A social experiment: What are our chances of beating Iowa?

Submitted by Lordfoul on

I am trying a little experiment regarding the MGoBlog readership's collective grasp of where this Wolverines team is heading this season. To start out I ask:

What are Michigan's chances, in your opinion, of getting a win next Saturday night vs. Iowa?

Please give your prediction in the form of a percentage. Calls of 100% or 0% will be disregarded when compiling the data. I, for one, give us a 30% chance solely on feel based on what we have seen so far.

Lordfoul

October 4th, 2009 at 7:16 PM ^

I consider 72 to be the luckiest number there is (as I have stated before) and I might have to take this as a sign. I now feel that my 30% prediction may be a tad low but I guess I claimed it and should stick with it. Flip-flopping is bad karma after all. ;~)

Beavis

October 5th, 2009 at 1:46 PM ^

I will take Iowa +257 (using your % here) all day to win this game. I will bet you up to half of my life savings.

(don't take this as fan disloyalty - it's just.... no way we're 72% to win and Vegas would never give you those odds. I'd obviously put a similar bet on Michigan to win straight up in Vegas and either way I'd be +something and make some money. Gamblers mentality I guess.)

SonoAzzurro

October 4th, 2009 at 6:52 PM ^

Obviously it's just a guess, but I expect us to play better next week. When I think of the first half last year at PSU, I realize that if properly prepared for a game, this team can compete with anyone.

noshesnot

October 4th, 2009 at 6:59 PM ^

I'd put it at 55%. We are going to be fired up. All of the worries of first game jitters, etc., will be shored up. Iowa' Kinnick Stadium isn't as loud as Spartan Stadium against UM. Iowa isn't as good as their record, and might be spent from their big win a week ago.

Papochronopolis

October 4th, 2009 at 7:14 PM ^

20% - Unfortunately I think @Iowa will be eerily similar to this past game against Sparty. I have a very hard time seeing our offensive line establishing the run game against a DL that is much better than MSU's

Tater

October 4th, 2009 at 7:28 PM ^

...which is approximately twice as much of a chance as MSU had of beating UM this year.

It depends on which Iowa team shows up next week: the one that made PSU look like an FCS team, or the one that struggles with FCS teams. This is a strange year so far; maybe UM can help it get stranger.

colin

October 4th, 2009 at 7:32 PM ^

point spread. then you could more directly compare with Vegas and any other expert prediction. though i really like the idea of harnessing the masses. and since i've been passing this link around b/c it's very interesting and useful in this context:

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/8/29/1003957/chance-of-a-football…

provides the chances a team wins outright based on the vegas line. so you could at least use your results to convert back to a point spread.

and since you asked: 30%

colin

October 4th, 2009 at 9:14 PM ^

are a means of expressing a probability that make sense given that points are the currency of wins and losses. Similarly, contemporary baseball sabermetrics does its best to assign run values (and therefore win values), maintaining a particular baseline to measure against, to events and player performance. VORP, por ejemplo, stands for Value Over Replacement Player and is denominated in runs.

Lordfoul

October 4th, 2009 at 9:37 PM ^

Ahh, but I am just trying to get a general idea of how people feel at this point in the season by having them equate their feelings with whole numbers between 1-99 inclusive. Apples and oranges.

Eyebrowse

October 4th, 2009 at 7:32 PM ^

It's all going to depend on the state-of-mind of the team. There were some serious mental errors on the field Saturday (dropped passes, Mesko what?!, O-line play), that need to be analyed and dealt with. I actually thought the D played pretty well all things considered. Iowa doesn't have an offense that is overwhelming and I continue to seem some improvement in the defense (except for tackling).

Go Blue!

letsgoblue213

October 4th, 2009 at 7:35 PM ^

It depends on which Michigan shows up, but also on which Iowa shows up. Iowa almost lost to Northern Iowa and Arkansas State, but managed to beat Penn Sate, so they're pretty inconsistent. If Michigan can establish their running game and Tate plays like he usually does, we should have a chance, but I think Iowa will win.

