Michigan Football, Team 139, 2018 Season

[hack]

In no way am I eyeballing a win in Columbus. You have to assume both teams keep trending in the same direction, which is a big assumption.

[Wellington_beefhouser]

[Rocky Bleier]

In no way am I eyeballing a win in Columbus. You have to assume both teams keep trending in the same direction, which is a big assumption.

Absolutely. They've still out-recruited us the last 4 years, and the game is in the same location as the 2016 debacle. Will take a hell of an effort to overcome.

[Jeff Buchanan]

In no way am I eyeballing a win in Columbus. You have to assume both teams keep trending in the same direction, which is a big assumption.

Sure.

In case folks haven't noticed, Team 139 has something beyond stats and even eyeball checks that makes it different than any M team since the middle Carr years ...... that was about 2 decades ago. There was some hope in 2006 but I don't think anyone thought LC was going to remain as HC for long after the debacle v. Texas in the Rose. Then there was Hoke's first season and then there wasn't.

BPONE became the by-word for M fans who lived it and it persisted for me until a bit of mitigation of it when Patterson tossed a 76 yard TD pass to DPJ followed by Ben Mason plowing over MSU dudes to go up 21-7. It left me completely when, after a bunch of penalty flags flew on MUS's last possession giving MSU a first down at the M 39, M's defense snuffed out that threat with two consecutive bone crushing sacks of Brain Lewerke.

Look, most of you here with the exception of just a few, have no idea what it felt like to know M was going to win each game it played during the best of the Schembechler years from the late 70s to the mid 80s. Those of us who experienced that era never doubted that, going in, M would prevail. There was some of that during the Carr years but it faded with the Appy State loss and was completely extinguished under RR and Hoke, even though Denard was fun to watch and M had some big games with him at QB. But anybody with a brain knew a new era of sustained winning was not upon M football. BPONE set in.

Unless I am completely mistaken, this season, the season of Team 139, is going to please every M fan and crush the souls of the fans of our rivals. That's a complete reversal of M's repeated soul crushing losses at their hands. That represents setting BPONE on fire ....... for this season and setting the stage for the next with the expectant hope that all is well with Michigan football, finally. The reason I believe that is because of the obvious passion for winning that is present in the coaching staff and the players. They believe. I think it is wrong to underweight the importance of that immeasurable quality that you know is just there ....... it feels like what Bo brought to M football in 1969 and was sustained, if not magnified as time went on, even after his death, but was extinguished not long after. It's back and will sustain this team, this season.

[Tom W]

Look, most of you here with the exception of just a few, have no idea what it felt like to know M was going to win each game it played during the best of the Schembechler years from the late 70s to the mid 80s. Those of us who experienced that era never doubted that, going in, M would prevail. There was some of that during the Carr years but it faded with the Appy State loss and was completely extinguished under RR and Hoke, even though Denard was fun to watch and M had some big games with him at QB. But anybody with a brain knew a new era of sustained winning was not upon M football. BPONE set in

Those were great times for M football- except for that one week, in almost every season, where something weird happened and the team (the team! The TEAM!!) ended up losing an inexplicable game- usually in November. Harbaugh lost to Minnesota as a player in 86 and the loss to Iowa in '16 was eerily similar. BPONE will not be extinct until Indiana leaves A2 in defeat.

[Tslisher]

I'm not over the BPONE quite yet, but this team has certainly started bringing me out of the Pit. It will take winning out to completely get rid of the stench of the last decade. I, like you, was around during the Bo years, and even the Moeller and Carr Years I went into the stadium almost sure of a Michigan victory. Rich Rod and Hoke are like a lost decade of Michigan Football. Nice to be coming back around. The best thing about the win over msu, wasn't just the win, but the attitude that the team had in grinding state into the dust. You could see the fire, smell the smoke and the clock consuming 6:15 drive in the 4th to crush any last spartan hopes was a thing of beauty.

So BPONE not entirely gone, but I'm liking what I see, and have some sense of optimism again.

[UMStan White]

i have been a season ticket holder since 1968, Bump Elliot's last year. (that is 50 years of UM football)1997 was manna from heaven. As Tom said BPONE doesn't leave the field until we smash IU after earlier whipping Penn State. I'll never forget the 1997 Penn State game--the worst loss in Joe Pa's career. Game started with a fake to the running back, fade for pass and Glenn Steele sacking the qb. Michigan never let up. I'm in the twilight pf my life but i would love to see it one more time! (Jeff, thanks for speaking so eliquently for us old farts!

[hack]

What an afternoon that was. BPONE for me lasts till an OSU win.

[Hannibal]

Pessimism will be with me until we beat OSU in back-to-back years or at least 2 out of 3. A B1G championship has to be in there somewhere too. We've gotten fool's gold with an OSU win, a bowl win, or an MSU win in the past. We need more than that. This program has a multitude of sins to atone for at this point.

This is the first football team to surpass my expectations since 1997.

[Jeff Buchanan]

This is an article that includes a discussion of Offensive Line technique (foot work) for certain types of run plays. While that's interesting, I found this comment particularly so:

Michigan is a shotgun zone team now. Power is a constraint, not a base play.

If this is accurate, and I'm not sure it is, I would like to understand how this transition was made as I have always thought of Harbaughffense as hybrid power football with both zone and gap blocking concepts employed in the run game. How the passing game is integrated and affects the run game and vice-versa is another discussion.

We can speculate, and probably correctly, that the addition of Patterson's ball skills at QB enabled, the RO play. Was it the incorporation of this particular play that marks the transition of M's offense from power to "shotgun zone?" Maybe.

I also think terminology is key. Not sure what the writer defines as "power," and to what kind of plays it is a constraint. If I have it right, A true belly play, with the QB under center handing off to Mason, for example, would be a constraint to an outside zone run play and according to the article the OL's footwork would be different and as described therein. The author does bring up good questions: are the two techniques being used correctly on the called play? Are the techniques the right ones for a particular play design?

https://mgoblog.com/diaries/which-we-discuss-intricacies-offensive-line-technique-pulls

[Kstat]

In no way am I eyeballing a win in Columbus. You have to assume both teams keep trending in the same direction, which is a big assumption.

[hack]

You couldn't. But, yes. We haven't won there in 18 years. We've lost to OSU in seemingly every possible way a football team can lose unless you're the Lions and have more ways than most. The last time we went there was a fucking screwjob so bad the league took the extraordinary step of tacitly acknowledging that its refs are a joke.

[WM Wolverine]

The buckeye team I've seen much of this season will lose by two scores, at home...

Maybe they have a few players injured thatll be healthy that will really help before the game.

[hack]

We'll see their best game of the year. Or should assume we will.

[Tom W]

You couldn't. But, yes. We haven't won there in 18 years. We've lost to OSU in seemingly every possible way a football team can lose unless you're the Lions and have more ways than most. The last time we went there was a fucking screwjob so bad the league took the extraordinary step of tacitly acknowledging that its refs are a joke.

Did the league really DO anything about it? I honestly don't know, but weird shit always seems to happen when the title is on the line in Columbus. All of this talk of Michigan's "destiny"and Ohio's "vulnerabilities" kind of obscures the likelihood that this one will be another one of those years.

it would be reassuring to know that those clowns and the people that assigned them have been sacked, and the process that allowed that to happen has been corrected. Harbaugh was right to call them out, but Warde Manuel really needed to be the one to make sure this happened.