Michigan's record as an underdog

Submitted by BannerToucher85 on

The diary on coins landing tails got me wondering where is our Iowa vs. OSU type moment since upsets seem like fairly random events. I don't follow odds, so I settled on this site for some historical information, and ran the following query for several Big Ten teams:

"You selected XXXXX against anyone during the regular or post season at any location over 30 games as an underdog of 1 to 60 points"

Unfortunately the results were about what I expected

Team      Record as underdog since start of 2012 season
Michigan            1-18   (Harbaugh is 0-5)
Iowa                7-19
Penn State          9-16
MSU                 11-9
Northwestern        13-17   since 10/5/13
Rutgers             5-25    since 10/25/14
Wisconsin           5-9
Ohio State          6-0

Michigan is clearly an outlier here and it suggests that this program simply doesn't win as an underdog. Is this a culutral thing? Luck thing? OP bad at statistics thing?

Edit: added OSU at 6-0 since I was counting from the start of the 2012 regular season. I had excluded the 2011 postseason.

Edit: Michigan's one win was against Northwestern in Nov 2013.

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MonkeyMan

November 20th, 2017 at 4:05 PM ^

the only explanation I can think of is that an entitled snobbish University management culture hires snobbish coaches who have little heart or humility

how else do you explain such a horrible record over so many years and coaches? It has to start at the top

we seem to pay big bucks for "star" coaches who may be full of themselves

Joined: 10/13/2013

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Doc Mango Gibbs

November 20th, 2017 at 3:06 PM ^

That is an insane but unsurprising stat.  If Michigan doesn't play to expectations, it's always negative.

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MH20

November 20th, 2017 at 6:42 PM ^

M00N was in 2014.  2013 was the game where Dileo slid in to get the snap for hold and Gibbons booted a 40 yarder to send the game to OT as time expired.  Gardner should have thrown at least five interceptions but the NW defenders somehow dropped every single one.  I guess it helped that it was raining.

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Jonesy

November 20th, 2017 at 3:15 PM ^

Hard go get a lot of wins as underdogs when you're generally only underdogs to great teams. It's a lot easier to get those wins when you're 100th in the country then when you're often top 25 or top 10 even. Especially since as Michigan we get the benefit of the doubt at the beginning of the year so are often ranked higher than we perhaps should be.

Having a good record as an underdog generally means you're often underrated.

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Braylon_Edward…

November 20th, 2017 at 3:56 PM ^

I’d be interested to see the lines in the games we are underdogs. I’d imagine OSU has such a better record because 1. They’ve been a better team and 2. when they’re an underdog, the spread is a lot closer. I.e they’re never really an overmatched opponent. Doesn’t excuse our record, but a minor explanation for the gap.

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Guy Fawkes

November 20th, 2017 at 4:05 PM ^

This tidbit right here is EXACTLY why you shouldn't pencil Michigan into any championship games in the near future. When you just start to look at Michigan as a 9-3 program you'll have a lot more fun watching the games. Then the 10-2 seasons youre real excited. Michigan needs to prove it can win a big fucking game before i'll ever predict a conference championship or playoff berth 

Joined: 09/28/2016

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MGoWV

November 20th, 2017 at 7:16 PM ^

My gosh, nothing is taken into perspective. I can’t wait for when Michigan is steamrolling opponents with the most dominant form of football there is (elite defense coupled with a great run game that attacks vertically). The amount of people that have come out of the limelight with such negative perceptions is just more evidence to the “Michigan fans are only happy when they’re unhappy” mantra. I became a major fan of Michigan football during the Rich Rod era partly because he is from my high school and partly because my uncle is a big Michigan fan. I have experienced what is seemingly the worst era of Michigan football for my entire fandom and am confident that they will be a force in the future. I trust in the process that JH is putting in place because the guy knows what the hell he is doing. When this train gets rolling full force it will be very, very difficult to stop. The offense has been alarming but his offense requires a QB to run a very complex system and also a great o-line. Peters is that dude and I believe that. McCaffrey will only create competition for him which will cause him to fold or step up. This offense paired with the already elite defense for years to come will be a force to be reckoned with. I constantly take shit from my friends (who are Bama fans due to Nick Saban also being from my area), but our time is coming and I do not have a doubt in my mind that when we knock Bama off it is going to be in relentless fashion. If you think the fanbase is upset about the team’s performance this season, can you imagine one of the most competitive fellas placed on this planet. The guy probably only sleeps 30 hours a week. The time is coming. Patience.

