Michigan Football, 2021 Season

[Whitley]

I see this as a 7-5 team going 5-4 in the Big Ten.

[lineygoblue]

Which five Big Ten teams will they beat?

[JRB]

I've got it this way:

Michigan 35, Western Michigan 16

Michigan 31, Washington 30

Michigan 45, Northern Illinois 17

Michigan 28, Rutgers 17

Wisconsin 34, Michigan 20

Nebraska 28, Michigan 23

Michigan 28, Northwestern 24

Michigan 27, Michigan State 21

Michigan 38, Indiana 34

Penn State 31, Michigan 24

Michigan 35 Maryland 21

Ohio State 42, Michigan 21


That's 8-4, which is more optimistic than I thought I'd be going into this season, and perhaps more optimistic than is warranted after the debacle of last season. What can I say? Hope springs eternal, and this is all the hope I can muster. I think there'll be enough close games that 4-8 is just as realistic a possibility.

[Cody_Russell]

Tough schedule now that Schiano has Rutgers heading in the right direction. Not one B10 game I would count as an obvious win. vs Ohio State and likely @ Wisconsin are automatic Ls.

With Harbaugh being 3-3 vs Sparty, we don’t have the right to make any assumptions with that game.

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?

Perhaps.
I honestly have no idea how good Washington is going to be. Just know they are without legendary HC Chris Petersen and the game is in Ann Arbor.

There was a 5-10 year stretch when I would read a majority of Bill Connelly’s annual college football team breakdowns on SB Nation. Now that he is at ESPN, I don’t even bother reading up about other college football teams. Sad because it was perfect FREE content.

[lineygoblue]

I can see a scenario where Michigan could go 3-1 in their first 4 games and start a lot of unwarranted optimism.

After that, the wheels come off, for sure.

They're not winning in Madison.

I have them as a 3 point dog in Lincoln.

Toss-up vs NW at best.

Lose to State in EL. (they lost to the worst MSU team in 2 decades last year in A2)

No better than a toss up to Indiana

Loss in Happy Valley. (They got hammered by fraud James Franklin's worst PSU team ever)

Maryland = toss up. They're getting better. Michigan is not.

OSU = LOL. This series needs to be cancelled before Michigan embarrasses itself even more. If OSU wants more competition at the end of the season they should make the rumored move to the SEC.

----

So, I think 6 wins is going to be the ceiling. The only hope for this team is that there will be some sort of breakout at QB. A season-long performance where for the first time in a couple decades where we have a QB that really makes a difference. A Brady-Leach sort of guy that can put the team on his back and lead the way. I don't see that happening, but that's what its going to take. Something totally unforeseen at this point.

[THE_WIZARD_]

No. I remember.

[Hannibal]

I've got it this way:

Michigan 35, Western Michigan 16

Michigan 31, Washington 30

Michigan 45, Northern Illinois 17

Michigan 28, Rutgers 17

Wisconsin 34, Michigan 20

Nebraska 28, Michigan 23

Michigan 28, Northwestern 24

Michigan 27, Michigan State 21

Michigan 38, Indiana 34

Penn State 31, Michigan 24

Michigan 35 Maryland 21

Ohio State 42, Michigan 21


That's 8-4, which is more optimistic than I thought I'd be going into this season, and perhaps more optimistic than is warranted after the debacle of last season. What can I say? Hope springs eternal, and this is all the hope I can muster. I think there'll be enough close games that 4-8 is just as realistic a possibility.

I've got it:

Michigan 27, WMU 20

Washington 38, Michigan 17

Michigan 34, NIU 20

Michigan 26, Rutgers 24

Wisconsin 45, Michigan 10

Nebraska 37, Michigan 24

Northwestern 24, Michigan 10

Michigan State 26, Michigan 20

Indiana 41, Michigan 24

Penn State 41, Michigan 17

Maryland 40, Michigan 20

OSU 66, Michigan 17

We might beat Nebraska or MSU, so we could go 4-8.

