Michigan Football - 2024 Season.

[Mike]

https://athlonsports.com/college/michigan-wolverines/college-football-news-rumors-lsu-tigers-bryce-underwood-recruiting

[lineygoblue]

Bryce Underwood = warmed over Devin Gardner.

I'm telling you ... This is not worth the $$ that M is putting in to this. I'd rather see them stick with Carter Smith and Brady Hart.

But what do I know ...

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[Jeff Buchanan]

Thinking about this 2024 team, things look bad for M football in 2025 so, gird yourself. Mike said this a few days ago: "The AD robbed the season ticket holders blind this year. I hope they don’t think that’s a never ending trough of money." This.

Not that I'm the standard bearer, but I'm not buying my share of our pool's season tickets for the 2025 campaign. I see 4 wins for team 145 without a major infusion of talent from the portal and a contributing NIL money cannon to get it to Ann Arbor. That would be New Mexico, CMU, Purdue and NW. Even CMU and at NW could be toss-ups.

QB Brice Underwood is being unduly elevated to super-star, savior status when he has yet to play a down on the CFB gridiron and, IMO, he's a long shot to flip from LSU to M anyway. Moreover, M's apparent attempt to outbid LSU for Underwood's services has cost them 2025 QB commit, 4* Carter Smith who decommitted last week.

Moore has to go into the off-season with eyes wide open. He needs to start right now developing a short list of assistant coaches to replace the underperformers on his staff and get them to Ann Arbor going into 2025 spring ball. We're probably stuck with Wink by contract and, frankly, I think he's redeemable, but Moore can do a lot better with his OC and ST coaches, Kirk Campbell and J.B. Brown. Both of them have coached units that are dreadfully mistake prone - something team 143 just didn't do. I offer yesterday's game as a shining example of that - mindless burned downs running Edwards and Mullings into obvious run blitzes and Trey Pierce lining up over the Long Snapper after M's D forced a punt on 4th and 4, giving the Ducks a new set of downs at mid-field on the ensuing 5y penalty.

Looking at the out years and even assuming Moore takes charge of cleaning up his own house staff, 2025 and '26 are going to be lost years in the forest. It will hark back to the nearly decade long cluster fuck of the RR, Hoke years - maybe not that bad but the potential to be that bad.....and a lot of this is in Ward Manuel's hands. Not a good thing. If M optimizes the portal, NIL and keeps up what looks like to be a good crop of 2025/26 recruits, M might return to championship level play in 2027, more likely 2028.

That's a tough reality pill to swallow. Is what it is and we'll all be better off recognizing that reality. M will be a mid to lower tier BT football team for a couple of seasons.

[lineygoblue]

I don't think money will ever be a problem for the M Athletic department. They're always going to have that 100K gullible core of a fan base that will buy the wine and cheese suites and pretty much take care of the bowl area. There will be gaps, but with the expanded B1G, those will be filled by visiting fans coming here to watch their teams pound on Michigan. Kind of like Northwestern did with Ryan Field all those years. Money is money, no matter who spends it.

And there's always the networks, and their money, who will buy the Michigan "name". TV's tune in to watch Michigan, be they fans, or haters.

The teeny optimist in me wants to hope that Moore will pull some recruiting coups still this year, and hit the portal hard, making 2025 watchable, but again, that is a very small voice indeed, drowned out by the roar of reality. The teams contending for the B1G Title this year, aren't going away next year. if osu doesn't get what they want this year with the best team money can buy, they'll just spend more $$ next year. Same with Oregon. Indiana went out and actually found a good coach, and he can recruit TO INDIANA for Football. PSU will keep James Franklin as long as he doesn't lose 2-3 more games. So, teams aren't going to fall back after having a good year in '24. Its only going to get tougher, and for M to compete, they'll have to get tougher.

And to think that Jim Harbaugh would have stayed, had Warde Manuel and Santa Ono agreed to stand with him against the NCAA. AND, they ultimately DID agree to do so, but only after Jim was wheels up, and headed to Cally to sign his Chargers contract. Indecisive State Street strikes again, and Sherrone Moore is paying the price. So is the rest of the team.

