Having attended MSU for undergrad before getting my MA at Michigan, I can confirm this. The sports culture bred there is ugly and sick. I've known plenty of decent and kind MSU people, but invariably when it comes to Michigan all of that goes right out the window. I was a Michigan fan when I got to EL--large scholarship, getting out without debt was worth it--and all of this caused me to go from not caring much about State to really, truly despising them. I wouldn't miss it if we stopped playing them in any sport ever again. It's just a chore, and the best possible outcome is that you don't have some idiot yapping at you for a year.
This isn't three incidents. It's two jawing matches and an assault. It's one incident.
Anyway, what "best game" is this? Does any Michigan fan look forward to this? Does anyone actually enjoy winning it? It's just a chore to get through, a relief to get past it. Would any Michigan fan be sad not to play these assholes anymore?
MSU doesn't deserve the legitimacy Michigan lends them by continuing this series. They never did.
I agree 100%. At this point MSU football is nothing but a long-running troll of Michigan. Best thing to do with trolls is stop engaging. When is the last time anyone thought this BS was fun? Look at how their fans and reporters are reacting to this. The whole culture there is broken beyond repair and it won't be fixed anytime soon.
So many fantastic movies here! I'll throw in THE GREAT ESCAPE: James Coburn, James Garner, Charles Bronson, Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough, David McCallum, Donald Pleasance.
It's hard to argue with THE GODFATHER in this category, though.
Fun season, sorry it ended as it did. Really happy to take home Big Ten and Frozen Four banners. Honestly, the single-elimination tourney format really diminishes the importance of the NC in my mind, so even though it's disappointing it doesn't feel devastating. I've watched enough NCAA hockey seasons where the national title went to a team that really didn't deserve it. (Though that won't be the case this year, as every team in the Frozen Four was really good.)
Love what Mel Pearson has built here and hopefully we'll see another great team next year.
On another thread, I went through the list of active coaches who have won a conference championship or led their team to a playoff berth as a head coach. After slicing off everyone who 100% could not or would not come to Ann Arbor, I landed on Dave Aranda and Pat Narduzzi. I think Aranda would be the clear choice among active, successful coaches, but whether he'd leave Baylor for Michigan is anyone's guess.
I don't think "throw money at someone a la Brian Kelly/LSU" really does it, because in my view Kelly left less for money than for a chance at a national championship. It's at least an open question whether Michigan is structurally better positioned than Baylor to compete for NCs in the current environment.
I included Urban Meyer because he is on the list of active(ish) coaches who have led a team to a playoff berth, not because I think he's a plausible coaching candidate. You'll notice that later I narrowed down, based on what I think are reasonable criteria, to just Aranda and Narduzzi. I'm not asking the question rhetorically. I'm just asking who would be a "proven" head coaching hire if Harbaugh left. I think it's an interesting question.
As for the "fire Jimmy, he sucks"...I never hated Harbaugh or went on some tirade about him sucking. I thought he was a good coach that, for whatever reason, wasn't working out. It happens. I didn't think he should've been fired mid-season for moving to 3-4 against MSU, but I did think they should've parted ways in the preceding offseason. I was clearly and decisively (and entertainingly) proven wrong.
I was among the extremely wrong people who said after the MSU loss that Michigan under Harbaugh would never do better than a 10-win season. It would be absolutely perfect if he exploded that trope and then immediately bolted for the NFL.
Anyway, who is the proven head coach you would hire if Harbaugh left?
The following is a list (if I missed anyone, let me know, also below) of all active or recently-fired coaches who have guided their team to a CFP berth: Nick Saban, Kirby Smart, Ed Orgeron, Dabo Swinney, Ryan Day, Urban Meyer, Brian Kelly, Jimbo Fisher, Lincoln Riley, Luke Fickell.
Similar list of coaches who have won a major conference/AAC championship without reaching the playoff since 2014: Pat Narduzzi, James Franklin, Gary Patterson, Dave Aranda, David Shaw, Mario Cristobal, Kyle Whittingham, Clay Helton, Scott Frost, Josh Heupel, Matt Rhule, Tom Herman, Mike Norvell, Justin Fuente.
This list gets whittled down basically to Narduzzi and Aranda if you lose the ones who were recently hired or recently fired, are at a clearly better place, are nearing the end of their careers, haven't had recent success, or are already at conference rivals.
Impressions of a non-expert, but Seton Hall seemed like "bad, but hey, we're still growing." This one seemed more "bad, and uh where are we headed here." Should we expect a lot of improvement out of the new guys, enough that this looks more like a Sweet Sixteen seed by the end?
I'm a deeply pessimistic person, and even I can't understand why some people seem to think the sky is falling already. It's college basketball. They're a young team, they don't have a lot of minutes together, they'll move on and get better. Thanks for the write-up!
I think the theory here, if I'm understanding correctly, is that Tennessee and Nebraska have put themselves into a self-perpetuating state of poor football. I don't think that's the best theory. I think when they find the right coach, they'll get better, just like Georgia, Alabama, and Clemson did. And I think if Michigan parted ways with Harbaugh and their next coach didn't pan out, we'd have a chance to try again. (After all, we hired Harbaugh after two abysmal seasons of Hoke.)
It is a matter of risk tolerance, though, as you say. For me, it's just boring knowing there's no realistic chance to win even a conference title. I'd take beating OSU 1/4 of the time, to be honest, but we're not even getting that and it doesn't seem likely to change anytime soon.
I didn't say this game was a lot like 2018 OSU in terms of expectations vs what happened on the scoreboard. I said it was almost as demoralizing as that loss, and explained why I felt that way.
It also isn't my view that Michigan seemed better than MSU. MSU's offense is more boom-bust; ours moves better between the 20s, but has a hard time in the red zone. We had more scoring drives, but we needed even more than that to win bc we can't punch it in. Walker made us pay for mistakes with a bunch of long TD runs. I don't think we looked worse, but we definitely didn't look *better.*
The problem is that it isn't enough to play pretty darn well at MSU but just come up short in year 7 when their guy is in year 2. (And for that guy to move to 2-0 against us.) I don't care how good they look in their 9-3 years where, hey, if they had just caught a few breaks maybe they could convince themselves they might have won the division for a few brief minutes before the OSU game kicks off.
I guess from the standpoint that the baseline expectation for the year was 7-8 wins, then almost beating the team MSU has turned out to be is nice. But it's definitely not encouraging in the sense that we'll ever contend for a B1G title under Harbaugh or reassert control of the MSU rivalry. There's no way of definitively saying we never will, but we sure have a lot of evidence of that. It's just an endless grey rolling plain of a team in the #11-20 range nationally.
Again, I'm certainly happy that you can feel differently, but that's not where I am, for the reasons I explained.
