FEI: Michigan #3
This may seem nuts after that 2nd half against Rutgers, and all the usual caveats about it still being early apply (noise, high errors, etc.). But Brian Fremeau's indicator, which represents "the per-possession scoring advantage each team would be expected to have on a neutral field against an average opponent," still thinks we are one of the best teams in the country.
Interestingly, it rates Washington (#16) just above Wisconsin (#17).
My own personal take: we are not the #3 team in the country, and our current rating probably reflects early success before teams started (and will continue) to adjust to our limited offensive approach. We will likely decline in FEI over the course of the season. But also, maybe the sky isn't falling? Maybe a single frustrating game (really a frustrating 2nd half) against Rutgers is as much like the early season struggles OSU seems to have most years as it is like the ghosts of Michigan teams past?
Granted, maybe it is the ghost of Michigan teams past, only time will tell. I certainly don't feel good about that 2nd half against Rutgers, but FEI, SP+, FPI, etc. seem to think it's more a bump on the road. Let's see what kind of game they call on Saturday.
LINK.
September 28th, 2021 at 9:40 AM ^
Outside of talent deficiencies, the apparent short comings in game planning and adjusting by the coaching staff is what really has me worried moving forward. I feel like they will cost us games that we have the talent to win.
September 28th, 2021 at 9:53 AM ^
Yeah, same. They had the tools to put the game out of reach and didn’t use them. One thing I’ll be looking for against Wisconsin is if they have a paper throw ready when the Badgers keep throwing rock
September 28th, 2021 at 10:51 AM ^
That captured my concerns. It's almost like the coaching staff reverts to the most bland plays when things start to go sideways. Rather than try different things, they try the same thing over and over again hoping it will eventually work. The only reason it didn't cost us the Rutgers game is because Rutgers is Rutgers. Do that against ant other B10 team and we lose that game.
September 28th, 2021 at 10:55 AM ^
Remember the 4th down run vs Army a few years back? It was similar to the "read" keep we had this past game (except Shea didn't pull it even though the entire Army defense knew it wasn't a keep).
Situational awareness lacks when things go sideways. We are the "freeze" in the Fight, Flight, or Freeze
September 28th, 2021 at 12:01 PM ^
Yeah, I think we are relatively weak at DT and probably at CB but otherwise this is a quite talented team. I just don't think we have a coaching staff that will take this roster to the heights other staffs could.
September 28th, 2021 at 12:43 PM ^
I mean it’s not like the professional football coaches don’t see what we see. Perhaps they didn’t want to put the adjustment on film so Wisconsin doesn’t have it. If we get ahead on Wisconsin, then they will struggle to catch up. Now I know the past six years have taken away the benefit of the doubt, but I can’t think that there was literally no plan B here.
Fact is, we are 4-0 and if we win this game we will start exorcizing the demons of seasons past. Wisconsin won’t be a ranked team, but it’s one of the few teams we haven’t beaten on the road. Our next road test will be Nebraska and our next chance for the big road win will be MSU. Hopefully we’ve figured the passing game out by then.
for all the hand-wringing, we ignore that msu had pretty much the exact same game as us against Nebraska. They shot out to a lead at home, the offense completely stopped gaining yards in the second half, but they won at the end. Not sure why they are fine and we suck based on very similar season trajectories?
September 28th, 2021 at 3:26 PM ^
I'm really not sure that the "holding back" argument has any merit after that game. Sure, they can continue to develop plays that they don't think are ready throughout the season or scheme up new ones based on how teams react, but it would be insane to hold back if you're only up by 1 touchdown for almost the entire Q4, no matter who you're playing.
September 28th, 2021 at 9:40 AM ^
Got negged for making a light hearted joke about being #14. Not touching #3 with a ten foot pole. We are #1…Go Blue!
September 28th, 2021 at 9:46 AM ^
All I can say right now is this is a CRAZY year in college football. Some teams have looked good one week and garbage the next. Overall is very entertaining, and I am going to enjoy the ride.
Beat Wisconsin
September 28th, 2021 at 2:47 PM ^
This is why I havent gotten near a sports book yet. For both NFL and College... dont see a lot of consistency or patterns at all, well outside of Bama. But you aint making money on them anyway.
Im going to wait until at least week 6 for both NFL/NCAA to even try and make a somewhat "rational" bet.
