Flip it and reverse it: Which teams have it better than us this year?
We've dissected our current team plenty. #3 in fancystats may not be reflective of our team, regardless of the opinions of the Rutgers Truthers.
So let's flip the question. Which team's current situation (players, record, remaining schedule, perceived momentum) would you take over Michigan's for this season?
Mine below. Discuss.
Bama - obvious
Oregon - W @ tOSU in the books
Penn State - Offense feels more balanced. W @ Wisconsin would be nice.
Notre Dame - I think we're better neutral ground, but Wisconsin in the rearview mirror
Florida - Hanging with Bama looks good
UGA - Deeper talent pool to draw from defensively
This is the first time since 2016 that I wouldn't trade positions with OSU. I think they'll still be favored to beat us, but there are some implosion tremors over there.
September 28th, 2021 at 12:33 PM ^
Notre Dame almost lost to Toledo at home and regardless of our collective thoughts on Harbaugh, he is a better person than Brian Kelly.
I'll end my comment by noting a few other programs that were hot in the 90s/2000s and aren't now.
-Florida State - straight trash
-Miami - lost to MSU
-UCLA - lost to Fresno State
-USC - Coaching revolving door.
-Auburn - almost lost to Georgia State
-Nebraska - self-explanatory
-Texas - big oof
-Washington - bigger oof
September 28th, 2021 at 12:58 PM ^
Nebraska has looked a lot better since losing to Illinois, Texas' loss against Arkansas doesn't look so bad now, and UCLA's loss to Fresno State is embarrassing for a contender but I still think they're a contender for the Pac 12. I'd rather be us than all of them for sure tho.
September 28th, 2021 at 1:22 PM ^
NOBODY!
September 28th, 2021 at 1:24 PM ^
With a record of 2-3, Nebraska has big wins over Fordham and Buffalo. They ultimately shit the bed against Illinois and Sparty. Scott Frost has built a loser mentality there - if there is a way to screw up and lose, he will find a way. He's pathetic - and gone at season's end...
September 28th, 2021 at 1:24 PM ^
With a record of 2-3, Nebraska has big wins over Fordham and Buffalo. They ultimately shit the bed against Illinois and Sparty. Scott Frost has built a loser mentality there - if there is a way to screw up and lose, he will find a way. He's pathetic - and gone at season's end...
September 28th, 2021 at 5:20 PM ^
Could be. I thought his dismissal was a done deal before the season started. However, forced by marriage to watch the MSU Nebraska game, I was greatly, greatly impressed by the fire in the Nebraska defense. MSU won on special teams and unfortunately for Frost, Nebraska errors.
September 28th, 2021 at 1:48 PM ^
Eh, I’m not sold on anything with Nebraska. Any positive with Oklahoma has gone out the window because their offense is just all around horrible.
September 28th, 2021 at 6:20 PM ^
Fresno State is a good team should have beaten Oregon. So losing to them is not embarrassing as UCLA is not a contender. They are a decent team with a pretty good offense. They have our former RB and our covered recruit DTR who was number 1 on our board.
September 28th, 2021 at 2:25 PM ^
Yeah, I'm with you. I think we're better than ND. If we beat Wisconsin tomorrow, then I wouldn't trade with ND.
September 28th, 2021 at 7:04 PM ^
I hate Wednesday games.
September 28th, 2021 at 9:19 PM ^
I agree with all this except UCLA is on the upswing and certainly has to be feeling a lot better than it did a couple years ago. Losing to Fresno State isn't that shameful this year (Fresno is very good).
September 28th, 2021 at 12:33 PM ^
Pig Sooey and the Mormons
September 28th, 2021 at 12:48 PM ^
Woo Pig Sooey is 4-0, ranked #8 in AP, and has a mollywhopping of Texas and a solid win against TA&M under its belt.
However, in OFEI the Hogs are #23 at a measly .25 while #3 Michigan sports a gaudy 1.17.
So which metric is more accurately predictive of a team's strength?
September 28th, 2021 at 12:55 PM ^
I'd take wins over Texas and Texas A&M over whatever FEI says any day.
September 28th, 2021 at 2:17 PM ^
Somewhere there is someone on an Arkansas message board saying that Texas has a new coach that hasn't gotten his guys yet, and Texas A&M started their backup QB, a non-descript 3-star. They're still not likely to finish better than 4-4 in the SEC.
September 28th, 2021 at 8:52 PM ^
That person you are talking about is my brother in law. He will not allow himself to believe. We were at the North Texas game 3 years ago. He picked that game because he wanted to ensure a win for his son’s first experience in Fayetteville. Arkansas fans take BPONE to a whole new level. The one thing I like about them though is their local radio commentaries make you believe every year is their year and it usually takes a few gam3s o get that thought behind them.
September 28th, 2021 at 11:30 PM ^
Yeah, they beat a horrible Colorado team by 3. Would anyone feel confident taking A&M in a game against Rutgers right now?