Like I said, I don't hate Harbaugh, but we're getting what we're going to get from him: even with MSU, not even close to OSU. Also like I said, I get why some people are just saying they're fine with it. You seem to be indicating that your attitude is #3 of those I laid out, and if the problem really lies with Michigan as an institution then of course you wouldn't want to change course. I'd like to at least find out if we can do better, and I'm fine having a bunch of losing seasons along the way. There's no permadeath in college football. You can go through 7 seasons of Rodriguez/Hoke and still come out on the other side with Harbaugh.
My view of coaching hires is that they're never guaranteed to work out. Sometimes you hire a D-IA coach and turn your underachieving historical powerhouse into a perennial national championship contender; other times you hire a guy who turned around two college programs and an NFL franchise and you get no hardware at all. I'm not so concerned about whether there's a slam-dunk or obvious hire. But as long as there's essentially no chance of any hardware, it's hard to care about what's happening with the team at all.
As far as this being a well-coached team, they're not Scott Frost's Nebraska, so that's good. But they also had numerous substitution penalties in situations they should have been able to foresee. Again taking a step back, they're a 9-3-coached team. They've never had a one-loss regular season and there's no reason to think that's on the horizon. Football coaches at this level are unusually ambitious people anyway, but even if they weren't any coach in the world is going to understand why Michigan would want to start over from this. After all, the best empirical estimate of Harbaugh's probability of beating OSU is 0.
Sometimes a more granular approach can actually obscure things that are obvious if you take a 10,000-foot view. If you zoom way in, you can see all the different reasons something went wrong. You can fuel your hope or your optimism by only zooming in on specific things. (Yes, the team almost beat MSU, but they could easily have lost to Nebraska or, God help us, Rutgers.)
The 10,000 foot view is that Harbaugh has Michigan about even with MSU and nowhere close to OSU. Someone above defended him by saying we're going to lose 2 games on average, some years losing 3 and other years losing 1. I don't think it's too much to ask that we have a year every decade or so that we lose 0. But in fact, Harbaugh has *never had a year at Michigan in which he only lost one regular season game.* They've lost 3, 2, 4, 2, 3, and 4 in the six seasons we've seen. I won't speculate about this season's conclusion, but I think most of us suspect they'll have at least one more loss by the time it's over.
I guess the three attitudes you can have here are 1) find a new coach who might reach a higher level (or not, it's a risk), 2) settle for this, because they're usually top-25 and you don't want to risk falling out of that, or 3) no one could possibly do better than Harbaugh is doing now at Michigan for institutional reasons.
My attitude is 1. I don't hate Harbaugh, I'm not suggesting he should be fired mid-season, nothing like that. But I do wish we'd parted ways with him after last season and taken a risk on a new approach. I can put with a stretch of bad seasons looking for someone who can finally get them a B1G title.
Frankly, this game may have been the most demoralizing since the 2018 OSU loss. MSU's new coach has them as good in year 2 as Harbaugh's Michigan in year 7, and if we're honest the B1G title is definitively out of reach again. And that's why I just can't watch them anymore. After this game I decided I'd listen to the pod, read Brian's Monday gamer, and then be done with it for 2021. Wake me up when there's a chance they could do something great. I'm genuinely happy for anyone who can maintain hope and optimism and enjoy this, but that isn't me.
I see what you're saying, but I don't agree with the framing. Coaching hires are never guaranteed to succeed or fail. It's a matter of chance. I was excited about RichRod in 2007, and that happened not to work out. I was dubious about Hoke but willing to give it a shot, and that failed. I was excited about Harbaugh, and Harbaugh's put us around the level Wisconsin has achieved--nice, but not what we expect. You never really know what you're going to get.
The grass isn't always greener, but it isn't always browner, either. The grass we have right now is unsatisfying. Some people are going to prefer to stick with the unsatisfying status quo, and others are going to want to take a chance on a new direction in the hope of reaching the elite expectations we think Michigan should have.
Please understand, this isn't an insult--"you all are SAWFT and are satisfied with mediocrity!"--it's just an expression of a different set of preferences around risk. I totally get why people would be happy shooting for 9-11 win seasons, even if we'll never compete with OSU, rather than risk Hoke 2.0. But you can go through a Hoke and still try again. That's how we got Harbaugh.
I'm not sure if this is a response to anything I wrote, but I didn't say it was a great hire, and obviously they had to hire *someone*. What I wrote was that it was risky, in the sense that there was high variance. It didn't have to work out. Since MSU had to look for a new coach no matter what, it's not exactly analogous to Michigan's situation. We have a coach, and we know what to expect from him by now. That is why I also brought up Georgia, which fired a coach under whom they were just ok and brought in Kirby Smart. Risky, but it worked out.
Please notice I'm not breathing fire and saying "MAN UP AND BRING IN A REAL COACH LIKE MEL TUCKER." I very carefully said that no one knows for sure what you're getting when you hire a new coach. My point is that we *do* know what we have with Harbaugh, and I'd rather take a risk on someone new. I know not everyone wants to take on that kind of risk. I'm just saying that's my preference.
I don't see where the "pie in the sky thinking" is here. He's right: Harbaugh's going to win 9-10 games usually, get to about .500 with MSU (at best) and rarely if ever beat OSU. Hiring someone new has high upside and high downside. It invites more variance. The new guy could be terrible, like RichRod, or he could come in and in year 2 be at least as good as an established coach in year 7 at your in-state rival, like Mel Tucker. No one loves to be at the level Harbaugh has gotten Michigan to, but some fans might prefer that to risking a few more bad seasons. (Of course, it isn't like we didn't go 2-4 last year, so bad seasons clearly aren't off the table anyway.) For my part, I'd prefer to take a risk to try to get to an elite level. And if the new guy doesn't work out, take another risk. Keep going until you find the right guy.
Again, none of this is to say you love where the team is or that your preferences aren't valid, even though they aren't my preferences. I just think it's valuable to clarify the situation and the tradeoffs we face.
The secondary has to play run defense, too. And if your DBs can't cover, you have to scheme around that in ways that may hurt your defense in other ways. So, yeah, that's a big issue.
MSU scored five times, all TDs. They attempted two 2P conversions and got both. MSU's D bends but doesn't break. Ours broke, a lot.
I'm sure there are plenty of things to blame directly on the coaches, especially the tempo stuff. But the secondary is mediocre at best. You can scheme things to try to cover that deficiency up, but there's no quick fix there.
It's just an incredible shame how they've wasted Dax and Hutchinson.
I predicted on another thread last night that Michigan would lose 24-19 because they wouldn't be able to score TDs despite moving the ball more consistently than MSU. MSU would win because of big plays. I undersold the offenses, as McNamara was way better than I thought he'd be, and I thought MSU's big plays would come in the air. But I feel pretty good--or rather terrible, because MSU is nauseous--about my prediction.
