Recalibrating Expectations After Week One

This team still gets an "incomplete" for me until we see McNamara have to lead a drive with his arm.   We can't survive with mediocre OL play and rely on our RBs to just out-athlete people all year.

Too early to tell, honestly. Washington and Indiana definitely did not look good; I would not be surprised if Indiana hasn't taken a step back but I would also not be surprised if Washington didn't take Montana seriously.

At the same time, you can't read that much into a dominating win over a MAC opponent. Anybody remember Hoke's first game in 2014? 52-14 win over some Sun Belt team in which Derrick Green had the best game of his career. The wheels fell off the next week at Notre Dame.

(Not saying I think the wheels are going to fall off; I think an 8-4 season is reasonable and I hold out hope that I'm too pessimistic. I am saying, though, that Michigan needs to play a real opponent before expectations can realistically be recalibrated.)

I’m still at 8-4. 
 

Our D-line is quite concerning. They got gashed several times yesterday against a middling MAC team.

Dude, it's September against a Mac team. How many times have you fallen for this??

You need a standard to calibrate anything and Western Michigan ain't it. Loss or not, UW is still a good litmus test for this team. 

All I got out of the first weekend is OSU is still good and Alabama will beat the shit out of anyone on its way to the Championship game. 

I think our floor has risen from 5 to 7 wins. The ceiling 9 to 11 wins after what I saw this weekend. 

8-4 still the safe bet  

Expectations won’t change because of a win over a MAC team 

I think we need to pump the brakes on looking at Wisconsin as an easier than expected game. They dominated every facet of the game against PSU but were done in by turnovers. 

Washington and Indiana stock way down, MSU stock up, I think northwestern stock down, everyone else (incl Michigan) no change

i think scenarios where Michigan is a total tire fire with like 4 wins or like last year are probably off the table but I’d still say we’re an 8-4 team most likely

Penn st’s defense is legit!  Wisconsin’s is as well so lets not undervalue them yet either.  

Biggest improvements are week one to week two.  I like how our team improved dramatically on both sides of the ball as the game went on.  So will our opponents, save Nebraska.. dumpster fire right now with no athletes.  

Iowa, better than I thought.  Indiana, who knows, going to Kinnick is a nightmare for big ten teams.  

Wisconsin, still not enough athletes on offense.  Same story, they have one receiver and a te… with a better QB than they’re used to having.  

NW, we’ll see but I had them about 6-6 anyway.  

Msu, week one, but I expected they would be a solid team 8 wins.  

We'll wind up the year with a number of wins and a number of losses. I'm pretty sure about that. 

As I recall, some of us were ready to crown our team with a National Championship after last year's opener. I think I'll take yesterday's win as a single data point and see how things look next Sunday.

Good thing we aren't playing any road games this year <s>....

I still believe that 8-4 is most likely, but also that 7-5 or worse is less likely, and 9-3 or 10-2 are slightly more possible.

What will affect this as much as anything is whether our best players can stay healthy.

Georgia has the fastest linebackers this side of Lawrence Taylor.

I don’t disagree with your takes, however, I think there’s a chance IU is a lot better than what showed up yesterday. I’d chalk that up to a fluke game due to the QB play and would expect them to be a lot more competitive the rest of the way. I remain highly suspicious of the interior DL and dread the Wisconsin game for said reason. Michigan has shown much improvement on the offensive side of the ball, if it holds, Michigan can and should compete very well against their schedule. 

Everyone is looking a little human.

The team looked sharper than I had expected. Few procedural penalties and no INTs. Indeed, McNamara's (only) two incompletions were tipped. UFR will reveal how many little mistakes were made, but the team felt more focused than recent Harbaugh teams have, which is very encouraging in week one.

Also, real big plays happened so I am also hopeful that the coaches will actually design around getting their best guys in the best places. Henning's sweep TD was well executed by the blockers (for a week one test). It seems like we'd see recent M teams try to make these plays happen only for someone to miss an assignment and blow the whole thing up. It's a great start.

