Blowout Loss Argument(this post is not about RR)
EDIT- This post has nothing to do with RR it has to do with being negative about 2011 team because of the score of last years games. That is why I said "I'm Done", but I am sorry I ever included his name, because of it instantly invalidated the rest of my posts and comparisons to other teams. Sorry.
I'm done fighting about Rodriguez, but I've seen this on several different posts and it needs to stop. The total score of a particular game or season has very little relevance to the next season or game. There are so many variables in a game or season that if they played a 7 game series like they do in basketball you would see all sorts of crazy score combinations. Stop using the scores of games this year as a basis for a team's progress next year. Did anybody see the NE-Jets series play out over the course of the season?
Arguments I see.
1. Mich is not close to being good because we lost by wide margins to good teams.
2. This team has no hope because the defense is terrible it'll be another 3 year rebuilding project.
To these people I ask do you not watch college football? It took me 5 minutes of my memory bank to find these. These are the year before seasons before these teams had great success. I'm sure people have many more examples.
07 Alabama loses to Louisiana Monroe at home and unranked Miss St at home on it's way to 6-6. Next year they are undefeated playing in SEC Champ game before they lose to Florida.
09 Mich St- Our own fucking rival come on. Lost to Central and lost to Penn St by 28 and had a defense get torched by Minnesota Wisc and Tex Tech. This year 11-1 defense improves by 50 spots.
08 Wisc- Bielema and Chryst were getting skewered. They lost by 41 to Penn St, 22 to Iowa, 29 to Florida St.
07 Iowa- Signature losses were by 18 to Indiana, 20 to Penn St, 26 to Purdue and 9 to Western Michigan....FIRE FERENTZ!!!!
08 Nebraska- Defensive Genius Pelini gave up 52 to Missouri and 62 to Oklahoma.
09 Auburn- Yes your NC lost by 21 to LSU and 21 to Arkansas
09 Arkansas- Lost by 28 to Alabama, 13 to a crummy Ole Miss team and gave up 52 to Georgia trying to replace Matt Stafford.
05 Michigan- Remember that 7-5 team that took a lot of shit oh yeah they were 11-0 heading into Columbus in 06.
Don't be fooled by simple arguments. Everyone looks at the Gator Bowl and sees the final score and says see we got humiliated blah blah blah we gave up 50pts yada yada. Sure we lost, it was a bad performance, but if RR was just trying to save face he could have Lloyd balled that game and had a completely different score. RR went for it on 4th downs trying to come back that back fired and gave MSU great field position. Who cares about the final score. It is about wether it was a win or a loss, I was glad he was trying low percentage plays trying to win instead of just trying to save face. People bring up the fact we scored 14pts in that game, but how close were we to scoring 35-38? Pretty fucking close. Missed fg, RR dropped pass, Hemmingway overthrow, passed up fg etc.. We're not 38 points worse than Miss St. We play that game 10 times and there are wild swings in what the outcome would be.
From the very 1st play a game unfolds differently every time. Some games have quick scores that get teams out of gameplan. Some have turnovers. When teams get way up sometimes they start coaching to the clock and let teams back in it. Sometimes when you have a young qb(hint hint) you get down and he starts forcing it and it gets worse. You never know.
Next years Michigan team will have a very experienced offense with a new coordinator so expectations are everywhere. Could be even better or maybe a slight step back The defense will be better, this is not debateable. The question is how much. This will all lead to great debate for us for the next 7 months. This is what MGOBLOG forum is about, but please stop with the lame Wisc beat us by 20 last year we can't compete you are better than that.
February 4th, 2011 at 4:16 PM ^
only difference is we are now going through a coaching change. this means new schemes and strategies for the players to learn. i expect in the years the defense will improve more than it will this year.
February 4th, 2011 at 4:18 PM ^
You should have stopped at this:
I'm done fighting about Rodriguez,
I would advise you to stop being irrationally attached to a man who posted the worst record in school history. He's gone.
February 4th, 2011 at 4:21 PM ^
Yeah I agree, it's done, it's over with, move on.