So, this coming Saturday, find something else to do other than watching M football. There will be nothing to see. Go find that cider mill, .. take your spouse and/or girlfriend out to eat at a nice place, take a fall color tour, .. anything but watching M football.

Wait until Sunday and watch the Lions. Who knew that they'd become the watchable football team here in Michigan?

[Jeff Buchanan]

I think the 5y fate of Michigan football is in the hands of "state street" as you've called it. That is a sobering proposition. I'm not as confident as you are about filling the high rent seats or any seats in the bowl for that matter. I agree with you that TV $$$ will continue to float the program but lying will be what comes to mind when attendance is announced for next season's home games.

Means little to me as I think interest in spending large sums of money to attend M football games, in person and at the Big House is going to decline ..... significantly. Like you, I consider myself a small, singular voice firing warning shots at "state street" about the coming TV panoramas of large swaths of empty seats abandoned by those that don't care to watch Michigan take the field and play crap football. Like you, if I lived in Michigan and not Florida, I'd go to a few Lion's games to watch great offense until M reestablishes itself as a championship team.

[lineygoblue]

State Street is where the main offices of the Michigan Athletic Department are located. Its where Warde Manuel lives. Its where the Athletic Department brain trust resides. Such as it is.

That teeny optimistic voice inside me wants to think that the Portal is a great equalizer, and utilized correctly, can change a program around quickly.

However that roaring voice of reality says Michigan is getting curb-stomped in every other way, including recruiting, and coaching. And its a bit of a quandry, because if they dump Martindale, that means that any new DC is going to bring in "his" defense, meaning a total defensive makeover. The success of the defense over the last 4 years has been mostly due to continuity, with guys who have coached the scheme for years. Who do you get to run Martindale's defense, if you fire Martindale?

M Football is on a tightrope right now. Somebody needs to make decisions, and they better be the right ones.

[Jeff Buchanan]

This guy does a good job of rightfully pointing a finger at Sherrone Moore for his NC to BT bottom dweller act in 2024. He's repeating the same takes being posted in the game thread. I think he's more in the clean house and start over mode than he is in the Moore isn't going to get fired after one year mode.

https://www.si.com/college/michigan/football/even-if-bryce-underwood-flips-to-michigan-can-sherrone-moore-lead-wolverines-back-to-success

[Hannibal]

In Moore’s defense, he was hired pretty late in the game, when coordinator pickings were slim. He does need to clean house though.

[lineygoblue]

And ohio state had already purchased everything in the portal ....

[Jeff Buchanan]

This is a humorous but at the same time sad characterization of M's offense under Kirk Campbell. Flirting with the Feren-doza line. WTF is that ......... read this:

https://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/michigan%27s-lack-scoring-about-cross-feren-doza-line

Look, I'm willing to support Sheronne Moore as long as he get's a handle on the offense and that requires doing something blitheringly obvious with Kirk Campbell (move or fire him) then finding an experienced OC with a track record who you trust can integrate decent assistants that can run a pro-style hybrid offense that M has proven it can win with. Nick Sheridan at Alabama comes to mind. I'm sure there are others.

I'm not in the group that advocates for some kind of Cignetti IU stye offense which is as close to an AIr Raid offense that it can be without it actually being one. I liked the 2023 offense coupled with the Minter defense playing complimentary football. Obviously, Moore and his staff need to scout and bring in the kind of QB M needs to run the offense Moore is trying to scheme up and run from the portal. I'm not sure Bryce Underwood is that guy unless you want an offense that suits his skill set (not any type of pro-style IMO) or he's Vince Young 2.0 that did well as QB in either spread or pro-style offenses of his day.

Wink has two B2B stellar defenses. He schemed up, coached players in practice and called a great D given a shortage of DBs and offenses that face M's defense primed to throw a bunch of slants and screens at it. I don't think M has a Martindale problem anymore. Seems like he finally got it. Against a pass happy IU, he rushed 4 many more times than 5 and DB blitzes were few, far between and called at the right time when they were called. LBs dropped frequently and that paid off especially in the second half.