USA Today ranks Michigan preseason #4
At times like these, it’s easy to nitpick through the negatives — and yeah, Michigan has a few. But every program, good and bad, loses players every offseason; every major program has to deal with early departures to the NFL. So instead of focusing on where Michigan may be lacking, consider a few things.
One, how Jim Harbaugh and his staff have been through this before. Two, that there are still more than enough pieces on both sides for this team to be highly successful. And three, how this program is very clearly rocketing into the upper echelon of the Football Bowl Subdivision. Maybe having faith in Harbaugh and his plan makes more sense than simply focusing on issues the Wolverines’ must address before kickoff in September.
FSU, Bama, OSU, and Washington round out the top 5.
And all 10 of those points came within the last minute of a half. I hate the excuses people make for PSU last year. Especially when they come from UM 'fans'...
Also consider that Penn State was only 4 games into a season where they had to replace a lot of offensive starters, and learn a radically different, new offense by OC Joe Moorhead. IMO, that was the main reason for Penn State's remarkable improvement last season, the team was starting to learn the offense better.
Plus, if your offense is constantly on the field because your defense is injured/bad then fatigue hits pretty fast and hard.
Yes, Christian Hackenberg was the most impactful individual starter loss, but unless I'm reading the depth charts wrong they also had to break-in a new starting WR, TE, and 4/5 O-Linemen. The starters across the OL unit was probably the biggest curve even compared to McSorley.
Penn State reminds me of Hoke's 2011 team. Their offense was basically lets play 500 with Chris Godwin and pray he comes down with it. Barkley is the real deal but that defense is atrocious.
2015 Penn State OL wasn't good, but it still hurts to replace 4 starters in one unit, especially on the O-Line since it is arguably the hardest unit to develop as we have see the last 2-3 seasons.
No one is arguing that Michigan's defense didn't dominated, but you can have that position and still recognize that the end of the season that Penn State team was completely different and massively improved.
To write off Penn State because of last year's game seems foolish. I honestly don't even think Trace McSorley is that great of a QB, but that makes me all the more impressed that OC/QB Joe Moorhead built an offense that worked. Who knows? Maybe it was only a flash in the pan, and teams will shut Moorhead's offense down this season, but if not hopefully he gets offered a HC position somewhere soon.
thinks.
OSU is #3 and they just lost the last game they played 31-0. Did FSU look like the #1 team in the country in the Orange Bowl? Penn State's defense gave up over 400 yards 7 times last year and over 500 yards twice.
This is college football, every team has question marks.
No doubt, and we are going to a LOT better than our "number of players lost to graduation" number would indicate to the unenlightened. By the end of the year, we could be easily be in the playoff picture; however,
MUST BEAT FLORIDA.
that seems.....high
Wow. Harbaugh effect.
Seems legit. At first glance it's odd to hear us being rated so high again. We've had some bad times. But Harbaugh we know makes a helluva team and even though there are question marks....there are ?s all over the country.
At this time.
Beat Osu.
10-2 last year with a definite step down in experience. That puts us at probably no better than 8-10.
That x+y=z mentality is exactly what they are going against. You can't just say 10-2 team minus lost talent = 9-3. Specifically speaking, I'm not sure 10-3 final record is a great reflection of last year's team quality. Seemed to me they were a playoff caliber team who took a couple cointoss losess. Also, while we lost a lot, we really are only hurting with depth not starters. QB play should also be better + year 2 Don Brown and Gary among other x factors...
Wisconsin was only close due to us missing 3 field goals.
Especially late in the season. Whatever starters we have penciled in now, you can figure that probably 2 or 3 will be out by the start of the season or soon after, due to injury, discipline, academics, or just quitting. So you have to look at what kind of team we'll be with that in mind.
And yes, sometimes you can get better after losing a lot, but the players were lost were high quality, one of the best NFL draft classes we've had in a long time. On top of which, we have significant roster holes at quite a few positions, which puts us a year behind in player development. As far as "cointoss losses", this coaching staff has yet to prove it can win those games. We have yet to win one game we shouldn't have under Harbaugh. You can only complain about being "unlucky" for so long.
Or look at is this way-how many position groups can you say will definitely be better this year than last? Other than QB, I'm not sure there are any. There is potential, but still a lot of finger-crossing.
Finally, our schedule is tougher.
2 or 3 possible/locked starters this year quitting before the start of the year. Did you actually read what you wrote?
Other than that, you make a valid point.
That's the attitude, the SWAG!
It's valid reasoning. You can go with a Phil Steele approach where you make your rankings by algorithm and on # of players returning or whatever statistic, or you can just go with things that are harder to quantify, like Jim Harbaugh.
Rashan Gary + Mo Hurst counts for a ton on its own. The coaching staff is an A+. Lots of talent all over the field. As long as we stay healthy, the O-line gels, and the secondary gels, we're a legit playoff contender. Who, besides Ohio State, has the same level of talent and coaching in the B1G?
that said, I really believe that PSU is not in that category either. 12-2 (B10 title game win) is about as low as you could finish and end up #4, I'd think.