If this team can actually maximize it's talent it will be a very good and fulfilling season.

Beware small sample sizes. Teams that play unexpectedly badly on Week One are often not as bad as they appear. I suspect that Washington was guilty of looking ahead to a bigger game next week — kind of an Appalachian State phenomenon.

Wisconsin never has 5* talent. They made a ton of mental mistakes that are unlikely to be regular occurrence, and they were only one play away from beating Penn State.

Indiana may have believed too many of their own press reports, but they didn't just suddenly forget how to play, and they've given Michigan fits for years. Northwestern is always very well coached.

Bear in mind that Michigan is the biggest game on many teams' schedules, or certainly one of the biggest. Nobody comes in under-motivated to play Michigan.

I think I am upping my predictor for 6 or 7 to 8 wins. This is based on Washington, IU, and Wisky not being good at all now. 

I’ve felt that this could be a 10 win team and after week 1 I stand by that even more. This team could very well be a 10 win team. The only other team in the conference not named Ohio state that is capable of being really good is Iowa and we do not play them!

Michigan looked much more competent and organized yesterday. Lots of things made sense. Just what I thought last year after the Minnesota game. 
 

my pessimistic expectations are unchanged. As usual there is a lot of possibility this team could be better than I fear. Maybe a lot better. It just usually doesn’t happen. 

I was at 6-6 before the season, figuring they'd probably look miserable again. After a little over a quarter I was still there, but then they started to put it together. With Indiana looking mediocre, Nebraska and Northwestern looking terrible, and Washington losing to Montana, I'm closer to 8-4.

That said, obviously after one week the mean/standard deviation estimates only move a little. We always learn a lot in Week 2.

I am still concerned about our road games . . . Wisconsin's running game against our DL, Penn State's defense against our still-emerging offense, Sparty's annual freakish game against us.  Even Nebraska if it is a night game.

Road games are a hump we still have to get over.  We play tentative and confused, we need to get to the point where we play with more "muscle memory" on the road under duress.

How many times has Michigan begun the year with a nice victory before gradually regressing? Pretty much every year. 

Reasons for optimism… 1. Defense did some different sets alignment wise finally. Playmakers put in position to make plays. 2. Offense looked pretty good despite vanilla play calling for the most part. 3. Lot of talent at skill positions. 4. Two pretty good qbs who can only likely get better - depth  5. Schedule might not be as bad as thought

Reasons to keep hiding in a cave: 1.  d tackles didn’t make my nerves feel better.  2. Ronnie Bell injury, he’s huge for this team. 3. Corners still get beat and can’t play the ball in the air. 4. All teams will get better and remains to be seen if Michigan will too. 5. Not allowed to have optimism at this point as M fan knowing dong punch could come at any moment

Expectations haven't changed. We played a middling Western Michigan team. Washington looks more like a win now, granted, but I still see this as a 7-5 to 8-4 team. 

MSU concerns me a lot more now than it did 48 hours ago. Wisconsin didn't look good, but we still have to play them in Madison where we haven't won in two decades. That's probably a loss until proven otherwise. Penn State looks average on offense, but will probably get better as the season goes along. It was game one on the road, but that defense looks lethal. Maryland could very well be a loss, depending on which version of Maryland shows up, and then OSU is a loss until Michigan proves otherwise. Nothing between now and the last weekend in November is going to change that. 

I refuse to get my hopes up any further than this, because I will just inevitably be crushed again. Hell, even yesterday still feels somewhat like a loss. Ronnie Bell is probably done for the year, and while there is still talent in the WR room, that's going to be really hard to overcome. 

We crushed Minnie game one last year Milton was a Heisman dark-horse and it was finally going to be the year. So optimism should be tempered.

That said, 20th ranked Washington lost to Montana so that game has swung from a probably L to a probable W.

