Looking ahead to 2017

Today sucked, but two years ago we missed a bowl and now we are pissed that we are missing the playoff. Things are so much better and Harbaugh hasn't even had a chance to get his own kids playing yet.  I hate losing but you don't wash away 10-15 years of dominance in 2 years.  Today reminded me of Saban's Alabama team vs. Meyer's Florida teams from around 10 years ago with Tebow.  It took some time but Saban got the better of him.  You have to get the athletes on campus first to be able to do it.  OSU is a juggernaut and it will take a little bit of time to get to that level.  We are building in that direction.  

If Ruiz signs, kicks ass from Day 1, and proves himself to be the best center (or Kugler takes a huge step) meanwhile Bredeson and Onwenu lock down the Gs AND Newsome returns 100% at LT, does Cole move out to RT? (excuse the run-on). Perhaps Isaiah Wilson is in that mix... That'd be a damn good OLine, imo, assuming all are healthy and play to their fullest potential. Bottom line, our OL (and the vast majority of positions) will be younger next year, however, the talent will be getting better and better in years to come.

So, moving forward. I am really excited about the future. Steel in the spine. Tomorrow better than today. Moving forward to a dominating bowl win over some SEC team. And then, when Harbaugh gets all his men on the field the difference will be felt. Love Coach Harbaugh, Love Don Brown. Go Michigan. The Future is ours. 

Next year Michigan will have one of the least experienced teams in the BIG10. Needed to make hay while sun shines. Next year will be a down year 9-3 or 8-4.

OSU played at a high level this year with mostly freshman. No reason Michigan can't do the same. QB play is critical with our offense and Speight will be a nice complement to Peters

OSU returns almost every starter next year. Alabama reloads. We lose so many seniors. Having returning QB will be key. 2nd year of Don Brown system. Harbaugh took a Stanford team that was 1-11 and beat USC as 40 point underdogs, so we will always have a chance. But this year was our year.

Speight

Evans
(Poggi)

Dawson
Onwenu
Cole
Bredeson
Newsome/JBB

Wheatley
Asiasi

Perry
Drake
Crawford

Gary
Mone
Hurst
Chase

McCray
Bush
???

Watson
Kinnel
Hudson
Hill/Long

We need to reel in Solomon, Ruiz & Thomas.

Youth next year combined with games against Florida on a neutral site, Wisconsin at Wisconsin, PSU at PSU, an MSU team looking for redemption, and an older OSU will make it very hard to avoid losing three games. And then they play at ND, at MSU, and at OSU in 2018.

I'm thinking 10-2. Just beat OSU and I'll be happy. Oh, and beat MSU again as well. If we do that, I'll take some losses against Wisconsin and PSU or some other teams in a rebuilding year.

It hard to swallow from my perspective, but the balance of the 2017 class is crucial to the outlook for next year and 2018. UM is significantly behind OSU in talent for 2017 let alone the existing roster issues. JH can beat anyone with equal talent - thus the uproar by the SEC and ACC about his satellite camps and other issues.

But UM needs talent - size, speed and skill. We will struggle with OSU as long as they have the speed advantage. So this boils down to recruiting and right now our 2017 class is well behind OSU in talent.  We need top tier guys (DPJ, Ambry, Isaiah, Cesar, Baron, Falo, Filiagi, Leatherwood, Harris, Nico, Aubrey, Tufele, etc).

Meyer lands those type of guys and fits them into a very good system. JH will regularly beat Meyer with those type of guys.

Any thoughts on OSU early entry guys. I looked at an updated mock draft that has OSU players in the top 2 rounds including, hooker, Samuel, Conley and lattimore to go with McMillan and eiflien. I know OSU reloads, but that's a lot of talent to replace. And shows what UM was up against in the game today. Maybe urban Meyer convinces them to stay and be fully loaded next year, but they don't go to OSU to stay in school. I didn't think hooker or lattimore had been there that long

Asiasi and Wheatley at TE

Crawford and DPJ at WR

Walker replacing Smith at RB

Speight or Peters at QB

we have a ton of good freshmen DL plus some returning depth

only concerns are OL and DB IMO

and the loss of some very good players.  It is true, we will be losing a lot of talent to the NFL.

