SI Top 25: Michigan at 15
Intro
- Here's a link to the rankings.
- Michigan is at 15
Summary
- Here's what they have to say about Michigan:
SI Top 100 players: Six: DT Rashan Gary (No. 9), LB Devin Bush (No. 25), DE Chase Winovich (No. 56), LB Khaleke Hudson (No. 62), CB Lavert Hill (No. 78), QB Shea Patterson (No. 80)
X-Factor: Officially, the Wolverines have no offensive coordinator, but they do have three coaches with a combined 25 years of experience as offensive coordinators at the college and NFL levels. After Tim Drevno left for USC, coach Jim Harbaugh brought in Ed Warinner (from Ohio State and Minnesota) to coach the line and Jim McElwain (from Florida) to lead the receivers. Pep Hamilton is the pass-game coordinator, in charge of QBs. The starter will be Ole Miss transfer Shea Patterson. Last year’s NFL-style offense, populated with inexperienced players, ranked 91st in scoring. The offense will have a different look, but will it translate to better results? — Joan Niesen
- From the schedule: Wisconsin (3), PSU (7), OSU (9), MSU (11), ND (16)
Some Thoughts
These rankings are weird. I'm not sure how they have OSU below Penn State, for example. Maybe they think Meyer won't be back? I do like to see Wisconsin get some love.
Anyway, I'm fine with Michigan's ranking. 15 is plenty high enough, with this schedule, for the team to prove itself worthy of a higher ranking. It's also a bit generous, given last year's performance.
August 7th, 2018 at 10:23 AM ^
Pre-season college football rankings are like reality TV shows - there's way too many of them, most are written by talentless attention-whore hacks, and most of them suck...
August 7th, 2018 at 10:36 AM ^
Don't hold back FauxMo, tell us how you REALLY feel....it's not good to internalize
August 7th, 2018 at 10:51 AM ^
I need to come out of my shell.
Hey, serious question, since you are in the state, but what's the update on the missing girl? I hear they are looking really hard at some pig farmer with prior sexual assault and/or stalking arrests, but the national news has slowed to a trickle. Anything new there? Sad story...
August 7th, 2018 at 11:01 AM ^
There's really nothing new locally. He's got a history of stalking, and they interviewed him extensively and searched his farm. He cooperated fully, but refused to take a polygraph, yet said he had nothing to hide, so I don't know. I actually live within a half hour of Brooklyn and have a teenage daughter close to her age, so I'm more than shaken up by this whole thing. You never expect something like this to happen in small town Iowa. All of our small towns are just putting up signs and posters and holding out hope that she's found, but the police are keeping general information close to the vest. It's very sad.
August 7th, 2018 at 11:06 AM ^
Very sad. This case in particular, but really the sheer number of children and young adults that go missing in this country each year is beyond my comprehension.
August 7th, 2018 at 11:11 AM ^
Agreed. My sister-in-law was at Genesee Valley Mall in Flint Township two years ago (where I grew up, I was at that place every weekend when I was a kid), and two men were trying to separate her from my 14 year-old (at the time) niece. The store clerk had to call security to scare the men off, and told her it's becoming a regular occurrence there anymore of young girls getting kidnapped in broad daylight.
It's beyond frightening, as the dad of a daughter. Mine knows gun safety, how to shoot, and will have a personal stun-gun to carry on campus when she goes off to college next year.
August 7th, 2018 at 11:36 AM ^
Agree the numbers are staggering, but the overwhelming number of abductions that occur are by someone who is known to the target -- often family upset by custody awards or the results of family transitions.
True stranger-on-stranger abductions remain relatively rare, but are terrifying (I've got three daughters) and publicity when they do occur tends to dominate click-bait driven news cycles.
August 7th, 2018 at 11:30 AM ^
Don't judge the polygraph refusal.
As I've mentioned before on this blog, I'm a criminal defense lawyer and specialize in difficult, serious allegations.
Separate from all of the general criticisms of polygraphs, polygraphs are very effective interrogation tools, so taking a poly with a law enforcement employed polygrapher is dangerous. As polygraphs measure non-volitional physiological responses to stimuli (stress), a law enforcement target is more likely to be under significant stress when the test-giver is skeptical or has the designs to i) get a fail; and then ii) use the fail in the interrogation room using the results as the trump card ("Hey buddy, what are you holding back? The machine doesn't lie.") Non-verbal communication is the majority of communication. A test-taker can sense this and is more likely to be triggered, flooded, or whatever you want to call it, giving off the physiological responses of "deceptive." This is on top of all of the pressure they already may feel generally and especially when so much is on the line, facing down a deputized polygrapher.
I use polygraphs frequently in my practice. They are effective risk assessment tools that can be used by psychologists, law enforcement, and prosecutors when formulating opinions and can affect disposition, i.e. charging decisions and plea negotiations. I do them, however, almost exclusively, privately with former law enforcement polygraphers who have no coin in the game other than doing a fair test, using the latest standards, and ensuring that their interpretation of the polygraph charts are not subject to debate. No one knows except me, my client, and the polygrapher. Takes a ton of pressure off. And I formulate questions with the polygrapher that are attuned to the case, our theory, and my client's version of events. Sometimes broad, sometimes narrow. Sometimes baby-step questions, and then expand later after securing an initial "pass."
