Suggestion:

:s/rationale/rational

I see a lot of 2 and 3 loss predictions in there, which I think is fair. This is a 2 or 3 loss team with the starting QB playing all season. I think it's reasonable to add 1 or 2 losses on top of that for losing him and other key players.

This is fake news.  Everyone predicted 8-4 as our season record.  /s

I said 10 - 2

I predicted 10-2. I really thought going .500 in their 4 toughest game wasn't too crazy of an idea. We are now staring at 8-4, unless a huge upset occurs, and to me that is the worst case scenario for the season. Yuk.

This is a little unfair, because most people, like MGoBlog, had a range of expectations. And I wouldn't be surprised if this chart represents posters' most optimistic projections, rather than what they thought was most likely.

That being said, people have been cherry picking recently to say that they expected 8-4. The reality is that 8-4 was their floor, not necessarily their actual expectation. And the difference between one win or loss this season is the difference between a bad and fine season.

I predicted 9-3. The only surprise for me was MSU. I figured we'd lose @PSU, @Wisconsin, and vs OSU. I thought 10-2 if we had a lucky bounce somewhere along the way. We aren't really underperforming that much as a whole, but the offense has left much to be desired - for many reasons.

1.  Thought the offense would be better and also very different.  I bought into the 'Pep is bringing 5 wide spread passing concepts' Koolaid.  Nope.

2.  Thought the corners would be a problem.  Did not see how the D would work as well without a total shutdown corner (Lewis).  Turned out to be a really strong position group, perhaps second only to the d-line.

3.  Thought Penn State would regress (hence I predicted a M win).

4.  Thought we would beat MSU.  Shoulda beat MSU.  But terrible game plan. 5 turnovers.  Monsoon.

5.  Thought 10-2 was most likely (based in above incorrect predictions), then 9-3 next most likely based on dropping a game that we should have won, such as IU or MSU). 

When Brian does his season preview, he phrases his worst case as "not counting massive injury issues".  I feel like we're approaching that territory now.  First string QB out.  Second string QB ineffective.  Third string QB out.  Early leading reciever out.  Two most veteran recievers nagged by injuries.  Two of top three tailbacks nagged by injuries.  I know every team has to deal with them, but we don't have the depth right now to plug and play.

Great post. I think some of the frustration we're feeling isn't just how the season is ending compared with preseason expectations, but rather how it's ending compared to expectations after Week 1 vs. Florida. When we destroyed Florida in the second half, I had high hopes for this year. I didn't realize that Florida was garbage, our defense looked like world beaters, and our offense looked functional. 

Excerpted from B1G Expectations Preseason Redux post on Aug. 13:

With the exodus of so much talent and experience from Team 137, it appears that the fancy-stats love affair with Michigan under Harbaugh has come to an end. The most likely records range from 9-3 (S&P+) to 7-5 (the Power Rank), but with a slight lean in the PR distribution toward 8 wins. Michigan gets just a modest beneficial effect from its schedule (w.r.t. the PR distribution), as the games break to an 8-4 (5-4) record. Michigan is favored by double-digits in 8 games by both S&P+ and FPI, but in only 5 games by PR. PR also shows M with margins of less than one score in 5 games, which means volatility. Florida, Wisconsin, Penn State and Ohio State at this point are favored by PR with UM being more than a one-score dog to PSU and Wisconsin. The opener against Florida looks like one of the closest matchups on the season, and so will be critical from the standpoint of getting UM off the schneid and setting the tone for the remainder of the season. Meanwhile, the tussle with fellow bubble team Indiana is M’s tightest match of the year, with a margin of only 1.6 points.

Here are some sobering statistical observations:

• Chances of Michigan improving on last season (i.e. winning 11 or more): 1-12%.
• Chances of a Michigan losing season: less than 2% to about 11%.
• Chances of Michigan going undefeated: less than 2%.

tl;dr:

• S&P: 9-3 (6-3)
• PR:   8-4 (6-3)
• FPI:   8-4 (6-3)

Well I certainly was wearing my maize colored glasses that day...

you should correlate this against our "points" totals - you know, to see if "more points" means "more wisdom".

That said, I always pick undefeated, because I am a hometown slappy.

Thanks for puncturing the "Hey, everybody knew we were going to be 8-4" revisionist horseshit.

I did not submit a prediction because I wasn't willing to put anything less than division champions in writing and I don't like being foolish.  I dismissed all 12-0 predictions as either homerism (I get it) or woefully biased.  I am sure many of us assumed we would have a slightly improved Wilton Speight for the whole season.

I did pay attention to those who said 9-3 and 11-2 with a hope to split Wisconsin and PSU as tough road games and then losing to the safety net school of central Ohio.  Many suspected the occurrence of an unexpected loss.  I congratulate MSU for grinding out another victory but I didn't expect it and I don't think they could count on 5 turnovers and a key holding call if the game were played again.  Our Wolverines were on their way to victory over Wisconsin before attrition set in.  (Sometimes the deeper team wins.)  My personal opinion is that the September Wolverines would win in Madison 2 of 3 times.  But no one should care about that.

I was really taken in by the Don Brown bandwagon.  After reading several articles on how great Don Brown's defenses are in year two regardless of class rank and experience I was rather stunned that anyone scored on the Wolverines at all.  I attributed early scores on poor offensive performance putting the defense in bad positions.  Little did I grasp that even Don Brown and Greg Mattison with Mone, Gary, Hurst, and Bush cannot stop all offenses all the time.  I should have known better as advanced stats don't lie.

Someone should do this kind of post for Florida and FSU fans. That could be fun.

We are FANS, after all, which means we have all the objectivity of a bunch of 14 year-old girls lined up for a boy band show.  So what if we went in wildly over-optimistic?  That's kind of what we're supposed to do.  At the same time, we need to have a little perspective when things don't work out.  This shit is supposed to be fun.  Don't jump off a bridge when a game we have ZERO control over doesn't go as hoped.  Screaming "UNACCEPTABLE!!!" ain't gonna change anything.