Michigan vs. FSU, Orange Bowl, 8pm, ESPN, Game Day - Post Game Discussion

[Cody_Russell]

Understanding cause...

The talent from college football is coming from the south, southeast. Best talent on the offensive and defensive lines aren't growing up in our backyard or even in the midwest; it's all the way across the country and you're recruiting against everyone to land those type of players...

Well yea, hasn't that always been the case? At least for the last decade since I've been old enough to follow.
The SOUTH has advantages in college football just like the U.S. has advantages in basketball (with Olympics, etc).
Culture, resources ($$$), and people.

Being born in Mississippi is different than Wisconsin.

[Hannibal]

The plethora of coaches from programs like USC, Florida, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Stanford, LSU, Penn State, Florida State, and Clemson who offered scholarships to one or more of our O-line starters certainly wouldn't agree that our offensive line has no talent.

[Rocky Bleier]

They are what I thought they were. They couldn't win at Iowa. A true shit-the-bed performance. They couldn't hold a lead in Columbus. They were outclassed in the Orange Bowl versus a more talented FSU.

This game shows why:

1) Recruiting top WRs doesn't matter if your O-line sucks.
2) Michigan will never win anything with Speight at QB. He gets extremely rattled in big games.
3) Having 4 decent RBs cannot substitute for 1 really good one.
4) Michigan will never be taken seriously until they win a big game.

Unfortunately:

1) The O-line is going to get worse before/if it gets better.
2) Speight has two more years and Harbaugh will stick with him.
3) We aren't attracting really good RBs - Najee ain't coming.
4) Michigan isn't even going to be in a big game for awhile.

[Rocky Bleier]

Harbaugh now has to decide if he wants to win a national championship, or if he wants to keep doing things the same way. Granted, this was still Brady Hoke's roster, and he did coax more wins out of them than Hoke would have, but I'm seeing a guy who is pretty resistant to change the offense. I don't care if it costs SEC money, they need to get O-linemen and RBs who are better than what they currently have in the pipeline.

[Hannibal]

Harbaugh now has to decide if he wants to win a national championship, or if he wants to keep doing things the same way. Granted, this was still Brady Hoke's roster, .

Brady Hoke once won 11 games with RichRod's roster. 10 wins with the roster that we had this year is not an achievement.

[AlabamAlum]

M is 20-6 under Harbaugh and has a very nice class coming in. Another good class or two and you'll be where you need to be.

[Rocky Bleier]

Hannibal,

The point was that Brady would have done less with this class. Don't forget that the team that won 11 games was not really that good. VaTech kicked their asses all over the Sugar Bowl. But I agree, ten wins and no hardware is a failed season for me. It was there for the taking.

[WM Wolverine]

"Well yea, hasn't that always been the case? "

Actually, no...

Once upon a time the Ivies and Military Academies dominated college football. That is because that is where the population was, the Northeast. Football culture caught on in the midwest, where we saw Michigan, Notre Dame, and Ohio State be very successful.

The football culture in the southeast/Texas has been there for awhile but the population has boomed as well. This trend isn't slowing down.

re: expansion is dead in CFP till these Grant of Rights near their end which is a decade or more away.

[Hannibal]

M is 20-6 under Harbaugh and has a very nice class coming in. Another good class or two and you'll be where you need to be.

We already had a good class or two. Back in 2012 and 2013, and then we augmented those classes with Jabrill Peppers the next year. This year's team had fucktons of talent, combined with a shit ton of experience. Ohio State was rebuilding and vulnerable. Circumstances don't get any more favorable than that.

The point is -- better days are not around the corner unless Harbaugh either shuffles his staff or changes his scheme dramatically. 10-3 with one victory per decade against OSU and a sub-.500 winning percentage against MSU is the ceiling with the current approach. Is that acceptable? As far as I can tell, for most Michigan fans, it is.

[WM Wolverine]

Extremely difficult to sustain success with two good recruiting classes out of five. The two classes in both directions ('10, '11 & '14, '15) were mostly garbage.

The talent should've been good enough (CFP) but the highly regarded QB/OL in '12, '13 grossly underachieved and Hoke could never recruit skill position talent.

[AlabamAlum]

Two of your three losses were to teams with more overall talent, one was a one-point loss and the other was a double OT game.

You'll be fine.

[THE_WIZARD_]

shaddup

[WM Wolverine]

We'll be fine after next season... Next season we'll really feel the effects of the '12 & '13 classes graduating and the lack of talent from the '14, '15 classes. We won't have a Sparty like '16 drop-off season as we have enough good talent returning and/or incoming.

[Wellington_beefhouser]

Two of your three losses were to teams with more overall talent, one was a one-point loss and the other was a double OT game.

You'll be fine.

Voice of reason coming from a Bamer.

[Hannibal]

You'll be fine.

If by "fine" you mean that we will beat OSU and win 11 games once a decade, then yeah, we're going to be totally fine. If you mean something other than watching our running backs plow into the line of scrimmage repeatedly for two yards against every good defense that we face, then you are wrong. Unless Harbaugh fires Drevno and/or redesigns his offense. In two years against OSU we have one carry over 10 yards. One. That kind of pathetic ineptitude transcends talent. Blaming this entirely on Brady Hoke is a form of denial about our current circumstances.

Like I said above, the circumstances are never going to be more favorable than they were this year. We caught just about everybody in a rebuilding year in which two great recruiting classes were all seniors. It literally does not get easier than that. OSU will not have another team this not-dominant for another decade probably.