SB nation projects Michigan to CFB Playoff
Quoted from article:
Michigan might be the safest Playoff pick in the country; I don't think the Wolverines are the best team, but look at that schedule. 7-0 heading into East Lansing should be expected. 8-4 would be a disaster. The Wolverines should have a monstrous defense, and the only real Q is at quarterback, where there are decent options on paper.
http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2016/6/28/12046584/bowl-projec…
all of the hype before the 2012 season was to sell the Michigan v. Alabama game opening weekend. We were not that good and everybody paying attention really knew that. I think this year is a completely different animal. However, I would agree with you that people are taking certain things for granted a little bit. EVERYBODY thinks 7-0 is a given. I think Wisconsin and Penn State in back to back weeks are going to be a significant test before we even get to the "meat" of our schedule.
I definitely have football PTSD from the Rich Rod years, the Hoke collapse, and going all the way to the App State debacle under Carr.
Part of me just refuses to believe in mega hype predictions now.
There's a reason we are a "cynical, Eeyorish bunch."
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In my experience the board handles nuance and some well-reasoned pessimism just fine.
Preseason rankings don't matter. At all. But they help fans get excited for the season, particularly when their team is expected to be good.
Michigan is expected to be good. Further, Michigan SHOULD be good. The team is not young anymore. MSU and OSU have both lost far more significant components. The rest of the B1G is down, and our non-conference schedule is easy. The only indicator working against us is that our three toughest opponents are all road games.
We believe Jim Harbaugh is an elite coach, a coach who can coax great development and performance out of athletes. We believe Michigan ought to be on the rise.
So here it is. A schedule that begs Michigan to be ranked no lower than #3 (that sounds like a playoff position) by the time we play our first hard game. A potential lull for our rivals.
And a pivotal recruiting year that will set up the next four years of our rivalry with Ohio State.
So the expectations are high, and they ought to be high.
This is not a year for moral victories. This is not a year where we can be philosophical about a loss ("Hoke hasn't gotten his players yet." "Rodriguez is still getting his system in place." "Maybe next year Lloyd will finally have all the blue-chips he needs."). The expectations are high and the games matter.
We have the roster. We have the athletes. We have proven talent everywhere except QB (and even there both leading options have won college games).
If Harbaugh is who we believe he is, this is the team. If there is a team to beat our rivals on their fields, this is the team. If there is a team to finally make a B1G championship game, this is the team. If there is a team to make the playoff and firmly assert an ascension to the top levels of the sport, this is the team.
The expectations are absolutely right. 8-4 would be a massive disapointment. We should not pretend otherwise.
Michigan is expected to be good. Further, Michigan SHOULD be good. The team is not young anymore. MSU and OSU have both lost far more significant components. The rest of the B1G is down, and our non-conference schedule is easy. The only indicator working against us is that our three toughest opponents are all road games.
Boy, doesn't that sound all too familiar?
See below.
If Harbaugh is no better than Carr, Hoke, or RichRod, then I completely agree with you.
I have high hopes that he is significantly better. If so, then he should produce at a higher level. Real victories, not just moral ones.
This is not a year for moral victories. This is not a year where we can be philosophical about a loss ("Hoke hasn't gotten his players yet." "Rodriguez is still getting his system in place." "Maybe next year Lloyd will finally have all the blue-chips he needs."). The expectations are high and the games matter.
If Harbaugh is who we believe he is, this is the team. If there is a team to beat our rivals on their fields, this is the team. If there is a team to finally make a B1G championship game, this is the team. If there is a team to make the playoff and firmly assert an ascension to the top levels of the sport, this is the team.
So playoff or bust in Harbaugh's second year? This might just be the PTSD talking, but I think you're setting yourself up for some massive disappointment there.
Actually, I think you might be. If Michigan loses a couple of unexpected games, we will all be gravely disappointed. But the "let's be philosophical, the future is brighter" view is one I have a lot of experience with.
And it made things worse. From the late 80s onward every season posed the question, "Is this the year?" Finally, in 1997, Lloyd hit the perfect notes, and things fell the right way, and we had a once-in-a-generation athlete making critical plays in all three phases of the game, and it was the year.
From then until his retirement, every season posed the question, "Is this the next year?" We looked back to what similarities existed with 1997 every season, parsed out the roster, and got optimistic.
But then the losses came. They always came.
And I tried to be philosophical. "The defense is young." "If only Drew hadn't left." "Just wait until those guys are seniors." "Lloyd will get Tressel next year." And so on. There was always a reason. A reason to hang on, to hope for next season, for brighter pastures.
