Post Spring Practice Top 25 by CBS Sports
https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/college-football-top-25… Four Big Ten teams in top 25, three in top 10.
Edited:
Way too damn early to mean anything.
Did not see any of the teams practice and it is way too damn early anyway.
Games are played for a reason (for cliche lovers).
But it is nice to see the Big Ten and in particular the East Division get national respect, meaningless as it is.
The optimist in me says we're underranked at 15, but in actuality 15 is probably a realistic prediction. I think we can be a top 5 team if our offensive line significantly exceeds expectations. The OL is really the only piece of the puzzle we're missing. We're going to need a herculean leap from them though if we want to make the playoff.
Sparty and PSU are both overranked here. MSU being one spot below OSU is a joke. Did CBS not see their game last year? It was a demolition. OSU lost a lot of talent but they're going to reload; there's no way MSU is the next best team after them.
PSU has a great recruiting class coming in but it'll take some time to get their legs under them. With Gesicki, Hamilton, and Barkley all gone, I have to imagine their offense is going to regress significantly. They finished 8th last season, I don't see any way they improve on that this season.
"I think we can be a top 5 team if our offensive line significantly exceeds expectations."
This has to be the 8th year in a row in which fans say this pre-season. Maybe this year will be the year.
Destroy Sparty. Yes, Dantonio gets his guys up for the game. But we won't get surprised in lansing. It will take an act of God, like a monsoon or australian rules football punter to stop us.
GO BLUE!!
These things are always just lazy interpolations of whatever happened last year.
Sure, all pre-season polls have a ration of guesswork and bullshit, but they get page clicks, so people do them. But the first things you look at in judging how good a team is going to be are how they did last year and who they have back. That's not meaningless.
We'll know more about how good James Franklin is next year. Losing the OC who saved his job and a generational talent at RB is hard to replace no matter how much talent he recruited. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for now, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them step back to a 9-3 type of season simply because of how much they have to replace.
MSU......ehh I don't know. I don't in any way see them winning a national championship next year, but they'll absolutely contend for the playoff. Everyone is coming back, OSU and UM have to come to them, and while they do have to go to PSU, that's not the same team w/o Barkley. Wouldn't at all be shocked to see them win the conference, make the playoff, and then get whupped by Clemson or Alabama in the semis. That's about their ceiling as a program.
As for Michigan, they're probably right where they should be. An elite defense, and an offense with question marks everywhere. If the offense can FINALLY put it all together, they'll contend for the East and may finally break through. There's a shitload of talent on this team. If it's more of the same, hello 8-4, or even 7-5 if they really fall apart.
We'll know in four month's time.
This source has Michigan 10 and MSU 15 (I think they should be flipped):
https://www.freep.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2018/05/01/re-ranking-college-…
Michigan's offensive stats in '17 were nearly identical to Hoke's last year ('14). It's eery and extremely concerning how close those 2 seasons were.
It is a stretch to think that this offense is going to completely transform itself in one offseason especially after losing 2 starters from an already brutal O-line.
We all watched the Bowl game. 4 weeks of prep and it was an abolute shitshow against a thoroughly mediocre opponent.
I am highly skeptical of this coaching staff after witnessing Brady Hoke 2.0 on offense last year.
I would argue that anyone who believes we are going to march into EL and curb-stomp MSU is delusoinal. I am not saying we can't beat them, but to think we are going to destroy them is wishful thinking IMO. By the end of the season they were clearly a better team than us and they return everyone. '16 was our best team since '06. We went into EL against the worst MSU team Dantonio has ever had, and had he not made the baffling decision of going for 2 we were a recovered onside kick + completed Hail Mary away from losing by 1 point. Yeah, the odds of those 2 things happening in tandem were extremely unlikely, but so was their victory in Ann Arbor one season prior.
If our O-line can't pass protect this could be a 7-5 or even a 6-6 season given how brutal the schedule is.
I apologize for being such a wet blanket. I want to believe in this team, I really do. But until I see a vast improvement from the offense, on the field, I will remain skeptical.
That would have been a neat trick knowing there was only 1 second left on the clock. People can spin what they see anyway they want to. Here is another take, Michigan curb stomped them 2 years ago and the score was only close because Mork and him minions scored 3 TD in the 4th quarter, 2 in complete garabge time, and the last one with only 1 second left.
The last 2 were cosmetic TD for Sparty, particularly the last one. Otherwise that is a double digit stomping.
Now, I am past the "Sparty is lucky meme", I see them as a fundementally sound team that almost NEVER beats themselves. This allows them to hang in most games (OSU last year and Bama in 15 are execptions) and captialize on the "Lucky breaks".
As a fundementally sound team, with decent talent will equate to ~8 each year. Check the data, when was the last time Mork lost to any of these type of teams:
1) Losing record
2) Non Bowl team
3) .500 team
They pile up all those wins by being mistake free and then pull in 2-3 games against their team from home field schedule, pulling an upset, laser focus on their Super Bowl every year.
That gets them to ~9 wins each year. 2016 is quite the exception, but also the very thin line they walk from being a 9-10 win team to the tire fire they were in '16.
Bottom line, more talented teams just need to go in and execute their game plan. Very rarely has Sparty been so dominate they dictated the action, they are a fundementally sound team that will not beat themselves. If you want to beat them, you have to go after them, OSU did it last year, Michigan did it 2 years ago, Bama the year before, Oregon the year before that......
So I look at this years game from the perspective of how well are we prepared to play....