While a "fail" does not indicate guilt or untruthfulness, a "fail" may put the blinders on the prosecution and law enforcement. All too often "confirmation bias" determines the direction of investigation, charge, and guilt -- i.e. minds are made up before all of the evidence is in. This affects the collection, interpretation, and assessment of the evidence. In most cases of wrongful conviction, you will see striking signs of "confirmation bias."
August 7th, 2018 at 11:36 AM ^
Oh, I wasn't judging, just stating what I had read about the situation and how it seemed to counter his other statements. But thank you for your clarification, that was very informative.
Nice post - an excellent description of polygraphs. I've taken 7 or 8 of them in the course of my job, and they can be fooled - but it's difficult to do so. To fool them, you have to have no conscience. Any conscience - any thought that your unfairly fooling the game, and it catches you. Richard Ames fooled a dozen of them because he has no conscience. He's also in prison for the rest of his life, anyway...
OMG, sounds like zach smith is a suspect!!!
All seriousness, hope she is found safe soon
August 7th, 2018 at 11:11 AM ^
All of them are wrong in time.
August 7th, 2018 at 11:26 AM ^
With the exception of a very small amount of shows that I like, reality TV is FUCKING...TERRIBLE...
That genre has ruined the television industry. It's amazing how many people watch that shit and the amount of shows at that.
August 7th, 2018 at 11:41 AM ^
We are maybe 2 or 3 generations from pure "Idiocracy." Before I die, I expect publicly televised executions and an Oscar-winning movie entitled "Farting Ass."
August 7th, 2018 at 12:19 PM ^
Public executions and reality tv are actually totally opposite. I would bet 90% of people who support public execution do not watch reality tv and 90% of reality tv watchers would not support public execution. Just saying.
August 7th, 2018 at 12:39 PM ^
Care to elaborate on "totally opposite"?? They both take the most private, personal individual moments and display them for the public to see.
Isn't it obvious? People who support public executions are tough as nails, don't take any shit from anybody hardasses who love themselves some brutal death, and people who watch reality TV are little punk snowflakes who would be too triggered to stay at a public execution and witness some good death-kill.
Also, Farting Ass sounds legit. Can't wait.
Disagree. Reality tv is anything but reality. It’s a joke and not real. Public execution is very real.
August 7th, 2018 at 10:28 AM ^
I think Michigan at 15 is a fair spot.
August 7th, 2018 at 11:01 AM ^
Agree...need to make a great showing ao win on 9/1. Hoping we practice in the Big House with the lights on. Seeing passes downfield Going Blue all the way.
August 7th, 2018 at 10:31 AM ^
Interesting that Michigan has 6 top 100 players (tied for 3rd most of anyone) and is still fairly low in the rankings. I don't disagree with being at 15, but either they are overrating our players, or underrating our team.
August 7th, 2018 at 11:10 AM ^
Eh, 5 of the 6 are on defense, and really it should be all 6 (I'd swap Long for Patterson). All of those defensive guys played at a high level last year (plus Mo Hurst), and we still only finished 8-5 because of how bad the offense was.
So I don't see any problem with our ranking, at least until the offense shows on the field that we deserve to be higher.
August 7th, 2018 at 11:32 AM ^
Plus, there are four B1G teams ranked ahead of us that appear on our schedule, along with Notre Dame. Michigan's defense can perform as planned and the offense could improve substantially and Michigan still might wind up with 2 or even 3 losses just because of the murderers row we have to navigate. I think the rankings reflect that reality.
Is this ranking guessing where teams will end up atthe end of the season or who is the best regardless of schedule? I thought it was the latter.
I think it may best be understood as a prediction of where teams will end up by the end of the season including all factors such as talent, recruiting, coaching, history, schedule, etc. Frankly, if it were just a measurement of how good this Michigan team should be based on available objective evidence it would be difficult for us to crack the top 25.
Would it? We have a top 5ish defense, a former #1 recruit QB, and a talented RB corps. The only real question marks for this team are the tackles and to a lesser extent, the WRs. I think that's easily top 25 material, and arguably top 10 material.
Yeah, it would. The team went 8-5 last year, lost its bowl game to a pretty bad team, had a notably poor offensive line, had coaching staff turnover, and brought in a new QB who is highly rated but largely unproven. I think that the safeties are a question mark as well, not who is going to play, but how much they can improve. We are being given the benefit of the doubt in a lot of areas to be ranked as high as 15, IMO. (As we should be, based on all of the factors I set forth that really do go into pre-season rankings).
We went 8-5 last year with multiple close games against top opponents and multiple QB injuries. We had a very young team. And we presumably now have a serviceable QB, which would have allowed us to go 10-2 at the very least last season, even with a crappy OL.
