247: Michigan in excellent CFP position heading into Wisconsin game

This guy is complete garbage and is universally destroyed for every article he writes. 

Could be a push, though.

A push most likely. Michigan's run defense is dominant. Add in no throwing ability from an already meh passing offense, and it looks even better. What it does do is hinders the Michigan offense. The bright side here? This game is going to be about field position. There will be punts-a-plenty, and with Peppers back there returning punts, you know that's a Michigan advantage. You either kick to him and let him bust it back for 20+ yards or you short kick it out of bounds and give Michigan the field position. Poor weather always sets up where special teams is key. Luckily, there aren't many special teams units on par with Michigan.

This is hard-hitting journalism.

If Wisconsin beats us, many people are going to say that we finally faced a good team and lost. Though if we dominate and defeat Wisconsin, many people are going to say that we still haven't played a good team and Wisconsin was overrated. It's all quite funny sometimes.

Colorado is absolutely a good team.  They are 3-1 with a loss at Michigan.  They gave Michigan a scare for 2 1/2 qtrs.  Then go on the road to a very tough venue and beat Oregon with their backup QB.  They are a good team for sure.  

Nor are you much of a speller :)

 

But I agree with your statement.

Worse than the 11-1 would be the loss coming at the very end of the season.  The loser would definitely drop, but there would be no time to climb back up.  Only hope would be an extremely close game where Michigan gets credit for being within 1-2 points on the road.  Would likely need other conference champs to be 10-2 or worse as well, maybe an upset or two in other championship games.

I agree.  We obviously CAN beat OSU, but we'll be slight underdogs.  If we don't beat OSU, our only hope is either that OSU loses two games in conference so that we could still play for the B1G championship (highly improbable), or there is only one other conference champion with just one loss (beside an undefeated or one loss OSU).  Even in that second scenario, we would need the voters to go our way.

It would depend on various factors. Are there multiple two loss P5 champs? Is Houston undefeated? I think a 1 loss Michigan could get in over a 1 loss Big 12 champ since there is no Big 12 title game. Even with a loss to OSU, Michigan will have notched a few quality wins (Wisconsin, MSU, Colorado) assuming those teams go on to have strong seasons. They would probably need Iowa to finish with 8-9 wins to give them a 4th quality win. It's not likely, but possible.

All undefeated and 12-1 conference champs would go first. Then, you're competing with 10/11-2 conference champs and other 11-1 teams. You've got five power conferences, so you'd need two of them to have a champion with 2 losses. It's possible, but not likely.

It depends, really. I'd say at this point the odds aren't good, but the BCS showed in 2011 it didn't care about conference championships. Traditions are made to be broken at some point.  

But yeah, there would have to be a lot that happened. Specifically: 

-Every SEC team, including the champion, finishes with at least two losses. With Alabama, you can probably already throw this one out the window. 

-No undefeated Group of Five teams. 

-No more than three undefeated Power 5 conference champions from other conferences. 

-Michigan would need to absolutely run train on everyone on its schedule, win by an average of 35-40 points, would also need OSU to run roughshod on everyone, and then we'd have to lose a very close, very evenly-matched nailbiter in Columbus that everyone and their mother admits could've gone either way. We would also need teams like MSU and Iowa to be highly ranked, or at least ranked, when we play them. 

-Some conference championship games would probably need to be sloppy games, where one playoff contender wins but just doesn't look any good doing it. 

A lot to happen, and I'm assuming only one, maybe two of those happening. So the answer to your question would be likely a negatory. 

I'm not sure I see OSU losing any of its games before The Game.

Truly is. But he's not the threat that Lamar Jackson is on offense. The guy is one of the most electric guys I've seen from the QB position in awhile.

OSU also has a tougher road, as they have to play Wisconsin in Madison and Nebraska, as well as MSU in East Lansing.  I'm assuming that factors into this talk of "who's in the best position to get to the playoff".