Forde: Michigan beats OSU, loses three games
Sort of snarky opening prediction for the season. Predicting losses to Army, Penn State and MSU.
August 26th, 2019 at 2:14 PM ^
Looks like he's taking full advantage of the legalization of weed and smoking before he goes to work.
August 26th, 2019 at 2:47 PM ^
clicks, clicks, clicks, clicks.....that's all this article is meant to do.
August 26th, 2019 at 3:30 PM ^
Yep. "Ohh, look at those angry Michigan fans generate ad impressions and line my pockets with money."
DON'T CLICK
August 26th, 2019 at 5:31 PM ^
Interesting. I didn't know Pat Forde had taken up a new hobby- smoking crack while making predictions.
August 26th, 2019 at 2:15 PM ^
I'm not a programmer but the Army game feels like busted code in a lot of these talking head previews. If you lose at home to Army your season is going to be a disaster. You can't lose that game and then beat OSU. It just won't work that way.
August 26th, 2019 at 2:23 PM ^
I'm mostly with you, but OSU managed to get blown out against Purdue and still have a 'decent' season.
August 26th, 2019 at 2:36 PM ^
Yeah, but that wasn't at home and Army doesn't have anyone as dynamic as Rondale Moore.
August 26th, 2019 at 8:42 PM ^
Purdue, however, managed to lose to EMU and beat OSU in the season.
August 26th, 2019 at 10:55 PM ^
Yeah but osu doesn't spend practice time every day on Purdue like they do for Michigan. When you do stuff like that it's almost impossible to get up for every game verse middling teams because you are effectively telling your players these games really don't matter, only Michigan matters.
August 26th, 2019 at 2:36 PM ^
I can imagine having a clunker and losing to either Army or MSU but if we lose both it would seem to indicate the team isn't very good and unlikely to beat OSU.
August 26th, 2019 at 3:45 PM ^
Yeah, if your defense can't figure out Army and maybe more importantly, the offense can't outscore Army...you're gonna have a bad time against the good teams on your schedule (ND, PSU, Wisconsin, Ohio St).
August 26th, 2019 at 4:13 PM ^
Particularly since both games are at home and about two months apart
August 26th, 2019 at 2:46 PM ^
You don't lose to an unranked VaTech in September ...O wait, that's fine. '14 Champs!
You definitely can't lose to an unranked Pitt in November ...O wait, that's fine. '16 Champs!
UR Iowa St. in October? '17 CFP team!
UR Nebraska in Nov? '15 CFP team!
No 1 loss stops a team if they can still win their championship.
And Army could very well be top25 when they play.
August 26th, 2019 at 2:46 PM ^
So much this. You aren't going to lose to Army at home and beat Ohio State. If you don't have enough talent to beat a team that doesn't throw the ball you aren't going to beat a team with 4-5 star athletes all over the field.
Sounds like talking heads trying to be a little too smart for their own good.
August 26th, 2019 at 2:53 PM ^
Does anyone remember that Oklahoma needed a catch some breaks to pull out a win over Army last year?
August 26th, 2019 at 2:55 PM ^
Oklahoma doesn’t play defense, big difference.
August 26th, 2019 at 3:14 PM ^
And yet Army's undersized defense kept it close with the nation's best offense.
August 26th, 2019 at 3:23 PM ^
Their offense is what changes everything. Army is trying to take 8+ minutes off the clock every possession. If you don’t score on possessions, you’re in trouble (most football cliche ever).
Oklahoma and their big play offense had a few failed possessions early in the game, and Army isn’t going to make mistakes. Our new offense kinda makes me nervous about the same mistakes tbh.
August 26th, 2019 at 3:24 PM ^
Not really. Army's offense refused to give up the ball, and marched up and down the field. They failed to score, but held the ball so long that OK's offense barely had it. Time of possession was 45 - 15, Army - literally! Look it up. Oklahoma's defense was fucking sucktastic.
Army will not sniff the ball for that long against a Don Brown defense. You should pay a little more attention to detail, Chucky...
August 26th, 2019 at 3:24 PM ^
Wasn't so much Army's defense keeping it close, it was more that OU had very limited opportunities on offense due to the OU defense not stopping Army's offense who just ate up clock the whole game.
