Football Expectations for Upcoming Season
Well, with the World Cup winding down, I am certainly getting back into college football mode. With that, I have been thinking much more about this year's Michigan team. Opinions here on the blog seem to be relatively pessimistic about our chances this year, and I am the same way. However, any other team in our situation this season would be highly optimistic about having a successful season by their standards. Here are the circumstances I'm talking about:
1. Returning numerous starters on both sides of the ball including basically an entire defense with players like JMFR, Ross, Countess, Ondre, Clark, Morgan, etc. and much of the offense including DG and Funchess
2. Incoming impact players (Peppers and Isaac)
3. High quality coaches in Nuss and Mattison
4. Favorable schedule outside of rivalry games
Now we are entering Hoke's fourth year, and I feel like he has definitely passed his grace period and has had more than enough time to implement his schemes, players, and depth. So, I guess what I'm getting at is with all of our circumstances, are we as fans allowed to expect 10+ wins by now?
More than anything, I just wanted to get some football discussion going on here, but this is a question I've been pondering for a while. Personally, I feel like with two five star running backs, all-B1G talent on both sides of the ball, nine very winnable games (3 toss ups), and many veteran players, there is no reason this team should not have at least ten wins when it is all said and done.
You keep expressing your opinions regarding potential unfair expectations based on comments from fans. You've concluded from my comments that I may well have unfair expectations of DG. I think I've expressed reasonable, but somewhat vauge expectations. I think you've inferred these "unfair expectations" where none are implied (thus my projection comment).
IMO, DG played well last year. He was brilliant a number of times, and he had a couple very poor games with a number of bad moments. Perhaps you could clarify what you think would be an unfair expectation. Are there fair 5th year QB expectations (with 0 to 16 career QB starts)?
Is it unfair to expect a 5th year senior QB to be a strong leader? Is it unfair to expect a 5th year senior QB to be named captain? Is it unfair to expect him to be more mature, and able to handle pressure situations well (even better than he did as a junior)? Is it unfair to expect him to make material progress his 5th year? I think these would be reasonable expectations of nearly all 5th year starting QBs (even if they are making their first starts).
DG has started nearly 30 games in his career. Nuss has a strong reputation for being an excellent QB coach. DG is clearly a smart player, and works hard to be better. My expectations seem quite reasonable. None them require 24 or 36 game-starts.
Perhaps you think people are demanding a national championship or a Ty Detmer/Peyton Manning Heismanesque season (sorry, Peyton). Those would be unfair expectations to me. DG will still make mistakes and have bouts of frustrating play, and his supporting cast may be difficult to overcome at times. Even so, I expect to see the best version of DG next year...and the versions we've seen before have been good (sometimes great).
What of this is unfair? If none, then to what expectations do you refer?
(As an aside, you seem to accept high expectations from the players themselves and the coaches, but seem more concerned about unfair fan expectations...I don't understand this if true. I hope you too have a good weekend and have appreciated the discourse.)
1: Offensive line: - It is important to remember that Michigan's schedule gets tougher as the season goes on. In 2013 the line did improve. The improvement was slow and inconsistent but if you look at the line play it did get somewhat better. Hiring Nussmeier means another new offense. So other than the benefits of game experience to the guys in the middle, most of the growth in 2013 doesn't directly apply to 2014.
2: ND - The 2013 ND game has been running on BTN and I just watched it. The reason that the offensive line seemed okay against ND was that they didn't attack the middle the way following teams did. It is unlikely ND will make that mistake again. The line, who will be in their second game in a new offense, is going to have to prove thay can competently run and pass block. They don't have to dominate, but they have to be minimally competent. I suspect that will prove a very tough challenge at that point in the season.
3: Variance - Like it or not, at least on offense, inexperience (or perhaps unfamiliarity) with the new offense introduces high variance. The upside is that while Michigan is moving to an over defense terminology and the coaching staff remains the same (if realigned) and the lessons learned last season should reduce variance and allow the defense to take a step forward.
4: Gardner - He showed substantial improvement in the last half of 2013. More poise, fewer mistakes, one int, despite still getting sacked like crazy. While he has to adjust to a new offense, it's reasonable to expect that he will not regress to the mental errors that plagued him the early part of 2013. If the line can give him a few more seconds and/or make defenses respect the run, he has the potential to really up his game.
5: The snowball effect - Whether Michigan is 2-0 or 1-1 after the ND game the 3rd - 5th games have the possibility of creating a snowball effect for the rest of the season. The Oline is more likely to gel if they at least hold their own in those games than if they struggle and the team either wins narrowly or loses. If those games go badly you can expect negativity and variance to snowball, conversly if the team shows progress and play improves that improvement and consistency is likely to snowball as well.
MSU: - Yes they'll lose some on defense, but this all comes down to Michigan's offensive line. Either they effectively pickup MSU defensive adjustments and give Gardner time to make the tough pass, or it's likely to be an ugly game. I expect MIchigan's defense to keep it close and squeeze the MSU offense more effectively than last year, but this really comes down burning MSU when they blitz.
OSU: They've lost some key Oline talent, but picking up a red shirt senior center transfer is going to help anchor the center of their line. I would not expect as much of a fall off as many people see coming. This game will depend on attrition on both teams, and how much progress Michigan's offense makes over the season.
Luck: Michigan is a talented team, but still generally younger than many. Youth and the factors above means that luck, which is a factor in any team's season, will be more of a factor for Michigan in 2014. There are likely to be several close games, where luck on a single play could decide the outcome.
It is unreasonable to "expect" a rivalry win this season, but a win in any of those game is certainly within reach.
Depending on how all of these factors meld together this season can produce anywhere between 6 and 12 regular season wins. In my heart I want twelve and fear six. In my head I expect 8-9 wins.
I agree, ten wins should be the expectation, and maybe even eleven wins, with these players and these very high profile assistant coaches.
However, the misery of the last couple of seasons has left me feeling down about the team's chances. I sure hope I'm wrong.
I'm calling undefeated at least until the B1G Championship. I am not the person who says Michigan will go undefeated every year but I CAN FEEL IT! #FeelsLike97
7-5. I see 8-4 as being more likely than 6-6, but I think that 7-5 is where we end up. The common view of our schedule seems to be "three tough road games, nine easy wins", but I think that it is more "two impossible road games, one tough one, seven probable wins, and two easy wins"
We will lose at OSU and MSU. I don't see those as being even close to tossups.
I would pick ND over us, but we could realistically win that game. That makes a third probable loss.
Then, between Penn State, Minnesota, Utah, Rutgers, Maryland, Northwestern, and Indiana, I think that we have one or two more losses. We won't run the table on our "should wins". We're not good enough to beat mediocre teams on an off night. NW and Rutgers are road games and people might be underestimating Maryland and Utah. And we have this weird voodoo power over Minnesota but that trend can't last forever, right?