Why should we be optimistic about 2018 M football?
I am trying to stay positive about the 2018 football season. However, through no fault of my own, I was flipping around & came across BTN Football in 60 & they're showing the IU game from last year. OMG! This is a real stinker!
I have a gift for selective memory. I easily delete from my memory bad things. Which is why I have no memory of this game.
We are playing terribly. Terrible offense. Mediocre defense. Suspect coaching. We look confused, undisciplined, unfocused. There is only 1:05 to go & we are only up 3 to a bad Indiana team. We just committed another bad penalty. IU is driving on our "great" defense. They just tied it to go to OT.
So, with the brutal schedule this year, why should we be optimistic? Help me here. I'm always optimistic about our team but watching this game just have me a jolt! HELP!!
I would not be surprised in the least bit if we are favored going into ND and MSU. They will obviously be tough games, but to even hint at the fact that they are guarnteed losses or however you want to phrase it is assinine.
Your logic starts to breakdown when you are using the past decades to evaluate this team. If you simply want to use history to make an argument, you lose out on the key facts. The facts are that this defense is returning a plethora of starters from arguably the top BIG 10 defense and is more likely to improve than to not. We are returning all the WR's, the top RB, OG's and center will be seriously improved. If Shea is eligible you are adding a QB that most experts project as a first round draft pick.
You claim that the talent hasn't shown itself..have you not watched our defense play at all? and on the offensive side we have been rolling with an extremely young group.
Obviously anything can happen, but analyzing this team from a purely statistical point of view should lead to great optimism. People forget we were ranked 129 out of 129 in returning starters last year.
Notre Dame is favored
Sep 1 is a long way off though
They were orginially favored, however odds were updated to a pick em. I'm sure that will change when Patterson is declared eligible or not.
That should change the picture for Michigan.
That includes their QB who was far superior to any of the people we trotted out last year. Yeah Patterson could be good, but not clear if he is going to be eligible. And we are playing AT MSU. So how are we going to be the favorites in that matchup? ND also returns a lot.
But lets not forget the most important thing. This team simply wasn't good last year. The best win it got was Purdue. To suggest that we will beat ND, MSU, OSU suggests an enormous jump. When ND and OSU outperformed us by so much, and MSU was better than us last year and returns way more than we do, I just think its a stretch.
That being said, we are on the same side. I'd love to see us get a win or two out of the 3 aforementioned games. Patterson could be the X factor. Who knows. Needs to get eligible for that to even be a conversation.
I think they're going to beat Notre Dame.
been going on since Harbaugh's arrival. In his first season there was such an improvement on the offense alone that the TE and two receivers went from virtual unknowns to either making an AA team or being mentioned honorable for same. Was a tremendous improvement in victories as well.
HIs second season we saw a record number of players go into the NFL draft. Last year was the first year his recruits were playing and many of them were playing after being on campus for only a year, two at most. You simply lack time to make a credible assertion that "Yea Harbaugh recruits in talented guys, but they mostly do not exhibit "unreal talent" when they get here."
If we don't see it this year, i might pay attention to your posts. As of now, i know you make them simply to break your boredom.
April 16th, 2018 at 12:45 PM ^
Major point about Football which is often overlooked:
When your Offense Sucks and continues to not move the football or turn it over....sooner or later your Defense will break. No matter how good your D is, if your O sucks your D will give up points.
Period.
One of the best defenses in the USA.
OL is going to really show up this year.
WR & TE........show me a better group.
QB the issue, all three could be very good with OL.
You must be a freshman or something...
To begin, our defense is likely to go from #10 in S&P to top 5, with fewer big plays and penalties and more takeaways. A good analogy might be the jump from 2015 to 2016. Our defense played very well in 2015 and lights out in 2016.
For another, we are likely to have an excellent interior run offense, which will force opposing defenses to play their LBs and safeties close to the line. Outside the 4 very good defenses we will face (ND, MSU, Wisconsin and OSU), this is going to create opportunities in the passing game--even in the absence of good pass protection. Same as last year, basically, only with WRs and TEs running better routes and displaying their clear advantages in athleticism.
So right off the bat, we are likely to be moderately better than we were last year. And if you consider that PSU and Wisconsin are at home and also likely to regress (PSU especially), the schedule doesn't seem quite as bad as it does on first glance.