Rutgers is pissed!!
Yeah, they are, but mostly because people keep peeing in the garden. It's really their fault that the fence is really a small retaining wall made from plywood lashed together with twine, but Rutgers is still waiting for that Big Ten windfall apparently.
I dont know about #4 but we have to get 10 or more wins this year. I dont care about the seniors we lost we just CANNOT get less than 10 wins. Not just because anything less than 10 looks bad but because of recruiting. 2019 is our year in recruiting. We have way too many #1 players at their positions looking at Michigan to fuck it up by having an average season.
I see no reason why this years Michigan team cant do what last years Penn State team did by over achieving, beating OSU, and winning the BIG Ten. OSU and Alabama year in year out do very well with young talent so why not us this year? Florida will set the tone. If we beat Florida then 10 or more wins it is. If we lose then itll probably be less.
I think the defense will be stellar again. Rashan Gary and Hurst will lead the best D-Line in the nation. On offense our running game should be very strong with Chris Evans as the leader instead of Deveon Smiths slow ass. A lot of our season will ride on Speight and how well our young WR perform.
Should be a really fun season no matter what though because we'll be able to see all these young players like Aubrey Solomon, DPJ, Tarik Black, Nico, all the new secondary talent, O'Maury Samuels, Kareem Walker, beastly Rashan Garys breakout year, improved McDoom, improved Chris Evans, and various other young bloods getting a lot of reps
Maybe we are, but I think this is too high. From my perspective, Michigan needs to beat Florida and PSU and Wisconsin first. And it is close to impossible for me to predict beating OSU until we actually do it.
This is the first time someone wrote that we may have actually upgraded instead of reloading at some positions. I personally feel we upgraded as a team as a whole. I remember everyone scared with the lack of playing time with our wideouts and how they would play. Those two being Darboh and Chesson who ended up doing pretty good that year. We have way more talent at that position and may even be more explosive at TE. Our offense should be performing like a machine with Harbaugh and has not to date. Thirteen points against Iowa is totally unexceptable for a Michigan Harbaugh coached team and he knows it. This years offense should be way tougher on good defenses because it has the talent to do so and there is no excuse. I think it will all fall on QB play as I feel pretty good about our run blocking and our stable of backs. So if Speight can't put the pressure on the defense and consistently move the ball and score points he will be watching Peters do it. A Harbaugh coached team should rank higher on offense not vice versa. So what does that meen?. To me it meens that since we will probabaly be consistently in the top five in the country on defense we should win some Big Ten titles and National Championships. Okay so we don't have a lot of returning starters but the writer and myself feel we upgraded at several positions. We are faster on both sides of the ball and that is a given. Our offense should and will be better than last year. We upgraded everywhere except maybe TE but Bunting is a stud if you get him the ball and Wheatley. Our defense could be very special if the backend plays up to there talent level. Once again we have more talent than last year and allthough inexperienced these guys can really move and in my opinion the fastest defense to ever suit up for Michigan. I actually like that most our sleeping on Michigan but that goes out the window after we crush Florida. Of course I sound like a homer but really I just think this team is more talented than almost every team we play if not all and just don't think there should be any built in excuses and neither does this guy. I really think Harbaugh can field a much better team then we saw last year and make no mistake it is going to come to fruition sooner than most think.
1. Tim Kawakami (who is a damn good reporter despite what some butthurt Michigan fans think) wrote an insightful column informing Michigan fans on what to expect about Harbaugh's Michigan based on his 4 years with the 49ers.
One of Kawakami's points stood out to me:
Expect Michigan's defenses to be ahead of its offenses despite Harbaugh's well-earned reputation as a QB whisperer.
It seemed odd (re: counterintuitive) but it was true in San Francisco and has held true in Harbaugh's first 2 seasons.
2. As crazy as it seems, I think we've become more athletic overall. So while the 2017 team lacks the experience of the dominant 2016 defense, it has many quality players that will form the foundation of another dominant defense. Not for nothing, Harbaugh emphasized athleticism in recruiting.
3. Some schools develop a reputation over the years (sometimes decades) for being strong at a specific position. Example: Southern Cal is known for its many great RBs who excelled in both college and the NFL. For Michigan, it was actually OL (and not QB as many people think).
We will not be the Michigan of old until we field a dominant offensive line on par with our current defensive lines.
4. I'm cautiously expecting Speight to take a leap forward. Will he? Remains to be seen.
Don't judge too harshly based on what you saw in the spring game. Many fans, including me, didn't know Speight had surgery this off-season. But over the course of all the spring practices, Speight outperformed Peters (which says something about Speight's toughness and his lead over the competition).
Exhibit A in the case of paragraph breaks vs streaming narrative.
In the REAL polls. Around 10-15 is good. Rather start there and move up to #1 by end of season.
GO BLUE!!