Alright, the season starts in a month and I cannot effing wait. Bump this as necessary.

The schedule this year is full of highs and lows. A I-AA team to start (the defending national champ, but still), followed by Oregon, Notre Dame, and Penn State in succession. 6 relative cakewalks (should be, at least)in Northwestern, Eastern Michigan, Purdue, Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan State precede the final two tough games with Wisconsin and OSU. Certainly doable, but by no means easy.

Two big events today:

1. Michigan extends contract to play ND through 2031. Jesus Christ, that is a ridiculously long time. I guess it means we should have a solid OOC opponent for a long time, but I wouldn't have minded a little more variety in the UM schedule in the next 25 years. Oh well.

2. Sam McGuffie committed to Michigan. He is the #1 ranked All-Purpose back for the class of 2008 and looks sick. Check out this video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=x4IJ17ODo_s

Anyway, any discussion of this or any new topics would be great. Go Blue, baby.

This game is by no means a cake walk. Zook can't coach but he might be the best recruiter in the country; it's a resurgent Illini team, the game is on the road and it's at night. This game frankly terrifies me.

The schedule does set up nice -- about as well as you could ask -- but for some reason, the season is eerily reminiscent of the 2000 season: we had a high powered offense with Henson, A-train and Terrell, but a questionable defense, and we ended up losing 3 games by a combined 7 points -- all of the games we lost were a bunch of shootouts (recall the stomach-wrenching 54-51 loss to Northwestern) because the defense couldn't hold a lead. At least we don't have to go to the West Coast in September this season.

Go Blue

I was going to say we should do conference threads instead, ie Big Ten thread, since this could get cluttered come fall with several team threads, not to mention the NFL, baseball playoffs, etc. So if anyone has thoughts on that, please share.

That said, I'm not scared of Illinois. I understand they will be better than last year. But their talent it still very young, they are still coached by Zook, and their QB was god-awful last year. I mean, 39% completion percentage? He only averaged 3.7 per rush, too (counts sacks). Hey, they could turn out to be good/scary, but so could Morelli, and I'm not going to start worrying just because something might happen, without more.

The lack of good QB's is going to be our saving grace. Hopefully Donovan Bailey is starting over Johnny Sears sooner rather than later, as I'd hate to lose a game before Lloyd pulls the upperclassman.

Lastly, pray to God/Jesus/Allah that Lloyd and DeBord don't go into a shell. You can't score too many points, guys. This is my fear, that we are not optimally designed for the coaching. We tend to coach like we have a great D and good running game, whether we do or not. The running game should be there, the D, not so much. We'll need points and lots of 'em, and I'm not confident at all that we'll maximize the potential here.

Still, 10-2 is the bare minimum for success (and we have to beat ND and OSU).

Zook = Bill Self of NCAA football?

Oh, and if Ryan Mallett doesn't redshirt this year I'm going to set Lloyd's office on fire. Kind of crazy that the kid (barring injury) is probably going to be Michigan's 3rd 4-year starting QB in a row.

I think it's pretty likely that he doesn't. And, I'd be fine with that IF he gets a lot of snaps AND they let him throw a lot. If his stat line at year's end reads something like 13-20, 152 yards, 1 TD, I'm going to be angry. But if we get him in for say an entire half against App State, EMU, and one or two B10 teams (and maybe 3 quarters against ND, don't want to run it up too much, after all), then I think it will be worth it. Getting reps is very important to developing as a QB.

big10 football. L-O-L.

I'm not really worried about Illinois at all. They've gotten a lot of buzz, but it's all because of last year's recruiting and I guess a bit because of Juice. I haven't heard anything about their defense and I just don't think any of the 2nd-tier Big 10 teams will be able to score with us. Give them a year.

Just go away. We lost the 2 biggest bowl games in a not so great fashion last year; we get it.

please, UM may win more games this year than Bama does the next 2.

if i knew you in real life I'd bet some decent money that bama wins a BCS bowl before mich. you might get there first, but you aint gonna win. ok im done trolling.

i will take this bet for any amount of money you want to put on the table, and it's really not even close

Yeah, it's about a month away and I'm already salivating over this season. 8 home games = 8 tailgates. Nothing like getting up at 8AM on a Saturday, getting a ride to the golf course, drinking til noon, then going to the stadium.

