January 14th, 2020 at 6:04 AM ^
sounds about right.
should be ranked around there to start the 2020 season, low enough to give us plenty of area to trend higher. if we beat washington on the road that'd be a very nice start to the year.
January 14th, 2020 at 8:51 AM ^
If we don't, Harbaugh will definitely be feeling the wrath of this fan base.
January 14th, 2020 at 9:20 AM ^
January 14th, 2020 at 9:37 AM ^
I get what you are saying, but ultimately 4 losses is 4 losses and some of those were by a wide margin.
January 14th, 2020 at 9:37 AM ^
We definitely did not play a tougher schedule than LSU.
January 14th, 2020 at 10:16 AM ^
There are two four loss teams ahead of Michigan.
Wisconsin -- who curb stomped Michigan on national TV.
Auburn -- nuff said.
I think for this team to have gone from a missed field goal to escape Army to losing a winnable game against Bama, that the pollsters got it right. Perhaps with some more consistent QB play this fall, that will translate into better results.
January 14th, 2020 at 6:14 AM ^
Another normal mediocre Michigan season. Back where Michigan usually was it feels good.
January 14th, 2020 at 6:16 AM ^
Shhh don't tell the blog that. They'll say how this season sets us up perfectly for 2020 despite missing most of the required pieces to have a successful season.
January 14th, 2020 at 6:27 AM ^
How is top 20 mediocre? The results might not be to your liking, but they’re certainly not mediocre.
January 14th, 2020 at 6:41 AM ^
For Michigan Football standards, it is mediocre. Losing to OSU again and then also dropping the bowl game. We are mediocre when compared to the top teams around the country. We are not in that same conversation.
January 14th, 2020 at 8:10 AM ^
Did you watch that game last night? We're not even playing the same sport.
January 14th, 2020 at 8:24 AM ^
This has been the standard for the last 20 years.
January 14th, 2020 at 9:08 AM ^
How many teams are in the conversation with the top teams in college football? Outside of LSU Alabama OSU and Clemson who else can even be brought up with them. Maybe a Georgia?
I don’t understand why people can’t see that college football landscape has changed from the good ole days. 4 teams dominate and looking at recruiting will continue to. It’s the big 4 and everyone else. Just saying we are Michigan doesn’t hold weight anymore. We are not among the elite but are still very good and it probably won’t change. People need to understand and unless something huge happens to these teams like coaches leaving or scandal it will stay that way
January 14th, 2020 at 9:41 AM ^
Florida, FSU, Oklahoma, Miami, OSU, USC, Tennessee, LSU, Texas, and Michigan were all good at the same time in the early 2000s, what's stopping us? Ourselves.
January 14th, 2020 at 10:51 AM ^
Eleven unique teams have made the college football playoff (including Michigan State). Is it not reasonable to expect Michigan to be in this group?
January 14th, 2020 at 10:23 AM ^
By that logic, Oklahoma is mediocre. They didn’t belong on the same field as LSU. There are a lot of adjectives to use between Elite and mediocre. Michigan falls in there. Just like we always have since the 1940s. Short of elite, but certainly not “mediocre.“
January 14th, 2020 at 6:52 AM ^
I doubt there are many more teams that do less with more relative to preseason rankings than Michigan. Even our coach predicted big ten favorites. Maybe he’ll shut his trap this offseason and start the season fully ready to go instead of scrapping the plans within 3 games.
January 14th, 2020 at 8:27 AM ^
Yep. Lots to learn from the NC game on how to act. Even the post-game interview with Dabo Sweeny was good. Dabo was humble, gave credit, and had a likeable personality. It sure beats: "they played better than us", "we didn't play as good as they did". So tired of Harbaugh's blunted affect. Get a personality. Be an A-hole even, but put some life into yourself! How do you expect the players to respond to a monotone robot?
January 14th, 2020 at 9:03 AM ^
Cumulative 1989-2018...
We're the 4th worst vs. preseason prediction.
1) Southern Cal
2) Florida State
3) Texas
Best?
1) Boise St.