I don't know how they get better in the red zone. I don't know why the OL can seemingly have a good game and yet can't get two good RBs going. I don't know why Michigan's receivers drop big passes and MSU's don't, other than that somehow Harbaugh doesn't prepare guys well mentally and Tucker seemingly does.
I'm interested to hear the analysis from Seth and Brian, but I didn't see Michigan go out there with an unworkable game plan or make a lot of obviously egregious decisions. (Somehow they're still not prepped to face tempo, of course, but apparently McNamara was in the injury tent when McCarthy turned the ball over.) It's just that somehow Mel Tucker's MSU doesn't really make a lot of mistakes and is mentally tough, whereas Harbaugh's Michigan teams are the opposite. I hate this, because, for a variety of reasons I won't go into, my attitude toward MSU is roughly the same as Cato the Elder's toward Carthage. But Tucker seems like a better coach than Harbaugh. (Please note I'm not saying Harbaugh is a *bad coach*, just that Tucker is better.)
And that was basically why I thought it was time to part ways with Harbaugh after last year. I don't hate him or something like that, nor did I think there was some sort of slam dunk hire available. No one is ever a slam dunk. But MSU took a big risk hiring Tucker after a single mediocre season at Colorado, and it paid off. It might not have, but it did. The same is true for Kirby Smart at Georgia. Harbaugh is a *good* coach but at this point I'm comfortable saying he's not a great one. A new hire might be really bad or really good; it's a higher variance strategy. I prefer the high-variance strategy, but I get why not everyone does.
Final note: I'm not saying "fire Harbaugh." You don't fire a guy mid-season when he's 7-1 with only a close road loss to a top 10 team. It's just that this game really puts Harbaugh's apparent limitations as a coach into sharp relief and reminds me of why I thought they should've gone a different direction after last year.
Just a bad matchup more or less. MSU's secondary is weak, but McNamara won't be able to punish them. U-M's secondary is weak, and Thorne/Reed/Nailor can absolutely punish that. I also think Michigan's red-zone troubles are running into a D that does a good job of forcing FGs. My guess is U-M will move the ball more consistently but be unable to punch it in; MSU's drives will be more boom-bust, but the booms will be enough.
Interestingly it would be Harbaugh's first loss in EL as head coach here.
I agree with this. My *guess* would be that JJ is heady and gritty and whatever you like, but at this point it's just a guess because we've only seen him pass in garbage time. I think if the team takes another big step forward the most likely reason was that McCarthy downloaded the playbook and turned out to be a Trevor Lawrence-level throw god. I just don't think so far we've seen something that makes that the most reasonable expectation, and even with his limitations we shouldn't downplay what McNamara has been able to give us. Low-mistake QBing is always underrated.
At this point in the season it kind of seems like Michigan would eat Notre Dame's lunch and any other food it happened to be carrying around. ND had a close game against FSU, got smoked by Cincy, and trailed Wisconsin in the 4th quarter (the final score was not representative of how that game was going). Can't see it even being competitive.
Preseason I figured 6-7 wins, with a 95% CI of 3-10 wins. After the first six results, I'd say more like 10-11 (8-12). Obviously I'm really happy to have been wrong.
Remaining games:
Northwestern: If this is a loss, the football gods truly hate us.
MSU: They look solid, but I don't know if they've actually played anyone better than Nebraska and Nebraska outplayed them in EL. Hard to say. Tucker will probably have a lot of BS saved for us. Tossup.
IU: They're broken. Should be a win.
PSU: If Clifford is out, should be a win. If not, who the hell knows? Tossup.
Maryland: Yes, they have taken their usual hilarious October nosedive, but getting wrecked by OSU is something everyone can relate to. Likely win, but also can be dangerous. Trap game, obviously.
OSU: They seem to have figured out their problems, predictably. I love what Michigan has done so far, but that's in the context of a team that has had real problems for a few years. It's still not, to me, a better situation than "feisty 11-1 B1G West team that gets rolled in the championship," and unfortunately we're in the East. Don't see much probability of a win here. (Hope I'm wrong again!)
Obviously a lot can happen in terms of injuries for any team. If Walker goes out for MSU, that would be a big problem; some for us with a few players I won't name for jinx reasons. My question is what are the possible areas where U-M can take a step forward? Maybe the DL gains confidence, the LBs gain experience, WRs get coached up better in terms of routes and contests? McCarthy apotheosis? Feels like the CBs basically are who they're going to be at this point.
The defense is a work in progress. Like the offense today, mental toughness showed on the road in a tough situation. Thank god for Dax and Aidan. Tip of the cap to Adrian Martinez for keeping it together (right up until the end) and making some nice plays.
I'm sure we'll learn a lot from Seth in the UFR, but right now I'm not going to complain about a QB who gutted out some key drives to win a game. Corum and Haskins are awesome. WRs did enough and should have had more TDs--McNamara targeting downfield was rough--but both CJ and Baldwin feel underwhelming on contested catches. They did a nice job with TEs to get some key first downs.
Didn't love the playcalling at times. The Very Obvious JJ McCarthy Option on 3rd down on the last drive, and apparently playing for the FG, stands out.
Overall, this was the most impressive performance of the year so far. Night game on the road against a team that has been a hair away from some big wins this year. They showed incredible mental toughness.
That advantage is small by the end of the season because good teams are contending for a lot more marbles by then. Michigan earned 34 marbles and PSU earned 50 for their wins at Wisconsin. In 2019, Minnesota lost 97 marbles to Wisconsin in the last regular season game; the #1 and #10 teams were separated by 414 marbles; #10 and #20 were separated by 129. By the time Michigan plays PSU on the road the 16-marble difference for Wisconsin won't matter much.
I don't know if there's anything to add to what everyone else has said--stifling except for a few outlier pinpoint throws from Wisconsin--but what I really loved was the hard hitting. After getting trucked in last year's game it's great to see this year's defense come back and punch them in the mouth hard. It really feels like the young guys in the front seven are making big strides and gaining confidence every game.
Great game. Lots of help from the D, setting them up with field position on some turnovers, but they got the job done and made some nice plays. Happy to see a couple TDs from CJ and one from Baldwin. They did test the edge a few times, but Wisconsin's elite LB corps makes that difficult and they got a brutal TFL in the red zone on one. It's absolutely understandable to be weighing JJ against Cade right now, but I think Cade's intelligence is still a bit underrated and plays a role in the low number of sacks given up. Losing Bell absolutely also threw a wrench into their passing game, and they'll get better as time goes on.
Wisconsin isn't as bad as the 1-3 record suggests, and Camp Randall is hell to play in. This was a tough, physical game--that hit early on between Corum and Hicks was *loud*--and they proved they could handle it, unlike previous years. I'm especially happy because before the season I basically wrote off this game and OSU as beyond hope. Really glad to be wrong.
