Has this season been any different then predicted?

Yes?

with this, then please pass what you're drinking.

Yes, it is very different.  We have looked far more inept than anyone here predicted. 

I realize the DOOM takes are tired and unhelpful, but we really don't need next year guy. It's an even more tired opinion. It's going to take change, not just patience for the program to jump back up.

Offensive production against the two teams in the top oh, 100 of 1-A: 3 points.

So no, this has not gone as expected.

Its one thing to lose some tight games to good teams. We haven't scored a TD or even been inside the 20. We rank dead last in turnover margin. And near the top in plays that go for a loss.

We're fucking terrible, man. Totally incompetent.

IT isn't loseing.

It is how pathetic we look.

It is the demeanor of the players

It is hoke's refusal to enter a new era of football.

I would say our record is better than our team right now...

 

I love michigan and wore my jersey around town today feeling proud, but things are tough right now...

 

jdon

 

I thought we'd finish up 9-3 or even 10-2 so unless we get on the mother of all winning streaks then yes, the season is not at all what I expected.

I expected us to be kinda good.

Instead we kinda suck.

For some reason I, and I believe many of us, were infused with hope for better things right before the season began. Much of this came from the staff's rhetoric, but before that expectations were for an 8-4/7-5 type season. But what were they supposed to say? I just wanted them to win too, and started to believe they would but based on no rational reasons. I don't know. Fuck...

After years of waiting, nothing came.

*than

I thought we would win atleast 9 games, after last nights nightmare we will be lucky to get 5. Utah is worse then 6 of the 8 teams left on our schedule and they beat us rather handedly. We'll be lucky to beat Minny and NW, the rest no chance.

I think the losses have been a good deal more painful than many, including many whose predictions were exactly as described, were prepared for. Further, predictions are often rational in their origin, expectations often are not. Many people who predicted a tough season like the team faces for exactly the reasons you list, hoped, prayed, and expected that the team would exceed their predictions and were perhaps unprepared for the pain. Or maybe they didn't fully consider how the games, especialy the early games, might actually play out if their predictions were correct. 

Don't get me wrong I absolutely hated losing to ND and Utah and I hated the way the team lost, but I went in KNOWING that ugly blowouts were possible. That knowledge didn't make the losses any less painful and I fully admit I drank way to much during yesterday's game, but it allows me to remain rational in the aftermath.

I seriously thought that 4-0 would be a probable thing right now and 3-1 for sure. And if 3-1 was going to happen the loss against ND would be close. I thought that Gardner would improve from last year, not look even worse. I thought that this would be a 9 win season, and mathematically it still can be, but it looks like it 7-5 is the best case scenario right now.

I predicted 7-5, people thought I was nuts. Based on the first four games, I am adjusting that to 6-6. we look bad.

minimum 3-1 heading into conference play, and the possible single loss would not have been a 31 point woodshed job.

Hoke lost me two weeks ago leaving SB - I can't even get mad anymore.  It was one thing when I became completely numb during the RR years, but apathy has set in, and when that happens, stuff needs to be reexamined.

Lousy schedule and product is enough alone.  I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd want Hoke axed after 4 weeks into this season.

Not much to look forward to over the next 8-10 weeks.  I'm more despondent over the state of this program.  

The mailaise set in like a dark cloud after November 17, 2006.  There is a very real (to borrow a phrase from our 39th president) crisis of confidence that permeates all things Michigan football.

As a child of the 70s, I liken it to the societal malaise that hung over this nation for years.  We need a Herb Brooks to shake this program out of its doldrums.  

This season has been different because you haven't told us how you really feel. 

Very different

Yeah, kinda. Except these predictions don't have any measure of magnitude on them. The crappy things on offense are worse than expected and the improvements are not nearly as big as most anticipated. 

Someone smarter than I will know the percentage. But, getting a pic 6 increases your chances of winning astronomically relative to other big plays In a game. Yet, we still found a way to lose at home to a decent team. Our season in a nutshell.

We were shut out for the first time in 30 years and were not competitive against Utah at home.

Are you fucking kidding?

Yes. Yes it has.

I don't think any of us, especially not me, anticipated getting shut out by a meh Notre Dame team, followed up by getting out-classed at home by a bottom-dwelling Pac-12 team.

So yeah, its a tad different than what we expected.

really like this. I pegged Michigan at about 8-4 this year. But if they came out hard possible 10-2. I was hoping the offense would be a little more far along though.

We can't score on offense and we can't tackle when it matters on defense. We have no quarterback and one receiver. It's not what anyone predicted. Be honest, it's the worst it's been in our lifetime.

they just got owned by utah.  you are delusional.

Maybe some people thought we would start 2 and 2 (I didn't), but I don't think anyone predicted that our defense would out score our offense when you combined the ND and Utah games. But here we are, through the two games vs. even decent competition, defense 7 and offense 3. 

What is it? We have not been in the red zone against an opponent that is not awful at football. The only identity I can see is that we are kind of like a wagon train. Slow, move east to west, stop and circle up when threatened

Different than predicted? Well, personally, it's been different than I expected.

