Updated ESPN "Way-Too-Early Top 25" - Michigan #3
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/15994654/alabama-crimson…
8. ND
9. OSU
15. MSU
Baylor dropped out completely.
Yes I'm aware they just make minor changes to get people like me to click on it. And yes I will still inhale the whole thing.
Lose a metric fuckton of talent this year. We're returning most of ours. Either of our potential starting QB's have been in Harbaugh's system for over a year.
We have the better HC and assistants. We should be ranked higher than both OSU and MSU in preseason polls, and favored to win the Big 10.
We'll see what happens, but I haven't been this optimistic about our team in a decade. If we get even decent QB play we should make the playoffs. Good QB play should get us a NC.
A metric fuckton or a douche canoe?
Is a measure of volume, not weight. Try to keep up.
grad here.
But I know the difference. What you would have to do is determine the contents of the full douche canoe and see if that weighs more than a metric fuckton.
A metric fuckton is roughly equivalent to 3 standard tons (or tonnes for our UK friends) of shit as long as you use the proper conversion factor.
1 fuckton = ~3 shit-tons
And Hatter is right, a douche-canoe is a volumetric measurement of bull shit being spewed by someone, usually used as a pro-noun. However, as it is a measurement of spoken BS, it is a measurement of gas, not of liquid, and therefore the precise volume of douch canoe is subject to Boyle's Law, Avogadro's Law, Gay-Lussac's Law, Amonton's Law and Charle's Law.
Example: "This douche canoe is spewing all kinds of BS, and none of it is even worth a fuckton of shorn pubes." Temperature and pressure have an effect on the exact amount of BS being spewed in this example, of course.
The end.
i haven't been more optimistic about a UM team ever before the season. we may have the best D in the country. i have never thought that about any other UM team.
1989 is a close 2nd. i was too young to know about Bo's 1970s teams but i'm guessing that senior-led rick leach team would be right there.
Yep. Every year I went in thinking, "Is this the year?"
Honestly, the first season in the 90s that I entered autumn thinking "Maaaybe not this year" was a season in which Michigan was coming off of a meh finish without much offensive firepower and was ranked in the low teens.
1997.
There were hopes every Carr year in the 2000s, too. Again, I was getting pessimistic by 2006, but the Notre Dame game shook that off pretty quickly. I am hopeful that our current coaching staff is more deserving of that kind of confidence than previous ones.
I don't think we can really say we have "better" coaches at this point.
I'd say equal. MSU's staff has done a hell of a lot with not a lot of talent and Urban has multiple National Championships.
We need to beat them consistently for us to say that.
understand what you mean. Are you saying they should rank teams based on what happened last year no matter how much the roster has changed?
So that's why these publications make so many preseason polls; just in case a program has a major sexual assault scandal resulting in coach firings and a mass player exodus.
I hope that doesn't happen at a basketball power although it would be nice to move up a line to the 5 seed out West.
nothing but click bait and it won't work on me
That's placing a lot of trust in this team when we don't have a QB or any proven LBs. And its not like our new QB has an elite running game and OL play to fall back on. Both are good, really came on during the Citrus Bowl, but haven't proven to be great.
I know we're in great hands with the QB whisperer as our head man, but I think this is more to generate clicks and rattle some cages than actual belief that Michigan is the #3 team in America. I would not put us ahead of OSU right now. Not until we actually prove we can beat them.
They also have four easy games at home to start the season and work out any kinks. With the talent we have on the roster at QB, the way the run game start clicking last year, etc. they should be working by game 5.
child sexual abuse apologists in week 4.
OSU is ranked just about where they should be. Michigan on paper should absolutely be ranked that high. Harbaugh alone (considered in the big 3 of coaching at the collegiate level) + our staff + a bunch of returning seniors & one, Jabrill Peppers. One, Rashan Gary. Hard pressed to name any other team outside of Bama & Clemson that looks better on paper.
*Sips Kool-Aid*.
It will be JO'K and it isn't that close.
from someone inside Ft. Schembechler. Speight has the better arm and protects the ball better. O'Korn likes to run too much and isn't careful enough for Harbaugh's liking.
We'll see what happens after fall camp, but I wouldn't be surprised if Speight is the starter. Rudock 2.0.
I realize the Spring Game was a single glimpse of his play, but all those runs worried me. QBs who tend to run too much do not fare well in the passing game after numerous hits during the year. Just look at Denard and Devin. Plus, the QB seems to start thinking he has to make the big play all the time.