As I said, I understand the sentiment, I just don't agree with that assessment. I don't think Cade was a sub-D1 quarterback even in the second half. Going back to the ESPN play-by-play, he wasn't even given a lot of chances to pass in the second half. (On the first one he had a blitzer in his face immediately.) He missed some guys, for sure--I'm not saying he was Tom Brady out there--but it's possible to overdo the criticism. I also don't think we know much about how they would call plays for McCarthy in a competitive situation. *At this point* I think the best estimate of the number of extra wins we get by using McCarthy rather than McNamara is zero.
Finally, I would just reiterate that it's easy as anything to ruin a good young QB by putting them in tough spots too early in their career. I think it's worth avoiding that if we can possibly help it.
After reading all these comments, my thoughts are these:
1) The problem is mostly playcalling. The 3rd-and-12 run in the third quarter in Rutgers territory said it all. And I think that "pack it in" mentality hits the players, not just the coaches, and everybody gets sluggish. As others have said, it's reminiscent of the Army game. Gattis seems to get into this turtle mindset at times.
2) I think people should understand that McNamara probably isn't making the wrong reads on option plays. There are no option plays. Every damn one of those plays is a fake read. When he kept in the fourth quarter he didn't have a read, just certain doom.
3) I get why people want it, but I just cannot say I want McCarthy in. Given the playcalling issues, I doubt it would make a lot of difference even if he did turn out to be substantially better than McNamara. He should be good. He's not Trevor Lawrence. And it's too easy to ruin young QBs. Obviously if Cade goes out against someone and just looks like he can't be a D1 quarterback, then you have to get to functional and maybe McCarthy can be that. But my preference is to stick with Cade for now.
I specifically said I think McNamara can give us what we need this year. That's not "abandoning the season." If by "abandon the season" you mean "admit we're unlikely to go undefeated or beat OSU," fine, but you're only going to make yourself miserable. It's been a nice few games. I've enjoyed them thoroughly. I haven't seen any evidence we're elite this year, and I'm also determined not to immiserate myself pretending we are.
And I'd like to see McCarthy play when he's ready, not before. He's a special player and I don't want to see him ruined like so many other talented young QBs.
Corum and Haskins are a joy to watch. Whatever our record at the end of the season, I hope some of the perpetual grumblers can appreciate it.
The passing game will probably improve a bit as they get used to not having Bell out there. I think McNamara can give them what they need from the QB position this year. We're unlikely to win the B1G or beat OSU no matter who's under center, and I'd like to give the true frosh a year of practice and study.
If someone tells me Michigan should've been more balanced, I would've agreed. 3.3 yards per passing attempt and 6.2 yards per run strongly suggests the yards from a marginal run were above those of a marginal pass. That's just science.
Love Haskins and Corum. OL had a great night on the ground. They did what they needed to do. Didn't like the pass pro (but I'm far from an expert, so if someone wants to correct me go right ahead), and some of those screens could have gone somewhere if the WRs had blocked at all. Between pass rush and great DB play I didn't feel like we learned a lot about Cade.
I'm never going to complain about a 21-point win against a P5 team though. Especially not in 2021.
I am a new fan, and this is actually a question I have. I keep hearing people say CONCACAF qualifying is tough. Why is that? It's not like it's UEFA or CONMEBOL. Since 1998 CONCACAF teams have only made it to the WC quarterfinals twice , and no team has advanced further than that. Is it about relatively low-quality pitches, refs calling the game differently, fans being crazy, or what?
I'm not entirely sure what we're arguing about. We all agree the USMNT should easily qualify out of CONCACAF, and it's frustrating that they continue to struggle even after embarrassing themselves in 2018. I think most of us also understand that with out current talent level our stretch goal is to reach the WC quarterfinals, and getting to the semifinals would be a big, wonderful upset.
And you're right, in the long term it would be disappointing if the USMNT couldn't become contenders. It's just that that takes time. It isn't only a matter of getting elite athletes. You have to have a culture and a structure for it. The first soccer-specific first-division professional stadium in the US wasn't built until 1999. The sport is still young here. Even though I have my problems with the way US Soccer and MLS are run, there's no question they've made a lot of strides, including in youth development.
Of course, at the same time that I counsel patience for the long-run success of USMNT, I obviously don't think we should have patience for a second straight failure to qualify for the World Cup.
That's true. No one should mistake this for a team that would be competitive in UEFA. USMNT is years away from that, if they ever do get there. For my part, if the US manages to qualify, I'd like to see them reach the quarterfinals again, something that IIRC CONCACAF teams have done only twice since the field expanded to 32.
My reading was that the OP was talking about talent in the context of CONCACAF.
I was at 6-6 before the season, figuring they'd probably look miserable again. After a little over a quarter I was still there, but then they started to put it together. With Indiana looking mediocre, Nebraska and Northwestern looking terrible, and Washington losing to Montana, I'm closer to 8-4.
That said, obviously after one week the mean/standard deviation estimates only move a little. We always learn a lot in Week 2.
Seems more accurate to say the floor is 3-9, the ceiling is 10-2, and the most likely season outcome is 6-6.
If you're going to say "well upsets happen sometimes" then the ceiling is 12-0 and the floor is 0-12. But I don't think we're in the same class as OSU or Wisconsin, nor do I think Rutgers, NIU, or WMU are in our class.
I'll love every second if we have some kick-ass season where we unexpectedly sweep through everyone and look like Harbaugh's early Michigan teams. It's not beyond the realm of possibility, but there's no reason anyone should expect it.
Even having moved near the southern border, Mi Pueblo is a place I still miss. Southern New Mexico has its own--very good!--cuisine, but it's just not the same.
I agree that it isn't a full explanation of what happened last year, but I think it's plausible that it created a lot of unusual variance. If you take higher variance as given, the likelihood of a 2-4 record from a team whose true ability would on average have given a 4-2/5-1 record goes up.
I think that's more or less then story with PSU. As I tried to imply above, I don't think that's why Michigan went 2-4. I think they were just bad, and will probably be kinda bad again this year.
I'm definitely sympathetic to the "covid year" argument. At the same time, I would argue that the three things you listed--losing record, young guys bailing, giving up on games--all happened already last year. Genuine, non-rhetorical and non-snarky question: why would we be surprised to see that this fall again? Stipulating your belief that U-M followed the rules while others, including OSU, did not, I'm not sure that's still a sufficient explanation for what we saw.
In some ways I'm jealous of your outlook, though. You're clearly less jaded about it than I am.
Where I am right now: I think Harbaugh should have been let go after last season, not for going 2-4 but for how they looked while they went 2-4. I'm not angry at Harbaugh like some people seem to be; I feel bad for him, because he obviously loves Michigan and didn't envision his time here going like this.
I would change my mind if they had a 10+ win regular season, or 8+ with a win against OSU. I would say on average I expect them to win 6 games against this year's schedule, with losses to Washington, Wisconsin, Penn State, and Ohio State, and then two of Maryland, Northwestern, Indiana, and Michigan State. Losses to any of the other four opponents should probably lead to a firing on the tarmac.
