for the team.  They never gave up, both on offense and defense and took advantage of VT's mistakes.    You have to win in all three phases, and we didn't lose in two - defense and special teams.  Sometimes that's good enough, it was last night.

Go Blue.

Just refreshing to see a Michigan team win on defense and kicking. Yeah we had some breaks go our way, but this year alone we did three things we haven't done in a long time: Beat Ohio, dominate a good team and win a big game because of the other two facets of the game. Great way to finish the season IMO

Virginia Tech made bad coaching decisions and executed poorly.  Sometimes, if you play another team close, they'll make mistakes and the ball will bounce in your favor.  

Michigan's been on both sides of this situation in the past.  Last night, they were on the winning side.  

Yes, they deserved to win.

Team 132 deserved to go out on a high note.  

As for our performance, we did the best we could with Molk's mobility limited (which made us rely on the pass more) and the fact we were facing a NFL grade QB, outside WR, and RB.  Also they have four 5th year seniors on that offensive line.  We held that talent to 20 points.  Yes they had some long drives and converted 3rd and long, but after all that they got to trot out the FG kicker.

If Molk's at 100%, we'd have a lot more options in the run game and I think we take the game by two scores in regulation.  

Good teams find a way to win, thats what I keep telling myself

the final score said as much.

Never been a fan of the 'deserving' to win meme. You can be the better team, out-coach your opponent, be a fan favorite, whatever....but all that matters is final score. How you get there is ultimately irrelevant.

 The catch/ noncatch just meant Michigan had to score a TD to keep the game going. I don't think they played a good game , but deserves got nothing to do with it. We scored more points than them when the final whistle blew and thats how you win football games. VT can't really blame the refs there the catch/non catch could have went either way and VT had plenty of opportunites to turn this in to a blow out.

liked the run game purely to setup a big passing play for the TDs.  It was purely due to the talent we have that it often ended up that the run became the dominant force. 

I think yesterday's win showed (a less than ideal version of) Borge's style going forward and why it's effective even when the offense isn't firing on all cylinders :  It's efficient.  A handful of effective, big plays to put up points - screw having a slow, trodging drive down the field.  

Yes.   The seniors definately deserved to win

Hoke deserved to win.

Gibbons deserved to win.

This fan base deserved a win.

VT made the mistakes, coughed up the ball, questionable coaching decisions, and missed the field goal--is that a team that sounds like they deserved to win?  We won the game.  That is all that matters.  Plus if we stop one or two of the 3rd or 4th down and longs that they converted, it wouldn't have been as close.

At the same time, it took VT's third string kicker making four field goals in regulation for the game to even make it into overtime. They were lucky that kid was as clutch as he was.

The team that scores more points usually wins. We scored more points, so we won. To address the question more directly, there were some "lucky" plays, but VaTech also had some lucky plays as well. Probably their worst luck was that their 2 top kickers were out for stupid mistakes before the game.

because we made fewer mistakes, executed a shade better.

All the stats mean nothing. They had how many red zone possessions? And we weren't lucky that they roughed Wile: they hit him.

Luck is the nutty fake fg reception moving our fg closer. Luck is not Ryan sniffing out their fake punt - that's a good play.

Overall they played better than we did. We made the big plays though, when it mattered: stops, td's, fg.

Sugar Bowl Champs. End of.

Is to score more points than opposition.  We did.  We won.  Bring on the 2012 season and let's see what team 133 looks like and how they do!

 

Oscar, the River Otter of Just WIn Baby says "Get over it!"

 

Were we outplayed? Yes. Have we outplayed the other team many times and lost? Yes. Any win in this game for these players, who won eleven freaking times this year when most of us would have been thrilled with nine, is awesome.

Here are my thoughts.

Tech sold out to stop the run and get to the quarterback much of the game. They are an aggressive defense and were doing what they do. It worked 99% of the time and accounted for our lackluster offensive stats. But it also left receivers 1 on 1. The first one was a bit up for grabs since there was safety help (although he really wasn't in good position to make a play on the ball), but the other one was Junior/Denard doing what they do when given that match-up.

Our defense on the other hand was the definition of bend but don't break. While they (frustratingly) let VT dink and dunk down the field the whole night, dominating time of possession and yardage, we only let them score one touchdown and forced their 3rd string kicker to make make 3 field goals and put the game on his foot in OT. Ultimately, we held a pretty good QB/RB tandem to 17 points.

VT didn't help their cause by the big roughing the kicker or the fake punt attempt, but these things aren't exactly luck based. Both our turn-overs were very much of the forced variety, so again, hard to say it was luck (i.e. it wasn't a Tommy Rees butterfingers variety). Ok, our fake FG was fluky as hell and the we were fortunate the refs decided to overturn the Coates catch/non-catch (the right call IMO). Still, we executed following that by taking care of the football and Gibbons put it through the uprights. Again, we probably dodged one by not getting the false start called against us, but I can think of several no calls both ways in pivotal momemts that game, it wasn't really abnormal for refs to miss stuff or let stuff go.

