What are you realistic expectations for the season now?

Submitted by kurpit on

There were, as there always are, a lot of big claims and blustery predictions of championships at the start of every season. Nobody had this game penciled in as a loss, so I was wondering what the real expectations are now.

I'm not asking what you hope to happen; what do you expect at this point?

OccaMsrazr

September 4th, 2018 at 2:39 PM ^

Looking at the game again it seems like our guys just don’t make plays when necessary on top of the porous offensive line. 

9-3 with losses to MSU and OSU incoming

If the o line doesn’t shore up then 7-5 with home losses to PSU and Wisky. 

Berger04

September 4th, 2018 at 6:16 PM ^

Im not going to sugar coat this.... Im not being a hater. They look like a team to lose another 4 games.....Wisconsin, MSU, OSU and possibly NW. Im not sold on all the "we will get better, first game jitters, night game." This team is just not championship quality yet. The O-line is preventing us from acheiving any of the dreams we have in this team. This team seems a mirror image of last years team except for QB play.

Better-  QB play. WR play getting release and routes. LB play was very good from bush. KR great job.

Same- O-line was not good at all. RB's ok not elite and still cant pass block or find seams. TE good not great. Hoping to see bigger plays. Still too many drops and blocking wasnt great. DPJ on punt returning..Keep your feet planted on the 10 yard line.

Worse- D-Line interior was very dissapointing!!! DE got up feild quick instead of outside contain,opening to many holes for Wimbush to take off. Play calling and clock management were atrocious... Thats on coaching. Come out firing..you have the weapons. USE THEM! 2 minute drill is just....Not cutting it. This is fundamental!! Why is there an issue?

I'm trying hard to look at this as hopefull as possible., but I cant . We are who we are. Average middle of the road team. Now and until we address the glaring weaknesses on this football team.

 

Attikus

September 4th, 2018 at 3:06 PM ^

Appreciate seeing this glimmer of hope in an otherwise dreadful blog. You'd think Michigan never made a first down after reading this blog.

Half the posts now are some form of... "How are you able to breathe during this impossible time?" or "Is life even worth living now that Michigan lost by a touchdown?"

1VaBlue1

September 4th, 2018 at 3:14 PM ^

Right??!!!??  The blog is filled to the brim with shit posters posting shit - like a filled septic tank in need of a pump-out.  The occasional breeze of fresh air is nice to take in...

 

(BTW, the spell checking word fixer thing now offers the correct spelling!  How long has that worked? LOL!!)

bamf16

September 4th, 2018 at 4:39 PM ^

PSU needs a last second TD to take App State to OT at home.

 

Michigan State was losing to Utah State at home with under 2 minutes to go.

 

Michigan loses a one score game on the road at Notre Dame.

 

Others have made some good points about how the toss up games just aren't going UM's way. Whether it be a one in a million dropped punt against MSU to a weird game at Iowa with a McCray facemask giving Iowa an easy game winning field goal, to pass interference calls completely going against UM at OSU, to Jordan Glasgow whiffing on a tackle in the Orange Bowl, to backup QB nightmares almost all of last season, to now realizing very quickly why Brad Hawkins was moved from WR to DB, it seems UM is always one play away.

 

Seriously, if he makes ONE of those two possible picks, are we riding high with UM in the top 10?

Beilein 4 Life

September 4th, 2018 at 6:27 PM ^

Lewerke looked shitty, their defense was awful, and their running game was held back because their offensive line is mediocre. So yes, MSU is having the same problems as last year. PSU doesn’t have their offensive coordinator or their first round draft pick all everything running back, so they have he same problems as a couple years ago too

Athena666

September 5th, 2018 at 8:05 AM ^

Let me help you out there sport.

Lewerke threw for nearly 300 yards (crisp, passes both long and short). He DID have one pick-six and a fumble. But otherwise, he looked very good 22 of 33 for the game. Not sh#tty like you mentioned in your post above. Additionally, Michigan State's receivers actually can catch balls. Lewerke spread the ball around to five receivers and the running backs all of whom caught at least 2 passes a piece. 

Yes, the OL looked dodgy. You might be on to some thing there. The defense will be fine. We will all find out next week in the desert. 

Nevertheless, MSU is still 1-0. Michigan, not so much. 

Shalom 



 

LurkingSpartan

September 5th, 2018 at 2:39 PM ^

I have no idea what you watched (if anything of us at all), because Lewerke looked fine, better than fine.

He had an ill-advised pick 6 and a fumble that should have been ruled intentional grounding. Other than that he wad dealing. He's our ace in the hole on a team that would otherwise be hampered by subpar OL play. We're gonna be ok.

mtzlblk

September 4th, 2018 at 11:59 PM ^

If you think that Penn State or Michigan State spent their whole summer preparing for those teams, you're crazy. one to two days of prep Max, with the rest of the time being spent on other opponents further along in the schedule I'm sure.