September 28th, 2021 at 1:10 PM ^
Wild the difference between the eye test and the stats on Arkansas. I wonder if anyone that puts out these stats ever goes back and checks their predictive capability after the fact
September 28th, 2021 at 6:51 PM ^
SP+ definitely does. That's why he keeps tweaking the algorithm, how quickly to remove preseason expectations, etc. I'm not gonna look it up again but I think Arkansas is up to like 13th there? Higher than FEI.
September 29th, 2021 at 12:01 PM ^
Yes, exactly. I know FPI is constantly validating their algorithm as well. These are literally optimized to be as predictive as possible and from a modeling perspective that means they keep tweaking them to best fit historical data. When there are anomalies / errors that come up for which they can find an indicator that may have predicted those errors (i.e. they aren't just random), it gets incorporated into the model.
I think FEI does it. At least, he did in the early years. Might be on cruise control now.
September 28th, 2021 at 1:34 PM ^
Fear and intimidation are the only metrics that count.
September 28th, 2021 at 4:47 PM ^
I used to live in Islamabad, and my neighborhood backed right up to a national park. The wild boars were a serious problem. While skittish and more likely to run away from you than toward you, they're huge and fast and god help you if you get between mom and piglets (boarlets?).
They weren't the biggest pests around, though. That was the monkeys. Got charged by one once, baring all his teeth and snarling at me. A guy nearby chucked a broom at it and it ran off. Freaked me out. I think I could have taken the little fucker but not without sustaining some damage.
What were we talking about again? Oh yeah, fear and intimidation. Don't fuck with boars or monkeys.
September 28th, 2021 at 9:10 PM ^
Interesting. No team, to my knowledge, has a non-human primate as a mascot.
September 29th, 2021 at 1:33 AM ^
There's the Zug Island Proboscis Monkeys.
September 28th, 2021 at 12:37 PM ^
Alabama; Georgia; Notre Dame; Oregon; UCLA (because of that view at the Rose Bowl); Cincinnati; Oklahoma; Penn State.
And, frankly, Michigan State, because there are no expectations this year.
September 28th, 2021 at 12:50 PM ^
What were the expectations for UM this year? ... And if you want to trade their 2nd half against Neb for the one on Saturday against Rutgers then you're crazy
September 28th, 2021 at 1:03 PM ^
There is no expectation for MSU to beat Michigan this year, just like last year.
Did Michigan State win last Saturday? I don't even know. I don't care. But how I look at it is this:
If Michigan loses to MSU this year, your hypothesis there are little to no "expectations" for Michigan this year will be severely tested.
September 28th, 2021 at 1:06 PM ^
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer
September 28th, 2021 at 12:38 PM ^
Bama
Georgia
Mississippi (offense is elite and the defense looks improved. I think we will know a lot more about them after Saturday.
Florida
Orgeon
Texas is a maybe. Sark has an elite offense, but not sure about the total package.
We will know more about Cincinnati after Saturday.
Notre Dame is bad. Penn St is average.
September 28th, 2021 at 1:01 PM ^
I think I agree with everything here except your Penn State take. I've only watched them in snippets but they've looked like they've taken care of business and beaten a decent Auburn program.
September 28th, 2021 at 1:13 PM ^
Auburn barely beat something called Georgia State last Saturday.
September 28th, 2021 at 4:10 PM ^
The question isn't how good a team is, but whether you'd flip with them. The OP said which "current situation" is better than Michigan's and mentioned "players" as one of the swappable parts. I would assume that OC and DC are also swappable...Penn State may be a bit of a paper tiger, but I would switch with them. Mike Yurcich is a much better college offensive coordinator than Gattis. Penn State's offense, even in Yurcich's first year, is creative and varied. I'd take that over Michigan's.
Come to think of it, I'd take PSU's defensive coordinator over Michigan's too. This isn't to say that MacDonald has done poorly. He has done well. But I think Brent Pry is quite underrated. Since he elevated to DC in 2016, here is how Penn State ranks in B1G defensive rank (using Yards/Play): 5th, 4th, 4th, 5th, 4th, 3rd (currently). He's remarkably consistent, unlike Michigan or OSU who have fluctuated wildly on the defensive side of the ball.
September 28th, 2021 at 12:44 PM ^
Arkansas WPS
September 28th, 2021 at 12:54 PM ^
Absolutely Arkansas. I forgot to add them
September 28th, 2021 at 12:45 PM ^
From where I sit, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Oregon, Penn State, Iowa, NC State, Wake Forest (yes, they're somehow 4-0), BYU and Baylor are probably the only undefeated teams who've either defied expectations or have few or zero embarassing games under their belts (or look like the bottom could fall out at any moment *coughcoughNotreDamecoughcough*)
So not many. And probably half will eventually come back down to Earth in the next few weeks. It's a good year to be good (because there's few if any great teams).
September 28th, 2021 at 2:01 PM ^
NC State has a loss against Miss State.
September 28th, 2021 at 4:39 PM ^
True, so they're not undefeated. But I doubt you'll find a single NC State who's not over the moon right now with what happened last week. So despite the loss, they're still feelin great as a fanbase.
September 28th, 2021 at 12:51 PM ^
This is a welcome thread as contrast to the pessimism that's otherwise abundant on this board. This is clearly a survive and advance type of CFB season.
