UM still likely to go to playoff with loss to Purdue

Purdue is on of the schools that owe a debt from the dark years when they came into Michigan Stadium and acted like they had done something by beating RR. Time to pay up.

That's the plan, but if I were Harbaugh, it would greatly increase the likelihood that I'd encourage injured players to rest.

Stranger things have happened and it’s worth musing over just in case. I did wonder about this. I guess there’s no automatic bid anymore as they sure as hell aren’t sending a 9-4 PU team.

But, but, but… JJ can’t hit the long ball an an an we got two OC’s that aren’t on the same page an an Michael Barrett should be our QB cuz he played some in high school…

Totally agree! OK, this would be a worst case scenario and I get it but it's not worth mentioning.

JJ McCarthy said after this big win that they are not done yet and there's more work to do. This is the same attitude they had a year ago fresh after beating OSU for the first time in forever. What happened the following week in Indy?- a 45-3 blowout win!

Not dumb at all. Very relevant. Yet multiple up votes for this dumb reply.

I've seen too many top 5 teams not take them seriously and get beat. Happened to OSU in 2018. Happened to MSU last year.

I generally agree about Dinich, but her analysis in this article is pretty legit. What really pisses me off is slappies like Kevin Warren pushing for an OSU berth after yesterday. No way he's out there for Michigan if they had just lost by 3 scores at home.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/35116043/doubt-osu-deserves-cfp-spot

Interesting POV but I disagree - USC at 11-1 without a conference championship game looks even (high confidence) to slightly worse (medium confidence) than OSU at 11-1 without a conference championship.

Best win: roughly even, USC: ND+UCLA, vs OSU: PSU+ND

Quality of loss: OSU is better off here, even though they lost at home by more, losing to Michigan is probably less bad than losing to 8-4 Utah

"Eye test" - not sure if thats the right term, but OSU has better margins of victory than USC, who has 4 one score wins, compared to OSU who has none.

I think current projections are based on the likelihood that USC wins the conference championship game.

YEAH!!!

So Stroud sucks?

Yes they can; but look at this season that Michigan faced with "dangerous QBs: Maryland then Penn State then Illinois and then the buckeyes. (maybe add Peyton Thorne of MSU) So, we're 12-0 and I'll call that great!

Trust that defense Michigan has! 

The funny thing is that O'Connell really hasn't been that good.  He's completing a bit over 63% of his passes (which is low in a Brohm offense), he's thrown 11 picks and isn't a threat with his legs, and basically 1/3 of his completions went to Charlie Jones.  Michigan's more than capable of taking away a team's first option throwing the ball and if they can do that I don't think Purdue has another hand they could play.

In general, sure, but this defense is dangerous to offenses that can't run the football.

I don't think they have a choice - he could barely play yesterday and that was (I assume) chock full of every pain medication they could find.  

UM probably doesn't need him to beat Purdue and if there's a chance he can rehab and be ready in a couple of weeks for the playoffs then you have to sit him here.

Very possible and honestly likely based on what we know about the injuries they have. There is no structural damage to Corum's knee and I have to imagine Edwards hand would be close to 100% by then. Seemed like all the other injured guys either played yesterday or were very close to being good to play. A whole month or 3 weeks if you count needing to practice the week before for prep is enough for everyone to at least be good to play I would think.