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Having attended MSU for undergrad before getting my MA at Michigan, I can confirm this. The sports culture bred there is ugly and sick. I've known plenty of decent and kind MSU people, but invariably when it comes to Michigan all of that goes right out the window. I was a Michigan fan when I got to EL--large scholarship, getting out without debt was worth it--and all of this caused me to go from not caring much about State to really, truly despising them. I wouldn't miss it if we stopped playing them in any sport ever again. It's just a chore, and the best possible outcome is that you don't have some idiot yapping at you for a year.
This isn't three incidents. It's two jawing matches and an assault. It's one incident.
Anyway, what "best game" is this? Does any Michigan fan look forward to this? Does anyone actually enjoy winning it? It's just a chore to get through, a relief to get past it. Would any Michigan fan be sad not to play these assholes anymore?
MSU doesn't deserve the legitimacy Michigan lends them by continuing this series. They never did.
I agree 100%. At this point MSU football is nothing but a long-running troll of Michigan. Best thing to do with trolls is stop engaging. When is the last time anyone thought this BS was fun? Look at how their fans and reporters are reacting to this. The whole culture there is broken beyond repair and it won't be fixed anytime soon.
So many fantastic movies here! I'll throw in THE GREAT ESCAPE: James Coburn, James Garner, Charles Bronson, Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough, David McCallum, Donald Pleasance.
It's hard to argue with THE GODFATHER in this category, though.
Fun season, sorry it ended as it did. Really happy to take home Big Ten and Frozen Four banners. Honestly, the single-elimination tourney format really diminishes the importance of the NC in my mind, so even though it's disappointing it doesn't feel devastating. I've watched enough NCAA hockey seasons where the national title went to a team that really didn't deserve it. (Though that won't be the case this year, as every team in the Frozen Four was really good.)
Love what Mel Pearson has built here and hopefully we'll see another great team next year.
On another thread, I went through the list of active coaches who have won a conference championship or led their team to a playoff berth as a head coach. After slicing off everyone who 100% could not or would not come to Ann Arbor, I landed on Dave Aranda and Pat Narduzzi. I think Aranda would be the clear choice among active, successful coaches, but whether he'd leave Baylor for Michigan is anyone's guess.
I don't think "throw money at someone a la Brian Kelly/LSU" really does it, because in my view Kelly left less for money than for a chance at a national championship. It's at least an open question whether Michigan is structurally better positioned than Baylor to compete for NCs in the current environment.
I included Urban Meyer because he is on the list of active(ish) coaches who have led a team to a playoff berth, not because I think he's a plausible coaching candidate. You'll notice that later I narrowed down, based on what I think are reasonable criteria, to just Aranda and Narduzzi. I'm not asking the question rhetorically. I'm just asking who would be a "proven" head coaching hire if Harbaugh left. I think it's an interesting question.
As for the "fire Jimmy, he sucks"...I never hated Harbaugh or went on some tirade about him sucking. I thought he was a good coach that, for whatever reason, wasn't working out. It happens. I didn't think he should've been fired mid-season for moving to 3-4 against MSU, but I did think they should've parted ways in the preceding offseason. I was clearly and decisively (and entertainingly) proven wrong.
I was among the extremely wrong people who said after the MSU loss that Michigan under Harbaugh would never do better than a 10-win season. It would be absolutely perfect if he exploded that trope and then immediately bolted for the NFL.
Anyway, who is the proven head coach you would hire if Harbaugh left?
The following is a list (if I missed anyone, let me know, also below) of all active or recently-fired coaches who have guided their team to a CFP berth: Nick Saban, Kirby Smart, Ed Orgeron, Dabo Swinney, Ryan Day, Urban Meyer, Brian Kelly, Jimbo Fisher, Lincoln Riley, Luke Fickell.
Similar list of coaches who have won a major conference/AAC championship without reaching the playoff since 2014: Pat Narduzzi, James Franklin, Gary Patterson, Dave Aranda, David Shaw, Mario Cristobal, Kyle Whittingham, Clay Helton, Scott Frost, Josh Heupel, Matt Rhule, Tom Herman, Mike Norvell, Justin Fuente.
This list gets whittled down basically to Narduzzi and Aranda if you lose the ones who were recently hired or recently fired, are at a clearly better place, are nearing the end of their careers, haven't had recent success, or are already at conference rivals.
Who else would constitute a proven head coach?
I gave up on them after the MSU game. I was wrong. So so wrong. I've never been happier to be wrong in my life.
60 minutes of dominance. I never saw it coming. To all those who urged optimism: I bow to your superior attitude. Wow.
Impressions of a non-expert, but Seton Hall seemed like "bad, but hey, we're still growing." This one seemed more "bad, and uh where are we headed here." Should we expect a lot of improvement out of the new guys, enough that this looks more like a Sweet Sixteen seed by the end?
I'm a deeply pessimistic person, and even I can't understand why some people seem to think the sky is falling already. It's college basketball. They're a young team, they don't have a lot of minutes together, they'll move on and get better. Thanks for the write-up!
I think the theory here, if I'm understanding correctly, is that Tennessee and Nebraska have put themselves into a self-perpetuating state of poor football. I don't think that's the best theory. I think when they find the right coach, they'll get better, just like Georgia, Alabama, and Clemson did. And I think if Michigan parted ways with Harbaugh and their next coach didn't pan out, we'd have a chance to try again. (After all, we hired Harbaugh after two abysmal seasons of Hoke.)
It is a matter of risk tolerance, though, as you say. For me, it's just boring knowing there's no realistic chance to win even a conference title. I'd take beating OSU 1/4 of the time, to be honest, but we're not even getting that and it doesn't seem likely to change anytime soon.
I didn't say this game was a lot like 2018 OSU in terms of expectations vs what happened on the scoreboard. I said it was almost as demoralizing as that loss, and explained why I felt that way.
It also isn't my view that Michigan seemed better than MSU. MSU's offense is more boom-bust; ours moves better between the 20s, but has a hard time in the red zone. We had more scoring drives, but we needed even more than that to win bc we can't punch it in. Walker made us pay for mistakes with a bunch of long TD runs. I don't think we looked worse, but we definitely didn't look *better.*
The problem is that it isn't enough to play pretty darn well at MSU but just come up short in year 7 when their guy is in year 2. (And for that guy to move to 2-0 against us.) I don't care how good they look in their 9-3 years where, hey, if they had just caught a few breaks maybe they could convince themselves they might have won the division for a few brief minutes before the OSU game kicks off.
I guess from the standpoint that the baseline expectation for the year was 7-8 wins, then almost beating the team MSU has turned out to be is nice. But it's definitely not encouraging in the sense that we'll ever contend for a B1G title under Harbaugh or reassert control of the MSU rivalry. There's no way of definitively saying we never will, but we sure have a lot of evidence of that. It's just an endless grey rolling plain of a team in the #11-20 range nationally.