Those results aren't entirely indicative of their capabilities for the rest of the season.

JHumich

September 4th, 2018 at 4:39 PM ^

I expect that the defense is done getting gashed. I trust Don Brown, and the 2nd half numbers were good. ND was NOT in prevent for the entire half--that's just rubbish talk. It was our defense doing the preventing.

I expect that Warinner, who has done a great job of teaching technique, will be able to show our line on the tape what they were doing wrong on stunts, and that Shea will get an extra half second or second or more per pass. I expect similar improvement with run blocking.

I expect that with that extra time, Shea will be getting heisman talk going into The Game, and that he will sew it up in Columbus.

And yes, I expect to be 14-1 with a CFP championship, when all is said and done. Hope springs eternal!

andre10

September 4th, 2018 at 2:41 PM ^

8-4, with 7-5 more likely than 9-3.

The team is stacked everywhere except at offensive tackle (and  to a much lesser extent, defensive tackle) but the weakness at Tackle is so friggin bad that it doesn't really matter that QB and WR play is much improved.

zh2oson

September 4th, 2018 at 2:42 PM ^

My expectation is that Brian develops a new stat:

 

Arm-punt

Statistical

Success

 

It will chart how likely a 50% accurate QB hits miracle throws against us.

 

mlax27

September 4th, 2018 at 2:54 PM ^

I always thought that the technique our DBs are playing doesn't give them enough time to turn and find the ball, so on jump balls against tall WRs we are at a disadvantage. The window is small on passes thrown on a rope, but floaters and back shoulder fades have a bigger window than you'd think.  

FauxMo

September 4th, 2018 at 2:43 PM ^

I expect to drink a shit-ton more each Saturday this fall than I would have otherwise. Hell, last Saturday I started pounding IPAs like a frat boy before the first quarter was over, and I wasn't even prepared for that level of alcohol abuse... 

Yabadabablue

September 4th, 2018 at 2:43 PM ^

If the tackles, coaching/game planning and intensity stays the same 7-5. 

 

Edit: lose to ND, Wisky, State, OSU and either penn state North western or Nebraska. Hell we could be 6-6.

Very concerning from the whole team. Lack of preparation, game planning and cohesiveness when you had a whole off season to prepare. Its embarrassing. 

FLMichiganMan

September 4th, 2018 at 2:44 PM ^

I still have hopes for a 10-2 season but they are fading fast. If Michigan doesn't win 3 out of the big 4 games in conference play, I'll personally drive to Ann Arbor and light the fire under Harbaugh's seat myself.

Moleskyn

September 4th, 2018 at 2:44 PM ^

I'm still in the range of 9-3. I don't think all is lost, but I wasn't overly confident that we would beat ND. Now we have a data point for how this team is, and we have a baseline performance. Remains to be seen if we can improve on that or not. If there is any silver lining, I do believe that the OL is the only position group that needs to improve for things to start looking more sunny. 

aMAIZEinBLUEinTX

September 4th, 2018 at 2:45 PM ^

12-3.  Lose to Wiscy, beat sparty, psu, and osu, revenge on Wiscy in the B1G Championship Game. Make it into the CFP as an 11-2 #3 overall seed, beat #2 bama (stubbing their toe somewhere along the way, probably against GA or LSU), lose to Clemson and their 4 Hulks on the DL in the national championship game.

I'm a dreamer.  Stranger things have happened.

ijohnb

September 4th, 2018 at 2:45 PM ^

I am not sure who was all that blustery aside from Desmond Howard.  I think we will improve in all facets of the game between now and the meat of our schedule and be in every game throughout. I don't think we will trail 14-0 again.  I think we will be 5-1 going into the Wisconsin game.  After that, it is just going to be a matter of a few plays here and there that decide the season.  Ohio State is going to be a tough ask, but I don't see another team on our schedule that we are not about a coin flip to beat.

mGrowOld

September 4th, 2018 at 2:45 PM ^

 Nobody had this game penciled in as a loss, so I was wondering what the real expectations are now.

That's incorrect.  I predicted we'd lose and took quite a bit of crap over it.  My prediction hasnt changed - I had us at 9-3 and still do although I must confess 7-5 looks closer to me than 10-2 does right now.

Hope I'm wrong.

mitchewr

September 4th, 2018 at 6:31 PM ^

Yeah, either this o-line makes some serious progress in the next few weeks or we’re in for another crappy season.

Sure Sparty and PSU looked a little less than stellar in their opening games, but they could literally repeat their performances and we’d still lose big without serious improvements. That’s the depressing part.