February 5th, 2011 at 2:54 AM ^
I don't feel like I was "irrationally attached" but it was hard for me to think about the first week or two. It's like a breakup...at first it's awkward with the new girl (or guy, whatever) and then you realize the world will be okay and not much different and you move on. Parts of it still sucks, but there are bright things ahead of us too.
February 4th, 2011 at 4:33 PM ^
I didn't see it as an attempted defense of Rodriguez (although Ziff may, for all I know, have some attachment to RR). But I thought that was a pretty good post.
There are so many unpredictable things over the course of a game or season, especially in college sports, that t's impossible to look at a team's results one year and determine exactly how good they can be the next year.
Another good example is Miami (NTM): This year, they became the first team in NCAA history to go from 10 losses one year to 10 wins the next.
That said, we do have some deficiences that aren't immediately going to go away. It's just a matter of whether new coaching and more experience -- along with (hopefully) on-field momentum -- can combine to overcome those.
February 4th, 2011 at 8:02 PM ^
This had nothing to do with RR. I was complaining about the posts. RR is done.
February 4th, 2011 at 5:21 PM ^
I agree. Had RR been brought back I would have spent the next year arguing with you about him. He is gone people, it's time to let it go. I was a big supporter right along with a lot of you but much like when you find out there is no such thing as Santa, there is no turning back now. Time to wrap your head around the fact Brady Hoke is our coach.
February 4th, 2011 at 9:21 PM ^
Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please.
Please.
Please, please.
Follow your own advice.
February 4th, 2011 at 4:25 PM ^
1. "I'm done fighting about Rodriguez"
Well, then why did you start an entire thread that will lead to just this.
2. I agree that the score of any one game or even 2 games is not a good predictor, and that the examples that you reference are good ones. HOWEVA:
Those of us that talk about the blowout losses do not point to a single loss or even few. We point out that EVERY SINGLE DECENT TEAM that we faced this year wiped the fucking floor with us. And, the magnitude of the losses increased throughout the season, culminating in the debacle against OSU and whatever is worse than a debacle in the Gator Bowl.
Now, if you don't like using the score as a metric, fine. Did you watch these games? You are usually one of the most rational, knowledgeable posters, so I know that the answer is yes. Can you honestly respond to this post and say that we were even remotely competitive with Wisco? If yes, OSU? If yes to that (which you cannot rationally answer), in the Gator? It's not just the score - we were so outclassed by the better competition that it was a joke.
3. Poor turnover ratio
The other major problem with the direction of the team was that from 2008 to 2009 to 2010, the turnover problems that plagued OUR OFFENSE (which was not playing 10 freshmen, like the D) were not improving. This is not a surprise, since when RR was at WVU, even when he had great teams, they were amongst the worst in the nation in turnovers. This is a trend that cannot be denied.
4. Lack of defensive improvement during the season
Again, if the scored don't do it for you, just look at the performance. By the time our D played Wisco, many of the players had 8 or 9 games under their belt. Still young, still thin, still lacking in some experience, but they should have gotten better throughout the season. They did not. Wisco ran 25 straight times. Think about that. And we didn;t get a single stop. So, when people reference the blowout losses, it is not just the score, it is how we lost.
Are turn-arounds possible from one season to the next? Sure. Look at ND, for example. Based on how they progressed over the course of next season, I expect them to be a hell of a lot better next year. They improved. We, however, regressed, so any hope for automatic improvement is based on little other than hopes, wishes and misplaced faith.
Now, I am sure you will say, "but wait, next year, the players will have had a whole spring of practice, and they will be older." And that is valid. But, weren't you also one of the posters saying "I can't wait to see how awesome we will be in the Gator with those 15 extra practices and time to heal our injuries."
February 4th, 2011 at 4:37 PM ^
tl;dr
February 4th, 2011 at 4:37 PM ^
I have just one issue with your post:
This is not a surprise, since when RR was at WVU, even when he had great teams, they were amongst the worst in the nation in turnovers.
This is wildly incorrect. In RR's last five years at West Virginia, his teams were 4th, 46th, 7th, 25th and 9th nationally in turnover margin. That's three top-10 finishes and an average finish of 18th.
February 4th, 2011 at 5:02 PM ^
I haven't looked at the raw stats, so I don't know, but the stats you post don't necessarily prove his post wrong. Its possible the WVU defenses forced a lot of turnovers to bring the margins into the top in the country. The offenses still could have been amongst the nation's worst in TOs.