I gotta admit, Oregon scares me a bit. I think Michigan is the best team in the Big 10. The problem is that we need to keep running up the score because our defense won't win us games this year.

life-long michigan fan here (located in ne ohio, to make it worse!), and made my first trip to the big house last year against central (?) michigan...

the golf course is heaven. never saw so many michigan fans in one place, especially here in ohio.

finally, of course, there's never been a weather delay at the stadium in 80 years, and my first time, we're stuck at the bottom of the bowl in a downpour...

either way, awesome, awesome experience.

go blue.

Obligatory Michigan Sucks, Go Bucks! post

Yeah, that game was fun. The cold I got the next day was not fun however.

Big Michigan fan but I keep hoping for a dreadfull year just to be done with the coach. He plays it safe racks up enough wins fora good bowlgame but doesn't take the risks neccesary to be competitive with the top few teams. Even though the talent is there.

This is beyond stupid. Lloyd is only going to coach for a few more years, if that, and a disastrous season would damage the program more than him leaving would help it, and him helping the program by leaving is highly debatable, at best. How could you ever hope for your team to have a [censored] season?

Just as a Michigan hater from the outside looking in on your season, my observation is that you won't have an all world offense. I just think you will hold yourselves back with LLLLLoyd as your coach. Your team is obviously stacked on offense...but I just don't see it happening.

Outside of that, have fun trouncing a weak ass notre dame squad. I will be crying the entire game.

yeah, we were so drunk during the game, we didn't realize the sniffles until the last 15 minutes of the 3 hour drive home...

also, imagine...your first game ever in the stadium, and you have 1ST ROW SEATS! directly behind the michigan bench...i'm a teacher, and the football coach brings recruits up all the time, and he offered us his seats for the game...

walking down 78 rows to the bottom of the bowl was awesome, walking up every 30 minutes to pee wasn't...

about 10 minutes into the rain, we realized that 100,000 people were above us trying to get out, so we took our shirts off and figured [censored] it...

NozeCandy (couldn't tell)

So we disagree calm down dude.

I'm very calm. What you said was dumb.

As for not having an all-world offense, I guess we'll just wait and see. Lloyd is not stupid. He knows his defense is not going to be what wins him games this year unless some people step up massively. I think he might take the chains off this year, especially if it is going to be his last.

Michigan's offense has loads of talent. If you look at it, there are 4 players on Michigan's offense that are arguably top 5 in their position in the country.

RB Mike Hart
QB Chad Henne
WR Mario Manningham (please stay healthy this year)
OT Jake Long


I haven't been keeping up with personnel this year, but we need a 2nd receiver to step up. It should be Arrington, but I know he's been having off the field issues this year.

Defense has definite holes, especially in the secondary. Morgan Trent needs to step up, but he won't be nearly as good as Leon Hall.

I'll never trust Trent no matter what he does this year. Jarret abused him so badly in the Rose Bowl. Arrington is still on the team and should be fine, and I think some guy named Gary or Greg Matthews or something has supposedly done extremely well in practices for a 3rd option at receiver. I'm not worried about the offense at all.

Can't wait for this season, gonna be a fun home slate. I'd be interested in getting some type of 2p2 get together, I think that would be a lot of if people are interested.

To the guy who wants a bad season, LOL at you. Do you have any idea what you are talking about or how things work? Llyod is the one of the last connections the team has to Bo, he'll be around for as long as he wants, although, rumors circulating around Ann Arbor say he'll likely call it quits in the next two years. He's got some health problems that and friend of mine who works for the team has lead me to believe.

There's also been a lot of grumbling in the past few years about the offense. Last year they let go former offensive coordinator Terry Malone, he, to put it nicely, was not very good at his job. they brought back Mike Debord last year and we saw that when it matters most (ie the big games) the offensive play calling was much more open. Its true we don't run it up on the cupcakes but whats the point really?

Here's a good article comparing our OCs for the past few years.
http://homepage.mac.com/vijayr/iblog...228/index.html