Even among top teams, we've seen ND squeak by Toledo in a game they would have lost if Toledo had sat on the 1 yard line instead of scoring a TD with a minute left. Oklahoma is still undefeated but is playing with fire. Clemson has two losses and may be in for a four loss season. They are ranked in the bottom 15 of teams by yards per passing attempt. Michigan Pessimist Golden Boy Matt Campbell is 2-2 with one of the wins being a 6 point win over Northern Iowa. Iowa was in a dogfight with a stinky Colorado State team that lost to Vanderbilt! Wisconsin can't get out of their own way and can't score any points. Texas A&M nearly lost to a bad Colorado team and got hamblasted by Arkansas. A lot of resumes are bolstered by wins over paper tigers (Penn State's wins over Wisco and Auburn look way less impressive in the rear view! That Miami team that MSU beat is bad!) Mediocrity abounds.
Obviously this Michigan team is flawed. There may be only two or three teams this year that aren't deeply deeply flawed. Michigan can win a bunch of games this year by having fewer flaws than other teams, and there isn't a team on our schedule that isn't flawed. I don't think we're going 12-0 but this is a down year for a lot of programs, whereas we are clearly better than preseason expectations.
September 28th, 2021 at 1:16 PM ^
Best and most balanced post I have seen all week.
Outside of 1997 - every Michigan team since my football memories began in 1978 has been flawed in some way. But large portions of our fanbase seems to have gotten more nasty, cynical and just plain cranky over that time. Quite unpleasant.
Folks should enjoy our good and surprising start. Unfortunately - the asinine pessimists just can't enjoy a goddamn thing. I truly feel sorry for them.
Great post here - and you too OP. Go Blue!!!
September 28th, 2021 at 2:13 PM ^
yeah, this has been brought up a million times but I really find it odd that so many UM fans think they used to go undefeated and competed for the National Championship every year. UM has always been a 2-3 loss per year team for the most part. I'd love it to be different and to never lose, but getting that worked up about it isn't worth it. Plus, comparing the current teams to some mythical powerhouse is just bizarre.
September 28th, 2021 at 3:29 PM ^
Alabama, Clemson and, to a lesser extent, OSU have changed the paradigm.
It used to be that big name programs had losses most years, and then had years where it all came together for them (roster-wise), and those elite teams would rotate out on an almost yearly basis.
There were teams that did better at staying at the top than us before this new paradigm, but it was easier to compare ourselves to those programs then. In the new paradigm, it’s nigh impossible.
September 28th, 2021 at 10:24 PM ^
Beat OSU. That's what has everyone down. If the team goes 9-3 with a win over OSU everyone would be good.
September 29th, 2021 at 9:56 AM ^
I think this is the right answer. Michigan always would lose a game they should not every season, but they would beat Ohio St regularly and be competative when they lost. The 20 year lopsidedness of the rilvalry and the fact that it is the last regular season game just puts a cloud over the program. The emotional safe play is to assume they will always suck until they don't.
I have been very surprised with the start and really enjoying it. As ugly as the second half of the Rutgers game was offensively, I was pumped when the defense forced the game sealing fumble. All that to say try to enjoy it, you only get a hand full of games each fall.
September 28th, 2021 at 12:53 PM ^
Bama, Oregon and (probably) UGA and Florida are the only definite ones on your list; the rest I think are more dependent on how we look going forward. For example Penn State. They seemingly look better in the box score than they do live; I wouldn't trade our performance over the first seven quarters for Penn State, but if the second half against Rutgers is closer to what we'll look like going forward, then yeah, I'd add them to the list. Notre Dame no way; fluke win over Wisconsin or not, this is a team that nearly lost to Toledo and winless FSU. They looked like a paper tiger before being down to their third string QB, and now I feel like the bottom is going to fall out. Gotta think Fickell smells the blood in the water this week.
Speaking of Fickell, I'd probably add Cinci. They're in the top ten, have a game this week against a very beatable yet somehow undefeated ND team (i.e. good for their resume, even though ND could/should be 2-2 or 1-3), and after that their toughest remaining game is what, UCF? SMU? They have a clear path to a 13-0 season.
September 28th, 2021 at 2:34 PM ^
I hear you. If we get past Wisky and look decent doing it, then I'd drop ND and Penn State from this list. Just having Wisconsin in the rearview after how much they've dominated us (except '16 and '18) is a big part of why I'd be willing to trade.
Cinci makes sense.
September 28th, 2021 at 1:08 PM ^
I'm not sure they have it better than Michigan, but I think it would be fun to be a Coastal Carolina fan, vomit-inducing colors be damned. Their offense is inventive and exciting to watch. They clearly win games with coaching.
September 28th, 2021 at 1:16 PM ^
They just do not interest me at all. They are dominant in a terrible league, and I don't think they'd hang with most P5 programs.
September 28th, 2021 at 1:51 PM ^
Coastal is pretty good. McCall is one of the top 3 QB's in the country. Their offense is one of the most innovative as well. Would they beat Alabama? No, of course not. Could they beat a team like Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan St? Absolutely they could.
September 28th, 2021 at 3:35 PM ^
Based on what evidence?