September 28th, 2021 at 9:47 AM ^
LOL
Stats are much more useful with a decent sample size. Trying to project based on such a small sample size using teams with deficiencies of their own not quantified when simply relying on transitive properties is useless.
The eye test (even for the most scientific amongst us) has value, and anybody watching the speed and physicality of the game knows that we are nowhere near Bama or UGA,.
We are a middling team like the majority of the top 25 in CFB.
September 28th, 2021 at 9:53 AM ^
People are acting like Georgia beat last year's Clemson team. 10-3 with no offensive touchdowns, getting outscored by the likes of NC State. Sure, they've looked great since then, but they're not some unbeatable juggernaut and I find it fascinating that they're in the same top tier across the board.
Again, you can make this argument with basically any team in the country so it's pretty futile- but Michigan looks way better than anyone thought they would at this point.
September 28th, 2021 at 10:19 AM ^
Agreed, and for all the people bitching about Harbaugh’s inability to win ‘the big games’, Kirby Smart hasn’t done much (1 playoff appearance, iirc?) despite consistently having one of the most talented teams in the country. I’m squarely in the ‘believe it when I see it’ camp re: UGA
September 28th, 2021 at 12:02 PM ^
“Hasn’t done much” I guess is up for interpretation. 56-14 with 4 straight top 8 finishes. I would take that.
September 28th, 2021 at 12:53 PM ^
Fair point - top 10 finishes aside, they don’t have much in the way of conference championships or playoff success for a team that’s as consistently talented as UGA is
September 28th, 2021 at 1:00 PM ^
Ok...UGA was on the doorstep of the national title, twice, with only mighty Alabama standing in the way. They were literally 1 play away.
Watch their defense this year, watch their D-line.
If you need a preview of what would happen if UM plays Bama or UGA in a playoff setting, just see what happens to ND every year they make the cut as a pretender.
The top tier SEC O-lines and most importantly D-lines are bigger, faster and more violent. OSU had great success as well when they had elite D-lines. In our best year under Harbaugh 2016, we had an elite D-line.
The variance across team that is created from skill position players is limited. D-lines and QBs win championships in CFB. Had Speight been healthy and/or we don't get robbed in CBus in 2016 we had a shot...that team was elite. We haven't been close since.
September 28th, 2021 at 2:30 PM ^
Michigan was also on the doorstep of the playoffs twice in Harbaugh’s tenure here if not for the mighty Buckeyes standing in our way. It’s amazing how many excuses other non-Michigan teams get that Michigan doesn’t get on this Michigan board full of Michigan fans
September 28th, 2021 at 1:08 PM ^
Clemson's defense is legit, possibly the most talented D-line in the country. Their offense is a tire fire.
Beating Clemson by a TD in the opener on a neutral field is miles better than hanging on against Rutger at home with 1 first down in the entire second half.
The rationalizations of the UM fanbase are absurd at this point. It's great we are 4-0. It's great we have a shot at a good season. But if you really think the program is close to competing with the BAMAs or UGAs of the world, you are completely delusional.
September 28th, 2021 at 2:11 PM ^
Who said anything about being competitive with Alabama? I’ve seen some irrationally rosy outlooks posted on this board but nothing even close to ‘bring on bama’.
i feel like people keep posting the fancy stats stuff because so many people on this board are hyper negative/critical about everything, and this is their way of saying - maybe we aren’t as terrible as 3/4 of posters here make us out to be. but nobody really believes we’re a shoe-in for the playoffs either.
i think UGA is super talented but typically underperforming - that doesn’t mean i think we beat them head to head if we were to face them. There’s a huge gulf between ‘we can have a good season/aren’t terrible’ and ‘we’re as good as anyone in cfb’. Nobody is claiming the latter, despite your strawman arguments to the contrary
September 28th, 2021 at 4:17 PM ^
But like- is it though?
Disclaimer- I understand that transitive property across games is at best directional (and sometimes useless). But Clemson was within like, a few feet of going to overtime with Georgia Tech. At home. The same Georgia Tech that lost to Northern Illinois.
Georgia put up 256 yards on Clemson. Ga Tech put up 298 on Clemson and 429 yards on NIU.
Maybe Georgia's "2nd half Rutgers" was against Clemson and Ga Tech's was against NIU (they looked pretty solid against UNC). All I was really calling out was the fact that Georgia is being treated like it beat last year's Clemson and them only beating Clemson 10-3 isn't raising any eyebrows. I think it should.
