At least we're winning the time of possession battle!

Peppers to Bama gotta be like -400 now

can i take the no-vig line that he stays committed here?

i mean, my first response at seeing your post was anger and the desire to post something about you falling into a pit of sperm and hiv-infected needles.

then i realized that while your odds are off, he's a decent bet to do so, so i figured i'd make you take your stupid, correct post back by making you bet me using the line you stupidly, correctly posted.

ugh

Doubtful, more worried about OSU, PSU and Nd, and I'm not even sweating it really

They have to die off.

Our fanbase's constant state of disillusion with how well things went under Bo and that we're ever going to get back to the "glory days" is going to hamstring us forever.

News flash: The glory days included nobody else being able to put together a functional program and get recruits. Those days are gone. 20-40 years ago the top kids in Michigan and Ohio went to Michigan and Ohio. They didn't go to Bama, and Texas, and USC.

A successful coach can do 2 things in college. Out-recruit and out-scheme. I have faith in Hoke's ability to out-recruit, I have no faith in him finding an OC who can out-scheme. The player development on offense is just pitiful and I just don't see Michigan pulling in another OC (if we fire Borges) who can get the job done. The alumni and Lloyd's buddies (and probably Brady) will insist on getting a MICHIGAN MAN and we'll get some Borges or DeBord clone and continue to suck.

DVaut speaking truth ITT.

Dave Brandon has 1 goal, which is to make money.

Old people like MANBALL, Old people hate RichRod. Old people have money. Old people hate anything that could possibly be associated with RichRod. Because Old people have money, Dave Brandon has to cater to the Old people.

The most important and vocal former players like Lloyd and Bo. They believe in MICHIGAN MEN. They are very important because they have money and help to raise money. Dave Brandon wants to keep these men happy.

Rational fans like most ITT (of whom DVaut is probably the best mouthpiece for) realize the constraints of keeping our coaches from the MICHIGAN MAN family. We realize this means we will not have the best coaches in the country or the best recruiting classes in the country. We realize we will not be competitive for national titles without a coach willing to do the work recruiting and scheming.

But by and large, Rational fans do not have money. We do not buy tickets, donate, raise money, or vocalize our willingness to stop donating money if things don't go our way. We have the attitude that we will support Michigan no matter what, even if we don't like what is happening, because we have alumni, geographical, family, etc ties to the University. Dave Brandon has no reason to keep us happy and do what we want.

The Olds and the Former Players will be content if they get to show up, watch us run a 20 year old's future NFL career into the ground by running him 42 times vs. Purdue, we beat our cupcakes in the non-conference, and we average going 8-4 or 9-3 every year while talking about how "we're close to turning the corner" or "If we just had that Charles Woodson or Desmond Howard we would have beaten Ohio State this year". As long as these people get their 1 Rose Bowl trip per decade, their 3 wins over Ohio State, and 6-7 wins over Michigan State, they can thump their chests and claim to be the Leaders and Best. Because we're marginally better than Michigan State, and Ohio State is a bunch of dirty cheaters anyways and we're the righteous and virtuous university. As long as somebody can deliver this, then innovation and change and what makes you truly competitive on a national stage will be put on the backburner.

I've made this point maybe two or three times this season too, BUT I'm going to point the finger back at us. All of us. About expectations - about the disappointment over 8-4 and 9-3. Frankly, that is who we are and have been since circa WWII.

I'll beat this horse dead. Again. If you take out Peak Bo (1969-1979), from Bump Elliott to Hoke and include Bo's 1980 and beyond, it's a ~.700 winning percentage I think. Something like that. If you remove Bump and RR, and just count Bo post 1980, Moeller, and Lloyd, you get to something like a .725 winning %.

Over a 12 game season, that's something like 8.7 wins and 3.3 losses.

1970s Bo spoiled everyone. 1997 spoiled everyone. It's not Fritz Crisler and Bo anymore, and 1997 is rare. Unless they hire a really dynamic, A+ coach, from Bump to Moeller to Lloyd to RR to the last 8 years of Bo even, 8-4 and 9-3 is normally who we are.

If you want to get back to level of success we enjoyed under Bo, 1969-1979, OK. I agree. That's where I am too. That's where I'd love for us to be. But I think we have to take a long look in the mirror and remember Bo at his peak was the exception since the 1950s, not the rule. Bo had 9 seasons in a row with 2 losses or less. But that's a tough mountain for any coach to climb. In any time period. In any program. That's ridiculous hard pace to maintain.

This is not an apologetic for Hoke, mind you. I think there's some fundamental problems he either needs to fix (i.e., Borges), or get ****canned. But we need to get our expectations in line. If you're the kind of Michigan fan who absolutely cannot be happy unless we have 9+ win seasons in 12 game sets, remember even that is above average over the long haul. The kind of runs Saban and Meyer are on now, the kind of run Bo had in the 1970s - those are are very very rare, even at the top tier programs.

