Wonk

June 16th, 2010 at 9:33 AM ^

I can't believe there are many teams he's predicting to go either 10-2 or 2-10. That's a huge swing, and shows just how many unknown variables there are to the 2010 Michigan Wolverines. It kind of reminds me of 2008 and the inability to predict anything that was going to happen with that team...hmm....and now I'm terrified.

Regardless, if Michigan does go 0fer in the Big-10 next year, I'm going to drown myself.

maizenbluenc

June 16th, 2010 at 9:51 AM ^

Yeah, but now we have two game experienced QBs for the system, and more depth at O line with a lot of game experience.

D is the big unknown, and that is where i hope stability and simplicity leads to focus and execution.

10-2 would be a miracle. Bring it on please!

James Burrill Angell

June 16th, 2010 at 9:37 AM ^

Towards his negative end - Based on the last two years we know that nothing is a given win wise. The defensive weakness could possibly be exacerbated with the lost of a couple of our best defenders and the defensive backfield save Troy Woolfolk is somewhat untested. We may be starting a newish QB (meaning Denard) and are breaking in new RB's on offense.

Towards the positive end - Some of our players who were freshmen the last two years and forced into early duty are now somewhat seasoned vets. The two QB's have a had some time with the system. The center will hopefully be healthy and we have no shortage of offensive weapons so it may just be a question of which steps up. If the offense gels we could simply outscore people.

There is really no telling with this group and the schedule isn't THAT difficult save the road trips to PSU (who may have lost more than usual) & OSU. Its hardly an EASY schedule, but I don't look at it and say that with a good effort that many games are truly mismatches.

Quail2theVict0r

June 16th, 2010 at 9:54 AM ^

yeah, I'm not sure of the whole 2-10 thing. I can't see this team possibly being worse than the team in 2008 sarting DEATH at QB. Sure our defense is young and has some holes, but I don't think we could win less than 4 games even in a "worse case" scenario.

snowcrash

June 16th, 2010 at 1:24 PM ^

To draw any useful conclusions, the best case/worst case exercise has to discount the possibility of truly unlikely events.  

As bad as we were last year, we easily beat the 3 tomato cans and had 2 wins and 3 close losses in our 9 real games. By any objective measure, the offense and the run defense should be at least somewhat improved even if the pass defense is still awful. For any individual player to stagnate or regress is not unusual, but a large group of youngish returning starters such as we have almost always improves collectively. Our 2 QBs are both true sophomores, and players tend to improve the most between their 1st and 2nd years in the program.    

The way I see it, BG and UMass are near-gimmes. We will likely be favored against Indiana and Illinois, and UConn, ND, MSU, and Purdue are tossups or close to it. To get only 2 wins out of that, we will have to be exceedingly unlucky even if the team doesn't improve. 

4-8, maybe. 2-10, no.

 

 

blueblueblue

June 16th, 2010 at 11:14 AM ^

Strictly speaking, 0-12 and 13-0 are the only possible bookends. I believe you mean probable.

Rittenberg is discussing the worst case of what is probable. However, his modifier 'scenario' implies 'probable' in my mind ('scenario' implies he is doing some analyzing and predicting), making pointing out that 0-12 and 13-0 are the true bookends, well, to be pointless. 

Bosch

June 16th, 2010 at 9:38 AM ^

but this seems a little silly to me...... 

I didn't watch the video and I'm sure that he substantiated his range but it's not that far off from saying:  Best Case scenerio =13-0, Worst Case scenerio 0-12.

For those who did watch the video, what are his two "unwinnable" games?

Tha Stunna

June 16th, 2010 at 2:14 PM ^

While OSU may look unwinnable now, there's a giant achilles heel on that team; if Pryor gets injured, they could drop pretty far.

Also, unwinnable is too strong of a word.  If Michigan has a 10% chance of winning, that's not unwinnable - and I tend to think that will be the case.

MGoShoe

June 16th, 2010 at 9:40 AM ^

...his mailbag this Q&A belies the oft stated contention that Rittenberg frequents the MGoBoard.  If it were true, he'd know this conundrum has already been solved.