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MichiganForever

November 20th, 2017 at 4:30 PM ^

Our program and players have been soft for a looong time. I dont see how anyone cannot see it. It took me a long time to come to terms with it not being just "bad luck" after we allowed Dantonio to bring a bunch of criminals and freshman into our house and roll up 200 yards in 1 half

 

Since Lloyd Carr left Michigan teams have collapsed at the first sign of adversity and frankly its been even worse under Harbaugh.

 

Id say its 90% mental at this point. This program as a whole has a losing mentality . 

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Brhino

November 20th, 2017 at 4:57 PM ^

How would you quantify Folding Under Adversity?

I can think of several counterexamples, in which we fell behind in games, then battled back and eventually won.  It's just that those were games that we were expected to win, so they don't count as upsets - unless you started keeping track at halftime.

 

Maybe that's your stat right there.  What's Michigan's record when losing at halftime?  How do we stack up against the comparables there?

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buddha

November 20th, 2017 at 5:58 PM ^

That may be an interesting stat to research. I will leave that up to someone with much more time than me however!

Having said that, you claim to "think of several counterexamples, which we fell behind in games, then battled back and eventually won. It's just that those were games that we were expected to win..."

My issue with that is why the hell were we down in those games to begin with?! In classic UM fashion, we regularly play down to our opponents. Not to be that guy, but this has happened for the last umpteen years (Carr was particularly brutal with it, IMO).

I hate to shred our coaches / players like this, but they often times look completely mentally unprepared to play the game. The FSU game last year was the icing on the cake. It's like our guys didn't even know the game had started!

To address your point though, if Michigan is losing at halftime to an inferior opponent, yet comes back to win - that does not qualify as "Adversity" to me. That's just them getting their proverbial sh*t together and figuring out how to win.

 

Having said that, if you must quantify "adversity" using whatever measure you deem important, here's a couple of stats:

  • As the OP mentioned, we are 1-18 as underdogs recently
  • We are 1 - 4 (soon to be 1 - 5 against rivals under Harbaugh)
  • We are 1-6 against AP Top-10 teams under Harbaugh
  • We are 1-5 against top 25 teams under Harbaugh on the road

I would say the combination of underdog, rivals, and road - in some capacity - feed into "adversity." And, frankly, our performance sucks.

Joined: 10/08/2009

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UMxWolverines

November 21st, 2017 at 8:31 AM ^

Way longer than that. We had very few high profile wins even in the early 2000s. Biggest wins I can think of are Alabama Orange Bowl in 2000, Washington 2002, OSU 2003, Penn State 2005, Notre Dame 2006, Florida 2007. We shit down our leg at Purdue in 2000, at Washington and Tennessee in 2001, at Notre Dame, Iowa, and OSU in 2002, at Oregon, at Iowa, and USC in 2003, at Notre Dame, at OSU and Texas in 2004, Notre Dame and OSU 2005, OSU and USC in 2006, Oregon and OSU in 2007. When you realize even our best teams in 3 decades had 2 or three losses, it's just disheartening. 1997 very much an outlier. Whatever the hell mentality that team had was special, and it's too bad it can't seem to be replicated.

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ndekett

November 20th, 2017 at 5:28 PM ^

It sure seems like a team should underperform about as much as it overperforms, but it seems very one-sided with michigan. I've chalked this observation up to my own cognitive bias that expects us to be better than reality on a consistent basis. This data reveals the horrible result that there is no bias.

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SpikeFan2016

November 20th, 2017 at 5:34 PM ^

Just curious: what was the 1 win?

 

This program, including its head coach, definitely have a cultural problem in my opinion. It feels like the Hoke era entitlement has lasted into Harbaugh's tenure. When the team loses, it's never because we got outplayed by a better team and it's the fans' fault for being disappointed. The team acts like they're on the same field as OSU/Bama without any of the results. 

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FL_Steve

November 20th, 2017 at 10:01 PM ^

Watching a college football team play college ball and win, rather than a failed NFL style one try to do things, do them poorly, then fail. Is our O-Line worse than FSU's was last year? BC they could do it...

Joined: 01/14/2009

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Durham Blue

November 20th, 2017 at 10:00 PM ^

That record really is about mentality.  And it starts from the coaching staff.  We have been playing big games really tight.  Risk averse.  To win as an underdog you've gotta take big chances multiple times throughout the game.  Punting on Wiscy's 41 yard line is a decent recent example.  Peters should've been throwing a lot more.  The one bomb to DPJ was not enough, IMO.  Open up the trick play book.  Catch the other team by surprise and get a lead that nobody expected.

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