Also, the long term trends in CFB (i.e., parity, money everywhere, and the diminishing returns on each dollar, scholarship limits, population trends) are not exactly great for a northern, midwestern, rust-belt football program. Population is going south and west. Money from TV rains on all programs now. Bo never had to deal with meaningful scholarship limits. Programs like Northwestern and IU take football seriously now as a result of the endless cash that the BTN and ESPN make rain on everyone, etc. The middle and bottom of the B1G is way better than it was in the 70s when half the conference didn't give a **** about football, were way behind us in resources, and couldn't compete with Michigan and OSU gobbling up all the talent with endless scholarship offers.

Bo was the 1970s Saban or Urban Meyer or whatever - the top 1% of coaches of his day. And Michigan is swimming upstream relative to the 1970s climate that Bo thrived in, as it is, and the forces are largely working against us relative to the old way of things. Our expectations have to change with it.

#realitysucks

I think most of the old people are perfectly happy with being 8-4/9-3 every year with a 11-1 or 10-2 thrown in there once every 8-10 years. I think we kind of have to be happy with that given that we don't have the advantages we once did.

I guess I'm just not sure where to draw my own line personally between accepting that we aren't a top tier program and being happy with consistent mediocrity and flashes of brilliance, and wanting us to find our Meyer or Saban or Malzahn who can deliver this program to the national stage again.

I got a chant for you guys, that we had after Bollman was OC and actually calling the plays. At the bar, this old dude would stand up and yell "We're gonna run up the middle until we PROVE we can run up the middle!" Every damn play. Dude was awesome. Maybe Michigan fans can adopt it.

We already have.

Fans/donors care about winning, not Manball. If we had won 8+ games in RR's first two years, people wouldn't have cared.

The former players and coaches care about control, not Manball. They lost that control when Lloyd wasn't allowed to hand pick his successor and it pissed them off. They didn't hate RR or the spread offense, they hated that they had lost control of the program for the first time in forever.

And the idea that Brandon just cares about money.. sure, there's some truth to that. He also is sitting in on film sessions with the coaches, so he clearly understands that there is a problem and he's not just sitting idly by and counting money.

There's also the big issue with demand for season tickets being down across the board. That's only going to get worse with the latest "donation" increase and dynamic pricing. My parents have sat in the same seats for 30 years and in the last 2 years, there are more and more seats that are being filled with individual tickets. Theirs might follow that same trend starting next year.

I also know that there's at least one donor with big influence who is not happy, and starting to use that influence despite never really having done so in the past.

There are a lot of supporters in and of the program who are not happy right now, and it's certainly something that Dave Brandon has noticed.

Offer Saban 10M/yr and lets do this.

Harbaugh has to have more than $7m VORF (value over replacement fatty) right? Do it

Just look at this ****ing guy. Would you hire him to walk your dog?

Why the hell would Saban be interested? Texas would be a much better job if he were inclined to move. Are you unfamiliar with MT2R's work on the inevitability of southern footbaw domination?

Male side boob (from the front) is problem.

For those of you who didn't see, Brandon put out a blog post, basically saying Hoke isn't going anywhere:

http://www.mgoblue.com/sports/brando...112713aaa.html

1. I actually take him at his word and have little doubt Brandon will let Hoke flounder through 2015. For all our sakes, I hope Hoke succeeds. But even if next year is say like 2012 (i.e., 8-5. imo, I think we will be in that range), I bet Brandon lets Hoke have another year.
2. The cloud of negative recruiting that is likely starting to fester required this. I think this is the best avenue for this message. It can be RT @ Jabril Peppers and whatever. Again, I think this is smart for DB to do.
3. Some of his points are likely approaching valid. For all the gnashing of teeth and cynicism, I do sincerely believe the best course is to let this regime stay in place and give them the full 4 or 5 years. Maybe they'll get better. They're going to get more talented and older. That might work, even if they're not outscheming anyone. Especially on offense.
4. Curiously, or not: Mattison is noted as being excellent. Not mentioned: Borges. I actually think DB does corporate speak very well and I consider this hopeful. I do think it's something of a wink-wink/shot-across-the-bow to Borges that his job isn't safe or he's already on his way out.

Here, specifically:

No such praise for Borges. Not even mentioned.

OC hire fantasies: Chad Morris to Michigan would be fap fap fap

If Brandon really wants to make heads explode, go see if Bob Stitt has any interest in being OC.

I think we're a top tier program. I mean the fact that we can consistently pull in top 10 recruiting classes indicates we ARE in the top tier. If we get to the point where we're annually recruiting at a mediocre level like Nebraska/Michigan St THEN I will accept that we are not a top tier program.