February 4th, 2011 at 5:45 PM ^
What I was talking about was raw turnovers, not turnover margin. Turnover margin is a product of offense and defense. RR, by his own statements, generally does not get involve in D too much. At WVU, the D was on Casteel. So, an aggressive D (or, you know, playing in the Big East) can result in many turnovers in WVU's favor, that would have nothing to do with RR. My point was that the offense - something that RR is primarily responsible for - at WVU turned the ball over a lot.
February 4th, 2011 at 11:01 PM ^
I see the difference, but it still doesn't hold up under statistical analysis. These are West Virginia's rankings in turnovers lost during those RichRod years:
34th, 11th, 14th, 56th, 31st
Not quite as good, but every year was above average nationally, and only once was West Virginia worse than 34th -- they were in the top quartile (roughly) every year but one in turnovers lost, so it's still incorrect to say that they turned the ball over a lot.
Unfortunately that doesn't change the fact that when RR was at Michigan, we turned the ball over a ton.
February 4th, 2011 at 5:39 PM ^
Agreed the regression is what put the nail in the coffin for me. A turnaround would have been nice, but I just didn't see it in the cards.
February 5th, 2011 at 9:32 AM ^
To include the letters RR in the post were regrettable.
Did you not watch MSU in 09 or any of the other teams I pointed out? MSU is a great example.
Their defense was horrid in 09 they were torched by CMU, PSU, Texas Tech, Wisc and Minnesota. Every style, every quality of opponent. People howled for Narduzzi's head in East Lansing. They had 1 really good player in Jones and a bunch of up and comers and freshmen running around. This year they finished 11-1 and had a pretty good defense.
Will we have things go wrong and people get hurt next year? Sure, but let's look at what might reasonably get better for our defense.
1. Our best player and most critical position M. Martin was hurt during most of our poor perfromances. He is back next year.
2. Our most promising player C. Roh was not utilized very well. He'll be a Junior and back on the line.
3. RVB will be back and given less double teams hopefully getting him back more effective.
4. Demens was in his 1st year playing. He should be much better.
5. Woolfolk coming back for Rogers is a huge upgrade.
6. We have about 10-15 guys who have a year of weights and or experience under theri belt. While they may not individually be great whichever 3 or 4 emerge as starters will be serviceable.
7. Turnover margin most likely will improve.
8. Same for kicking game
We don't even play Wisconsin so let's consider Iowa as an example. They lose their QB, their dline, lb's etc... These teams will be completely different next year. I expected to kick their ass next year with new coaches. Who knows how we'll look by then, but last years result does not effect me in the least.
You make a good point about how individual games look and not the score. Let's look at it by units.
Offense- We were never stopped by any team all year. Most of our problems were self inflicted. We had some poor starts (Iowa, Wisc) and some poor finishes (OSU, Miss St) but we were never overwhelmed. We moved the ball on every team we played. When you worry about your offense is when your line is being blown back or you can't execute like OSU in 07 most of 08 and some of 09. In some of those games we could not even hope to get a yard with our base plays. The bottom line was our offense was good enough to compete with any defense in the country.
Defense- We were humiliated by Wisconsin no doubt. We don't play them next year but they lose 4 OL and their QB and we have our whole Dline back and healthy. I'd like to see how that goes next year, maybe we'll see them in the BT Champ game. As for the rest of it, we played really well against OSU on defense. Pryor made some broken plays and they got wore down, but they gave a fight. Penn St Iowa and MSU they were terrible but showed some glimpses of life.
If you watched the Lions this year I think you see what a few key players can do to a defense. The defense was not great but because the line played better they raised the level of the whole defense. Deployed correctly this dline could be the best in the Big Ten. We'll see how it goes, but I still say we will be in the Top 50 in defense as a minimum.
We're going to the BT Champ game. Anything less I'll be disappointed.
February 4th, 2011 at 4:29 PM ^
That was some great win over Florida, eh? I didn't think Lloyd had it in him. Very sad to see Lloyd go. Looking forward to seeing how his successor Brady Hoke will do though. Go blue!
