We are 7-4, What were your expectations?

i expected 7-5 or 8-4, but with two Ws out of 3 rivalry games, ND, MSU, OSU. and a bowl win. So it's all come down to the game this week, and i think the chance of RR making my expectation is slim. Our D just doesn't have a solution for the power running game. And the special team stinks.

I agree that the record is what I was expecting this year and that anything more than 7 wins would have been a MASSIVE improvement.  I also agree that the offense and denard is becoming a machine.  

 

But for every step forward this team has taken offensively, they are taking two steps back defensively.  People aren't complaining because of the loss.  They are complaining because of the WAY we are losing.  Giving up 48 points when a team is running the ball for 7 yards a carry and getting completely manhandled is something new for most people on this forum.  Having to onside kick after TDs in the THIRD QUARTER because our D is just that bad is something a Michigan team has never had to do.

 

It is good that you are being optimistic; I too, see positives thus far.  But if you don't see the glaring SUCK that is the Michigan defense, you are in complete denial, and I am jealous of you if that is the case.

I put down 7-5 with a bowl berth not in Detroit. I also predicted that Mouton would be a beast. Record pending, bowl berth locked, and the Mouton bit is sadly true at times in a good way and true at times in a bad way. In my own mind, I felt this time to drive me to drink quite excessively at least one Saturday this year. To my surprise, and the joy of my family, this has not happened. So I got that going for me.

To stop seeing these type of posts

I envisioned that many things could have gone wrong over the course of the season, preventing the team from going 8-4 (my personal hope). Following Woolfolk's injury, I thought 7-5 would be great for this team, and that level stayed the same after seeing what the team and its competition was capable of.

Pre-season I was expecting a loss on the road to ND but a win at home against MSU.  Minus the injuries, I thought the defense would improve through the season as the younger kids got game playing time.  I'm most disappointed that this did not occur and the blame falls directly on the coaches. I guess the buck stops at RR and he best do something to correct this!

We're pretty lucky to be 7-4 right now.  Let's take it as it is and move forward with positivity. 

6-5 would be a much more precarious situation, and while I don't think that my opinion on RR would change with that, an even greater number of people would be hot on him.

Let's look up and thank the stars for allowing Hemingway to catch that fluke tipped up slant in double overtime and say hey that's the play thats going to get us started on getting back to where we want to be and possibly further.

See where you are going. The reality is that the people who are uneasy about this current direction are probably  that way because we actually got worse against the good teams in our league this season. 

One game we were favored (MSU) and we're embarrassed. Two other games we were hovering around a pick em (Wisconsin and Penn State) and got embarrrased. Throw in another blow out against 4 loss Iowa and we are talking about 4 games that were over at half time. Not only that,  four games where this offense did it's best work when the game was out of reach.

Take the 7-4 as a whole, without looking too closely at how it was arrived at and you can't argue progress.  Just don't open the closet and look inside. That's where reasonable minds can differ.

Can't argue with you that the record shows improvement, but the next step is a biggie and there are no signs from this season that it will be taken.  People who are not just buying this team's 7-4 as evidence of future dominance, aren't obligated to as proof of loyalty.

Exactly where I think we'll be.  8-5 with a bowl victory.

Do i win something?

didn't want another losing season and for the D to show that they had gotten better... well at least i got one of them...

I expected 8-4 with a victory over either Iowa or Penn St.  I though our offense would be good under Denard, but not as good as it has been. I thought our defense would be bad, but better than it has turned out to be. With those exceptions, this season has more or less  played out like I had assumed. I'd love a victory next Saturday, but I won't be heartbroken if we lose. This team is young and getting better. There's a reason why patience is a virtue. 

to predict that a team will have a certain record and think that having such a record is a disappointment.  If you don't like RR, you might predict something like 6-6 but also be convinced that Haurbagh/Bo/Jesus Christ would have gone 8-4.   Merely meeting pre-season expecations does not mean that people won't be disappointed.  For example, you may recall that when RR was hired many people predicted that Michigan would return to the top of the Big Ten and become a BCS force in 2010.  Some presisted with these predictions even after the RR's first season.  When compared to those expectations, the team is disappointing. 

 

In other words, you could say, "I'm angar and RR sucks and because he is coaching this team we're only going to go 7-5."  If you did so, you could consistently criticize the coaching while the team meets preseason expectations.  In the same way you might criticize the Lions for underacheiving, while predicting that they will continue to underacheive.  The important question is not how you think the team will ACTUALLY do (a prediction), but how the team SHOULD be performing with proper coaching (a normative judgment).  If you thought that this team should go 7-5 with good coaching, then you are in no position to criticize RR.  But if you thought this team would go 7-5 under RR but would have gone 9-3 under Haurbagh/Bo/Jesus, then you can still criticize the team for under performing.  So the argument, repeated ad naseum around here, that one cannot criticize RR because he's performing just as well as the critic predicted, is bunch a of bullshit.  So long you predicted a record that you thought was UNACCEPTABLE, you are not being inconsistent if you bitch.

