Sunday Discussion: Last upset victory for Michigan

Submitted by Brian Griese on

Obviously, the last decade plus of Michigan Football has had it's share of maddening/depressing moments.  But for me, what makes me scratch my head is Michigan, in this time frame, has basically not scored a single 'upset' victory.

So I pose to the board: In your estimation, what is the last 'upset' victory Michigan has had?

Why hasn't Michigan been able to get virtually any 'upset' wins?

For myself, I think the last true upset win was 08 against Wisconsin.  Granted, 08 against Minnesota and 09 against ND could probably be viewed as one.  Granted, none of those teams Michigan beat ended up having great records, so I picked Wisconsin since they were ranked the highest at the time of playing them.

Regarding the latter, the biggest thing to me is Michigan's terrible play in road games.  Hopefully on 9/1, the curse of Charlie Weis ends and Michigan takes down a ranked team on the road.  Until this happens, it's hard to have much optimism for any road game against a good team.  Also: Urban Meyer.

What's the boards thoughts?

Larry Appleton

July 29th, 2018 at 11:12 AM ^

It has been a while, with a ton of close calls.

if you’re going by the perceived strength of the teams at the time of the game, I would say Under the Lights 1 would be the latest.

If you’re going by the true strength of the teams as measures at year’s end, … wow. Penn State in ‘05?

WolvinLA2

July 29th, 2018 at 12:01 PM ^

If you're going by true strength of the team as measured at year's end, you might be able to include Penn State '16.  They rolled of 9 wins after us, including wins against #2 OSU and #6 Wisco in the BTCG and lost on a last second FG to USC in the Rose Bowl.  I don't feel that PSU was better than us that year and the game was at home, but considering how badly we beat them and how good they were by year's end, you could include this.  It's certainly one of the biggest wins in recent history.

M-Dog

July 29th, 2018 at 3:23 PM ^

We were a dog, but not a huge dog, and the way that FL approached that game led to no surprises that we beat them. 

People were surprised at how badly we beat them, but not that surprised we beat them given that they were just mailing it in before the game even started. 

lbpeley

July 29th, 2018 at 11:16 AM ^

ND under the lights I? Probably?

I dont recal if UM was favored coming in but they sure as hell shouldn't have been and sure as hell should have gotten blown out if not for ND's Lloyd-like incompetance in managing a multi score lead. 

WolverineHistorian

July 29th, 2018 at 12:16 PM ^

I'm pretty sure ND was a slight favorite going in to that game and I remember thinking that was a little generous and that it was more of a toss up.  Both teams were coming off forgettable seasons the year before, ND at 8-5 with no wins over noteworthy teams and us at 7-6 with statistically the worst defense in program history....and we won in South Bend despite that.  

It was just a few weeks prior that Mr. Purple face reinstated Michael Floyd after his second (third?) DUI with a good old tap on the wrist.  

Wolverine 73

July 29th, 2018 at 11:42 AM ^

I have been asking myself this same question for the last few years, and I agree Wisconsin 08 is the last real upset.  You would think a decent team would score an upset at least once every 3 or 4 years.  Added to our woes against MSU and OSU has made the last 10 or so years the most depressing period of Michigan football since I began following it closely in the late 60’s.  And that doesn’t even take the Brandon and Richrod circuses into account.

BlueMk1690

July 29th, 2018 at 11:46 AM ^

The problem is that we - as a fanbase - have a very high opinion of our program..so the only real 'upset' wins we can get happen to be regular season games vs top 5-10 teams in the country. For one, Michigan doesn't play a lot of those..and the vast majority of the ones we do play are games vs Ohio State. And we tend to lose those.

But even the last two wins over them, i.e. all we have in the last 15 years or so, weren't upsets either. For it to really be considered an upset win over Ohio State, they need to be ranked really high (as in top 5) and we need to be unranked or ranked in the 15-25 range.

Wisconsin 08 works only because it occurred during one of, if not the, worst season in Michigan football history. If beating Wisconsin at the Big House is an 'upset' victory then something is wrong with Michigan...so it doesn't even generally feel enjoyable.

Michigan has been permanently slotted into the role of a team that expects greatness from itself, whose fans expect greatness from them and which in reality almost never gets even close to it. As a result disappointment is almost guaranteed and positive surprises are almost unheard of.

Take this season. Michigan will play ND, OSU, MSU on the road and will have tough home tests vs PSU and Wisconsin. Michigan had a worse record last year than all of those teams. We all expect Michigan to improve, naturally, but it doesn't seem *unreasonable* to suggest that losing 4 games is definitely possible even with a notably improved team. Yet the idea of 8-4 is treated as a troll attempt in itself. Michigan fans generally slot best case scenarios as baselines, so we don't really ever enjoy what we get.

