Recalibrated expectations
Going into the season, I thought our over-under on regular season losses would be around 1-2.
Looks like Maryland got the real Alabama OC and we got sold a bill of goods.
Now I think the over-under should be around 4 losses (4 out of 5 of Wisco, Maryland, Notre Dame, MSU, OSU).
Where is your over-under now?
September 8th, 2019 at 1:21 PM ^
September 8th, 2019 at 3:21 PM ^
This season will be just like every other season over the last 15 years, until it isn't.
Probably around 10 wins. 1-2 nice wins. A loss to any team that is just as good as us or better. Get into a decent Bowl Game and look completely unprepared and lose. I mean this is what we are. It ain't pretty but it is reality. Could also be worse.
September 8th, 2019 at 1:21 PM ^
Save the knee-jerk reactions until after the Wisco game.
September 8th, 2019 at 2:05 PM ^
Definitely an alarming two games but DPJ is arguably our most explosive player and he’ll be back for the Wisconsin game. If Shea isn’t 100%, Harbaugh needs to go with Mccaffrey. Shea refused to keep the ball in RPO with at least 10 yards of open space. Give Dylan two whole weeks of preparation with the 1’s and I believe we win in Madison.
September 8th, 2019 at 2:17 PM ^
You honestly think DPJ is fixing this?
September 8th, 2019 at 2:25 PM ^
DPJ can't by himself but 2 more weeks of shoring up some stuff and getting DPJ, Jeter Dwumfour and Runyan back can certainly help.
September 8th, 2019 at 2:38 PM ^
Yes I believe inserting DPJ and the threat of a running QB in Mccaffrey will make this offense look a whole lot different. Army knew Shea had injured ribs and sold out for Charbonnet. But if Harbaugh makes the change he needs to do it now, you don’t want a QB controversy during game week.
September 8th, 2019 at 3:25 PM ^
sold out on Charbonet partially because Shea was making lousy reads. Can this be fixed ' Who should be coaching this?
September 8th, 2019 at 2:48 PM ^
Well DPJ doesn’t have two feet for hands and is a better athlete than Bell so yes?
Bell is good but should NOT be our #1 receiver when we have 3 other NFL caliber guys.
September 8th, 2019 at 3:01 PM ^
Bell did a great job of bailing us out on several 3rd downs...
September 8th, 2019 at 3:11 PM ^
Bell saved our ass.
September 8th, 2019 at 3:23 PM ^
No, but letting Shea keep it, getting DPJ back, and cleaning up sloppiness will.
September 8th, 2019 at 2:44 PM ^
We have no idea how good mccaffrey is because he never throws the ball. The guy has a relatively weak arm, not sure he’s the guy to unlock our wr core
September 8th, 2019 at 6:45 PM ^
Weak arm? no he doesn't
September 8th, 2019 at 10:06 PM ^
DPJ is gonna sit and watch from out wide as we hand it off to the 4th string RB for the 10th time, straight into a 10 man stacked box again, time after time after time against Wisconsin and the rest of the schedule. DPJ doesn’t do shit for this offense. It’s 100% on Harbaugh and he sucks ass. DPJ isn’t fixing anything.
September 8th, 2019 at 2:06 PM ^
Agreed. FWIW, my theory is that it isn’t the coaching staff, but rather a major QB injury issue & now the schedule shakes out.
There was a ton of wide open yardage to be had all game but it was clear they told Shea not to pull & run. Once Army figured that out it was Charbonnet for 2 yards a cary, especially with Runyan still out.
My working “meta” theory is that Shea is either a hair away from being out for the season and/or he CAN get up to near 100% in 3-5 weeks if he doesn’t aggravate it, and also that our #3 QB sucks. So, until our #1 can get healthy, we can’t risk injuring our #2 right now because there’s a decent chance McCaffrey may become our #1 with NO effective backup for the rest of the season.
My working theory now is, their goal is to limp through offensively the next month or two to get/keep Shea healthy.
Week 1: MTSU. Nonconference cupcake.
Week 2: Army. Non conference. Army will likely end up ranked this year.
Week 3: Bye
Week 4: Wisconsin (western division, so less critical of a game).
Week 5: Rutgers. Basically a bye.
Week 6: Iowa (western division, so less critical of a game)
Week 7: Illinois (western division so less critical of a game & soft team).
That is a solid stretch of the team being credibly able to muddle through by severely limiting their offense to guard QB health as much as possible until the real rough stretch.
My theory is they’re willing to drop Wisconsin or Iowa if needed because they’re western division teams. They were willing to drop Army because it’s nonconference & they’ll be a ranked team end of year.