Every year we hear "We've found our QB!' This year it might actually be true, in fact we might have to of them.

PSU looks legit. Their D was on the field for over 40 minutes and held Wisconsin to 10 points. The Badgers will likely correct their problems by the time we get their and their strength, pound it up the middle is our weakness.

Their secondary looks suspect though.

Indiana got rolled by Iowa.  They managed 233 yards. That game has gone from a coin toss to a likely win.

Mel Tucker may have things going in the right direction at MSU. So that game may have gone from a likely win to a toss up. The ESPN predictor FWIW has MSU as a 57% favourite.

I was in the 7-5, 8-4 camp I'm leaning to  9-3 - not just based on our play but what other teams did as well.

I feel great about yesterday. We doubled the point spread and looked good doing so. On the other hand, last year's opener against Minnesota turned out to be misleading. And there's the terrible loss of Ronnie Bell.

I'm not one for predictions. We'll see how the season plays out. At this point, my only prediction for the season is that I will be very excited to fly in for the Northwestern game and a weekend with my daughter, who (if you'll forgive some boasting) has a post-doc fellowship.

My expectations pre season was a coin flip between 8-4 or 9-3. I suppose rn my prediction is 9-3 but more based on future opponents not looking good than anything I saw out of michigan Saturday.  I don't think we will rally know anything about this team until October 2nd.

It is still to early.  I predicted 9 wins which was a little risky, but looking better now: )  

Optimistic 10- 1.

Pessimistic 4-8

My reality ....6-6

I don't really feel the need to adjust expectations after this week. I mean how the hell do I know how we slot into the whole picture just based on Western Michigan?

Slightly more optimistic because the offense looked coherent and our schedule looking a little softer, but I’m not wildly shifting expectations after thunking a directional school. Best case scenario seems higher but I don’t think that outcome changed how I evaluate our floor or likely outcomes.  

Here we go!!

the 1087th “Predict the Season Thread”

I'm late to this party so I'm repeating what others have already expressed.

Yesterday's Michigan game was great fun to watch, except for Bell's injury. But it was against a MAC team. And though other games didn't go as predicted—Go, Grizzlies!—expectations remain in flux.

One game down, the next game coming.

Still 9-3 as I think Wisconsin will be really tough, obviously OSU, and some other frustrating loss (hopefully not MSU). I do however think we will be truly competitive in all games. Also, I predicted that we would win a defensive struggle against Washington, I have now adjusted my prediction for that game to 28-7.

so basically, a better 9-3. 

At a minimum it seems that the 2020 disaster was probably a one-off event and not a harbinger of doom to come. 

Harbaugh's first five teams went 10-3, 10-3, 8-5, 10-3 and 9-4.  I'd predict another season like that, and after last year, I'd take it.

After yesterday I think there is still one auto loss to 'you know who' and one probable loss to Penn State.  PSU looked every bit the part winning on the road at Wisconsin.  Their secondary could be the best in the country.  And their DL is really stout.  Wisconsin is a toss up now in my mind as opposed to a probable loss.  MSU and Indiana are both tossups as well but leaning to wins.

For Michigan, best case is 10-2, worst case is 8-4.  So I calibrated my average expectations up a little.

Don’t forget that first games can me a mirage - either falsely positive or falsely negative. Some teams that struggled will find their bearings; some teams that shined will get tripped up later. 
 

Indiana’s pass offense will still be dangerous, especially against our corners. Wisconsin will still be Wisconsin. This PSU team in Happy Valley will still be much scarier than this PSU team would be if playing in Ann Arbor. 
 

I do think it’s possible we end up better than expected this year, but we’ve all been burned before (including last year). 
 

That said, we’ve got explosive playmakers. And lots of them. We could be a decent team. Maybe we will be the team people thought Indiana would be. Maybe we can go 9-3. 

Not getting sucked in based on week one performance by any team. Bell is probably out for the season. Program is cursed.