Were NOT going 8-4. (Counter expectation thread)

Submitted by MichiganMan14 on
I've seen a lot of 8-4 predictions and "we're too young" going on so I thought I'd chime in with a counter opinion. We play 8 teams that we are soundly and throughly better than as a football program. No excuse to lose ANY of them. We play 4 games that are "Tough" or "Toss-up". Florida in a neutral environment. Penn state and Whisky on the road and of course Ohio State at home. Michigan is a better football team than Florida and the Gators have a 1st year starting QB for their offense and lost a ton. We are deeper and more talented than both Penn state and Wisky. By the end of this year we we have no excuse not to beat Ohio as they have been gutted 2 years in a row by early entrees. Harbaugh was hired to win this game. He won't go 0-3. You don't win the national title with Seniors. You win it with BALLERS. We have BALLERS now. We will go 11-1 with a BS loss to Wisky which we avenge 2 weeks later and wind up a 3 seed in the CFP. Your heard it here first.

maize-blue

July 7th, 2017 at 9:31 AM ^

Watch how this 8-4, pump the brakes, wait until next year crowd jumps on the bandwagon when this team starts winning.

kurpit

July 7th, 2017 at 11:12 AM ^

If we do, that's fucking awesome! Do you think I'm going to enjoy it less than you if Michigan wins more than I'm expecting?

Expecting to go undefeated every year is like having the anti-opinion. You didn't take anything into account. You didn't form an opinion at all. I don't praise others for carrying uninformed or deliberately biased opinions in other aspects of life, and I don't in sports either.

maize-blue

July 7th, 2017 at 11:56 AM ^

I'm not expecting an undefeated year. I'm predicting 10-2. I don't think they will go 0-4 or 1-3 against the big four on their schedule. Outside of OSU, I don't consider any of those teams powerhouses. Losing to "ok" teams is not what Harbaugh was brought here for and is something the fan base should not be comfortable with.

It's year three of Harbaugh, there is literally no one better UM could have hired. I think elite coaches find a way. There is more than enough talent on the team to win 10 games.

I know the roster is young, but outside of WR I'm not sure there will be any true freshman starting. They will have to rely on a lot of 2nd and 3rd year guys. That's not ideal but other teams have done well in similar situations.

After back to back 10 win seasons and recruiting starting to ramp up, UM is trendy and with another double digit win season the program would explode.

MichiganMan14

July 6th, 2017 at 5:51 PM ^

People are going to pleased with how many contributors are in this class. Champion teams get it done with sophomores and juniors. They don't rely on having absurdly 5th year senior Laiden teams. That was an anomaly. Michigan will win a title again....and it will be with a "young" and talented team. It's Harbaugh's job to get the boys ready.

DMack

July 6th, 2017 at 6:32 PM ^

I like our chances against Florida because they are reloading as well and starting a freshman QB. Although he's very talented and can run, I think he will be inconsistent as freshman are and Gary, Mone And Hurst will break his spirit. They have a back up QB who is lightning fast and worries me a bit, if he see's the field.

Penn State will be arguably the best team on paper (outside of OSU) and will have payback on their mind but even with Barkley, their QB, and the returning players I don't think Franklin is a great X's and O's coach. He's a motivator and Harbaugh will out coach him once again and pull out a nail biting upset.

Wisconsin is the game I think we lose because for some reason they always bring it. Although we probably should win, we lose because we have been reading our own press clippings and Wisconsin is always tough. They win by 2 and avenge last years game they should have won.

OSU is the big game. They probably come in undefeated and the world see's us as 52 point under-dogs. Here's where we shock the world. It's been baby steps. We lost to MSU in a game that was ours and came back and spanked dat azz the following year. Then, we lose to OSU in a game we should have won but poor execution down the stretch and lousy officiating sent us home leaking.

Not this year!!!! Anybody who knows this rivalry knows if the talent level is even somewhat close, either team could win because it's such a big game, that's played on emotion and sheer will. These Wolverines will be hungry, well coached and ready to give OSU that work!!!! Michigan goes on to win the Big Ten but gets spanked by Bama in the CFB Playoffs, setting the stage for a National Championship the following year.

Prediction: 2 Losses

DMack

July 6th, 2017 at 7:31 PM ^

I don't remember much of his playing time at ND so I won't just jump on the bandwagon, although you might be right. I watched their spring game and I saw Franks in elite 11 competition and he looked ok and very talented respectively. Of course neither is a real game scenario so he's unproven. Trash looked like Trash but Toney has some speed and looked good but he's one dimensional.

