Real talk: what exactly is this program's ceiling?
This topic has been discussed before, but this is probably a good time to revisit the question.
On the one hand, we just pulled off a perfect season, a second consecutive dominant win over a loaded OSU team (on paper, at least), and a second consecutive B1G Championship despite having significantly fewer players who were consensus 4- or 5-star recruits than OSU. We've gone 25-3 over two seasons, which is pretty damn good.
On the other hand, we just lost to a school whose level of raw talent and athleticism is significantly lower than ours (again, on paper), which started the season unranked, whose coach has only been on the job a year, and which hasn't even been a Power 5 program for a full decade. We seem to have chronic problems in bowl games, a pattern that dates back over 50 years.
I think most would agree that our ceiling is below that of Alabama, which has won six national championships in the BCS/CFP era alone. And I think most would agree that Michigan should be among upper crust of the B1G in any given year. But within that range, what's a reasonable expectation for, say, a 25-year stretch? Should a national championship be a once-a-decade occurrence? Should it be a once-a-quarter-century occurrence (after all, our last one was 25 years ago)? In light of the current landscape (especially given new realities that are perceived to put Michigan at a disadvantage, like NIL and the transfer portal), is a national championship even a realistic expectation anymore? Was it ever (even 1997 was our first in 50 years)?
Interested in hearing people's thoughts.
January 1st, 2023 at 10:01 PM ^
We're fine. Sometimes teams fumble (metaphorically, and sometimes literally) games away. I know this is a long time ago, but I think of Nebraska doing the same thing against us in the 1986 Fiesta Bowl, with two straight fumbles followed immediately by a blocked punt, with Michigan converting all three for touchdowns. Game over.
It sucks when it happens, and the immediate response is always to look for someone to blame. But damn, you take away those two pick sixes, and we convert even one of those visits to the red zone (yes, including Wilson's TD), and ... it's an impressive win.
Yes, the defensive line got exposed (forcing us to move to blitzes in the second half, and we all saw how that went). But ... remember, we scored 39 points in the second half alone. In any normal game, we win, I'm sorry.
This didn't reveal ANY systematic problems with us. It just hurts, and we want to blame someone.
But we've been in the CFP two years in a row, and this year we outplayed our opponent before losing in a historic flurry of mistakes. We're right where we need to be.
January 1st, 2023 at 10:11 PM ^
It's hard to say because the program is peaking to the highest levels in 20+ years, but the whole college football landscape is shifting.
A National Championship requires a lot of things to go right - some of which the programs can control, and some of which it cannot. To an extent that's also true of games against teams that routinely make the playoffs (vs OSU), particularly when you play them away from home. In the last 2 years Michigan has "controlled the controllables" to a degree second only to Georgia - so we're now genuine NC contenders.
I guess the question is are we stuck at "Oklahoma" (4 cfp appearances, no wins) or can Michigan break through and the climb the mountain? I think 2023 is Michigan's best chance yet, but nothing is guaranteed. Michigan is also poised to pass 1000 wins as the program - so that's a pretty cool milestone. If the ceiling is "Oklahoma", that still seems like a pretty good time to me.
Then in 2024 the 12-team playoff begins. I would expect Michigan to be able to make that more than half the time since beating OSU would no longer be a near-explicit requirement. Of Jim Harbaugh's teams the 2016, 2018, 2021, and 2022 teams would've made a 12 team playoff, and while we saw the results in '21 and '22, the 16 and 18 teams could've made some noise. 2015 and 2019 would've been just outside. Given the shape of several other Big10 programs (PSU and MSU in particular) 10 or 11 win seasons seem like they ought to be the norm for Michigan.
January 1st, 2023 at 10:29 PM ^
This team lost their best offensive player for 3.5 games and went 13-1,should be 14-0.Imagine if OSU loses Stroud for that or Bama loses Young for that.The good guys will be fine.BTW the Don playing with one hand and losing Schoon after One catch.
Still sucks losing but having a TD taken off the board and the non targeting call shows how poor officiating is.Go read Joel Klatt’s tweets.We are on par with the elites.
Georgia lucked out against short handed OSU team playing without 3 of their best offensive players.Harbaugh has this figured out.We beat the daylights out of a healthy OSU team (except for SNJ)
January 1st, 2023 at 10:45 PM ^
We had 2 pic 6's and a a fumble at the one. We had a touchdown inexplicably called back and a text book targeting non call end the game.
We beat TCU 8 out of 10 times.
- Gone Stroud
- Gone Bennett
- Gone Bryce Young
- Gone Duggan
Returning - JJ McCarthy
There is no reason to believe this team will not be in the playoffs next year.
January 1st, 2023 at 10:54 PM ^
What?
With good playcalling last game we'd be in the final. And could beat Ga. We are among the elite.
January 1st, 2023 at 11:22 PM ^
A National Championship. We lost the semi due to two pick sixes. JJ only threw 3 INTs all season. To throw 2 in one game and have both be returned for TDs has got to be a one in 10,000 type of bad luck. Add in the overturned TD and Lady Luck really kicked us in the ass.
OSU played Georgia even in Atlanta. Georgia would be beatable in LA. They are not used to traveling to the west coast.
If this recruiting year was a blip, there’s no reason why we can’t be competing for a championship every year for the next decade. We just need to get Lady Luck on our side one of these years.
January 2nd, 2023 at 12:04 AM ^
Ceiling was a national championship this year. They made several huge, game altering errors in the CFP semi-final, got a TD stolen by the zebras, and still had the ball with a chance to win at the end. Georgia is very good but not world beating this year, that would have been a game.
