You're comparing guys who've played half-a-season with guys who played full seasons. This leads to false equivalences, because the schedule is back-loaded.

For instance, you say that Michigan is on track to have two 1,000-yard rushers. That's true if you extrapolate on a straight line, but their production has slowed down in Big Ten play, and there are six conference games yet to go.

You are assuming in this that all position groups are equivalent in value, and that the 11-2 2011 team was worse than the 10-3 2016 team and the untested 2021 team because they didn't use the tight end position very much.

You also grossly over-rate the 2021 lines and grossly underestimate the 2011 O and D lines, IMO.  I would be absolutely delighted if the 2021 version of both lines got good enough to compare themselves to their 2011 predecessors.

Similarly the secondary.  In no way is the 2021 secondary, so far, showing itself better than 2011 (which is third on this list) but I'd be happy to see them grow into a comparable pass defense (I don't think that they can get there in run defense, but it's a different game so that's less important).

When I looked at it a while ago, I found that sports-reference.com was reasonably accurate--except sometimes for no reason I can see they didn't include the bowl results. Can't say that I looked at it in depth, though. 

Interesting analysis, and thanks for the work you put in!

We're in mid-season, so it's hard to know for sure where things stand. There isn't enough high-end B1G data. My hot take is that we haven't had a team with this potential in a while, and I can't help but wonder how much better things would have been if Bell hadn't been inured.

Nonetheless, I like watching this team play. It's fun, and that's why I like to watch Michigan football. That's not a bad thing.

Very interesting diary. The one thing that doesn’t pass the smell test for me is that the 2016 team scored A LOT more points than the other teams. But the QB is 4th, the RBs are 4th, and the OL is 3rd. Jake Butt was an awesome tight end, but he’s not worth an extra 80-100 points over a season. I’ve always thought that 2016 offensive line was underrated.

Great stuff.  Thanks for putting this together.

This is great work. Lots of excellent details, I appreciate it.

I *do* disagree with a few of the conclusions, and as others have observed, it's impossible to fairly judge the 21 team right now. Lots of Michigan teams looked really good through the first part of the season; not all of them wound up being good.

Also, a couple of your conclusions are... rushed? Our return game is promising, but the 2006 team had Steve Breaston, who was a serious scoring threat every time he touched the ball. Michigan's not close to that. On a smaller note, David Harris is kind of glossed over here--you rank him above the Bush/Peppers year, which is actually probably correct, but people forget how dominant Harris was.

But overall this is very good and worth the read. 

That 2006 team! Oof. And the 2016 defense! And Denard in 2011. 

Thanks for doing this. My memory of 2011 defense seems more imaginary than real. 

To compare the OLs, we can use sacks allowed, rushing yards gained, or PFF grades (if available). 

The only flaw in your reasoning is that you didn't stop the entire exercise and declare the 2021 the winner here... 

It should then become Denard v. Barrett and I think we all know how that ends.

This was a good read - very interesting to see the stats piled up together.  I don't really have any complaints about the (perceived) results, although extrapolating the '21 team to be better than 2011, right now, is a tough call.  I certainly hope it turns out to be true, though!

As for 2006, I don't think they would've gotten into a 4-team playoff anymore than they got into the 4-team BCS.  They were heavily penalized for a (extremely) late game loss in the biggest rivalry game in all of sports, on the road, one day after Bo Schembechler died suddenly, against the #1 ranked team in the nation.  I believe the BCS dismissal is the reason they had nothing left for USC.

2016 was setup, after OSU and before the CCG's, by the playoff committee to get in.  The only things that would've kept them out happened - Washington won the PAC 12 CG in a rout.  Tip o' the hat, and move on...

I have hope that this team can remove the need for gifts and win on the field.  But I do wonder about Cade.  If we get a Henne-like Cade the rest of the year, ohh boy!!!

One, awesome stuff.  Thanks for all that work!  Two, as other's have said it's unfair to compare players and teams that played a full schedule to those that have only played half and have yet to play the most difficult games (MSU, PSU, & OSU).  Three, the most glaring problem for UM is also the most important position, which we all know has held us back, the QB.

Grbac is our highest ever QB rating at 161.7.  That's kind of depressing since OSU's last 4 years of QBs are all higher than that.  Stroud is currently putting up a 191.2.  Fields was 181.4 in 2019 and 175.6 in 2020 and Haskins was 174.1 in 2018.  Grrrrrr :/. I'd guess in general a 160 is probably the minimum threshold you need to be a NC contender.  To give some more context here are the QB ratings of the last several NCs.