As a result, I think they’re willing to risk having 1-2 losses (nonconference or western division) if it significantly boosts their chance of a healthy & good QB 2 deep once we hit the MSU/PSU/ND/OSU section of our schedule.
If not for the TERRIBLE turnovers (if Shea has injured ribs does it make him slow firmly tuck the ball?) and sloppy play, this strategy would be totally unnoticed by us fans at this point, as we’d have crushed MTSU & been up on an annoying Army about 24-14 in the 4th quarter yesterday.
Bottom line is this: my expectations on this team will have several inflection points, most of which likely hinge on QB health & not offensive coordinator competency. Which also means unless sudden disaster strikes, I won’t be aware of upward or downward trajectories, as they will likely be kept under wraps as Shea subtly either gets healthier or his injuries linger/aggravate.
September 8th, 2019 at 2:27 PM ^
This is a horrible take. You're implying 3 games don't matter because of western division.
Amazing how expectations this team went from CFP preseason to western division games don't count.
September 8th, 2019 at 2:54 PM ^
You make some good points in your first 3 paragraphs, but I totally disagree with your assertion that Western division games are less critical and therefore something we'd trade off in order to be healthier for Penn St, ND, MSU, and OSU.
As much as I hate losing to ND, it wouldn't affect the B1G race. Losing to any of the B1G West teams, OTOH, potentially would cost us a berth in the B1G Championship game.
September 8th, 2019 at 3:14 PM ^
You're aware that games against Western Division teams count in the B1G standings, right?
September 8th, 2019 at 3:35 PM ^
Clearly NOT!
September 8th, 2019 at 1:22 PM ^
Ceiling: 9-3
Floor: 7-5
Tough schedule. Average, at best, offense. Recalibrate accordingly.
September 8th, 2019 at 2:13 PM ^
This offense is average at worst. You overly negative people are insane.
September 8th, 2019 at 2:26 PM ^
The offense looks anywhere from below average to very good. Hopefully they trend towards very good as the opposition gets better, but we will see.
September 8th, 2019 at 2:20 PM ^
Sounds about right. It's still early in the season, hoping our tackles get healthy, our QB finds a rhythm, DPJ gets healthy and freshman runningback gets better as the year goes on. Nebraska improved a lot over the course of last season, we seem due for a season the team gets better during the season, of course people can argue the reason we haven't been is due to coaching.
Too early to give up on the OC but I'm starting to feel like Saban is pranking us with the coaches we hire from his staff, like it could be Nussmeier all over again.
September 8th, 2019 at 1:22 PM ^
We're 2-0. I'll expect us to win every game until we don't pull one out.
September 8th, 2019 at 2:11 PM ^
Agree...let's see how we do in two weeks.
What nobody has mentioned is that like Oklahoma, it took OT to beat Army. Unlike Oklahoma. Michigan actually ran 10 more plays than Army and unlike Oklahoma, time of possession was not heavily one-sided in Army's favor. The D played well.
On top of that, as bad as Patterson was, and I believe he is hurting more than Harbaugh has let on, he still completed 66% of his passes, averaged 7.1 YPA and had no INT's. It's the Fing play calling that I don't get.
September 8th, 2019 at 2:53 PM ^
"It's" been mentioned a thousand times-it's simply another ridiculous false narrative. Shea's increasing lack of composure is increasingly a concern. If he is not performing because he is injured then the coaching staff is at great fault for not replacing him. If he is simply refusing to call his own number on the option read then he is a selfish, gutless kid who needs to be relegated to the sideline. The coaches are implicated in both scenarios...they need to get their act together.
September 8th, 2019 at 2:58 PM ^
Shea can heal up the next two weeks, but will the play calling improve by then? I'm doubtful.
September 8th, 2019 at 3:13 PM ^
Yeah, the result was similar to OUs game, but the way it happened was the opposite. As you point out, our defense played them much tougher. The bad part is Oklahoma outgained us in about half the plays and half the time of possession. The Sooners had no problem carving up that Army D.
I actually dont believe Patterson is significantly injured. A day later, I'm stull dumbfounded by the offense I saw Saturday. So many things dont add up and "Patterson is hurt" plausibly answers very few issues I saw.
September 8th, 2019 at 1:22 PM ^
8-4 unfortunately. No reason to think otherwise until the offense actually looks good and not like a JV one.
September 8th, 2019 at 1:33 PM ^
Yep.
I'm looking for a reason to expect change. Desperately.
Not finding one.
September 8th, 2019 at 1:23 PM ^
over under on your vote count.
-47
still 2 losses on the team. Rewatching the game highlights there was alot of good in what shea did. 19/29 with like 5 dropped catchable balls. He missed a few deep shots but when he did throw he was pretty accurate and hit some very nice cross routes/cuts.