Again, I'm certainly happy that you can feel differently, but that's not where I am, for the reasons I explained.
Like I said, I don't hate Harbaugh, but we're getting what we're going to get from him: even with MSU, not even close to OSU. Also like I said, I get why some people are just saying they're fine with it. You seem to be indicating that your attitude is #3 of those I laid out, and if the problem really lies with Michigan as an institution then of course you wouldn't want to change course. I'd like to at least find out if we can do better, and I'm fine having a bunch of losing seasons along the way. There's no permadeath in college football. You can go through 7 seasons of Rodriguez/Hoke and still come out on the other side with Harbaugh.
My view of coaching hires is that they're never guaranteed to work out. Sometimes you hire a D-IA coach and turn your underachieving historical powerhouse into a perennial national championship contender; other times you hire a guy who turned around two college programs and an NFL franchise and you get no hardware at all. I'm not so concerned about whether there's a slam-dunk or obvious hire. But as long as there's essentially no chance of any hardware, it's hard to care about what's happening with the team at all.
As far as this being a well-coached team, they're not Scott Frost's Nebraska, so that's good. But they also had numerous substitution penalties in situations they should have been able to foresee. Again taking a step back, they're a 9-3-coached team. They've never had a one-loss regular season and there's no reason to think that's on the horizon. Football coaches at this level are unusually ambitious people anyway, but even if they weren't any coach in the world is going to understand why Michigan would want to start over from this. After all, the best empirical estimate of Harbaugh's probability of beating OSU is 0.
Sometimes a more granular approach can actually obscure things that are obvious if you take a 10,000-foot view. If you zoom way in, you can see all the different reasons something went wrong. You can fuel your hope or your optimism by only zooming in on specific things. (Yes, the team almost beat MSU, but they could easily have lost to Nebraska or, God help us, Rutgers.)
The 10,000 foot view is that Harbaugh has Michigan about even with MSU and nowhere close to OSU. Someone above defended him by saying we're going to lose 2 games on average, some years losing 3 and other years losing 1. I don't think it's too much to ask that we have a year every decade or so that we lose 0. But in fact, Harbaugh has *never had a year at Michigan in which he only lost one regular season game.* They've lost 3, 2, 4, 2, 3, and 4 in the six seasons we've seen. I won't speculate about this season's conclusion, but I think most of us suspect they'll have at least one more loss by the time it's over.
I guess the three attitudes you can have here are 1) find a new coach who might reach a higher level (or not, it's a risk), 2) settle for this, because they're usually top-25 and you don't want to risk falling out of that, or 3) no one could possibly do better than Harbaugh is doing now at Michigan for institutional reasons.
My attitude is 1. I don't hate Harbaugh, I'm not suggesting he should be fired mid-season, nothing like that. But I do wish we'd parted ways with him after last season and taken a risk on a new approach. I can put with a stretch of bad seasons looking for someone who can finally get them a B1G title.
Frankly, this game may have been the most demoralizing since the 2018 OSU loss. MSU's new coach has them as good in year 2 as Harbaugh's Michigan in year 7, and if we're honest the B1G title is definitively out of reach again. And that's why I just can't watch them anymore. After this game I decided I'd listen to the pod, read Brian's Monday gamer, and then be done with it for 2021. Wake me up when there's a chance they could do something great. I'm genuinely happy for anyone who can maintain hope and optimism and enjoy this, but that isn't me.
I see what you're saying, but I don't agree with the framing. Coaching hires are never guaranteed to succeed or fail. It's a matter of chance. I was excited about RichRod in 2007, and that happened not to work out. I was dubious about Hoke but willing to give it a shot, and that failed. I was excited about Harbaugh, and Harbaugh's put us around the level Wisconsin has achieved--nice, but not what we expect. You never really know what you're going to get.
The grass isn't always greener, but it isn't always browner, either. The grass we have right now is unsatisfying. Some people are going to prefer to stick with the unsatisfying status quo, and others are going to want to take a chance on a new direction in the hope of reaching the elite expectations we think Michigan should have.
Please understand, this isn't an insult--"you all are SAWFT and are satisfied with mediocrity!"--it's just an expression of a different set of preferences around risk. I totally get why people would be happy shooting for 9-11 win seasons, even if we'll never compete with OSU, rather than risk Hoke 2.0. But you can go through a Hoke and still try again. That's how we got Harbaugh.
I'm not sure if this is a response to anything I wrote, but I didn't say it was a great hire, and obviously they had to hire *someone*. What I wrote was that it was risky, in the sense that there was high variance. It didn't have to work out. Since MSU had to look for a new coach no matter what, it's not exactly analogous to Michigan's situation. We have a coach, and we know what to expect from him by now. That is why I also brought up Georgia, which fired a coach under whom they were just ok and brought in Kirby Smart. Risky, but it worked out.
Please notice I'm not breathing fire and saying "MAN UP AND BRING IN A REAL COACH LIKE MEL TUCKER." I very carefully said that no one knows for sure what you're getting when you hire a new coach. My point is that we *do* know what we have with Harbaugh, and I'd rather take a risk on someone new. I know not everyone wants to take on that kind of risk. I'm just saying that's my preference.
I don't see where the "pie in the sky thinking" is here. He's right: Harbaugh's going to win 9-10 games usually, get to about .500 with MSU (at best) and rarely if ever beat OSU. Hiring someone new has high upside and high downside. It invites more variance. The new guy could be terrible, like RichRod, or he could come in and in year 2 be at least as good as an established coach in year 7 at your in-state rival, like Mel Tucker. No one loves to be at the level Harbaugh has gotten Michigan to, but some fans might prefer that to risking a few more bad seasons. (Of course, it isn't like we didn't go 2-4 last year, so bad seasons clearly aren't off the table anyway.) For my part, I'd prefer to take a risk to try to get to an elite level. And if the new guy doesn't work out, take another risk. Keep going until you find the right guy.
Again, none of this is to say you love where the team is or that your preferences aren't valid, even though they aren't my preferences. I just think it's valuable to clarify the situation and the tradeoffs we face.
The secondary has to play run defense, too. And if your DBs can't cover, you have to scheme around that in ways that may hurt your defense in other ways. So, yeah, that's a big issue.
MSU scored five times, all TDs. They attempted two 2P conversions and got both. MSU's D bends but doesn't break. Ours broke, a lot.
I'm sure there are plenty of things to blame directly on the coaches, especially the tempo stuff. But the secondary is mediocre at best. You can scheme things to try to cover that deficiency up, but there's no quick fix there.
It's just an incredible shame how they've wasted Dax and Hutchinson.