Irish

October 4th, 2009 at 7:35 PM ^

I am looking forward to this weeks UFER to get a better understanding of what really went on during the game. The outcome was as I expected but the way it panned out really surprised me.

Right now I am 80% Iowa

Beavis

October 4th, 2009 at 7:37 PM ^

We'll, Vegas will most certainly have us as underdogs, so it's going to be less than 50%.

I'll say 40%. 100% if Denard scores a TD and it is not due to Tate being knocked out of the game.

wolverine1987

October 4th, 2009 at 7:51 PM ^

Based on last week, Iowa is throughly better than Penn State, beating them on the road. Since most of us thought before the season that PSU and OSU would be more competitive but still losses, Iowa on the road has replaced PSU for me as one of two games I think we won't win. But 35% is a huge relief, last year I would given us 1%

conordog

October 4th, 2009 at 7:54 PM ^

our offense is light years better than theirs. the line is just wrong imo. i'll give them points for home field, but that's it. they will need a special effort on D to win this game. we just can't afford to beat ourselves like last week. i think if you play this game under regular conditions at night at iowa, this michigan team wins 3/4 times. so... 75%.

AMazinBlue

October 4th, 2009 at 8:08 PM ^

Iowa will see some speed and wrinkles they haven't experienced this season. They will be thinking we are not that great.

We now have something to prove. Minor was non-existant against the spartoons and we couldn't move the ball. Many of our weaknesses to this point were exposed more boldly than earlier in the season, but our deep pass coverage was not too bad.

Our staff now has a true benchmark of where this team is and where to go from here. The ND game, although important, was not a good indicator of the status of the team, MSU was.

It will be a good week of practice and I think RR really likes night games. Percentage: 74%. If it was surgery I'd be terrified. It's football. Go Blue!

MrVociferous

October 4th, 2009 at 8:10 PM ^

Along with OSU and PSU, I think this is a sure fire loss for the team. Its a night road game and I think Iowa is pretty decent. There is nothing flashy at all about them, but they get the job done. To win this game, on offense Tate will need to pretend every quarter is the 4th quarter and the defense is going to have to pretend that both halves of the game are the second half.

young team + road game + facing veteran team /= happy times.

Ain't gonna stop for from watching and cheering though!

joelrodz

October 4th, 2009 at 8:19 PM ^

Spread "like" teams give Iowa a run for their money. I think we are going to surprise Iowa early on and its going to be them making adjustments at halftime.

foreverbluemaize

October 4th, 2009 at 8:31 PM ^

The Iowa offense is a very typical Iowa offense so I guess you could say less than impressive but fundamentally sound. The D seems to be the strength of the team as is typical for them. I think PSU was over-rated (at least a little bit anyway) so I don't think that the win over them is totally impressive. Keep in mind that Joe Pa lost 9 in a row to Lloyd and 7 out of the last 8 to Ferentz. LC and KF just seem to have old Joe Pa's number. I definitely think that MSU played above themselves to get the win against us and barely eeked out the win. all of that being said I think 60% chance of a UM win.

Big Shot

October 4th, 2009 at 8:31 PM ^

I'm going with 45%

I would give us a 60%-65% chance if Molk was healthy, but we just haven't been able to run the ball without him so I'm going with 45%.

TokyoBlue

October 4th, 2009 at 8:34 PM ^

I'd say 70%, but a large part of that is (a) the fact that I just bought tickets and thus have made a decent investment; (b) I can't go on a 7+ hour road trip without hope that we are going to win... The self-delusion starts NOW.

The King of Belch

October 4th, 2009 at 8:39 PM ^

First, factor in TEHIR chances of starting out 6-0 (inluding a win over UM).

Second, factor in Home Vs Road team records.

Third, factor in the night game atmosphere.

Fourth, factor in UM's second roadie in a row--road experience is now a plus.

Factor in Tate's health. I think he's hurting, and had UM won yesterday, I believe Iowa would have been given the Wosconsin '07 treatment: we'd have see a lot of Denard and possibly Sheridan against the Hawkeyes. But this game now looms pretty large in the grand scheme of PLEASE MAKE A BOWL.

I'd say UM's chances are 56%.