Every other team has question marks. Michigan has relatively few of them compared to almost everyone else.
August 7th, 2018 at 10:35 AM ^
Wisconsin ranked low single digits is the best ranking news possible for Michigan.
We play them early and they could be back to single digits with only one loss at the big house if we play them again for the B1G championship seven games later.
August 7th, 2018 at 10:37 AM ^
I think Wisconsin will be one of the two toughest games of the season. I'm glad it's at home.
August 7th, 2018 at 10:57 AM ^
Preseason rankings mean nothing.
August 7th, 2018 at 11:27 AM ^
Thanks for coming here to say what we all know.
August 7th, 2018 at 12:50 PM ^
There's a distinction to be made here: preseason polls are bullshit, but they're not meaningless.
It's so much harder to climb the rankings than to stay on top. As an example, imagine that Alabama loses its first game, and Michigan wins our first game, then both teams go undefeated the rest of the way.
I sincerely doubt that Michigan would ever be ranked #1 in that scenario. Starting the season highly ranked introduces bias into future polls. It's bullshit, but unfortunately it means something.
We started at 14 in 1997. I don't think we're going to go undefeated, but if we did with that schedule we would absolutely be a candidate for No. 1.
The rankings aren’t an impediment:
2010: Auburn began #22, won the title
2012: Notre Dame began unranked, reached the title game
2013: Auburn began unranked, reached the title game
2015: MSU was 13th on Nov. 14, reached the playoff
2016: Washington began #14, reached the playoff
2017: Georgia began #15, reached the title game
If anything, we should expect a team to come from outside the top 10 (either preseason or midseason) and get in.
August 7th, 2018 at 11:17 AM ^
That schedule is brutal. 5 top 16 teams basically, and that doesn't include tough matches at home vs Nebraska and on the road at Northwestern. Oh yea and who can forget that road match at Rutgers.
August 7th, 2018 at 11:23 AM ^
I'm feeling like a 1997/2006 year is coming, it's in the air, you can smell it.
August 7th, 2018 at 11:28 AM ^
With this defense, there is no reason to not believe that. It's going to come down to offensive line and quarterback. It's that simple. We have proven talent everywhere else.
August 7th, 2018 at 12:59 PM ^
aaaaaaaannnnnnnndddddddd...............................injuries
August 7th, 2018 at 11:33 AM ^
This whole article is written with a minimum of insight and research. It's like they realized that they should probably come out with a ranking a couple weeks before the season and threw something together from the most popular names.
My favorite is LJ Scott. A fine B1G RB sure, but top 100 player in the country? Give me Higdon over him (6.1 ypc to 4.5 in 2017) any day. There are players from teams all over that are more valuable than Scott, but I guess they had to have one Spartan on the list.
Having said that, I actually think the rankings for our guys listed are pretty fair outside the excess hype of placing Shea on the list.
August 7th, 2018 at 11:33 AM ^
I think Wisconsin is going to have their best team in a long time. Their crossovers this year are much tougher too, so they will get tested unlike recent years.
August 7th, 2018 at 12:51 PM ^
The point was made above, but this is how it has gone with these rankings. There are only 2 teams with more top 100 (according to SI) players, and they're 1 and 2. Washington (#4) has 6. Wisconsin (#3) has 5, as does Georgia (#6). There's one with 4, Ohio State (#9). Michigan has 6 and is at (#15).
It's simple. These rankings are last year's records, with some tweaks. Michigan is underrated this year. Jump early on the wagon.
But teams are not only measured by their best. You also must consider every other position, especially weaknesses. You could argue our weakness on offense is more of a hindrance than those other team's greatest weakness.
Last year's record is definitely a part of these rankings. At the beginning of last year with basically the same team we were 12th. We've added a high touted QB and all of the first year players/starters we had now have another year of experience. Given Harbaugh's track record last year is an anomaly so people should be expecting a season that looks more like 2016 than 2017. Its fascinating how much people are running with the negative view of Harbaugh and I wonder where the team would be ranked had they beaten SC.
I personally think were going to beat ND handily and then people will vault us into the top 10.
August 7th, 2018 at 12:53 PM ^
This team just looks and feels so much like the '16 team with probably better running backs and we won't be screwing around with a wildcat offense. Tough as hell schedule but still probably one of the top 5-8 teams in the country.
Not worthy of its own thread, but if you want a good laugh, CBS asked coaches various questions under the condition of anonymity, and one was who will be the best team this season.
The results were 92% Alabama, 4% Clemson, and 4% . . . Michigan State. Oh hai Mark Dantonio.
I would put Clemson at way higher than 4%. MSU not so much.
While it seems low to me, I understand the reasoning. If the offense doesnt improve it will be a rough year with our schedule. I feel that our offense will improve, a lot possibly, we have good receivers that were true freshmen last year and one got hurt in the first game, as well as losing our best QB in the Purdue game, we also have two talented and experienced RBs back and QB depth is very good. The OL is the question mark on offense but we return some talent and experience there as well, and we brought in a good OL coach. This year will be different.
LOWER PLEASE!