However, in Harbaugh we trust...
It's not the hits that worry me. Someone who is described as "running too much" is often someone who stares down their first read but isn't comfortable making a second or third.
Ironically, Denard did not run enough; if he was supposed to throw a pass, he would look for an open receiver for an E T E R N I T Y before even thinking about pulling and running. DG had a better sense of it and had the electricity to do damage, which was an asset. The problem is that the OL let him get killed in the pocket and he tended to seriously biff a read or two every game.
If JOK is running too often (this is a fourth-hand rumor, so this could be total malarky, who knows) that suggests that he's not handling progressions well. And if Speight does handle those better, that's a real reason to give him an edge, even if his throws aren't as impressive.
FWIW I was no film buff back then but my sense is that this scenario is similar to the difference between Brady and Henson in 1999. One guy could run the whole offense, the other guy was talented and made the more exciting throws.
No one is saying we are better than OSU, just that we project to be pretty damn good this year. It'd be ridiculous to go around bragging about a #3 preseason ranking, but it's hard to argue against it.
We project to have the likely the best or certainly the deepest DL. I doubt you'll find a better set of starting corners. Two safeties who have seen significant playing time, one of whom has potential to be a big time play maker. While uncertainty looms at LB, the unit wasn't good this year and we have Peppers plus healthy McCray and incoming Bush. I can see a talented freshmen like Bush actually contributing because frankly a lot may not be asked of the linebackers this year with the strength of the DL.
On offense, we have an OL that projects to be solid, two very solid+ WRs, a ridiculous TE group, options at RB and then there's QB. This team doesn't need a JT Barrett or Deshaun Watson. While there is uncertainty the options don't seem scary, maybe even arguably exciting, especially considering who is coaching them. If O'Korn is too mistake prone, it seems reasonable based off spring to think Speight could be a good game manager. Even in absolute disaster scenarios, you have Morris and Peters.
Projections are projections, so sure they don't mean much. At the same time, there is a strong argument for top 5 projection.
They are actually decided by the outcomes of the games. When is September going to roll around? These polls are about as worthless as the electrons that they are printed on!
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is no one else going to make the "Your mom demonstrated poll inertia in the VIP room" joke?
pole inertia for her.
You know what he's talking about and anything you say to suggest otherwise is pure bullshit.
Not really? Western Kentucky and Navy weren't in the preseason polls last year. Neither were Michigan, Houston, Iowa, Utah, UNC, Northwestern, Florida, or Oklahoma State.
Polls don't matter until the end. It may look good to say you beat a top-10 team in week 1 or 2 but that doesn't hold weight unless they are still a top team at the end of the year. Hell, MSU squeaked by Oregon last year but most people didn't know how inept Oregon was until they got spanked at home by Utah a couple weeks later.
No, I am suggesting that after the regular season and conference championship games, the cream rises to the top. Had they not lost to UConn, Houston probably would have been in the playoff over Oklahoma. Any AAC team would have had to run the table for a shot because the conference was so weak.
It doesn't matter - all that matters is your record relative to everyone else's at the end of the year. A preseason ranking won't keep an undefeated Vanderbilt out of the CFBP even if Oklahoma, Michigan, Stanford, and Clemson also went undefeated.
Auburn wasn't ranked in the 2013 preseason and neither was MSU but they each finished in the top 3. TCU wasn't in the top 25 before 2014 just like Notre Dame wasn't in 2012.
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Their starting QB broke his finger in the first game. He played against MSU with it. He sat out the next 4 games where Oregon went 2-2. When Adams returned they won 6 straight to close out the regular season.
True but every game was close and they clearly weren't a top 10 team.
Forget their poll, those clowns said that the toilet bowl seat in Columbus is the best stadium in the Big Ten!
http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/127357/college-football-roundtable-best-stadium
I'm just, I can't, what? wow.
What does beating MSU or OSU have to do with anything? We haven't played them this year. I never understood this line of thinking that we have to prove it against OSU and MSU first.
Because both have consistently finished in the top 5 or top 10 in the country for much of the last decade and we have gone a combined 2-14 against them in the last 8 years. So, both programs are the standard for what a top 5/top 10 team is and we haven't been able to compete with them in quite a while.
And our most recent loss against one of them was arguably the worst loss to either of them in the last decade. So we have quite a lot to prove.