September 28th, 2021 at 4:17 PM ^
sorry for the quick finger
September 28th, 2021 at 9:48 AM ^
Every game is different for many reasons. These young men are working hard and I don't have an issue with the final home game being a little rough. They will learn from it. Work harder this week to get better and hopefully they earn the win on Saturday in Madison. We got this. And may we be the last ones jumping around!!
Go Blue!!
September 28th, 2021 at 9:53 AM ^
I would encourage everyone to watch WTKAs Devin Gardner MMQB segment on YouTube. It’s an hour long and he goes through offensive plays that were working and weren’t working. He is critical of certain things on offense but he also vehemently defends the play calling and argues against anyone who says “they keep running up the middle”.
September 28th, 2021 at 10:45 AM ^
He argues they weren’t running up the middle almost every play in 2H, then doesn’t go over any of the run plays up the middle in his analysis, until the last play where Cade keeps when he shouldn’t have. Devin only looked at passing plays in 2H. All but one run was up the middle in 2H. He even says he’s not going to focus on 2H because Michigan had 20 at halftime and still had 20 at the end of the game, so obviously it wasn’t good in 2H. That’s what he said.
September 28th, 2021 at 12:00 PM ^
I’ve been enjoying those segments too, but after watching the last few, I think he comes from a very QB centric mindset, i.e. if something goes wrong, it’s the QBs fault.
I appreciate his insight on QB play and he has some great stories and charisma, but I take his overall offensive analysis with a grain of salt.
September 28th, 2021 at 12:45 PM ^
Yeah I get the sense he’s not a fan of Cade. I could be wrong about that, but it’s the vibe I get.
September 28th, 2021 at 5:55 PM ^
Yah, because he keeps calling him Shea
September 28th, 2021 at 9:59 AM ^
But #128 in our hearts
September 28th, 2021 at 10:19 AM ^
This has got to be the most insightful post about the collective mood of the board that I've read in a long time.
September 28th, 2021 at 10:37 AM ^
I feel like my post on our poll ranking is evergreen:
https://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/ap-rankings-michigan-14#comment-244264201
"In a totally unsurprising note, the Michigan fanbase ranked Michigan #119 in the latest AP Poll"
September 28th, 2021 at 11:54 AM ^
I believe it was Hutchinson who said last week that the team knew that after one loss the fans would say they suck again. But he was wrong. All it took was getting out-scored in the 2nd half of a game they won.
September 28th, 2021 at 10:07 AM ^
A big reason the fancystats like Michigan is that our schedule doesn’t look as soft as we may feel. Rutgers is 3-0 aside from us, and climbing up the ranks in S+P-plus (they’re 24th in defense, which actually makes sense given what we saw on Saturday). Overall, Michigan’s four opponents so far this year are 10-2 when they’re not playing Michigan. And we dominated those teams for 7 of 8 halves of football. Not bad!
September 28th, 2021 at 10:48 AM ^
Yeah everyone is hung up on the fact that Rutgers gave us our first big test, but they REALLY need to look at that 10-2 record from our opponents against non-us teams. I think I saw that we're 2nd in the nation in transitive wins (ie. how many wins do the teams you've beaten have). That's not nothing. We've faced a harder than it looks schedule and still dominated it. Ohio State can't say that (they did not easily pull away from Minnesota or Tulsa), Georgia struggled with a mediocre Clemson team, Clemson nearly lost to Georgia Tech, Notre Dame has been bumblefucking their way through their schedule, Florida struggled with USF & FAU, etc. etc.
Parity is king right now in CFB, and we happen to be one team who's mostly avoided it (aside from 1 half). We've never trailed. We have zero turnovers on offense. Those are sure signs of a good team.
September 28th, 2021 at 11:09 AM ^
BPONE means that not only do you need to believe the worst about Michigan's capabilities, but also to have presupposed opinions about football teams based entirely on previous season's experience.
Ergo, you must believe that the Rutgers team that Michigan beat 78-0 is the exact same one that played on Saturday. The idea of them having the #24 defense per FEI is preposterous.
September 28th, 2021 at 12:40 PM ^
Exactly. Saying good things about Michigan Football on this Michigan fan forum is a bit like going on a MAGA forum to extoll the virtues of Hillary Clinton or on a Ohio State forum to extoll the virtues of dentistry. Those things just don't fly around those parts!
September 28th, 2021 at 1:04 PM ^
i laughed re: dentistry.