February 4th, 2011 at 5:43 PM ^
How'd the kids on our roster get so fast all of a sudden? I never knew Lloyd liked those fast kids.
February 4th, 2011 at 6:54 PM ^
I like what you did here. Can I join the Rip VanMichigan club as well?
February 4th, 2011 at 6:54 PM ^
I like what you did here. Can I join the Rip VanMichigan club as well?
February 4th, 2011 at 4:28 PM ^
I saw us beat teams that we were better than, and lose to teams that we were worse than (for the most part). That having been said,
"I'm done fighting about Rodriguez"
Also, no blockquotes? where did they go?
February 4th, 2011 at 4:30 PM ^
Einstein's definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".
It doesn't matter whether the DC is Scott Shafer or Greg Robinson, using a 3-3-5 defense in the Big Ten is insanity.
February 5th, 2011 at 10:14 AM ^
![[has+the+whole+world+gone+crazy.jpg]](https://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7T6eQRr_0A8/SNp49Tbd9EI/AAAAAAAAB0g/wh3k78l10LA/s1600/has%2Bthe%2Bwhole%2Bworld%2Bgone%2Bcrazy.jpg)
February 4th, 2011 at 7:46 PM ^
They're calling the cops put the piece away.
February 5th, 2011 at 1:15 AM ^
It's a league game Schembo.
February 4th, 2011 at 4:34 PM ^
Another day, another Rodriguez thread...
February 4th, 2011 at 4:42 PM ^
bettors focus more on margin of victory rather than win loss records when betting (indirectly setting the line.) Games are often decided by flukie plays (hemingway reception vs Illini anyone?) and 10 observations or so on win vs loss does not contain enough data. The margin of victory unfortunately showed that Michigan was not a good team, offensively or defensively at the season end. The fact that the margin of victory was trending worse, much worse as the season wore on was the death blow to the RR era.
February 4th, 2011 at 4:54 PM ^
Tips for writing a post:
-If you're going to use "fucking" in the original post, you shouldn't write the post in the first place.
-Check your grammar and punctuation, especially if it's a long post.
-Don't contradict your own post within the first line.
-Seriously, if you're going to use "fucking" in the original post, you shouldn't write the post in the first place. Swearing is typically a sign that someone has a bad argument; keep it to the comments, or better yet, don't use it at all.
February 4th, 2011 at 4:55 PM ^
What's with the fucking bold?
February 4th, 2011 at 5:48 PM ^
It's a less irritating form of emphasis than using "fucking" repeatedly. Apparently, you disagree.
For both of the responders, feel free to name how many good posts, as opposed to bad posts, use "fucking" right off the bat.
February 4th, 2011 at 5:37 PM ^
You're fucking kidding me. You're actually going to make the argument that the use of a "curse" word denotes a lack of intelligence or lack of reason?
February 4th, 2011 at 5:43 PM ^
It does tend to be used to give an argument false e and is inflammatory. Both things to be avoided if you're trying to make an argument.
February 4th, 2011 at 5:45 PM ^
False vehemence is what I meant to say stupid i- phone with no edit option.
February 4th, 2011 at 6:37 PM ^
Sure, I can accept that opinion, but I was commenting on the lamentable idea that a "curse" word somehow means one's argument or reasoning or whatever is flawed or unintelligent. I agree that people think the words are inflammatory but I also think that has more to do with social conditioning than anything else. The etymology of "curse" words is an interesting subject with a history that saw, at times, a ruling elite attempting to denegrate the speech and language of those "beneath" them. I say fuck em, and fuck anybody who tries to make it look like using a "curse" word should take away from what you're saying.
Also, "curse" words are incredibly adaptable and fun.
February 4th, 2011 at 7:40 PM ^
This I guess all boils down to parents and teachers raising kids with false movies portraying Isaac Newton getting hit on the head with an apple and saying
"Eureka! Gravity!"
As opposed to what contempories attest were his actual words:
"Ow, what the flaming fuck, where the fuck did that come from?!? Anybody? Fuck. It just fell from the fucking.....
holy. shit."