August 26th, 2019 at 5:13 PM ^
How’d the Duke game work out for Army? GTFO
August 26th, 2019 at 3:13 PM ^
Oklahoma's post game win expectancy was 99%. The opposite was true, Army was lucky the game was that close.
August 26th, 2019 at 3:51 PM ^
If feel like this is a flaw in play-based systems.
Army had more first downs, more total yards and only one more TO.
Army averaged more yards per drive than OU.
This post game win probably of 1% is based solely on the fact that OU outgained Army on a per-play basis 8.88 ypp to 4.36.
Where I think this is a flaw is that the nature of Army's offense (especially against OU's defense) means there is unusually low variance on per play outcomes, which is a good thing. 4.36 ypp is bad for teams that mix in a healthy chunk of 0 yard incompletions (or worse, sacks) but when you're Army and you're literally gaining 4 yards every play you don't have the same drive stalling sequences as a team that gains 28 yards and then 4 and then 0 and 0. That's 8 ypp but it's also one first down and then out.
I bet the postgame win expectancy based on FEI (drive based) would be more reasonable (like 20/80 because explosiveness still matters) of a game that went into overtime and saw the loser outgain the winner.
August 26th, 2019 at 4:32 PM ^
Success rate and turnover are also huge components of the metric. Army got lucky in the TO margin and and Oklahoma success rate was much higher. Being outgained by 4 ypp is nothing scoff at either because having a higher ypp is predictive of more points. It is really hard to score by moving the ball 4 yards every time. Eventually the defense will get a stuff or TFL and you're in trouble. Army somehow pulled that off (albeit against an awful defense), but it isn't replicatable.
August 26th, 2019 at 3:34 PM ^
I'm an Oklahoma fan, and don't get me wrong, Army is likely a top 25 caliber team, but that game was a perfect combo of factors that I feel like could only happen against that Oklahoma team at the time.
1.) Oklahoma had Mike Stoops as a DC at the time, and he clearly did not have that team disciplined enough to take on a triple option team. As a result, Oklahoma couldn't stop Army.
2.) Because Oklahoma couldn't stop Army, Army ballcontroled the fuck out of that game, which took the OU offense off the field, and put them out of sync when they did get on the field. Almost every Army play was a 4-5 yard run.
3.) Oklahoma made some uncharacteristic mistakes. Their kicker (who is now in the NFL) missed a give me field goal to prevent OT. I think CeeDee Lamb (who will be in the NFL next year) dropped a critical pass or two.
4.) I think Oklahoma slept walked into that game. It was a game against a team they should have crushed, and the game wasn't even on TV.
I think any team with a competent DC, and an offense that isn't used to going at a slow pace would be able to better stop that Triple Option.
August 26th, 2019 at 4:24 PM ^
I didn't know there was such a thing anymore as a game not on tv
August 26th, 2019 at 5:42 PM ^
For some reason, Oklahoma usually has one game a year not on TV. They always put that game on pay-per-view. Last year's PPV game was Army.
August 26th, 2019 at 3:32 PM ^
I swear people are really over-reading into the Army game because they gave Oklahoma a scare last year. Army won a ton of one-score games the past couple of seasons and OU had the 84th-ranked defense last year per S&P+. They couldn't stop anyone, most especially a team full of very precise army cadets running an offensive system that is a billion percent different than anything else they saw in the Big 12.
My guess is the Army game will go a lot like the game against Air Force a couple years ago; they'll string together some drives that will keep possessions down but Michigan will never really be in danger.
August 26th, 2019 at 3:48 PM ^
You don't think Michigan was in danger against Air Force? It was 19-13 at the start of the 4th quarter.
Not much different if I were to say aSUO was never really in danger against Minniesoda last year.
I do expect Michigan to beat Army, but man it's a scary matchup. Never schedule a military academy! Amirite?
August 26th, 2019 at 4:37 PM ^
AF had three drives that entire second half that ended in positive yardage, and one of those was a single yard that ended with UM scoring a punt TD. I mean, when OSU played Army a couple years ago they only led by 10 at halftime and I doubt any OSU faithful were overly worried about the outcome.
Playing the service academies chiefly requires your defense to pay attention and be sound in their assignments; what trips up most teams is they either overlook or are ill-prepared for the plays being called. Usually they figure it out by halftime and that's when they tend to pull away.