However, this will be the 3rd year of players in Harbaugh's system and there will be plenty of talent on the team.

The biggest loss, imo, will be Jourdan Lewis, as a lockdown corner is really a luxury in college football. Jabrill is a loss, but because his usage was so spread out, his impact can be made up by a few high quality players in different spots.

They keys will be the O-line improving and the linebackers getting better at sealing the edge.

Second year in Don Brown's system... I think we will be just fine on that side and the offense will be better.  

OSU got lucky this year, just like MSU lucked out last year. The gap has been closed and we are on the upswing.

 

Florida - neutral site

Cincy & Air Force at home

at Purdue

MSU at home

at IU

at PSU

Rutgers

Minnesota

at Maryland

at Wisky

OSU

7 wins and 5 competitive games - 9 wins should be the floor and 11-12 the ceiling - could start 10-0 tbh

We were just two plays away from finishing the regular season undefeated. Harbaugh and staff did a lot to cover up our weaknesses at LB, OL and QB.  We lose a lot of seniors but we have a lot of good talented young players to step in. I think next years team will have a few rmore losses thinking 2 to 4. But we could gel in time to beat a probably high ranked OSU team at home next season.

If Harbaugh is still losing to Urbz after 2019, then it will be time to worry.

Sometimes you can't take advantage of situations where the ducks seemed to be lined up in your favor, and other times you are able to make unexpectedly great things out of seemingly difficult situations.  This was a great year and seemed to line up with our best chance of beating OSU in a while, but it didnt' work out.  Next year, looking at the two rosters doesn't look great, but you never know.  At some point Harbaugh is either going to beat them or go postal, it won't be long.  Look out world.

 

From a team perspective, we lose a lot.  We are still probably an 8 or 9-win team.  We do play Fla in Texas.  We have to travel to Camp Randall for Wiscy, we're at PSU, then we get the two rivals at home.  That should help against MSU, not sure it will mean much for OSU as they look like a juggarnaut next year, but we'll see.  The QB and RBs should be good. TEs will be young, but should be good.  We don't have a proven #1 WR, but should have enough weapons to win most of the games on our schedule.  It would be nice to get a playmaker like DPJ, but we can't count on a kid currently in high school.  The defense won't have a ton of depth, but the #1's should be good.  If we get an injury at DB for example though, then what?

 

What remains a thorn in our side likely continues to be the o-line.  Until we can get an o-line that can generate a good running game to take pressure off our QB, this offense won't quite click the way we want.  I don't know how far off that is.  It probably won't be there next year.  The year after that doesn't seem like a great o-line either.  Unfortunately I think we are looking at the current freshman and next year's freshman at our best chance to be really good on the o-line, which probably means like 3 more years before we get to where we want our o-line to be :/

A big question about the osu game next year is will barrett return and which other underclassmen enter the draft. If they're breaking in a new QB I'm not so sure they're for sure a "juggernaut" next year. Michigan will be young but good systems create good teams with young players by developing them. Osu, bama, and others have demonstrated that. I know that's a new concept since the last few coaching regimes were not good at player development but just look at how far speight came in one year to understand what how good harbaugh and the staff are at player development. UM could lose more games next year but I think having a returning QB and guy's who have been in the system and played even if they didn't start (think about all the "wasted" redshirts ppl have complained about at times) means that we should start the preseason ranked high while having a realistic shot to win all of their games. I think PSU might be Iowa from last year and drop off, MSU will likely still be mediocre at best, while UW will prolly be legit good. No reason to be gloomy about next year. Today sucked but the future looks good. I also think Tom Herman going to Texas will impact osu recruiting. Maybe not in 2017 but very soon. It will be harder for osu and others (including us) to pull kids out of Texas if UT is relevant/competitive again and Herman is known as a good recruiter and will likely run a system similar to osu.