<p>Watching Alabama beat us by 27 points in the season opener, and struggling against a mediocre Air Force team made me question by initial 10-3 season prediction. </p>
<p>However, after remembering how Alabama shut out then #1 LSU 21-0 in last year's BCS bowl, and its two other opponents this season, including a devastating 52-0 win at Arkansas today, I wonder if Michigan's loss was truly that bad. Robinson had newly formed OL in front of it, his best RB in the sidelines and a very young and inexperienced group of WR. </p>
<p>But how do we explain our narrow victory over Airforce? Perhaps its unique tripple option offense is hard to defend. </p>
<p>At any rate, one thing is clear, our 63-13 win over new-to-division I UMass is not going to give us any serious clues as to how good this team really is. </p>
<p>The next 4 games of the season will determine whether we have an 8-5 season or a 13-1 season. I still think we will finish 10-3, but we won't know for sure until we are 7 games into the season. Our trip to South Bend next week and our game vs MSU in the Big House in 5 weeks</p>
<p>I don’t know that much can be learned from Air Force and especially not the game today. College players aren’t exactly motivated against teams like that (see '06 vs Ball St, The Horror etc). The Alabama game however sure exposed how far they have to go, and in particular the defense in that game reminded me of 2-3 years ago. No forced turnovers, few sacks, poor positioning. </p>
<p>I know Alabama’s good, but Michigan’s defense just did nothing right after the 1st series. The offense actually looked decent, considering the play calling. OTOH Alabama cheats like mad, so I don’t really care how “embarrassing” it was.</p>
<p>ND I don’t regard as even mediocre anymore, but you know the players will be up for it. If a loss, probably a 7-5 season. If a win, I still don’t think it proves much until the State game. Even the RR era managed to beat ND 2/3.</p>
ND just shut down little brother in East Lansing. How we fare against the Irish next week depends on how well our defense plays. So far we’ve been vulnerable.</p>
<p>There is just so much parity in college football. USC lost to Stanford, OSU almost lost to Cal and Notre Dame beat MSU. It is too early in the season to tell, and as we all agree, the Air Force and UMass games do not really give us much of an indication of how good this team is. If we can emerge 6-2 after the MSU game, I think we are on our way to a 10-3 regular season finish.</p>
<p>The regular season only has 12 games unless we win the division. We will have to get a lot better if we are going to do that. The problems are mostly at the line of scrimmage.</p>
<p>The regular season schedule has twelve games then there’s the possibility of the big ten championship game and the near inevitability of a bowl game. If we go to the B1G game we will be at 14 for the season, 13 if we just go to a bowl.</p>
<p>The U of M vs MSU game will be very interesting this year. MSU played TERRIBLE last night. No way around that. But ND is good. We’ll see how U of M does next week. You’ll do better than we did, that’s for sure. </p>
<p>None of the B1G teams are really good that I’ve seen this year (although I can’t speak for Minnesota or Northwestern- I haven’t been able to watch any of their games yet). We have a very sorry looking conference. OSU really should have lost to Cal IMO. The Air Force game didn’t look good. We all need to step up our game :/.</p>
If it wasn’t for our kicker, a TD called back by a holding penalty, and a lame 4th and 1 play call, we would have. But that’s all part of the game.</p>
<p>Notre dame, mich state, ohio state, and nebraska are games mich could easily lose and also may win…its going to be an interesting season. I would imagine that mich was a little over hyped this year. Same with notre dame (usc, stanford, and oklahoma are going to rip them apart). Start of the season ranking of #8 was quite ridiculous. I think mich will split the top 4 games and then slip to a lower ranked team like iowa or minnesota. I surmise an 8-4 season.</p>
<p>Week 1 was bad. It was disappointing, especially when the big ten was in a five-way contest pre-season.</p>
<p>Now, I’m just looking for teams that have sort of stood up.
Wisconsin is a joke, MSU looked just plain bad saturday. Nebraska had that loss to UCLA.</p>
<p>I can see where the Air Force game and Alabama were rough, but I don’t think anyone is going to have an answer for Alabama this season and Air Force’s playbook was pretty much built on what would be rare plays.</p>
<p>My guess… b1g championship is a rematch of Michigan vs Ohio.</p>
<p>Overall record… 10-4 or 11-3. Optimistic? yes, but I don’t see anything really left we can’t realistically win in the schedule.</p>
<p>I’d have to agree with Knight2011 in that Umich splits with ND, Ohio, Mich St, Nebraska. If they could go 3-1 on those, it would be huge but that is too much to expect. The other game to worry about is Purdue on the road. They look solid especially on the defensive line.</p>
<p>Obviously the key will be developing the offensive and defensive fronts. We have to get Fitz and Rawls up to about 4ypc to have an effective alternative to Denard as far as running the ball and to we need to protect him against strong the strong d lines that ND and State have. Also stopping Cierre Wood and Theo Reddick this week is a huge key to the game on Saturday, we couldn’t do it last year and I don’t think you can trust the first year starter in Golson in what’s looking like sloppy weather conditions. Our freshman linebackers are gonna have to step up big time. Don’t really see a loss to Nebraska, they’re still not ready for a full big ten schedule and the way we totally dismantled their defense last year shows how far they are from really slowing down a weapon like Denard.</p>
<p>I think our likely losses will be Notre Dame and maybe OSU, with MSU and Nebraska going to the W column. Notre Dame is looking good. If we win that game, which I think is unlikely, Michigan will be in good shape to finish with another 10+ wins this season.</p>
<p>Bama was only vulnerable to defeat in Week 1 when Michigan had its chance-now they are virtually unstoppable. They keep getting better and better each week and they are already the best team in the country. Its going to take a perfect game for LSU to beat Bama at Baton Rouge and and flawless execution from Oregon/West Virginia/Florida State to have a shot against the Crimson Tide come January in the BCS National Championship.</p>