Gulo Gulo Luscus

July 29th, 2018 at 12:55 PM ^

Many blue blood fanbases understandably fall into the "expecting greatness". But I think M fans have their own brand and you make a fair case for the impact this has on the question of "upsets."

I think it's important to enjoy what you get even when it falls short of greatness. That feels more like an individual fan issue, as it has taken me until mid-30s to genuinely step back from the negative emotion of losing and not taking wins for granted.

Do you think M fans, collectively, are worse at this relative to say... ND/Texas/Nebraska? "Wine and cheese" has some overlap, and we definitely get that one.

hgb4529

July 29th, 2018 at 10:44 PM ^

Fair points. The last true upset over OSU was '96 when they were ranked two and 11-0. They would have won the national championship that year if they beat us as they beat number two ASU in the Rose Bowl. Also the '95 OSU upset, they were ranked number two at 12-0 and had Heisman winner, Eddie George. Damn, we use to be legends during that last Saturday in November...

Farnn

July 29th, 2018 at 11:59 AM ^

There aren't a ton of "upset wins" because Michigan opponents tend to be re-ranked after the games are played.  So everyone says Michigan is going to lose to #19 BYU or  #13 Northwestern in 2015 and then Michigan blows the doors off them.  Suddenly, Michigan was supposed to beat them and shutting both of them out doesn't mean anything.

The same thing happens in basketball as well.  Everyone said Michigan was going to be upset by Houston, couldn't handle the athleticism of Texas A&M or FSU, and hadn't played anyone like Loyola.  Then it became Michigan got lucky with the easiest path to the championship game and those weren't impressive wins.

On top of that, Michigan tends to start the season overrated(or at least rated highly) because of the history of the program so they are rarely underdogs to anyone but a few teams.  How many upset wins has Alabama had in the last 7 years?

TrueBlue2003

July 29th, 2018 at 2:27 PM ^

Upsets are determined by vegas lines which are far more informed (and take into account home v away) than simply comparing poll rankings.

Michigan was favored, fairly comfortably, in both of those games.  Sure, they far exceeded expectations in terms of margin of victory so it felt like a pleasant surprise, but the W was expected.

Qmatic

July 29th, 2018 at 12:37 PM ^

It’s tough to look back at games in the past several years where a victory would have been widely considered an upset. If we beat OSU this year would have it been an upset? Had we won both teams would be 9-3.

The last game where I feel we were close to pulling off an upset was 2013 vs OSU 

bluescreen

July 29th, 2018 at 1:24 PM ^

Seriously, it has gotten pretty bad. The 08 Wisconsin game comes to mind and the ND game as well. If you just look at the last ten years it really does not look good for our opener, however I believe in this team and I think this year could be a great year. I fully expect to beat ND in that first game. Go Blue!

M-Dog

July 29th, 2018 at 3:17 PM ^

My criteria for a true upset is:

- We beat a team we were given no real chance to beat (so ND '11, VT '12, FL '17, etc. don't really count, they were only slight favorites),

- It was a big, meaningful game at the time we played it, and the pressure was on (not a game that turned out to be "big" much later on in retrospect, like PSU '16), 

- The team we beat still finished as a top team, and it really was a big win (so all those wins against those "great" ND teams in September that wound up finishing 5-7 don't count).

So yeah, I've got to go with all the people that say Wisconsin '08.

Yikes, that's depressing.  No real big upset wins in a decade

Time to fix that.  I'm looking at you, Ohio State.

 

Eng1980

July 29th, 2018 at 5:02 PM ^

To answer this question, I would first have to agree that we are an underdog.  Nope.  We have never been the underdog and therefore have never had an opportunity to win as an underdog.  Okay, so some look at the point spread.

It reminds of the stat that for many years (before Virginia and Barber brothers) that Michigan had never overcome a two TD deficit.  But my immediate thought was, geez, how many time are be down by two TDs?

Ban-Me-Brian

July 29th, 2018 at 8:01 PM ^

Didn't Wisconsin shit the bed after that game and have a mediocre season? Yeah they were ranked when we beat them, but in the grand scheme of things anyone we beat in 2008 shouldn't have been ranked

outsidethebox

July 29th, 2018 at 8:53 PM ^

It's threads like this that give legitimacy to accusations of arrogance, entitlement, stupidity, ignorance, irrelevance, lack of perspective and on and on. Players and coaches may know about such a thing but NEVER obsess over it like the (idiot) fans do. Just let it go...it has nothing to do with anything...anything important anyway.