August 26th, 2019 at 5:11 PM ^
Yes; you are right. No value (if you're not a knee surgeon) to scheduling them.
August 26th, 2019 at 5:44 PM ^
You're getting downvoted because of, you know, but you aren't wrong.
Army should concern Michigan. They're replacing an entire defensive line, essentially, and Army thrives on taking advantage of missed assignments. I think Michigan gets it done, they haven't lost at home to a team not named Ohio State or Michigan State under Harbaugh (and both of those MSU games required some shenanigans) and only one of those other home games was won by less than 10 points (2016 Wisconsin in which Michigan outgained them 3 to 1, but missed 3 FGs).
So, it would be against the norm for them not to beat Army by more than 10, but still we should be nervous.
August 26th, 2019 at 2:15 PM ^
Oh I'd love to see the betting line on that four game combination.......
August 26th, 2019 at 2:15 PM ^
Pat Forde thinks we should be concerned about Army.
August 26th, 2019 at 2:56 PM ^
Pat Forde should be more concerned with the amount of meth he’s been taking.
August 26th, 2019 at 2:16 PM ^
I would eat...
Aw, fuck it...Eddie Murphy's hosting SNL 12/21
August 26th, 2019 at 2:18 PM ^
I have to wonder if this guy actually watches the sport of which he writes? He's basing Army off the Oklahoma game last year, and also basing it off what was UM's offense last year. He's not paying attention - neither last year, or this year.
August 26th, 2019 at 2:18 PM ^
This article is pure clickbait. UM fans debating on keeping Harbaugh after season and Cincinnati making the Playoffs. HA!
Edit: Looks like Oregon for #4 and Cincinnati #5
August 26th, 2019 at 2:21 PM ^
But when Michigan finally gets over on the opponent it hates the most — releasing a spasm of Buckeye anger directed at Ryan Day and Justin Fields and Urban Meyer for leaving — Big Blue and Harbaugh will have to decide whether they can do a sixth year together.
Anyone that calls Michigan "Big Blue" is a chucklefuck, but then you add on the Boy Who Cried Wolf behavior with the whole "Harbaugh is considering leaving UM" and the author is Pat Forde, well, you simply have the holy trinity of fucking stupid and pointless bullshit written to enflame UM fans and drive traffic.
Forde does no research or in-depth analysis and simply goes with ESPN generated-hype takes and "oh well they did XYZ in the bowl game," to throw darts at the wall.
My sister could write this shit.
August 26th, 2019 at 2:29 PM ^
IBM now considers us their biggest rival.....
August 26th, 2019 at 2:39 PM ^
I think I've heard Big Blue as Univ of Kentucky.
Per Wikipedia:
August 26th, 2019 at 3:17 PM ^
I think Forde is a troll. Look at this, also from Wikipedia with a direct quote from Forde:
August 26th, 2019 at 2:35 PM ^
Calling Michigan "Big Blue" is my #1 pet peeve. Well, second biggest.
August 26th, 2019 at 2:52 PM ^
I always cringe when a recruit announces his commitment to "Michigan University"
August 26th, 2019 at 6:55 PM ^
I see a young man a bit flustered over announcing what is probably the biggest decision of his life. I can deal with that as long as he doesn't put footballs on the ground.
August 26th, 2019 at 2:23 PM ^
It might be time to add Forde to the list. His writings have shown that he hates Harbaugh and Michigan more than any buckeye i've ever met.
August 26th, 2019 at 2:23 PM ^
i see the fat from his neck and face has finally won the battle and taken over his brain.
At least he felt compelled to troll the Fetid Nation the worst.
August 26th, 2019 at 2:24 PM ^
There's no risk in predicting Army will beat Michigan because if it happens, it is on record. If they get it wrong, no big deal as they are supposed to get that wrong. We will roll Army. If Army can legitimately go toe to toe with the big boys, they should be ranked with the big boys.
August 26th, 2019 at 2:48 PM ^
Army got top25 votes. Just sayin.
August 26th, 2019 at 2:24 PM ^
The national guys are entertaining reads and listens until they talk about your team and then you realize they’re out of touch hot take click bait artists.