Win out and in

Well how hurt is Speight???? Iregardless of how poorly he played, if he is out I believe we are f'd.

We know.

1. Indiana

2. at Ohio State.

Win those 2 games and we'll see Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship Game.

 

I'm not worried about Alabama, Clemson, Louisville, Washington for 2 reasons:

1. If we can beat Ohio State in Columbus, we're good enough to beat any of the other playoff teams on a neutral field.

2. If we win the Big Ten, we'll have a month to prepare for the semifinal game. We saw how much 1 month of prep benefitted 2015 Michigan against Florida. That would be like a second Fall Camp.

Three possible games left if we win the next two we will be awarded a 3rd if we win that one, I promise you we are still getting a shot at the big goal. The only goal that was lost yesterday was going undefeated, we still can get in to the big dance.

Clemson and Washington lost at home. The Committee might put Louisville ahead of us but I still think we stay in the top 4 with them and OSU and Bama. Clemson and Washington are 5-6.

Yes, and I hope we see some coaching up of the holes on this team right now (linebackers drawn too far into the line to cover the edge and poor tackling outside the tackles, the left side of the OL, and Speight still just a bit late on a lot of throws).

Still, when you go to Kinnick and hold Iowa to 12 points on defense, it's pretty hard to be mad. It took 2 turnovers, all kinds of weird penalties, and their punter's best game ever to win by 1.

After last night let's just worry about beating Indiana. Ohio State is a great team, but this Iowa game and Indiana game had to be circled because it's far too easy to fall into the trap.
And to those just casually saying, let's play O'Korn, you know, just get a grip. You're probably the same people that harkened back to the good ol days with RichRod too. Harbaugh knows his guys, when O'Korn comes in he doesn't look comfortable, relaxed, or able to perform in any manner. Speight sucked it up last night, but if you were fired for one bad performance than you'd be the first to cry about how unfair it is.
You want to cast blame? How about when they have two chances to either score or melt clock in the fourth quarter. What did that result in? An interception and a punt. The punt was because we ran at the line twice and tried to pass when it was the most predictable play call ever. Sorry, that's just terrible play calling. Might as well either run at the line again or pass on first or second down when it's not as expected.
Or we can blame Khalid Hill and his fumble. What a lovely play that was!
Frankly, would I love to see Michigan win out? Obviously, but let's just beat chaos first. I think these 18-22 year olds could benefit from the chatter in the media and fans to be more focused. (Insert smart ass comment-"but we are fans and don't have to be reasonable"- go back to your moms basement. You know that every frat boy, dip shit fan at the store, and crazy relative is telling these kids about the playoff and talking them up)

#hottake

For a blissful moment I thought it was just a bad dream. It was a heartbresking loss that felt an awful lot like the Texas rose bowl many years back - came in with confidence that just slowly leached away as plays started to go the other way. I really like Iowa City and the peopke here, you should all visit one day if you can, but I am happy I'm on the early flight back to So Cal. This has been a week to forget.

Nothing changed as far as our chances. We need to beat OSU regardless. Of course we need to win next week. We might even stay right at #3. The game simply exposed a lot of bad stuff that is now hopefully out of our system. Every single offensive play seemed bad.

Sucks that we did not take care of business at Iowa.  With Washington and Clemson losing, we would have made the CFP even with a close loss at Ohio State.  

It was a totally unexpected crystal football gift . . . that we dropped on the floor.

Now we have to win out, or its Citrus Bowl City.

 

People keep saying Citrus Bowl is we lose but I still don't see how we could drop out of the New Years Sux entirely. I'd PSU gets in front of us that's a joke. Wisconsin will have a 3rd loss in B1G championship. And they were both already projected to NY6 games before this week.

Speight's accuracy cost us probably 14-21 points in Iowa City. If he's back on his game in A2, we probably blow out IU. If not, I will be dreading that OSU game

I don't think the world is ending - this loss changed nothing.  Win out, and M is in the playoff.  Case closed.

However, I do think the coaches overlooked Iowa, and as a result the players were somewhat unprepared.  Unusual, I know, but I think the coaches used too many fancy plays trying to trick its way downfield.  When they lined up and played manball, they went 72 yds in 9 plays for a TD, and also went 50-some yds for a FG.  I wanted to see more of that.  Especially seeing that Speight was off all night.

And I'll say one thing that won't be popular - it's time to either end the Pepcat, or have it do something else.  The guy is dynamic, but when he takes the snap the entire defense rallies to him because he never gives it up.  Except for that throw back to Speight last week, he keeps the ball.  It cost M last night as he gained nothing and left the team in a hole each of the 4 times he carried.  He's had diminishing returns since Rutgers.  I'd rather see it diversified than ended, but it needs to change up somehow - the tendency is visible a mile away.