Michigan Football, 2021 Season

[Jeff Buchanan]

Have either of you two booked cruises out the country yet? Afghanistan is a decent destination. That or Damascus.

[THE_WIZARD_]

I thought about viewing a sinking ship...so I'm heading to Ann Arbor...

[Hannibal]

Well at least HARBAUGH!!! will get a win in Lincoln over FROST!!!

Is Frost on the hotseat yet?

[THE_WIZARD_]

Yes

[iam416]

FROSTY!!!!

[THE_WIZARD_]

...

[lineygoblue]

I can't find a link, but I heard that CRD was asked at the recent Big Ten Coaches meetings if he could say three good things about Michigan.

His response was "no".

I guess this is still fun for him. That prediction of 66 points is looking pretty strong.

[Hannibal]

I wonder what attendance will be like this year. My guess is that the first game back will be pretty packed. Then maybe UDub, but after the blowouts start piling up, you'll see tons of empty seats. If they do a huge faceplant against WMU, you could start seeing that right away.

[Cody_Russell]

It will surprise me if vs Washington isn’t a full crowd. Maze out game. If M looks shaky early, attendance numbers will dip fast because on how depressed the fan base is right now.
College attendance numbers being down in general over the last couple of years prior to COVID. It’s so nice to watch football at home or at a local restaurant nowadays.

Best case scenario… this team starts 4-0. McNamara shows growth from last season after flashing vs Rutgers. McCarthy gets to play in blowout games.
The remaining 2/3 of the schedule is tough. Need a strong start or it’s going to be another painful season.

[lineygoblue]

If they can find a way to get thru September undefeated, (not likely) then they have a shot at 7 wins.

Lose 1 or 2 in September, and the free fall begins.

As far as attendance, I agree that WMU will likely be 110K plus, and U Dub will be over 100K. The rest of the season will be dependent on results on the field. The more they win, the more the fans will stay around. Lose, and they lose fans as well.

If they enter Thanksgiving week with 5-6 losses, the stadium air shot will be a big red O. OSU fans will love it.

[Mike]

RichRod all over again. Hope that a 4-0 start can propel them to bowl eligibility.

Last I knew they were still down some 19,000 season tickets. If anything is “sold out” it will be because of the AD flooding the market with complimentary tickets. Then they can say with a straight face that based on “tickets distributed”, there’s 110,000 in attendance.

[lineygoblue]

I forgot about that 'complimentary tickets' strategy. They did that back in the early 70's when they wanted to be sure they could claim over 100K in attendance. They'd do whatever they had to do to get that number. I remember "band day" when they used to invite area HS bands to come in and take up large swaths of normally empty seats.

[Cody_Russell]

RichRod all over again. Hope that a 4-0 start can propel them to bowl eligibility.

Basically. Sad it’s come to this.
Fully expect this team to start 4-0 and then be ass-whooped @ Wisconsin… again. Goes downhill from there.

The absolute best case scenario is this season to turn out like 2019. A season where M tries to trick us. Still blown out @ Wisconsin, Ohio State.
Worst case is it falls apart like 2020.

I know this sounds pessimistic, but that’s what M football deserves right now.
Need some random luck where one of the M QBs turns into a star. That’s the only salvation for HARBAUGH.
Comparable to James Franklin finding Trace McSorley.

[lineygoblue]

Fully expect this team to start 4-0 and then be ass-whooped @ Wisconsin… again. Goes downhill from there.

I can't see them beating U Dub. They have a real football program there. Michigan's "football program" is edging closer to an intermural program with each passing season.

They will get drilled at Wisconsin, and that's when the wheels come off for the remainder of the season. I'm sticking with a 6-6 ceiling for this team.

[Hannibal]

It seems like most people expect us to beat UDub for some reason. We won't. We suck very badly. WMU, Northern Illinois, and Rutgers also aren't gimmies. Have you guys forgotten how irredeemably shitty we were last year?