Riddickulous
"That" Guy
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You're smoking something.
ND v. U of M
- Thread starter ]\/[GoBlue
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You're smoking something.
k1ssme1m1r1sh
THE CHICK
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Michigan will b hyped up rather well, coming off their first win from their opener against the Decatur GA institute if nail art and eye brow waxing. I hate Michigan. HATE THEM. Worst fans on Earth.
nlroma1o
Well-known member
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I can't wait for this game. Its personally the most important game for me every year bc it awards me bragging rights for a year. I see BK leading us to a great victory on Sept 10th. No way in hell we lose 3 in a row to scUM.
Irish win 38 - 20
GO IRISH!!!
Irish win 38 - 20
GO IRISH!!!
Old Man Mike
Fast as Lightning!
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I have been reading Phil Steele [almost the only football fix in these dog days], and I'm struggling to find any reason why someone would think that this should be a problematic game. To reduce the immediate howling, I'll admit that the under-dog wins essentially all the time, so OK, that's not what I'm talking about.
I more-or-less ignore Steele's commentary on the teams' "home pages" [I believe that he must have a policy of being upbeat there, whether he believes it or not, because if you took his comments as gospel, everybody would be vastly improved everywhere.] In stead i looked at the "comparative pages" in his book, where he rates teams in order of their qualities.
The simplistic first comment would be that he rates us seventh in the country and rates Michigan seventh in the Big Ten. 41st overall. Steele also has a "Power Rating" which is a meta-system combined from nine different methods of evaluating teams. On the power rating, we are again seventh and Michigan is 44th.
I then looked at the breakdowns of the football "units" [O-Line, Receivers, QB, etc]. He rates each unit, team against team, as to the top around 38-40 units of each type. I picked out UofMs rankings and NDs rankings. To create a meta-number for each team's "elite" qualities, I flipped the scales [ex. giving "35" points if you were the best unit, and One point if you were the 35th --- for the stragglers when there were >35 units ranked, I gave them all a point, but no point if you did not even make the list].
Of course it's unfair to assume that all units are equally important to team function, but they are certainly VERY important regardless. So adding them all together to come up with a master power/eliteness number can't be completely goofy as a concept. Michigan scored 72 "elite unit points". This trailed MSU and Stanford by twelve and ten points. Our eliteness total was 167 points [about twice MSUs and Stanford's and greater than that more than UofMs.
The only opponent rivaling our eliteness total was USC, slightly higher than ND at 172. For your interest, Alabama was at 192 and Oklahoma at 215.
In terms of what one can see with one's simple eyes, Notre Dame should win and even control. If, for talking purposes, we began a discussion with the premise that the two teams were about equals last year when they played [a premise imminently defensible], and one team improved, while the other did not seem to appreciatively, and the one team is in the second year of a system with essentially everybody back, while the other is in a systematic transitional year, and that the incoming freshmen are rated at least doubly higher to make a difference for one team vs the other [Steele rates 8 Michigan recruits in his top 500, and 21 ND recruits there]--- and every one of these factors is going in the same direction....sheez....we should be embarrassed if we lose this game.
What will stop us?? Will it be the one-&-only Denard?? He just could...but I don't think so. The reason: Hoke is trying to bring back Michigan to its status as what my Va Tech brother calls a "Thug Team". He doesn't mean Old Miami on AND off the field; he means beat you up power both sides of the ball [he uses BC and Pitt as being this style]. Well, if so, I say great. Turning Michigan into a thug team might be the only way to stop Denard other than the wear and tear of a long season.
Doubtless I'm in error about this game, but we sure look a lot better on paper --- a LOT better.
I more-or-less ignore Steele's commentary on the teams' "home pages" [I believe that he must have a policy of being upbeat there, whether he believes it or not, because if you took his comments as gospel, everybody would be vastly improved everywhere.] In stead i looked at the "comparative pages" in his book, where he rates teams in order of their qualities.
The simplistic first comment would be that he rates us seventh in the country and rates Michigan seventh in the Big Ten. 41st overall. Steele also has a "Power Rating" which is a meta-system combined from nine different methods of evaluating teams. On the power rating, we are again seventh and Michigan is 44th.
I then looked at the breakdowns of the football "units" [O-Line, Receivers, QB, etc]. He rates each unit, team against team, as to the top around 38-40 units of each type. I picked out UofMs rankings and NDs rankings. To create a meta-number for each team's "elite" qualities, I flipped the scales [ex. giving "35" points if you were the best unit, and One point if you were the 35th --- for the stragglers when there were >35 units ranked, I gave them all a point, but no point if you did not even make the list].
Of course it's unfair to assume that all units are equally important to team function, but they are certainly VERY important regardless. So adding them all together to come up with a master power/eliteness number can't be completely goofy as a concept. Michigan scored 72 "elite unit points". This trailed MSU and Stanford by twelve and ten points. Our eliteness total was 167 points [about twice MSUs and Stanford's and greater than that more than UofMs.
The only opponent rivaling our eliteness total was USC, slightly higher than ND at 172. For your interest, Alabama was at 192 and Oklahoma at 215.
In terms of what one can see with one's simple eyes, Notre Dame should win and even control. If, for talking purposes, we began a discussion with the premise that the two teams were about equals last year when they played [a premise imminently defensible], and one team improved, while the other did not seem to appreciatively, and the one team is in the second year of a system with essentially everybody back, while the other is in a systematic transitional year, and that the incoming freshmen are rated at least doubly higher to make a difference for one team vs the other [Steele rates 8 Michigan recruits in his top 500, and 21 ND recruits there]--- and every one of these factors is going in the same direction....sheez....we should be embarrassed if we lose this game.
What will stop us?? Will it be the one-&-only Denard?? He just could...but I don't think so. The reason: Hoke is trying to bring back Michigan to its status as what my Va Tech brother calls a "Thug Team". He doesn't mean Old Miami on AND off the field; he means beat you up power both sides of the ball [he uses BC and Pitt as being this style]. Well, if so, I say great. Turning Michigan into a thug team might be the only way to stop Denard other than the wear and tear of a long season.
Doubtless I'm in error about this game, but we sure look a lot better on paper --- a LOT better.