The Defence held army below 250 yards which if you said that last week you would have assumed a 20 pt win.
Unforced errors need to stop. Our OL played like trash again. Runyan coming back should help that. and I give the coaching a D-... they had Shea on a leash for some reason we will never know why and it almost cost us the game.
13 days till the real test of this team. with everyone healthy and hopefully a good game plan. I'll reserve my hot takes after that game
September 8th, 2019 at 1:30 PM ^
Tarik had 2 drops but I don’t recall any outside of that
September 8th, 2019 at 2:02 PM ^
Ronnie Bell had at least one he should have caught, 2 of my memory serves correctly.
September 8th, 2019 at 2:12 PM ^
The 2nd I believe is the deep Bomb Shea missed that hit Bell's fingertips like last week, correct? Black had a rough game holding onto the ball.
September 8th, 2019 at 2:37 PM ^
I believe the above is correct that Black and Bell each had two. I though McKeon had one as well, but I could be misremembering. I wonder if the WRs/TEs all have the dropsies or if Shea's throws are just a little off because of his mystery ribs/oblique injury that the announcers kept alluding to. A healthy/accurate Shea would theoretically solve most of the drops.
There is a lot of discipline stuff the coaches should be able to work on like Hudson lining up offsides.
Overall, there was just a lot of bad mojo yesterday. Barrett getting the defenseless player penalty when Giles Jackson finally got a huge return. The called back Metellus TD that shouldn't have been.
Wisconsin has beat their opponents 110-0. This should be a good test of our offense and defense. Both teams have byes. We'll see how much grit we have.
September 8th, 2019 at 3:24 PM ^
Shea & DCaff are gritty.
Joe Milton is not.
September 8th, 2019 at 5:01 PM ^
Shea seems to be consistently throwing behind his receivers and not hitting them in stride.
September 8th, 2019 at 1:42 PM ^
Why do you assume everyone will be healthy in 2 weeks? You're assuming that players who are so far away from being ready that they aren't even in uniform for the game are going to be back and playing well at Madison? As a general rule, if everytime a player was in street clothes for a game, you placed a bet that they would not appear in the next game, you would make money in the long run.
September 8th, 2019 at 2:32 PM ^
Why do you assume everyone will be healthy in 2 weeks?
IMHO opinion there are two questions bigger than this:
1. How the hell does Michigan get so banged up only two weeks into the season -- what the hell are they doing to each other in camp?
2. This is Harbaugh year 5, for all the highly ranked recruiting classes, how does Michigan get so thin at certain positions?
September 8th, 2019 at 3:12 PM ^
Because so many guys transfer out
September 8th, 2019 at 1:53 PM ^
Watching BTN in 60 right now; actually a nice way to watch the line work and how Shea made decisions. I'm not as mad at either as i was yesterday. O Line did get some decent push, but again, Shea was giving, giving, giving when he should have been pulling. I can't for the life of me understand some of these reads unless he was coached specifically to just keep feeding Turner & Charbonnet.
The D line did not hold up; as Army is as Army does. That's disappointing but not a huge surprise. The secondary basically could have just had the day off.
Honestly, if not for the fumbles and if Metellus' TD didn't get called back, this would have looked like a totally different game and we'd all be fine with it.
The playcalling and coaching is just... Weird.
September 8th, 2019 at 5:54 PM ^
Harbaugh said it in his post game press conference that the coaches did not allow Shea to make any reads or pull the ball. He was simply instructed to hand it off every time...which is exactly what he did. It was painfully obvious that he wasn’t even attempting to make a read yesterday.
September 8th, 2019 at 1:24 PM ^
8-4
Losses Wisconsin, MSU, PSU and Ohio
September 8th, 2019 at 1:30 PM ^
September 8th, 2019 at 1:34 PM ^
Your "really?" indicates you don't think there's a good chance of that? Really?!
September 8th, 2019 at 1:35 PM ^
I agree with this, but I’d say 4/5 losses with notre dame in there, I would say the one win comes against MSU or psu
September 8th, 2019 at 2:57 PM ^
I think we upset one of the 5. I think Notre Dame is the most likely.
September 8th, 2019 at 2:47 PM ^
9-3, I can't concede the MSU game. Still emotional from the game on Saturday but I was at 10-2 to start the season, so I've been more pessimist than most on the board.
September 8th, 2019 at 1:24 PM ^
The last two games really highlighted the importance of the two great unknowns: injuries and turnovers. If we get Runyan, DPJ, Dwumfour and Jeter (and maybe Shea) healthy AND figure out how to protect the ball, a conference championship is still on the table. What worries me more is that other talent leveler, home field advantage. Getting through 5 big 10 road games unscathed seems rather daunting at the moment.