The Ostrich Effect

Submitted by raisedonbo on

The Ostrich Effect: Ignoring the warnings

 

Spread Offense Losing Ground? 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122385025105726963.html?mod=article-out…

 

Michigan 2008 is officially Notre Dame 2007

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/Michigan-20…

 

Profiles in Disillusion: Of course you know, losing to Toledo means war

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/Profiles-in…

 

Struggling Michigan takes first loss to MAC team, off to worst start in 41 years

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/recap?gameId=282850130

 

U-M football player suspended for alleged attack of hockey player

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3645575

 

No. 3 Penn State breaks Michigan hex, 46-17

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/recap?gid=200810180034&prov=ap

“Oh, we executed for a while and then we didn’t,” said Rodriguez, whose team needs to win four more games to avoid Michigan’s first losing season since 1967. “That’s what happened. We executed, we moved the ball a little, and when we didn’t, we didn’t.”

 

Damn, that is some good coaching!

 

MGoBoard

Jeff

October 18th, 2008 at 9:57 PM ^

When you saw how many talented players graduated after last year, what coach did you think would be able to have a great year?  Assuming that Boren wouldn't have left under a different coach (which is a big assumption, but I'm willing to believe that Rodriguez and Boren just didn't mesh well) we would have had 2 returning linemen and 1 returning wide receiver.  What would you have expected from that? 10-2?

Joined: 07/01/2008

MGoPoints: 1435

Anonymous Coward (not verified)

October 18th, 2008 at 10:38 PM ^

I was still impressed - penn state is one of the best 5 teams in the country and we held our own against them for the first half. Obviously the second half didn't go so well but that was because...threet got hurt? I think we can still win 4 of our 5 remaining games. Purdue is not very good at all, Minnesota is okay but if we play like the first half of today I think we can win (I wonder how we'll be in a dome), Northwestern is at home and I still think they are somewhat overrated. MSU and UM are going to come out next weekend with something to prove in probably one of the most odd games in this rivalry. osu - I will never say that we don't have a chance in that game, I just hope it's not that cold and isn't snowing.

Joined: 12/12/2017

MGoPoints: 0

gater

October 19th, 2008 at 12:18 AM ^

before the season started everyone was making predictions of 9 wins or 8 wins, now that we have 2 wins, nobody seems suprised which i find strange.  i would at least expect people to go "this is worse than what i expected" instead of "what did you expect?"  most of you expected more wins, you just won't admit it

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 4178

Jeff

October 19th, 2008 at 10:00 AM ^

That's actually a decent point. I had thought we would go 7-5 this season, so it is virtually guaranteed that we will not get to my expected season.  I still think that we'll get to 5 wins though.

It is worse than I thought it would be, but part of the reason why I am not more disappointed is that I see how low of a margin of error we have.  In each game we have had the potential to win, but when things go wrong we're not able to overcome them and win.  Hopefully next year the players will know what they're doing better and not make as many turnovers.  But when we do turn the ball over our offense will be able to make up the points.

Joined: 07/01/2008

MGoPoints: 1435

chitownblue (not verified)

October 19th, 2008 at 10:38 AM ^

I don't see your point. Do you want me to apologize "for being wrong"? Or do you want me to get really angry about the team's record? So, those of that expected 7 or 8 wins are wrong. There's two possible explanations:

1. As an avid Michigan fan whose last game of organized football occurred 16 years ago, who does not know a member of the team, staff, or Athletic Department, who did not see a single practice, my expectation of what the team's performance level should be was 100% accurate, and their failure to meet it is a sign of disaster.

2. My expectation was not realistic.

Joined: 12/12/2017

MGoPoints: 0

hat

October 19th, 2008 at 12:39 PM ^

Yes, we pretty much all figured we'd have a winning season, but that was mainly a function of us 1) not really knowing what to expect and 2) being conditioned to expect one based on the past 40 years.  There was the possibility of things turning ugly, but as we had dodged bullets in other rebuilding years (2001, 2004, etc.), we wanted to believe we could pull it off again.

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 15

Hannibal.

October 20th, 2008 at 3:07 PM ^

What kind of team did RichRod have when he took over West Virginia?  I wonder if they were 3-8 for the same reason that we are 2-5.  Just from reading some box scores from that year, they had a better offense than we have now, but they did get blown out a lot and they even lost to Temple.  From what little I was following them at the time, Don Nehlan sort of left in the same fashion as Lloyd Carr.  The fans appreciated him, but they weren't really sorry to see him go.  I don't remember their offense being as young and decimated as ours. 

Regardless, I'm surprised by how bad we are.  What's keeping me going now is faith -- faith that RichRod can engineer the same kind of turnaround as the one that happened at West Virginia (and Tulane, which I give him a lot of credit for).

Joined: 09/09/2008

MGoPoints: 9051