September 28th, 2021 at 12:09 PM ^
It's not that Rutgers gave us our first real test. It's that they gave us our first real test and for the most part, the coaches didn't pass that test in a convincing manner.
September 28th, 2021 at 12:44 PM ^
I don't know how to get across that we're not frustrated with the lack of success against Rutgers -- we're fundamentally frustrated with what was (profoundly) unimaginative and (frankly) archaic play-calling by the coaches -- a problem we've seen many times before. It's not "one bad half" of football. It's that the play-calling coaches are bad at that (very important) part of their jobs. And, as we've seen the same thing multiple times in the past (Army most famously, but I could cite other examples as well), that pit in our stomachs is worsening.
We had hoped we'd see improvement. That last year's debacle finally demonstrated to Harbaugh that he had to do something else. But no. It's the same thing as always. And thus it's not wrong of us to assume "the same thing as always" will play out the same way it has for the past 4 years or so. With disappointing results in big games and a season with real potential -- this team does have playmakers, dammit -- slowly slipping through our fingers.
September 28th, 2021 at 2:13 PM ^
No more hiding in the "we." Just say "I" and be on with it, even though there are other than agree with you. Invoking "we" for the sake of persuasiveness when you're talking about your own opinions/feelings distorts how many actually might agree with you. It also gives credence to a more vocal minority.
Rather, "we" the silent majority are enjoying the 4-0 start and are hoping to go 5-0 this weekend in Madison, which will hopefully be achieved through continued improvement this week. And then hopefully that improvement will continue throughout the year and lead to good results as well.
September 29th, 2021 at 2:51 AM ^
Yea, I hope you didn’t start thinking this season had real potential for like a championship 3 games in. Our QB has started 5 college games now. Mac Jones looked beatable in that bowl game in year 1. Joe Burrow didn’t earn his teammates respect until he played after a big hit in the bowl game and they won. Teams grow through experience. Cades best is several games from now and there’s a chance it’s not enough. But we can’t project yet so maybe wait until after the bye week and a team in our division that is good to have a loss before us
September 28th, 2021 at 11:37 AM ^
I wonder how much of the Rutger angst has to do with the lead-up articles analyzing the game on this very site, which basically boiled down to "yeah, Schiano was successful in the past, but it's Rutger and they still suck." But Rutger is sitting at 3-1 after the loss. Schiano is a lunkhead ("We need more Schiano Men around here") but is also a good coach. And that is not last year's SU of Jersey squad.
The reality is that the transfer portal is changing the game. A new coach doesn't have to sweat out a transition class and wait two more years for recruits to fill holes. It's easier install that new system when ideal starters are a phone call away. And those transfers may be the depth in a dominant program walking out the door. So starters get injured and they can't fill the holes with blue chippers as before; they're forced to play younger players when starters graduate. It's a free agent system, and it's bringing parity.
September 28th, 2021 at 11:45 AM ^
I completely agree about the transfer portal is changing the game. It has certainly made teams better faster (look at Arkansas and MSU) and also provided some fortunate luck for some teams that had one or two missing pieces (look at OSU with Fields and again MSU with Thorne). The flip side of this is going to be when players transfer due to lack of playing time that have the opportunity to start right away at another school (I believe this is about to happen with the QB room at OSU). Granted this will not affect teams immediately but it will cause issues in recruiting voids in the future.
September 28th, 2021 at 12:26 PM ^
Thorne is not a transfer for MSU.
September 28th, 2021 at 12:14 PM ^
100%. Schiano just spent a few years at one of the top 4 programs in the country. He's grown a lot as a coach since the early part of the 2010s.
September 28th, 2021 at 10:13 AM ^
It seems like the fancy stats like us every year though. There’s been plenty of times where those rankings were much higher than our actual ranking. And plenty of times where “on paper” we were favored and then lost.
September 28th, 2021 at 10:18 AM ^
This does not fall within the "sky is falling" worldview to which most here subscribe.
September 28th, 2021 at 10:22 AM ^
I’ve convinced myself that Michigan spent the entire week practicing for OSU which is why they had nothing dialed in for Rutgers
September 28th, 2021 at 11:37 AM ^
Hot take! I actually think there could be some truth to this. But more likely they spent some of last week preparing for Wisconsin.
-Eternal Optimist
September 28th, 2021 at 11:37 AM ^
Michigan had their eye on the wrong rival!