They never came. The problem was never the talent on the field. Michigan fielded as much talent as any team in the country from 1998-2007, but never achieved anything close to the success that the talent merited. Because Michigan was flawed. The coaching was not on the same level as the best programs.
This year, Ohio State is replacing an astonishing level of talent. And, at the same time, is in the process of hauling in an all-time type recruiting class. Don't let that one top Florida class that Urban recruited confuse you: the recruits matter, and OSU has beaten Michigan in this area since Jim Tressel came to town, and the results could not speak louder for themselves.
When looking at the OSU recruiting class, our major source of comfort has been: 1. Harbaugh is recruiting well, so he can at least come close to keeping up; 2. Harbaugh develops players as well as anyone.
#1 is true right now. But for that to continue, this must be the year that Michigan demonstrates that it deserves the same attention from recruits as Alabama and OSU and FSU. Michigan is getting included on top ten lists and getting serious looks from top recruits all over the country because Harbaugh is riding high and because he appears to be legit. Michigan must succeed this season to demonstrate that the attention is merited. Next year, OSU will be the team with experience, and we will be the team reloading--we are almost certainly going to worse in 2017 than in 2016. This is the year.
#2 is believed to be true. We saw it at Stanford, we saw it last season. If it is true, then the 4-stars and 5-stars that Hoke brought in, who now have years of experience, who have been sitting under Harbaugh for 18 months, will be as finely developed as any of the under-the-radar guys that Harbaugh produced at Stanford. They will show the fruits of his genius. They will win with character and with cruelty.
If #1 is true, Michigan must win big this year. If #2 is true, Michigan will win big this year.
If Michigan does not, that's a huge sign of a tragic flaw in our assumptions.
I'm not saying that Michigan won't lose a game or two. But I am saying that I won't pretend that a 9-3 record is really a great success because everything is going to be ok next year or the year after. A 9-3 record won't be awful, but by properly calibrating the expectations for this year, when the philosophical viewpoint says "there's still next year," the properly calibrated realist will say, "actually, next year will probably be just as rough."
It's not Harbaugh's fault that Hoke's recruiting fell apart, and not his fault that the schedules play out the way they do. But a great coach with great players will win early and often. It was true with Urban. It was true with Saban. It was true with Pete Carroll.
I believe it is true of Jim Harbaugh. So this must be the team.
Not really. The committee has some flaws but it does seem to do a good job of evaluating the actual performance of teams on the field. Michigan will have plenty of opportunity to demonstrate that it is a playoff-caliber team by beating other teams. That is what matters, not what people thought we would be in the preseason.
There are a few porjections in the lesser bowls that would probably require a Cray computer for the calculation of offensive statistics and a Post-it note to cover the defensive highlights of the game. Of course, that's common in most bowl seasons now, it seems.
As for the Michigan projection here, 7-0 heading into East Lansing would be awesome and being 8-0 after that game even better. I would think that if all went our way, we have a pretty good argument, but that's the question as always - does it all go our way? That's part of the reason that articles like this make me groan a little in late June, but it keeps the anticipation up at least.
while it would be awesome, anything less will be a disappointment. UM's schedule is heavily back loaded. In the first 7 games they only have one road game - Rutgers. The home games are: Hawaii, UCF, Colorado, PSU, Wisky and Illinois.
TCU will be hard pressed to win 8 games
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Go Blue!
Well hello there . . . .
I find it hysterical that the author used a "Q" instead of typing the word "question." Is he that amazingly lazy? I'm glad you saved one second of your life by not typing "question," author guy.
Twitterspeak on the run...
My one wish/goal for the year is to beat State. I think we should be undefeated going into that game. This is the year and best opportunity to turn around the one-sidedness of the series. We lose a lot after this season and will be young again in 2017. It will be slightly harder to defeat MSU in 2017, although it will at least be at home.
We have to clean up the turds in our own back yard before we work on destroying the cooler-poopers down the street.
Predicted that we would lose to Clemson in the playoffs, which obviously means he's a moron. Harbaugh > Dabo
If we make the playoffs, and we will, we're playing in the title game.
As much as it would pain me to see Les lose in the NC game, can you imagine the hype? Two Michigan Men, one of whom was denied the opportunity to coach here in favor of two less qualified candidates, facing off in the NC game. The Miles V Harbaugh hype would be insane.
about the playoffs or the NC yet. I'm still hoping we go into East Landfill unbeaten and beat MSU in their ugly dump of a stadium.
But if what you said happens, it will be the coolest thing ever. I'll adopt a kid just so I can sell a kid to pay for tix/hotel/airfare to the NC game.