Bottom line, we stuck around and were opportunistic when it mattered. Not exactly a beat your chest satisfying win, but I think they deserved to win and the team I'm sure feels that way too.

They needed a kicker to miss an easy field goal.

Yes, but only after that guy - a third-stringer, mind you - unexpectedly went 4-4 in regulation.

Also, we led for like 25 of the 30 minutes in the second half.  At no point in the second half or OT did we ever trail.  You can point to yardage, but VT was also playing from behind while we were protecting a lead.  Not that we weren't trying to score, but we didn't have the same urgency to do so after we went up 17-6.

Deserves got nothin' to do with it.  Seriously.  You could say VT deserved to win because of Coale's "shoulda-been-a-catch" in OT, or because of Myer's emergence from 3rd string to near-hero, or because so-and-so is such a good guy, or so-and-so has such a great hardship story, or because of the stats, or whatever.  You could say the same about Michigan and what the 5th year seniors endured (3 HCs, losingest period in Michigan football history, etc), the hardship story of so-and-so, the play of all the true freshman, or whatever.

"Deserve" implies some sort of value judgement which, imo, just doesn't apply.  Did both teams deserve to win?  Sure they did.  Did one team have far better stats?  Absolutely.  But what ultimately matters is what happened on the field.  You might say that Michigan didn't deserve it because they needed a wacky fake FG pass tipped by the defense to the long snapper for a first and goal, 2 overturned catches which were both very very close, a roughing the kicker penalty, and a missed VT FG to ultimately win, but that's all part of the game.  You can't take that out of the equation when making your determination.

Long story short, did they deserve it?  Doesn't matter.  One team had to win and one had to lose.  In this case, Michigan came out on top. 

Let's look at the stats.  VT scored one TD and their RB, one of the best in the country was held to 3.4 yards per carry.  That was also the team stat.  It was a classic example of bend but don't break. Four FG's and one TD....we actually played some pretty good D.  

VT had some bad decison making on the part of Beamer, made several mistakes, had TO's.

Did lady luck smile on us?  Yup, particularly with the review on the TD in OT, but that was a make up for Iowa.

The fan base needs to stop feeling guilty about the win and just accept it.

11-2

 

Total yards are not the only statistic that matters.  We scored more touchdowns than they did.  We made all of our field goal attempts.  Sure, they moved the ball better on a down to down basis, but that doesn't win you a game on that alone. 

Sure, we had plays go our way.  But there were two times VT had 1st and goal where they came away with 3 points total.  VT turned the ball over.  VT gave up a couple big plays. 

Total yardage is all well and good, but often times football games come down to three things:  Big plays, turnovers and special teams.  VT had no big plays, and we had a couple.  VT had two turnovers to our one, and they had two big special teams gaffes - the roughing the kicker and then obviously the missed FG in OT. 

No one was feeling sorry for us when we were on the other end of games like this. I'm looking forward to enjoying this win for the next few months, but when football season rolls back around, I'll remember all the haterz saying this team didn't deserve this and I'm sure Hoke will use it to light a fire under Team 133.

WTF???? Ridiculous question. What are we trying to do? Make the Hokies feel better about their loss?

People are making it sound like the Hokies should have won this game? Our D, especially in the red zone, played lights out. Their offense did not play well. Their pass-D did not play well, considering they gave up two huge TDs. Yes they had a good rush-D, but I find it ridiculous for people to question the accomplishment of team 132 in the bowl game by posing idiotic questions like "Did we deserve to win?" Yes, yes we did. We put up more points and played our butts off. We made mistakes but so did they (int to Clark, fumble, missed field goal, etc.). Their rush-D played lights out and our red zone D played lights out. Enough with the "well, we won but not really sure we deserved to since they dominated us."

Well, VT was much better than us and the refs helped us on more than one occasion. Based on solely the play in the game last night, VT should've won.

However, did Michigan deserve to win? Why not? This team has been through a lot of the last few years, came together this year under a new coaching staff (which did NOT happen 4 years ago), and worked their asses off to get to this point. Nobody expected us to be this competitive this year, let alone finish with 11 wins. So, credit goes to the players and coaching staff. They worked hard this last year and they showed that hard work does in fact pay off. So, under that perspective, yes, we did deserve to win.

Opponents' miscues are every bit as much part of the game as your own successes. So is luck. So is the occasional break (or not) from the refs.

So did Michigan deserve to win? Yes, abosolutely, 100% without question.

Why? Because even with all of the above, our players actually made the plays that resulted in 23 points being put on the board in our favor. And Junior Hemingway got a trophy for those very efforts.

First you ask:

 

Michigan won, that much is clear, but did they deserve to win?

Then you say:

 

We don't need to ask whether Michigan deserved to win.

So... what are we doing here?