2) Oregon
3) Kansas St.
http://preseason.stassen.com/over-under/teams.html
January 14th, 2020 at 12:10 PM ^
Minnesota too for best
January 14th, 2020 at 6:53 AM ^
January 16th, 2020 at 12:00 AM ^
If you think that people not thinking 9-4 is mediocre are part of the problem, you are part of the problem. :)
January 14th, 2020 at 7:01 AM ^
Here's some perspective for you in the last 20 years besides 2006 and 2011 Michigan has had three losses or more every damn season. That is a very damn definition of mediocre. One outright conference title in that time frame it doesn't matter the coaching regime this entire program is mediocre by any logical modern college football standard.
January 14th, 2020 at 7:33 AM ^
Can’t spell Lloyd without two L’s.
Back in the day, a two loss season and no B1G Championship was mediocre
January 14th, 2020 at 8:01 AM ^
Why look at it like that though? Why not look at it based on the talent they have verse the talent they play? Doesn't that really determine if you are mediocre or not? If the team that was lead by O'Korn a few years back won 10 games I'd say hats off that is elite regardless of final ranking.
The reason myself, as well as others, don't believe it's elite is based on the talent and how the team actually looks. Look at the last 5 years. Harbaugh has won 10, 10, 8, 10, and 9 games. Pretty damn good overall. But there are games lost to teams Michigan is no doubt more talented than where they lost or looked like pooped. Just beating teams that Michigan is better than UM is 11, 11, 9, 10 wins and we are all feeling a whole lot better.
The roster may not be alabama or clemson good but it is player to player better than at least half their overall losses in the last 5 years. I'm more in your group where there needs to be some realism injected...but why does that include 1-2 losses a year to teams Michigan has more talent than? That is mediocrity. Elite teams beat teams they are more talented than.
January 14th, 2020 at 7:09 AM ^
If you eliminate all of the non-power 5 teams, Michigan ranked 17th out of the 65 Power-5 teams (including ND). That doesn't even get you in the top 25% of these teams. That's pretty blah.
January 14th, 2020 at 7:26 AM ^
Being the 6th highest ranked team in our conference, that sounds right about mediocre. We are not Rutgers, Illinois, Northwestern, please remember that.
January 14th, 2020 at 7:45 AM ^
Not to mention 5 wins and 11 losses in bowl games along with missing a bowl 3 different times. But yeah not mediocre at all.
January 14th, 2020 at 6:47 AM ^
Six top 15 teams was a brutal schedule. (Sagarin rates it the #4 overall)
I'm happy because this is the first time we've beaten 2 teams that finished with a better record than us in I dont know how long.
Off the top of my head this year is the first time we beat teams that finished with better records than us since 2016 PSU.
Losing to OSU and the bowl game still hurts, but ND and Iowa ended up being some nice wins.
EDIT: I looked it up and in 2016 we beat Wisconsin and PSU, both went 11-3 that year while we went 10-3. So looks like we got 2 wins against teams with better records against us that year as well.
January 14th, 2020 at 7:40 AM ^
Progress. Let’s go for wins against 3 ranked teams next year.
January 14th, 2020 at 8:49 AM ^
Can one be OSU?
January 14th, 2020 at 10:21 AM ^
Define "can"
January 14th, 2020 at 1:00 PM ^
Can: what buckeye fans should use instead of coolers.
January 14th, 2020 at 7:45 AM ^
Enough with the “brutal schedule” stuff already.
We play in the B10 conference in the schedule is going to be tough every season.
If you want to be a top program then you have to win the games on your schedule.
January 14th, 2020 at 8:44 AM ^
Sagarin Rates the following schedules as his top 6. I'm not sure what his exact methodology is but I quickly scanned for top 25 teams played.
1: South Carolina 4-8 record (5 top 25, 4 in the top 8)
2: Auburn 9-4 record ( 6 top 10 )
3: LSU 15-0 record ( 7 top 25, although they had some extra games to boost this)
4: Michigan 9-4 record ( 6 top 15)
5: Iowa State 7-6 record ( 4 top 25 teams )
6: OSU 13-1 record ( 6 top 25 (Wisconsin twice))
Sagarin is ranking overall schedule which perhaps explains why he had Iowa State ahead of OSU. If you look at Final AP poll teams played, arguably only Auburn played tougher ranked opponents than Michigan with 6 opponents finishing in the top 10.