February 4th, 2011 at 7:36 PM ^
February 4th, 2011 at 4:54 PM ^
The Penn State game killed it for me. A true chance to turn the corner, two weeks to prepare, and they get torched by Matty McFavre and looked clueless on the field. In a perfect world, GERG would've gotten fired, a capable replacement would be hired to fix the defense, and we're off and running in 2011. That didn't happen, and somebody had to pay the piper for making Michigan's defense a national embarassment. Rodriguez went down with the ship, as he should have. I'm thrilled we're returning to "MANBALL." (I find the whole clever "manball/footbaw" insult meme funny considering Wisconsin put up crazy points this year and we got our ass handed to us by every team running that "outdated" style)
February 4th, 2011 at 5:09 PM ^
And then they lost to a smaller, more intelligent team in the bowl game.
February 4th, 2011 at 5:22 PM ^
It's not like TCU's win was some big revelation. Wisconsin woke up late (too late) and were a botched pass on a 2 point conversion from tying in the fourth. They were running at will once John Clay remembered his ankles still worked. TCU was much more motivated going into that game, and it showed. Credit to them, but it's not like their crazy schemes had Wisconsin banging into each other on the field like the Keystone Cops.
February 4th, 2011 at 8:17 PM ^
You don't get to do this.
Wins and losses are all that matter.
Oh man, we were 5 plays away from going 8-4 in year two of the Rodriguez era.
The fact is, the Big Ten Champ got beat by TCU.
The fact is, the Big Ten Co-Champ got beat 49-7 by an Alabama team that should have had no motivation to play in the Capitol One Bowl.
And then there was Ohio State, who hung on because of Pryor's legs, not Tresselball.
Do you watch what happens almost every single year?
The Big Ten gets crushed every bowl season. Hell, if it wasn't for Ohio State lucking into some good BCS match-ups our flag ship program would have a losing BCS record.
February 4th, 2011 at 9:39 PM ^
I was just stating that TCU beat a sluggish looking Wisconsin team because they played better that day. They didn't expose and crush them because they're on the cutting edge in scheme against a dusty old Big Ten team. They're not some kind of proof that the stodgy Big Ten can't compete nationally or against teams running unconventional schemes. Alabama smashing MSU (and trust me, Saban was motivated for that one) goes to show that Manball is still very effective when you have better players, which Michigan should have in every instance other than the OSU game.
The Big Ten has been losing bowl games since long before basketball on grass was invented (take a look at Bo's bowl game record), and while I liked Rodriguez's offense to a point, getting gimmicky from the "bandit" and "spur" to the swinging gate extra point and rugby punt was too much to take. Last year, the Big Ten was the one doing the crushing in the bowl season, in case you missed it, and Ohio State's been losing BCS bowls they don't deserve because we haven't been doing the nation a favor by kicking their ass and balancing the scales.
We may have been losing BCS bowl games in the 2000s under Carr, but at least we were getting there. Take the talent he had and add better assistant coaches (and the slightest notion of what good safeties look like) and you've got Big Ten champions with a shot at the natty ever few years, kinda like how OSU is and how Michigan should be. I'll take that over an unrealistic broken dream of what might have been if Rich hadn't hired an overmatched Furry-fetishist as his DC.
February 4th, 2011 at 10:05 PM ^
"The Big Ten gets crushed every bowl season."
February 5th, 2011 at 12:48 AM ^
February 4th, 2011 at 5:44 PM ^
Are beyond brilliant.
And I truly mean that.
February 4th, 2011 at 5:50 PM ^
In college ball, it's necessary to play new kids every last year, by virtue of roster turnover. That being said, the team should improve on both sides of the ball as each year goes on.
For me, in none of the past few seasons could you truly say that the team got better and looked better as the season wore on.
February 4th, 2011 at 4:59 PM ^
February 4th, 2011 at 5:05 PM ^
Your argument might have some validity if those blowout losses happened once in a while not every time UM played a good team. When you get blown out three years running against your biggest rival, show regression every year on defense and get embarrassed on national tv in your bowl game, I'd call that pretty damning evidence...
February 4th, 2011 at 5:45 PM ^
Because 21-10 in a game in which we threw a pick in the endzone, allowed two offensive tds missed a field goal and had our freshman qb throw 4 picks after not throwing any more than one is definitely an uncompetitive blowout and makes your statement 100% true.