I want to believe Michigan is a top 5 team but there's too many question marks namely the qb and consistency of the run game. I assume it's respect for Harbaugh's coaching but there are 3 tough road games: Iowa, MSU, OSU.
Ranked too high?
- Thread starter BHWolverine
- Start date
Michigan still returns a lot. It's college, every team has question marks. The biggest thing for me is: will Don Brown have an answer for OSU? That's the season right there to me.
I'm not going to worry about QB now that Harbaugh is in charge. Look at his track record. QB will be good to excellent every year. Next year you can elevate that to very good to excellent.
QBs and LBs are questionmarks, no doubt. As noted above JH has proven he can develop QBs. And if we are to believe all the hype about Brown, the LB position is in good hands, as well.
Do you know of any other school returning as many starters as UM. Alabama is QB looking, again. So is USC.
Do you know of any other school returning as many starters as UM. Alabama is QB looking, again. So is USC.
It's a reasonable and educated prediction. But still a prediction. Nobody really knows until the games start.
FWIW, where the pre-season AP Top 5 finished the season:
2015: National Champion, 4th, 6th, 7th, and 13th.
2014: National Champion, National runner-up, 4th, 5th, and unranked.
2013: 7th, 9th, 11th, 12th, and unranked.
2012: National Champion, National runner-up, 14th, 15th, and unranked.
You get the idea --- there's a fairly wide range of possible results. 12 out of 20 finished in the Top 10, but a non-insignificant percentage (15%) didn't finish ranked at all.
FWIW, where the pre-season AP Top 5 finished the season:
2015: National Champion, 4th, 6th, 7th, and 13th.
2014: National Champion, National runner-up, 4th, 5th, and unranked.
2013: 7th, 9th, 11th, 12th, and unranked.
2012: National Champion, National runner-up, 14th, 15th, and unranked.
You get the idea --- there's a fairly wide range of possible results. 12 out of 20 finished in the Top 10, but a non-insignificant percentage (15%) didn't finish ranked at all.
Michigan will be very good this year and they have a favorable schedule with so many road games. PSU and Wisky will not be easy even at home and CFU is loaded with athletes coming out of Florida. Michigan should still win these games. This year, MSU will not get their miracle against the Wolverines in East Lansing. Iowa at night is going to be a problem but no where near going into Columbus in November facing JT Barrett at QB and Urban Meyer. I pick Michigan to go 11-2 this year, however, with ZERO injuries and some luck, they could just as easily wind up in the playoffs and win it all. This is probably (roster wise) the best Michigan team since 2006 and the late 90's squads 97,98,99. I agree about the QB position. Who ever is the signal caller will just get better and better. The real look will be at Don Brown coming from and (ACC) and despite Clemson last year, the ACC generally sucks outside of FSU. Brown's defensive strategy is blitz,blitz,blitz and you can get into a ton of trouble doing that every play. We will know how the D plays consistently very soon. Last year, they were not consistent enough and some of that may have been Durkin looking for the HC position. Special teams should be good agan with Allen returning.
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Seems like beating either OSU or MSU let alone both would be a pre-requisite to talking about winning the East let alone the BIG and NC. Thinking that winning in East Lansing is a probability is optimistic so thinking it's a guarantee is blind optimism. MSU will be much harder for UM to beat than Iowa but both on the road are going to be rough. OSU will be deflated when UM plays them as they will have just lost again to MSU and had their NC hopes dashed by them for the 3rd time in 4 years.
Sounds like you've been sipping too much of that green kool-aid.
Hard to believe another hurricane will help sparty beat OSU, but that winning field goal kick was impressive during the storm.
So OSU is no good at home because it's a little windy and MSU is somehow good in Columbus because it's windy? Could it be that MSU has beat Urban 50% of the time and given him his only big ten losses and that only one point separates the teams in the last four games they have played and that they are equal on the field? I realize that is a difficult reality for a UM fan and that it will never be discussed objectively on a board like this.
I will except your reality if you can except that without cook & sparty could cheat load the box due to the crap weather, it gave you a much greater shot to win in the shoe. Given a sunny dry day, there'd be a good chance that sparty would've been overwhelmed. Just admit it was the 'perfect storm' for sparty to even the odds. It was a great effort, no doubt, sparty was the best one dimensional team that day.
Anti MSU & anti O$U here............but at the end of the day, only one thing matters. SCOREBOARD. End of story.
We since we are taking a general approach to this, 38-0 is a pretty bold statement. And sparty can count their blessings for the gift of all gifts they received last year.
Agreed, it was a good game. The kicker doing the windmill dance running down the field was priceless.