I predicted on another thread last night that Michigan would lose 24-19 because they wouldn't be able to score TDs despite moving the ball more consistently than MSU. MSU would win because of big plays. I undersold the offenses, as McNamara was way better than I thought he'd be, and I thought MSU's big plays would come in the air. But I feel pretty good--or rather terrible, because MSU is nauseous--about my prediction.
I don't know how they get better in the red zone. I don't know why the OL can seemingly have a good game and yet can't get two good RBs going. I don't know why Michigan's receivers drop big passes and MSU's don't, other than that somehow Harbaugh doesn't prepare guys well mentally and Tucker seemingly does.
I'm interested to hear the analysis from Seth and Brian, but I didn't see Michigan go out there with an unworkable game plan or make a lot of obviously egregious decisions. (Somehow they're still not prepped to face tempo, of course, but apparently McNamara was in the injury tent when McCarthy turned the ball over.) It's just that somehow Mel Tucker's MSU doesn't really make a lot of mistakes and is mentally tough, whereas Harbaugh's Michigan teams are the opposite. I hate this, because, for a variety of reasons I won't go into, my attitude toward MSU is roughly the same as Cato the Elder's toward Carthage. But Tucker seems like a better coach than Harbaugh. (Please note I'm not saying Harbaugh is a *bad coach*, just that Tucker is better.)
And that was basically why I thought it was time to part ways with Harbaugh after last year. I don't hate him or something like that, nor did I think there was some sort of slam dunk hire available. No one is ever a slam dunk. But MSU took a big risk hiring Tucker after a single mediocre season at Colorado, and it paid off. It might not have, but it did. The same is true for Kirby Smart at Georgia. Harbaugh is a *good* coach but at this point I'm comfortable saying he's not a great one. A new hire might be really bad or really good; it's a higher variance strategy. I prefer the high-variance strategy, but I get why not everyone does.
Final note: I'm not saying "fire Harbaugh." You don't fire a guy mid-season when he's 7-1 with only a close road loss to a top 10 team. It's just that this game really puts Harbaugh's apparent limitations as a coach into sharp relief and reminds me of why I thought they should've gone a different direction after last year.
Just a…
MSU 24, Michigan 19
Just a bad matchup more or less. MSU's secondary is weak, but McNamara won't be able to punish them. U-M's secondary is weak, and Thorne/Reed/Nailor can absolutely punish that. I also think Michigan's red-zone troubles are running into a D that does a good job of forcing FGs. My guess is U-M will move the ball more consistently but be unable to punch it in; MSU's drives will be more boom-bust, but the booms will be enough.
Interestingly it would be Harbaugh's first loss in EL as head coach here.
This is great work. Thanks Seth!
I agree with this. My *guess* would be that JJ is heady and gritty and whatever you like, but at this point it's just a guess because we've only seen him pass in garbage time. I think if the team takes another big step forward the most likely reason was that McCarthy downloaded the playbook and turned out to be a Trevor Lawrence-level throw god. I just don't think so far we've seen something that makes that the most reasonable expectation, and even with his limitations we shouldn't downplay what McNamara has been able to give us. Low-mistake QBing is always underrated.
At this point in the season it kind of seems like Michigan would eat Notre Dame's lunch and any other food it happened to be carrying around. ND had a close game against FSU, got smoked by Cincy, and trailed Wisconsin in the 4th quarter (the final score was not representative of how that game was going). Can't see it even being competitive.
Preseason I figured 6-7 wins, with a 95% CI of 3-10 wins. After the first six results, I'd say more like 10-11 (8-12). Obviously I'm really happy to have been wrong.
Remaining games:
Obviously a lot can happen in terms of injuries for any team. If Walker goes out for MSU, that would be a big problem; some for us with a few players I won't name for jinx reasons. My question is what are the possible areas where U-M can take a step forward? Maybe the DL gains confidence, the LBs gain experience, WRs get coached up better in terms of routes and contests? McCarthy apotheosis? Feels like the CBs basically are who they're going to be at this point.
The defense is a work in progress. Like the offense today, mental toughness showed on the road in a tough situation. Thank god for Dax and Aidan. Tip of the cap to Adrian Martinez for keeping it together (right up until the end) and making some nice plays.
…
Jake Moody is a golden god
Not sure why Henning had such a down day returning punts, but thankfully we avoided disaster.
I'm sure we'll learn a lot from Seth in the UFR, but right now I'm not going to complain about a QB who gutted out some key drives to win a game. Corum and Haskins are awesome. WRs did enough and should have had more TDs--McNamara targeting downfield was rough--but both CJ and Baldwin feel underwhelming on contested catches. They did a nice job with TEs to get some key first downs.
Didn't love the playcalling at times. The Very Obvious JJ McCarthy Option on 3rd down on the last drive, and apparently playing for the FG, stands out.
Overall, this was the most impressive performance of the year so far. Night game on the road against a team that has been a hair away from some big wins this year. They showed incredible mental toughness.
That advantage is small by the end of the season because good teams are contending for a lot more marbles by then. Michigan earned 34 marbles and PSU earned 50 for their wins at Wisconsin. In 2019, Minnesota lost 97 marbles to Wisconsin in the last regular season game; the #1 and #10 teams were separated by 414 marbles; #10 and #20 were separated by 129. By the time Michigan plays PSU on the road the 16-marble difference for Wisconsin won't matter much.
I don't know if there's anything to add to what everyone else has said--stifling except for a few outlier pinpoint throws from Wisconsin--but what I really loved was the hard hitting. After getting trucked in last year's game it's great to see this year's defense come back and punch them in the mouth hard. It really feels like the young guys in the front seven are making big strides and gaining confidence every game.
Great game. Lots of help from the D, setting them up with field position on some turnovers, but they got the job done and made some nice plays. Happy to see a couple TDs from CJ and one from Baldwin. They did test the edge a few times, but Wisconsin's elite LB corps makes that difficult and they got a brutal TFL in the red zone on one. It's absolutely understandable to be weighing JJ against Cade right now, but I think Cade's intelligence is still a bit underrated and plays a role in the low number of sacks given up. Losing Bell absolutely also threw a wrench into their passing game, and they'll get better as time goes on.
Wisconsin isn't as bad as the 1-3 record suggests, and Camp Randall is hell to play in. This was a tough, physical game--that hit early on between Corum and Hicks was *loud*--and they proved they could handle it, unlike previous years. I'm especially happy because before the season I basically wrote off this game and OSU as beyond hope. Really glad to be wrong.
Also, that flea flicker was awesome.
As I said, I understand the sentiment, I just don't agree with that assessment. I don't think Cade was a sub-D1 quarterback even in the second half. Going back to the ESPN play-by-play, he wasn't even given a lot of chances to pass in the second half. (On the first one he had a blitzer in his face immediately.) He missed some guys, for sure--I'm not saying he was Tom Brady out there--but it's possible to overdo the criticism. I also don't think we know much about how they would call plays for McCarthy in a competitive situation. *At this point* I think the best estimate of the number of extra wins we get by using McCarthy rather than McNamara is zero.
