What if...

Re:What if... (big d)

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 15:58:40 GMT

The only one of those games I don't think we'll win is Wisconsin...and that's at home.

We will beat Penn State. Same with ND. I would rank the toughness of those games as:

1. Wisconsin
2. Utah (I know it wasn't on there)
3. Illinois
4. Penn State
5. Notre Dame

Re:What if... (SouthQuad91)

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 20:16:52 GMT

Yeah...it's either, "Well you're Michigan!! You're supposed to win!" or "Ha! We told you that you guys will suck this year." Obviously, we'd prefer the former. But I honestly believe that if we beat tOSU, people MAY ask, "Is this the return of Michigan?" or they will start to compare '08 RichRod to '69 Bo. Once again, we'd prefer the former. There will be only one Bo.

Sorry it took so long for me to get back into the site.

Re:What if... (BoMoCarr)

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 15:22:16 GMT

Way too many unknowns in that question. Do we beat Utah or lose to them in your scenario? Are we scoring points or winning with defense? What are the records of those teams when we hit them?

Evidence rarely speaks for itself. People tend to interpret the evidence they see as consistent with what they expect. National sportswriters expect Michigan to be bad this year. With that in mind, the Utah game will go a long way in setting the tone of the coverage we get this season.

Suppose first that we lose to Utah. When we beat Notre Dame, that just proves that they're still really bad, not that we're any good. When we beat Wisconsin, the Wisconsin doubters step up to say the Badgers were one-dimensional and over-rated; everyone else says we have a strong D-line and we've always done pretty well against Wisconsin's running game: the true tests lie ahead. If Illinois has already lost to Penn State, then nobody much cares when we beat them: they've clearly taken a step back from last year. If Illinois has beaten Penn State then people will start asking if maybe we're better than people think. If Illinois has beaten both Penn State and Missouri, then people will take notice of a Michigan win. Finally, if we beat a Penn State team that has already lost to Illinois and Wisconsin, then the pundits will say that we have their number psychologically and they're probably not a good team anyway since it's half-way through the season and they've beaten nobody but cream-puffs. A win over Penn State gets us favorable press only if they've beaten at least two out of Wisconsin, Purdue, and Illinois.

Bottom line: to really turn heads, we need the offense to be more productive than the pundits expect and we need at least one of Wisconsin, Illinois, or Penn State to establish that they really deserve to be taken seriously. If they all beat up on each other and/or Illinois doesn't look competitive against Missouri, than the story-line will be that the Big Ten is full of terrible, over-rated teams again this year and the fact that we can win games in the conference will be part of the proof.

If we beat Utah at the outset and then rattle off those other wins... then, yeah, writers will start to build us up and hype the OSU game sky-high, especially if we manage to score some points along the way.

I don't care what the press says or how we're rated. I made myself a promise to give the team and staff a free pass this year: I'll celebrate the wins, shrug off the losses, and reserve judgments until I see what next season looks like. No, really, I will. Quit looking at me like that. I can do that. I think...

[edit: what is the deal with paragraph spacing in the new forum: triple-spaces are required to show paragraph breaks?]

Re:What if... (thenickster)

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 14:58:14 GMT

If we win all those games then maybe SI will think we are a little better than #54 lol

Re:What if... (BigHouseFootball)

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 13:21:55 GMT

If we win all those games it will turn into "what an amazing story this Michigan team is, no body thought anything of them with a new coaching staff and offensive scheme."

Re:What if... (WolverineSnare)

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 13:15:51 GMT

I don't care if we get any ink in the sports columns. I'd rather suprise everyone than play with a bullseye on our backs.

Re:What if... (southernBLUE)

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 11:28:52 GMT

we win all those games and it will quickly turn into "this is michigan, there is no reason why they should have lost a game at this point"

What if... (The_Michigan_Man)

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 11:01:52 GMT

Now I know preseason is preseason...but hell, 2 weeks left, and I have to ask cause I am going stir crazy here!

We play ND in week 3...then we have games against RANKED Wis., Ill, AND PS all within 5 weeks from each other...WHAT IF (or happens when)

We end up beating these 4 teams? Do you think we might be able to grab some respect from the pollsters(Not that I really care about those SOB's, but they DO write the ticket, you know?) Will we then be the headline nation wide? And how much could that do to creating ANOTHER great "Game" at the shoe?