H8anythingState

July 6th, 2017 at 6:48 PM ^

Did they wish and think every year could be there year. Yes! Because that's what sports are about. Hoping, praying, wishing and thinking that this year could be it. That's the beauty of sports. 12-0!!!!

reddogrjw

July 6th, 2017 at 7:14 PM ^

worst case

I don't get the Florida love - they lost early round talent and got handled by FSU and their offensee sucks

road games at Wisky, PSU and "The Game" are the only 3 I am worrying about

by the Wisky and OSU game this team will be experiencedt

he PSU game is the toughest

SpikeFan2016

July 6th, 2017 at 9:13 PM ^

In terms of what would make a successful season, in my opinion:

Anything 8-4 or worse would be a failure.

  • We have too elite a coaching staff/talent base to drop a game to one of the 8 teams significantly worse than us, especially considering none of those 8 games will be played in hostile environments (Bloomington, West Lafayette and College Park, MD are the only road games). 
  • Additionally, we have 4 "tough" games. Going 0-4 in this stretch would be a failure. We need to win at least 1 or 2 of the tough games to keep moving forward. 

Any combination of ways we can get to 9-3, or getting to 10-2 with a loss to Ohio State, would be satisfactory. 

  • Given the youth of the team, I would be satisfied with a 9-3 record, which I imagine would happen either by holding serve in our 8 games as the significant favorite plus capturing 1 of the tough ones, or by going 2-2 in the tough stretch but dropping a significant upset. 
  • The reason I can't consitute 10-2 as a success with a loss to OSU, besides them being the most important game on the schedule, would mean that (unless PSU defeated OSU in Columbus and ran the table otherwise) we choked away a chance to get to Indy on our home field in the last game of the year. That would be pretty debilitating. 

 

10-2 with a win over Ohio State, plus 11-1 or 12-0, would constitute a successful season. 

  • We're young enough where we don't necessarily have to win the Big Ten for the season to be a success; what we do need though is a victory over our rival on our home field. 
  • Although, I will say entering The Game 11-0 and losing to get to 11-1 would be the worst thing on earth.....

 

Eye of the Tiger

July 6th, 2017 at 9:43 PM ^

It would look something like this:

 

12-0: 1%. Theoretically possible but implausible. Very few teams ever go undefeated, let alone one as young as ours. 

11-1: 9%. Pretty much everything has to go right for this to happen, e.g. lots of freshmen developing quicky, no major injuries on the OL or DL, and the kind of good fortune that does happen but not very often,  like our 2011 turnover ratio or PSU's jump-ball success rate last year. The likeliest scenario here is dropping the first one to Florida, then going on a tear (a la OSU in 2014) or winning out until OSU. 

10-2: 25%. Now we're talking plausible. We take 2/4 against (N)Florida, @PSU, @Wisconsin and OSU.

9-3: 35%. We are a good young team, but struggle on the road. Sets up 2018 but isn't quite there yet. Basically 2015 again. 

8-4: 20%. I'd say it's less likely than 10-2, but sitll in the realm of plausibility. Probably means someone crucial got injured and the backups were not ready for primetime. 

7-5: 9%. This would be the major injuries on the OL and DL scenario. 

6-6/below: 1%. Highly unlikely, even in the event of major injuries.  

Barn Animal

July 6th, 2017 at 10:11 PM ^

We are already forgeting how good last years teams was. We we had the most players drafted of any team. But despite that we went 10-2.

I do think the offense will be comparable if not better than last years. But our defense... we had the #1 defense in the country and lost 10 starters... you don't just "reload" that. The linebackers are going to take a step back (not a huge one though). But what worries me is the secondary. For the last two years we've become accustomed to our secondary being virtually impenetrable. This year we're going to see inconsistency. Teams are going to convert 3rd and long on us more often. They'll be fine but the difference between fine and #1 is pretty big.

But with that said I'll say we go 9-3. We split out 4 tough games 2-2 and have 1 upset.

BursleyBaitsBus

July 7th, 2017 at 2:01 AM ^

We went 10-2 because our offense sucked last year. 

This year is a different story. The defense will still be great and the offense gets upgrades across the board except at QB. Hopefully that changes the narrative on the year.