I knew 7-5 was a likely outcome, but I wanted to think the team could hang with the best in the conference and that some of the losses could actually be against inferior opponents. My maize and blue glasses were making me think 8-4. But I didn't quite realize that the secondary would be so damn young/made up of converted WRs. Add on an injured Martin and Campbell not having any impact, and I would have probably predicted 6-6 going in. Wisconsin is such a senior heavy team, Michigan really shouldn't have had a chance against them.

I had auto-losses to Iowa, PSU, and Wiscy, with OSU or a bowl being the other loss.  My logic was that three losses would have gotten a tougher bowl opponent, where four would have gotten an easier one.  Basically, I had them improving just enough to be better than the Illinois/Purdue/MSU level and "going chalk" all year, except in the OSU game.  That is why I'm not as upset as a lot of people are over yesterday' result; the only thing that has kept my prediction from being right on schedule is MSU picking this year to be as good as their instate media hype.

Then, of course, there is the defense.  Obviously, nobody except maybe Brian and a few of the coaches here expected them to be this bad, but nobody really expected them to be in their current personnel configuration, either.  I will agree with RR's "perfect storm" reasoning for now.  I may be "too optimistic," but I still think there is a chance for Michigan to pull out an upset for the ages this Saturday. 

As far as that oft-maligned 3-3-5 goes, Wiscy was the worst possible matchup against it.  That is why I posted last week that Wiscy scared me more than OSU.  They were able to have their way and shove Michigan up and down the field.  I don't think OSU will be able to do that.  And if they can't, Michigan has a chance of winning.

It doesn't look like 9-4 is goiong to happen, but I would be very happy with 8-5 at this point.

I thought we'd win between 7 and 9 games.  I remember back when Brian used to do previews for all of the Big Ten teams (he had a classic meme about MSU that played off little red riding hood tasting the porridge that belonged to the three bears) and he typically had a best case, midline, and worst case scenario for each team.

When we beat Notre Dame I really felt we got lucky and that bumped us up to 8 wins since we beat a team we probably shouldn't have beaten.  But then we lost to a Penn State team we probably should have beaten (particularly if Bolden was still their QB) so in retrospect that erased the +1 we got for beating the Irish.

If you told me before the season we'd be competing with Indiana for worst defense in the conference I probably would have dropped by predicted range at least to 6-8 wins.  So long story short I really felt like entering Big Ten play we would go 8-4.  Right now 7-5 seems like the most likely outcome so I was off but not by much.  Get the defense fixed and we have the ability to start putting up double digit win totals as soon as next season.

I thought 8-4 or 7-5, but that was when I figured MSU wasn't Iowa circa 2009 and winning games they definitely should have lost.  The defense has definitely hurt this team, and even a mediocre unit (yeah 2011!) would have probably meant 9-10 wins.  But at the beginning of the season, I said a winning record and a bowl game was all I wanted, so I am content.  I do wish this team showed up better against the elite teams in the B10, but outside of Wiscy and PSU (though that was a perfect storm of suck) I don't feel like team didn't show up or got blown out of a game.  MSU and Iowa were much closer and I definitely felt like the team left points on the field, and at some point you have to expect the bad luck against them to change.  PSU feels like a fluke of sorts, just a horrible game by everyone involved.  OSU and Wiscy are still the cream of the B10, but I expect Wiscy to tumble next year and for OSU to regress a bit as Tressel's style of play becomes even more antiquated.  Nebraska will be scary next year, but they have some holes and you don't know how they'll handle the transition. 

So the long and short of it is that I'm fine with 7-8 wins this year, but I expect 9-10 next year provided massive injuries don't pop up.

only win we didnt get was Penn St.

Te reat thing about all these freshman is they become sophmores and we get all this extra practice time preping for bowl, which we have not had the last 3 yrs.

I said 7-5, but I never thought the offense would be this good this year! But on the other hand I didn't think the defense would be this bad. But we still have a chance to do better than my predictions. I sure hope the players are as jacked for this last game as me cuz after michigan losing and msu getting lucky and then osu coming back and getting away with obvious pi, i wanted to kill someone

I'm consternated by the D, but think he's around next year.

We're right on my expectations, or even slightly exceeding it. Before Troy Woolfolk's knee was injured, I thought that we would have 8 or 9 regular-season wins. Afterwards, I thought we'd go anywhere from 5-7 again to 7-5.