Speaking of the main variables, those are: (1) QB, (2) tackle and (3) scheme. *IF* Patterson is ruled eligible, we find a viable solution at LT and adjust our scheme so there are more constraint plays and RPOs, we could be a very, very good team. Unfortunately, while I'm optimistic about (1) and (3), I am less optimistic about (2).
So right now I see 7 wins as our floor and 10 wins as our ceiling. I'd say 9 wins seems to be the most likely outcome, but if Newsome comes back at full strength, then look out.
I'm having a tough time with optimism myself. Let's take a gander at the schedule. I put a "WIN" by games that if they don't win I will punch myself in the face. I put five "TOSS UP" games of which three are on the road...and they are three rivaly games.
I see a path for a solid 10 win season. With three games to three rivals on the road there is really no room for error though. I'd call 10-2 the ceiling, 9-3 likely, and 8-4 the floor.
This is an odd season. I don't know if I remeber a year where I wouldn't be that shocked if the team was 7-5 or 10-2.
2018
Sept. 1 -- at Notre Dame TOSS UP
Sept. 8 -- Western Michigan WIN
Sept. 15 -- Southern Methodist WIN
Sept. 22 -- Nebraska* WIN
Sept. 29 -- at Northwestern* WIN
Oct. 6 -- Maryland* WIN
Oct. 13 -- Wisconsin* TOSS UP
Oct. 20 -- at Michigan State* TOSS UP
Oct. 27 -- Bye Week
Nov. 3 -- Penn State* TOSS UP
Nov. 10 -- at Rutgers* WIN
Nov. 17 -- Indiana* WIN
Nov. 24 -- at Ohio State* TOSS UP
April 16th, 2018 at 10:12 AM ^
April 16th, 2018 at 10:19 AM ^
April 16th, 2018 at 10:41 AM ^
To be positive or bnegative has a lot to do with your personality. I try to evaluate both sides.
I think our defense could be better even without Hurst, but his loss will surely be felt. I also think McCray is a bigger loss than people admit. But while we could improve on defense, our numbers might not be as good. We play a much tougher schedule this season and this is year 3 of Don Brown in the Big Ten, no matter how good a coordinator is, opponents will eventually find and exploit a weakness or two. Still, it's a championship caliber defense.
I am one of the lone voices of dissent here on Shea Patterson. While his talent is evident, he really only thrived vs bad teams mostly at Ole Miss. His numbers vs Auburn were in a blowout loss where Auburn was playing prevent with backups half the game. I'm also skleptical of a single read spread QB coming into our system and setting the world on fire in year 1. O'Korn showed us that even after 3 years with Harbaugh, a single read spread QB still can struggle. Patterson has way more talent than O'Korn, obviously, but it would not surprise me in the least bit to see Peters beat him out to start this Fall if Patterson gets the OK to play.
O line O line Oline! We lose our best tackle. We lose a decent center, but I think Ruiz can be his equal this year and be much better than him next year. Love that we got a new O line coach. Love that we have new WR coaches. Our WRs were flat out bad last year, O is a big mystery, I think they should be better, but not sure why I think that. Love hearing the offense is being simplified, but I think that is tricky, less formations is good, I think we had too many formations. But the plays we called out of those formations were predictable, so if we're going to still be predictable, simplifying things could actually make us easier to defend not harder.
The schedule is tougher, by a lot. We beat Purdue as our lone quality (barely quality) win. We play 6 teams this coming season much better than Purdue. So if we aren't a lot better, 6-6 is our floor.
I see likely losses to OSU and MSU. I see Wisky as a slightly likely loss. I see PSU, NW, and ND as tossups. So 9-3 or 8-4 is our baseline. Down vote away.
As soon as you said Kugler was a decent I stopped reading. He was so awful and cole isnt a loss he was playing out of position at LT hes a natural center and it shoed at times he really struggled. Ruiz is the truth
Why do people like you watch sports? Serious question. It seems to make you absolutely miserable.
People are acting like we went 3-9 last year or something. It was an ugly 8-4, but the level of outrage suggests how quickly Harbaugh has raised the standards of the program.
I got deep into a Ed Warriner rabit hole last night and am now super excited about what he can bring to the offensive line. For anyone with an hour to burn that wants to understand his blocking schemes on option plays check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljJN0DUlmFQ.