Michigan Football - 2024 Season.

[Hannibal]

Amazing how those high school kids do it.

Much less time commitment for both the teams and the fans.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Interesting if you're wringing your hands about M's RZ TD scoring troubles ..... lifted from mgo:

From Bronx Blue's Best and Worsrr (comments):

I was thinking about the red zone numbers, and I was scratching a bit at some of the numbers so far through 8 games. In particular, I was trying to tease out the point production from the red zone, as opposed to simply the "score percent," which counts both a TD and a FG as a "score." Here's the "average points per red zone visit" by four different teams:

Ohio State - 6.1 points
Tennessee - 6.1 points
Georgia - 5.7 points
Michigan - 5.3 points

Working just with averages, Michigan averages 5.3 trips to the red zone through eight games, so that 0.8 point differential per trip x 5.3 trips = 4.4 points left on the field compared to the rate Ohio State scores from the red zone.

The other thing I was interested in was how many touchdowns were scored from beyond the red zone. Or put another way, of the total TDs through 8 games, what percent were from the red zone.

Ohio State - 33 of 52 TDs from Red Zone = 63.5% from RZ
Tennessee - 36 of 52 TDs from Red Zone = 69.2% from RZ
Michigan - 28 of 39 TDs from Red Zone = 71.8% from RZ
Georgia - 33 of 41 TDs from Red Zone = 80.5% from RZ

The smaller the percent, the more of the total touchdowns are coming from beyond the 20 yard line. Ohio State scores a lot of touchdowns, and a fair number of those from outside the 20. Georgia -- this surprised me a bit -- seems to work its way to the red zone, and then from there score an average of 5.7 points once there.

These are just averages. They don't take into account how many of those touchdowns come late in the game when things no longer matter. And none of this takes into account the team's defense, which could affect the kind of offensive play-calling. Harbaugh may be more conservative than usual because he knows he can rely on his defense. Georgia is Forum in scoring defense (Illinois is #1!), Michigan is #3, and Ohio State is #10.

Also from Best and Worst (Twitter):

And what followed for the really the rest of the game was a slow-motion blowout, something UM has done to most of their non-baby seal opponents all year. They aren’t built, nor predisposed, to hang 50 on you by airing it deep and trying to score quickly and in bunches. They’re very content to mount these metronomic drives that span chunks of quarters and typically end with a handful of points and defenders looking deflated. Then his defense quickly halts the opponent and he starts the process all over again. It’s not unlike this:

Jim Harbaugh is sitting on Michigan State while slowly and deliberately eating prosciutto. Would Mel Tucker like some prosciutto? No? It’s really good. He should have some.

[iam416]

If somebody thinks M can rely on their defense to shut down one of the SEC teams, they're fucking insane. Insane. As insane as they would be to think Illinois has the best defense in the country.

Whatever...

HARBAUGH!!!!!!!!!

[lineygoblue]

Michigan's offense helped the defense tremendously with the TOP edge. When the D had to play, they could go full bore and had the energy to do so.

I would have liked to see more TD's in those red zone entries, but State wasn't doing anything to close the gap anyhow. Moody is money became the weapon of the day.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I don't. I do think Harbaugh has a good shot at doing v. crd, whoever wins the BTW and then get selected for a slot in the CFP.

From there, probably not, unless it's a wounded UAT backing in to the CFP and that could be a stretch.. Maybe Clemson, not UGA or UT.

[iam416]

OSU and M are both better than Clemson. Clemson's offense is not good.

The OSU/M winner will get boat-raced by the SEC when the time comes.

And there's very little chance that winner will be OSU. But, hoping for a miracle.

[Hannibal]

We would get absolutely boat-raced by Georgia. Tennessee -- even though they beat Alabama, I'm not 100% sold on them yet. Or at least I'm not sold that they are elite in the Alabama/Georgia sense. They probaby have some flaws and some talent holes that will show up soon since they are a relative newcomer to the Top 5 and their average recruiting ranking the past four years (per rivals) is #17. Georgia is at another level in terms of talent.

[iam416]

M would need a good passing game to play with UT. Probably better than good. I think you can beat them with a passing game. But I think M would need to score 35 to beat them. At least. And they ain't do that just running Corum. Zero chance.

[Hannibal]

I don't know what we would do against UT on defense because we haven't played anyone in their league offensively. You are probably right that we would need to score 35+, although red zone defense and Michigan's slow plodding pace could lower that number substantially. If you had told me a year ago that we would only need 28 to beat OSU, I would have said you were crazy. But when you shorten the game as much as UM likes to do, it can happen.

[Hannibal]

And there's very little chance that winner will be OSU. But, hoping for a miracle.

Dude, just stop.

[hack]

Feels like, if Michigan were to make the playoff, that any victories would be hang-around-long-enough-to-get-lucky kind of victories. But that's cart way before the horse at this point.

[Hannibal]

Feels like, if Michigan were to make the playoff, that any victories would be hang-around-long-enough-to-get-lucky kind of victories. But that's cart way before the horse at this point.

That would be true for Georgia. Maybe Alabama and Tennessee too. TCU or Clemson? No

if we run the table we'll be 1 or #2, and that means we probably won't get Georgia in Game 1. Man, that was bad luck last year.

[THE_WIZARD_]

shaddup

[Hannibal]

Don't look now, but UConn might make a bowl game! They might be a legit Top 70 team!

[WM Wolverine]

Have they beat anyone competent? Probably not.