• Mac Jones: 203.1
• Joe Burrow: 202
• Trevor Lawrence: 166.7
• Tua Tagovailoa: 199.4

The other major issue I see is WR.  Obviously we lost Bell who was our #1.  We had several All American WRs during Carr's tenure with Edwards, Walker, Terrell, etc.  We have not had an All American WR since Edwards in 2004.  The rest of the team has probably been good enough several years under JH to make a NC caliber team if we every had another Braylon at WR and some hypothetical QB that UM has probably never had that can put up a contending QB rating on par with modern offenses.

"Another interesting note, Cade's current QBR rating would be 12th all time since 1985"

Sure... if you ignore the inflation in QBR over time.

It's interesting looking at the patterns in the years. The "6" years--2006 and 2016--had dominant feels to them. Yes, we started farther back in 2006, just inside the top 15 coming off a down year in 2005, but I feel like those paying attention were higher on our prospects (for me, at least, due in no small part to the analysis I got from Brian here). And once we went to South Bend and crushed #2 Notre Dame, I knew it was a special team. 2016 had that feel from the beginning. Harbaugh set the stage early; coming off a better than expected 2015 season and a dominating performance over Florida in the Citrus Bowl, he said something to the effect of, "next year we go for the big one." We started the year inside the top 10, and were in the top 5 after the first week. Both teams had NFL talent all over the field, especially on defense, and the performances (at least until November) were dominant. Looking back at 2006, I'm actually surprised we gave up as many points as we did in those pre-November games, because they felt more dominant than the scores would suggest. In 2016, we just straight up dominated everyone until that Iowa game, with really the lone exception being Colorado (which in many ways feels a lot like hockey's last game with Lake St., where we went down 4-2 before winning 7-4). Overall these teams just felt like teams of destiny.

By contrast, 2011 just felt different. It was a good team, no doubt, but it didn't have that dominant feel. There were only two games where we truly dominated, the demolition of Nebraska (which to be fair was a complete destruction of a quality team) and against a hapless Minnesota. Outside of those games, much of the season was the definition of Hoke Shits Gold(tm). We entered the 4th quarter of UTL trailing ND by 17, 6-6 OSU took us to the brink, and we beat VT in the Sugar Bowl despite only gaining 184 yards (and giving up 377). It was on the whole the luckiest season I can remember, and really felt like the team was greater than the sum of its parts, which often seemed like they were held together by duct tape and chewing gum.

We're only halfway through the season, but this year feels more like 2011 than 2006/2016. Much of it is likely residual from the past few years, but the team, especially the defense, feels sort of duct taped together, and instead of feeling like we're one of the frontrunners for the national championship, the more common feeling is wondering when the other shoe is going to drop. But even if the season ends up being more 2011 than 2006/2016 (which is still way better than most predicted going in), that's not necessarily a bad thing. While I would take the first 11 games of 2006 or 2016 over those of 2011 in a heartbeat, 2011 ended by beating OSU and winning a BCS bowl, something neither 2006 or 2016 could do. Finishes matter, and the finish to 2011 quite possibly makes it the most enjoyable season on the whole since 1999 or maybe 2003.

Thank you for going though this well done. One thing that really stood out to me is that we never have been a throwing to RB team. Our best RB gets ~1 rec a game and 100-150 yds a season?!? Other college teams incorporate their RB into pass game no? What is going on here?

I hope you're right, but a lot of these rankings feel like you're drinking the Kool-Aid with respect to the 2021 season. For instance, at QB, Chad Henne was a third-year starter who would be a second-round draft pick. Regardless of his backups, there's no way he should be behind McNamara and McCarthy at this point (I love our 2021 guys' talent, but they're still a big question mark). Likewise with the backfield rankings. And it's crazy to put the 2021 team above the 2006 team for returners when Steve Breaston was probably our best returner since Desmond Howard (or second-best, if you count Peppers above him) and Henning has had only 3-4 impressive returns.

There's some recency bias, but man this is fun!  And great work!

I'd actually take our 2021 WRs without Bell over the 2011 group.  Henne and a bag of air is our best throwing QB of the bunch.

The 2011 season is fondly remembered (and should be) but the team overachieved against a weak schedule and needed luck to win a very winnable bowl game.