[Hannibal]

LMAO Brian has basically abandoned mgoblog. The season starts two weeks from Saturday and he hasn't written an article in over a month.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Not that I give a shit but, yeah, its CFB season so, what the heck:

The only hope for this team is that there will be some sort of breakout at QB. A season-long performance where for the first time in a couple decades where we have a QB that really makes a difference. A Brady-Leach sort of guy that can put the team on his back and lead the way. I don't see that happening, but that's what its going to take. Something totally unforeseen at this point.

This.

During Harbaugh's tenure as HC the team hasn't lacked talent. Misused? Yes but it seems to me a lot of that comes down to the development in camp of complex, potentially explosive offenses that had to continually be de-tuned because of the combination of shitty O-Line and QB play. These two moving parts are interrelated the performance of each individually dependent on the other.

If the offense couldn't move the ball when the defense gave it to them the net effect of that over time was the kind of blow-out debacles we saw. Players start hanging their heads. You can't repeatedly give up your body to stop the opponent when the offense can't make shit happen. A culture of losing, instead of winning develops. That's where M is right now.

I think Liney nails it. A good QB can energize an O-line, move the offense and score points. An offense that scores points energizes a defense. Harbaugh hasn't had a good QB. We can't know if that is a development issue or not. It may be. But I think the emergence of a good QB (or not) is the key to M wins (or losses) in the 2021 season.

While it's tempting to base wins and loses on past performance every CFB season brings a new set of players among the old and new mind sets to be formed, cultures to be developed, coaches with a clean slate an opportunity to succeed or fail. But I'll be watching Cade McNamara's capacity to lead the offense and motivate the D.

[Hannibal]

O-line play will be OK. QB play will be bad. Receivers and RBs will be good. Receivers will go criminally underutilized though. DL will be bad. LBs will be OK. Corners will be really really bad. Safeties will be OK. This team will be as bad overall likely as RichRod's first team. God knows that's how bad we were last year.

[Cody_Russell]

It’s spooky to think that the projected starting CBs are Green and Gray. You know, same starting CBs vs Sparty last season. Hopefully they are better given age/ experience. OR someone else emerges.

Oh, the talent has definitely been there. Every day, I’m noticing another former Wolverine that is having great success elsewhere.
For example, read yesterday that Khaleke Hudson might have a huge role on the Washington Football Team defense. Add that to the list.

I’ll say something positive to not sound too pessimistic. Excited to see Donavan Edwards this Fall. Maybe he’s the next great RB.

[Hannibal]

Don Brown has gotten a lot of shit in these parts of late, but I think that we're going to find out quickly that he wasn't really the problem.

[iam416]

Hold on there. Don Brown's scheme was only part of his problem. His overall recruiting philosophy and generally bad recruiting is the other part. The talent on that defense was assembled by Don Brown. It's pretty much what he wanted.

[JRB]

O-line play will be OK. QB play will be bad. Receivers and RBs will be good. Receivers will go criminally underutilized though. DL will be bad. LBs will be OK. Corners will be really really bad. Safeties will be OK. This team will be as bad overall likely as RichRod's first team. God knows that's how bad we were last year.

I think the better comparison might be Rich Rodriguez's second team. That team started off with a run of home games that made things look better than they really were, and this team could start this year on a similar sort of run. It's tough to know how good Washington really is, given how few games they played last year and that they didn't play a road game. The 2009 team couldn't win a road game to save its life, and lost winnable games due to torrents of ill-timed mistakes (Iowa, Michigan State, and Purdue). I guess where I differ with you is that I think this might be the 2009 team with better luck. The QB play should be better than it was last year(I think the talent and experience in the room had improved), that the line play ought to be all right barring injuries, and that the corner play can't be appreciably worse. But I could be wrong. I certainly didn't think they'd be 2008 levels of bad last year, and they most certainly were.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Just bought my M-UNL tickets...gonna be a bloodbath in Lincoln...hard to imagine HARBAUGH!!! losing to FROST!!!