Sometimes shit happens. I don’t think yesterday says anything about the ceiling of the program, certainly not anything negative.
January 2nd, 2023 at 12:38 AM ^
For all of the complaining I did in another thread about how poor the coaching was, I'll give them a ton of credit here for the type of players they've recruited, the evaluation of certain players such as Mike Sainristil and what a good/important piece the he has been to the defense after the departure of Dax Hill. They're not perfect obviously, but it's a very good staff.
Let me go back to last night one more time and say this - Michigan was inside the 2 yard line twice and put up 0 points. Additionally JJ put 14 points on the board for TCU. Michigan STILL had the football with about a minute to go with a chance to win the game. That's kind of insane, like we probably get thumped by quite a few teams in the B1G, even Michigan St probably wins that game against us with the quantity of game altering mistakes that were made.
Last night I had said we probably will see TCU lose by 20 in the title game, but when I think more about this, I think it's going to be a fairly close game which will tell me what I've kinda of believed for the majority of this season - that Michigan is the best team in the country. And if it does end up being close, we can all feel even worse that a national championship quite literally may have been fumbled or Philly special'd away at the goal line!
Unfortunately, players and coaches still need to execute. The team did not deserve a victory last night, and to be honest with you after what we saw I'd feel pretty good about Michigan beating TCU pretty soundly if they were to line up again next Saturday. My best analogy for how to lose that game/what I saw was this -- Michigan took a grenade, pulled the pin and stared at the thing waiting to see what happens. You're losing to nearly everybody on the conference schedule if you have a 4 score swing like that on big plays, yet they still had a chance to win at the end.
I think the team is really really close. I also think looking ahead they might come into the year as the #1 ranked team preseason 2023. With OSU, UGA, Alabama, UT losing starting QB's and JJ returning the only other team I'd make a case for is USC right now. Lot's can still happen in this new era of movement in CFB, but they should be favored to win the B1G for the 3rd straight year.
One question I haven't really seen discussed much is who's behind Jake Moody? What a loss that guy is going to be, unbelievable job all season. He put a 59 yarder through with ease yesterday, had 7 yards to spare on that thing. Would look great in a Lions uni next season!
January 2nd, 2023 at 1:12 AM ^
This team doesn't respond very well when everyone is blowing smoke up their asses
January 2nd, 2023 at 11:44 AM ^
“we just lost to a school whose level of raw talent and athleticism is significantly lower than ours”
I doubt there’s another fan base—including media people—that so consistently and chronically underestimates our bowl competition.
January 2nd, 2023 at 6:02 AM ^
The intersection of the 12 game playoff, the portal, and NIL is going to produce some surprises.
The talent is going to be spread out more and the playoff is going to showcase more of that spread out talent.
In general you will still see the top recruiting Alabama/Georgia-type teams winning most of the championships. But there will be some surprises that come from elsewhere.
From a Michigan point of view, it helps us. We are one of the teams that will get a lot of shots at it in a 12 team playoff, were we would have been shut out before most years.
But we'll also need to expect some results like Saturday where we get ambushed by a "lesser" team that we didn't see coming.
January 2nd, 2023 at 12:08 PM ^
Due to the rise of the portal and NIL I think we're going to see a lot of surprises in the recruiting space.
Going forward, teams like Alabama and Georgia will find it much more difficult to field two platoons of the most talented recruits or stack 5-star RBs four-deep on the bench.
January 2nd, 2023 at 9:21 AM ^
Sometimes things just happen.
Take away the pick-6s and bogus TD overturn and we're not talking about this.
Next year's team could be even better, especially if the young receivers are what we expect.
January 2nd, 2023 at 9:27 AM ^
Real Talk: Who uses that phrase still?
To answer your question, we're currently perennial National Championship contenders. Sometimes you need a little luck to actually win it and we didn't get any help in that regard Saturday. It'll be even harder to win with 12 teams in the playoff, but it'll be fun competing. Hopefully we can boost our recruiting based on these back-to-back seasons. Hopefully a 12-team playoff spreads the talent out a bit more and we don't run into super teams in the playoffs.
January 2nd, 2023 at 9:32 AM ^
This program should compete for Championships every year.
January 2nd, 2023 at 11:47 AM ^
Our ceiling is to win the Big Ten title and then lose a bowl game to a team that we’re favored to beat. That’s been happening for 50 years across 5 different head coaches, so it’s a Michigan institutional tradition.
January 2nd, 2023 at 12:28 PM ^
The program is headed in the right direction. This year was very encouraging. Many players are returning and McCarthy will be much better next year.
Some concerns threaten to derail things in 2024 and beyond:
1) With the rise of NIL, our recruiting is falling off a cliff. We are doing something wrong.
2) Contrary to what another poster said in this thread, our offense is too complex. It is incredibly difficult for a QB to master and thrive in this system. Harbaugh has never had a great QB in his Michigan tenure and this is the reason. Too many formations. Too many reads. Too much thinking. Too much complexity for complexity's sake. Nearly every time we call a timeout because of the play clock.....it is because we are getting tripped up by our own complexity that is supposed to confuse the other team, not us.
3) Some bad play calls, especially in the red zone.
4) Our defense, as always, is very good. But our recruiting issues leave me wondering who the next big edge rusher will be. We really need one. I don't see an obvious star at DE.
January 2nd, 2023 at 1:57 PM ^
2 limiting factors got us this year
Quality RB depth limited us this year. After Corum’s injury, it was exposed.
WR development has been lacking. Great blocking but not so catchy