Ray from Chicago writes: Northwestern University = NU. University of Nebraska = UN. Sounds pretty simple. You as a prominent big ten journalist have the power to influence proper abbreviation usage for the schools. Why such a passive stance?

Adam Rittenberg: You're right, Ray. Let me rearrange my priorities and devote most of my time to making sure people understand the right abbreviations for Northwestern and Nebraska. Passive stance? How about "better things to do."

Njia

June 16th, 2010 at 12:07 PM ^

Of all time. Gene Hackman played that part beautifully, (even earning an Oscar, if I recall correctly). And seeing Eastwood riding in the saddle through the tall grass at the end of the movie, it was like horse and rider were made from the same piece of flesh. Incredible.

03 Blue 07

June 16th, 2010 at 1:18 PM ^

"Unforgiven" is my favorite movie of all time. Once, during a job interview, they asked what my favorite movie of all time was and why. I said "Unforgiven," because of its themes of loyalty, redemption, and, ultimately, retribution. I leaned heavily on the retribution part. I didn't get a job offer.

And then I found 5 dollars.

Plegerize

June 16th, 2010 at 9:45 AM ^

I agree it's like throwing darts at a board. I can't really see us going 2-10 especially with the talent and newly experienced players we have, it would take a monumental mess up to get to 2-10.

However, I believe it would take a monumental amount of luck to get to 10-2. We are going to be a good team and I believe we are going to win 7 games minimum, however to only lose two games especially after the last two seasons would take a large amount of luck. Perhaps it's in the cards who knows...

RedGreene

June 16th, 2010 at 9:45 AM ^

Best case: 12-0

Worst Case: 0-12

It all depends on the number of wins & losses.  For instance, if we win 7 games and lose 5, we should end the season at 7-5.  If we win 9 but lose 3, I would guess our record will be somewhere around 9-3.  If we happen to lose more than 6 games, there's a pretty good chance we'll finish the season under .500.  It's all about wins and losses in my opinion.  Wins = good.  Losses = bad. 

BlockM

June 16th, 2010 at 9:55 AM ^

Can you imagine how much bitching and moaning there would be for the next fifty years about how they should/could have been the national champions if USC goes undefeated in one or both of the next two years?

Blazefire

June 16th, 2010 at 9:58 AM ^

 

Best case: 12-0

Worst Case: 0-12

It all depends on the number of wins & losses.  For instance, if we win 7 games and lose 5, we should end the season at 7-5.  If we win 9 but lose 3, I would guess our record will be somewhere around 9-3.  If we happen to lose more than 6 games, there's a pretty good chance we'll finish the season under .500.  It's all about wins and losses in my opinion.  Wins = good.  Losses = bad. 

 

 

Does that help at all?

Foote Fetish

June 16th, 2010 at 10:23 AM ^

...incomplete.  Let us not forget that the outcome of the game (your 'wins' and 'losses') depend on the amount of "points" that were "scored" by both "teams" in each game.  Thus, if Michigan were to score five points and Harvard were to score three points (that's a typical American football score, yes?) then Michigan would have "won" that game.

So, provided Michigan scores more points than their opponents on eight occasions during one season, I would expect their record...

I'm sorry, I just lost interest in my own post.  Where am I again?

preed1

June 16th, 2010 at 9:54 AM ^

best case: its 85 degree's with low humidity, some clouds, but a lot of sun.

worst case: down poor, with tornado like conditions, and everyone in the michigan government gets fired for it.

Rittenburg is my fav espn blogger, but sometimes he can be very vague

Blue in Yarmouth

June 16th, 2010 at 10:02 AM ^

Where I live we get the same weather report almost everyday. It reminds me a lot of Rittenburg in that it always covers all bases.

"Today it will be sunny with cloudy periods and a chance of rain." Every now and then they change it up a bit and say "Today it will be cloudy with sunny periods and chance of rain."

It is the same in the winter except they substitute rain with snow.

umich_fan1

June 16th, 2010 at 10:04 AM ^

UCONN. I know its the 1st game of the year. If that game goes very poorly, i.e. a bad loss, the win ceiling is probably 5, most 6 games. Thats my own thinking. I figure Uconn is probably a 8 win team in whatever pink panties conference they play in. Nervous optimism continues...