Lansing is the better option I think.
The memory still itches.
I've been wanting a shot at LSU for a long time. I thought we were maybe going to get our shot last year in a bowl matchup, but with our dline banged up and no Peppers, I was kind of glad to avoid Fournette. I still think we would have won though
I did make a couple bets with my LSU buddy a couple months ago...
A) Michigan wins a nat'l championship before LSU
B) Michigan will have more players drafted this year than LSU
If LSU doesn't win this year, I think I'm ok on the first bet. I may have had one too many when I made the 2nd bet because I think we're going to need at least 9 to get drafted to push.
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Chesson was already there stretching when he showed up
/S
Did you want to fire Carr after he started with two 4 loss seasons and zero bowl wins?
Many say the "episode" was preceded by some pretty crappy news. Not the first person to get drunk and pissed in that situation.
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should be insane...so I guess I can hop on board with this.
Yipeeeee
I want to embarrass MSU. It would please me so much for an inkling of reality to roll down that fan base's face
curb stomping sparty; I want them to suffer a debacle. I want Dantonio's sour puss to be so sour that it implodes. I really hate sparty
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I get that people have PTSD, which seems to be where the "we need to win first" sentiments come from, but on paper this is our most talented team since at least 2006, and by far the best coaching staff. Obviously injuries and bad luck can derail anyone, but when you objectively look at this team in light of the rest of college football, you have to like what you see.
There are roughly eight position groups (OL, QB, RB, WR/TE, DL, LB, DB, ST), and three of those (DL, DB, WR/TE) can make legitimate arguments as top 5 national units, or even top overall. DL and DB have been rehashed to death, and while we might lack proven depth at WR, we have a ton of young talent at TE and I'd put our starting three (Chesson, Darboh, Butt) up against just about anyone's.
LB is unproven but I think there's talent there, especially for Brown's system, and I'm confident we'll at least be decent at QB. OL is where I'm really concerned, and if there's any position that could really derail us, it's there. If the OL can take another step forward and at least be decent (they do have plenty of experience, though some of it is decidely meh), and if Jay and Partridge learned something from Baxter to at least keep ST decent, it's hard not to see us as a top 4 team on paper.
We have been objectively more talented than MSU for pretty much every year since 2000, and they've kicked our teeth in repeatedly ever since Mike Hart's comment in 2007.
Talent doesn't mean shit if you don't beat the fucking rivals.
BEAT THE FUCKING RIVALS.
Rr was content to go from losing big to winning big and our admin bailed on him.
Hoke was out of his league.
Harbaugh is a proven winner who will not be outcoached.
Also, looking back we have not had the talent of our rivals the last ten years (going by nfl draft picks)
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Get by Wisky and MSU and we are well on our way. A tricky matchup at Iowa and who knows what could happen in The Game!!
I already asserted earlier in the thread why I think the expectations are reasonable and why the OP article is absolutely right that 8-4 would be a horrible disappointment.
Some brief expounding: There are, nationally, still a lot of people inside and outside of college football who would be skeptical if you attempted to compare Michigan to Alabama, LSU, and Clemson (Mad Hatter's joking aside, as long as Clemson has the QB position occupied by that level of difference maker, they're a title threat). And that's fine--the only time we played a team of that caliber, OSU cleaned us off of the field last season.
But these preseason predictions aren't trying to rank who would be whom on a neutral field; they're attempting to discern who makes the playoff. And with five major conferences plus the odd Notre Dame/Houston/Boise wildcard, that's pretty easy to do.
So what is really being said is that Michigan should not lose a non-conference game, and between us, Michigan State, and Ohio State, we are the team that has by far the most talent coming back and the best trajectory of development.
It is entirely reasonable to think that we can beat both of them, even on the road. Whether we will is another story. But we return almost everyone from one of the top 3 defenses in the country, add a coach from one of the OTHER top 3 defenses in the country, and lose only one offensive lineman and a quarterback from a team whose coach likes to run the ball and develop quarterbacks.
So when predictions roll in that we are a good bet for the playoff, that is totally reasonable. How we perform is another question entirely: it's impossible to know how we stack up against the Bamas and LSUs right now.
Though I suspect we stack up better than Bama's semifinal opponent last season.
There's also the possibility that we wet the bed (again) in the three biggest games of the year, @Iowa, @MSU, and @OSU, maybe drop a game we shouldn't lose, like Wisconsin, finish 8-4, and go into next season with a hell of a lot more questions than answers.
This is why we play the game on the field. Not on paper. Alright, off soapbox. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.
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