Finally, I would just reiterate that it's easy as anything to ruin a good young QB by putting them in tough spots too early in their career. I think it's worth avoiding that if we can possibly help it.
After reading all these comments, my thoughts are these:
1) The problem is mostly playcalling. The 3rd-and-12 run in the third quarter in Rutgers territory said it all. And I think that "pack it in" mentality hits the players, not just the coaches, and everybody gets sluggish. As others have said, it's reminiscent of the Army game. Gattis seems to get into this turtle mindset at times.
2) I think people should understand that McNamara probably isn't making the wrong reads on option plays. There are no option plays. Every damn one of those plays is a fake read. When he kept in the fourth quarter he didn't have a read, just certain doom.
3) I get why people want it, but I just cannot say I want McCarthy in. Given the playcalling issues, I doubt it would make a lot of difference even if he did turn out to be substantially better than McNamara. He should be good. He's not Trevor Lawrence. And it's too easy to ruin young QBs. Obviously if Cade goes out against someone and just looks like he can't be a D1 quarterback, then you have to get to functional and maybe McCarthy can be that. But my preference is to stick with Cade for now.
I specifically said I think McNamara can give us what we need this year. That's not "abandoning the season." If by "abandon the season" you mean "admit we're unlikely to go undefeated or beat OSU," fine, but you're only going to make yourself miserable. It's been a nice few games. I've enjoyed them thoroughly. I haven't seen any evidence we're elite this year, and I'm also determined not to immiserate myself pretending we are.
And I'd like to see McCarthy play when he's ready, not before. He's a special player and I don't want to see him ruined like so many other talented young QBs.
Corum and Haskins are a joy to watch. Whatever our record at the end of the season, I hope some of the perpetual grumblers can appreciate it.
The passing game will probably improve a bit as they get used to not having Bell out there. I think McNamara can give them what they need from the QB position this year. We're unlikely to win the B1G or beat OSU no matter who's under center, and I'd like to give the true frosh a year of practice and study.
"The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills." RJ knew how powerful this route would be.
Light send the WRs learn to block.
If someone tells me Michigan should've been more balanced, I would've agreed. 3.3 yards per passing attempt and 6.2 yards per run strongly suggests the yards from a marginal run were above those of a marginal pass. That's just science.
Love Haskins and Corum. OL had a great night on the ground. They did what they needed to do. Didn't like the pass pro (but I'm far from an expert, so if someone wants to correct me go right ahead), and some of those screens could have gone somewhere if the WRs had blocked at all. Between pass rush and great DB play I didn't feel like we learned a lot about Cade.
I'm never going to complain about a 21-point win against a P5 team though. Especially not in 2021.
I am a new fan, and this is actually a question I have. I keep hearing people say CONCACAF qualifying is tough. Why is that? It's not like it's UEFA or CONMEBOL. Since 1998 CONCACAF teams have only made it to the WC quarterfinals twice , and no team has advanced further than that. Is it about relatively low-quality pitches, refs calling the game differently, fans being crazy, or what?
I'm not entirely sure what we're arguing about. We all agree the USMNT should easily qualify out of CONCACAF, and it's frustrating that they continue to struggle even after embarrassing themselves in 2018. I think most of us also understand that with out current talent level our stretch goal is to reach the WC quarterfinals, and getting to the semifinals would be a big, wonderful upset.
And you're right, in the long term it would be disappointing if the USMNT couldn't become contenders. It's just that that takes time. It isn't only a matter of getting elite athletes. You have to have a culture and a structure for it. The first soccer-specific first-division professional stadium in the US wasn't built until 1999. The sport is still young here. Even though I have my problems with the way US Soccer and MLS are run, there's no question they've made a lot of strides, including in youth development.
Of course, at the same time that I counsel patience for the long-run success of USMNT, I obviously don't think we should have patience for a second straight failure to qualify for the World Cup.
That's true. No one should mistake this for a team that would be competitive in UEFA. USMNT is years away from that, if they ever do get there. For my part, if the US manages to qualify, I'd like to see them reach the quarterfinals again, something that IIRC CONCACAF teams have done only twice since the field expanded to 32.
My reading was that the OP was talking about talent in the context of CONCACAF.
This will give McKennie more time to organize a World Cup watch party for the whole USMNT.
I was at 6-6 before the season, figuring they'd probably look miserable again. After a little over a quarter I was still there, but then they started to put it together. With Indiana looking mediocre, Nebraska and Northwestern looking terrible, and Washington losing to Montana, I'm closer to 8-4.
That said, obviously after one week the mean/standard deviation estimates only move a little. We always learn a lot in Week 2.
Seems more accurate to say the floor is 3-9, the ceiling is 10-2, and the most likely season outcome is 6-6.
If you're going to say "well upsets happen sometimes" then the ceiling is 12-0 and the floor is 0-12. But I don't think we're in the same class as OSU or Wisconsin, nor do I think Rutgers, NIU, or WMU are in our class.
I'll love every second if we have some kick-ass season where we unexpectedly sweep through everyone and look like Harbaugh's early Michigan teams. It's not beyond the realm of possibility, but there's no reason anyone should expect it.
Even having moved near the southern border, Mi Pueblo is a place I still miss. Southern New Mexico has its own--very good!--cuisine, but it's just not the same.
I agree that it isn't a full explanation of what happened last year, but I think it's plausible that it created a lot of unusual variance. If you take higher variance as given, the likelihood of a 2-4 record from a team whose true ability would on average have given a 4-2/5-1 record goes up.
I think that's more or less then story with PSU. As I tried to imply above, I don't think that's why Michigan went 2-4. I think they were just bad, and will probably be kinda bad again this year.
I'm definitely sympathetic to the "covid year" argument. At the same time, I would argue that the three things you listed--losing record, young guys bailing, giving up on games--all happened already last year. Genuine, non-rhetorical and non-snarky question: why would we be surprised to see that this fall again? Stipulating your belief that U-M followed the rules while others, including OSU, did not, I'm not sure that's still a sufficient explanation for what we saw.
In some ways I'm jealous of your outlook, though. You're clearly less jaded about it than I am.
Where I am right now: I think Harbaugh should have been let go after last season, not for going 2-4 but for how they looked while they went 2-4. I'm not angry at Harbaugh like some people seem to be; I feel bad for him, because he obviously loves Michigan and didn't envision his time here going like this.
I would change my mind if they had a 10+ win regular season, or 8+ with a win against OSU. I would say on average I expect them to win 6 games against this year's schedule, with losses to Washington, Wisconsin, Penn State, and Ohio State, and then two of Maryland, Northwestern, Indiana, and Michigan State. Losses to any of the other four opponents should probably lead to a firing on the tarmac.