Now I realize that a program is ultimately judged by its performance on the field, and we have not fielded a truly top 10 team since 2007 (We ran bad in 07 with Henne getting injured but that WAS a top 10 team. Conversely, in 2011 we ran super hot with no significant injuries and some luckbox vs ND and Va Tech. We finished in the top ten in one poll but that was NOT a top ten team).

What we are is a top tier program in a slump--like USC in the 90s basically. Transitioning into two different coaching regimes has been the biggest reason why. It's too bad the higher ups didn't fully support RR, one of the greatest minds in the history of the game. We could possibly be out of that slump right now. Instead we're still breaking things in with this new coaching regime, a regime that has nobody on the staff save Mattison that is even close to half as smart as RR.

As far as the near future is concerned: unfortunately because of the OC issues, I.E. Borges or his likely clone replacement, we all have to lower our expectations DESPITE the fact that we ARE a top tier program. The frequency of 4+ losses will be higher than it should be and the frequency of 2 or less losses will be lower than it should be. That's just the reality of the situation when you have perpetual poor coaching in such an obviously critical area like play calling/offensive game planning. By "perpetual" I mean this is a problem this current regime is forecasted to ALWAYS have. And since that IS the case I would advise not to get too emotionally invested in this team UNTIL this current regime is gone.

I hope that didn't come off as too depressing because things are not hopeless precisely because we ARE a top tier program. This isn't the Detroit Lions for godsake. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. We just gotta get through this Charlie Weis era and maybe the next regime's performance on the field will match its performance on the recruiting trail.

No ****ing way!

I don't have any pets because I pretty much hate any animal (Dogs, cats, drunk girls, etc) that can possibly piss/**** on my floor. But that said, as much as I would surely hate my hypothetical dog, I still wouldn't want him to get eaten.

1. I do think Hoke is recruiting well and the talent he gets is sought after
2. But, recruiting rankings tend to recursively follow perceive program prestige. There's a feedback loop than can hurt empiricism on this. So it's not the best metric imo.

For instance, under-the-radar-guys no one is really paying attention to can get a third star if they come to a Michigan camp or get an offer from Michigan. Is it logical for Rivals et al to do this? In a sense. If Michigan's staff looks at 100 kids in a camp and offers 2 kids, it's probably fair to assume that those 2 kids are good, even if they weren't highly regarded before. But it can cause inflation for the big programs - by nature, whoever they recruit, especially if they're off the beaten path - the sites will start covering and by default usually get a third star, or a tweener between stars gets a bump or whatever.

Then there's the natural, revenue-driven interest of sites to closely follow and assess the recruiting trails of the prestigious programs and old powers.

This is all subtle but in the end, the recruiting prowess of some popular programs is going to be naturally overstated and almost never understated. Leading to bad expectations among fans when their recruiting classes that are slightly overhyped wind up underperforming.

FWIW this happened to Notre Dame for like 25 years straight.

The last time a pretty undefeated Ohio State team came to Ann Arbor to face a mediocre Michigan team lead by a shaky QB and a running back with a funny name things did not end well for the visitor.

Also, given the fact that Hoke wins at home like 95% of the time, Michigan winning by 7 may be a conservative estimate.

This game has upset written all over it. Pound the Michigan spread and the money line my friends. Money has seldom been this free. Urban bout to do some serious regressing to the mean.

Seriously tho, this isn't 2008-10 where we basically had 0% equity in this game. We suck, but Ohio State is not that much better than us. I expect this game to go down to the wire. We're at home, and this is our super bowl. Anything can happen.

I agree with everything you've said. The feedback loop you're talking about is a problem, and for the sake of argument let's assume there's a better way to evaluate whether a program is "top tier" or not.

What about this formulation: A program is top tier if it is reasonable to project that it will win 70%+ of its future games.

Assuming we accept the 70% figure, the next question is how to figure out whether it's reasonable a team in question can achieve that rate going forward. To figure that out this is what I would include in the model:

1) Extrapolate from past results. Obviously factor out FCS schools. So far so good for Michigan.

2) Factor in the past 10 year's winning percentage. Not so good for Michigan, we're significantly less than the magical 70% number, but I would argue this has more to do with the two coaching transitions than any kind of fundamental slip in the program.

3) Rely on the aforementioned shaky recruiting metric (maybe factor in the last 10 years of recruiting rankings). That link is outdated by 2 years but you get the idea. Michigan in top 10 so this is good.

4) Maybe factor in a few subjective things like quality of facilities, etc?

Now it's true that we're relying on some shaky variables (extrapolation from past to future, recruiting inflation problem) but I just don't see any way around that. The above is about as objective and accurate as it's gonna get I think, however unreliable it may be. And based on the above, Michigan is a top tier school.

When did they lose a Holiday Bowl to BYU?