For example, I didn't expect that my profanity level while watching the games would be this high so early in the season. I've used a lot of polysyllabic words while watching the Miami and Utah games that I usually don't have to use until at least the Penn State game.

So I guess I'm rounding into mid-season form. Unfortunately, this team keeps giving me reasons to.

The floor for most coming into the season was 8-4.  That is now the ceiling,.  And would require a 180 degree turnaround.  In a sh&& conference where 6 conf wins is almost a given if you are competent, not great.  See Wisconsin - a very not great but competent team.  We are neither great, good, nor competent on offense.

Most expected the ability to put 11 players on a punt team.

Most expected the turnover bugaboo of last year to be reduced.

Most expected the ability to get inside the red zone oh .. .maybe 6x vs Utah and Notre Damne.  Maybe 4 would be accepted.  0? LOL.

Take away the Miami of OH game and the App State game which are sad measurements of UM level football, and tell me one accomplishment of this offense in the other 2 games.  Other than Funchess ribs getting pummeled and legs getting damaged.

 

It's like 4 years later and we've transferred all the ills of the RR era on defense to the Hoke era on offense and have half a team.  Only its a different half.

Guys i dont think you realize how bad a situation we are.  Indiana is gonna score on us.  Last year we combated that by Devin being superman - something he was in ND and OSU games as well. That Devin has not arrived to 2014.  Rutgers has athletes better than  utah on their DL (aside from Orchard).   If you saw the sieve PSU OL you saw what a VERY GOOD college QB had to face in Hackenberg and only awesome plays by him on late drive allowed PSU to pull that out.  We dont have that equivalent.  PSU will score on us.  We need to respond.  How?  We cannot get into the red zone - PSU defense has more playmakers than Utah.  Maryland has weapons galore via the air game - they are basically Utah of the east... an ok team with a few big weapons, including NFL WRs.

Utah was NOT A GOOD defense - its average - and got 5 sacks and 8 TFL.  They have Nate Orchard, brand new DTs, all new LBs, 2 new corners, and 2 experience safeties.  Notre Dame is NOT A GOOD defense - its average - it was missing half its secondary, and had 2 sophomore LBs, and freshman and sophomores rotating as the DEs.  

We cannot string together 5 plays together without f**king it up.   Still too much sunshine unless Devin Gardner 2013 OSU Indiana or ND arrives on a white knight.  Yes we have a defense but its not going to hang in there all day and hold teams under 7 - its going to give up 15-20 to most teams (more to Indiana types) - we have no way to respond.  At all.  It is going to get very fucking ugly here soon.  2-6 in the conference with wins over Minn and NW due to their horrendous offenses is a real possibility.  A lot of games that are going to be a replica of Iowa and NW are in our future.  How do you think this team's persona is going to be after being obliterated in East Lansing?  After potentially being 3-6 in a month with the only wins Minnesota App State and Miami of frigging Ohio.  Even the defense eventually caves in mentally at some point.

I was expecting 4-0 by now.  ESPECIALLY knowing that ND would be down a key player or few by the time of that game.  After the way the wheels fell off against the Irish I put all other expectations to bed.  I expected Miami to cover (they did), and I expected Utah to win close (they won by two scores...three, if you don't consider 2-pt conversions to be automatics).

I can see losses to Michigan State and Penn State.  Bizarrely, if the Ohio State game was played today I honestly think MIchigan has a good chance to win.  As the season goes on I expect them to get better (they usually do) while Michigan either plateaus or starts to mail it in as it becomes more obvious that Hoke isn't coming back next year.  Assuming we "only" lose to those three State schools we have the same record we did last year and I guess we can all be thankful that Nebraska isn't on the schedule this time around.

Somehow I see them losing another game...I don't know against who. 

These points are so vague and beside the point that it's pretty much useless to talk about this. 

I could picture 2-2 before the season but not the way it unfolded.  2 completely uncompetitive losses to teams I really dont think are that good.  Hoke is right that it happened in 1998 and we rebounded.  But that was in an era where we had just won a national title and been good for a long time.  That "stunned" was the realization that we werent invincible on defense like we were the year before with Woodson.  This "stunned" is holy shit, Hoke needs to go unless he rebounds.

I thought 9-3 was possible with losses to MSU, OSU, and a random team that was not ND. 

I really thought this team would have no problem with ND, especially after they had a bunch of guys suspended.  Don't forget that they replaced BOTH their OC and DC.  I watched the ND spring game, and their defense looked incredibly awful, leaving guys wide open with no one within 15 yards on some plays.  Golson looked good, and I figured it would be a shootout with Garder slightly better in the end.  I couldn't be more wrong.

Utah is another team I thought U-M would have no problem with.  Not so long ago, Hoke had this huge streak of winning at home, and I figured there'd be no way this team would lose at home the way they did.  They are completely lost out there.

I look at the rest of the schedule and it's hard for me to pick what games are going to get them to 5-7