We have to take advantage of down years for PSU and Wisconsin, like 2018 and beat OSU. But this year we played a very tough schedule and came away with a 2-4 record against top 15 teams. Its not great, but it is good.
January 14th, 2020 at 8:53 AM ^
How many Top 15 teams did Ohio State beat? They play in the Big Ten and won it!
The answer to that, by the way, is two: PSU and Wisconsin (twice). We played Iowa and ND, which they did not. I don’t think anyone would have said ‘brutal schedule’ if we didn’t have those two games, on top of PSU, Wis and OSU this season.
January 14th, 2020 at 7:44 AM ^
Good season! I’m glad I got to watch this team play.
UNNACCEPTABLEs, blow me.
January 14th, 2020 at 7:46 AM ^
You’re really in for a treat in 2020 then.
January 14th, 2020 at 9:56 AM ^
Very much looking forward to it!?
Some major questions to be answered, for sure. But I think there’s plenty of reasons to be optimistic.
January 14th, 2020 at 11:31 AM ^
Unfortunately, there are also reasons to be pessimistic that we don’t get to Indy with OSU returning Fields and they don’t play UW or Minn and get Iowa at home. Barring a HUGE upset the only B10 game that might be a loss for them, prior to THE GAME, is at PSU.
So we could run the conference tables and will still probably end up facing a 1 loss at worst OSU in Columbus and have to win there. The past 20 years aside, that’s a pretty damn tall order.
January 14th, 2020 at 7:45 AM ^
18 and not anywhere close to competing for not only the B1G championship but the playoff. Still so far behind.
January 14th, 2020 at 10:06 AM ^
Didn't we spend most of the 2016 and 2018 seasons ranked in the top 4-6?
We are closer than you think. Just have to slay the dragon down in Columbus.
January 14th, 2020 at 10:14 AM ^
And still ended up with the normal 3 loss year. Getting smacked in 18 in Columbus. 18 was complete fools gold that this program was taking the next step. First game of the year and Last two games proved that! You know games away from AA that you have to win to take the next step
January 14th, 2020 at 10:43 AM ^
It is all about beating OSU and we've come very close a couple of times. Granted, the trend line doesn't look good the last two years, but our bowl losses are directly related to the OSU losses. No one gives a fuck about the bowl after losing The Game.
One win against OSU changes everything for us.
January 14th, 2020 at 12:45 PM ^
No one gives a fuck about the bowl after losing The Game.
That may be a little harsh. If Michigan doesn't lose winnable games against FSU and Bama... and doesn't give up against Florida, and the narrative around this program is likely much, much different.
January 14th, 2020 at 1:14 PM ^
It is absolutely different winning those bowl games. It would show Michigan can win away from AA against good teams.
Michigan's biggest problem outside of beating OSU is beating good teams on the road. Just winning a big road game, like PSU and Wisconsin, this year would do wonders.
How can anyone expect to beat OSU when Michigan can't go on the road and beat Wisconsin at noon.
January 14th, 2020 at 8:01 AM ^
We played 6 teams that finished in the Top 15. That is no joke. We can get better but that is a tough schedule.
January 14th, 2020 at 10:16 AM ^
And that is Michigan’s fault for scheduling ND when it’s not needed
January 14th, 2020 at 9:29 AM ^
Split with rivals?
We are 3-17 against OSU in our last 20 games and we still maintain a 7 game series lead over them (58-51-6)
Back in the day we dominated our rivals with periods of splitting with them (10 year war)
January 14th, 2020 at 11:00 AM ^
I agree with your point, but it's been six years since the playoff was introduced, and there have been a lot of teams that have "snuck" in one year:
Florida State, Oregon, Michigan State, Washington, Georgia, Notre Dame, and LSU this year.
I think it's reasonable to expect us to do that, at least.