Do you even watch Michigan football? I don't understand how people like you are allowed to post articles like this on Bleacher Report.
Michigan has no business being ranked this year. They didn't just lose to two ranked teams, they got embarrassed. Alabama proved that they are in another class than Michigan. Notre Dame isn't even that good and they made Denard Robinson look like a Pop Warner QB. Robinson threw 4 INTs against a depleted, injured, inexperienced Notre Dame secondary.
You say that Michigan's offense has the ability to move the ball against anyone in the country yet when they played an elite Alabama defense they didn't move the ball at all. When they played Notre Dame with a depleted secondary they couldn't even put a touchdown on board. Your argument makes abosultely no sense at all.
You say that we should not forget what Michigan did last season. Last season is exactly that, last season. This is a different Michigan team that is missing it's two best defensive lineman in Van Bergen and Mike Martin, doesn't have it's best receiver in Junior Hemmingway, and is missing it's two best conerbacks from last season in Countess and Woolfolk. Michigan also benefited from a favorable schedule last season. Michigan was well coached and earned everything they had last year on their way to an 11-2 season but 8 of their games were at home, the toughest non conference game they had was against Notre Dame, they beat a rebuilding Ohio St that was without their head coach and had to start a true freshman QB, and had no quality road wins. Plus they got lucky and played an overrated VaTech team.
And when you say we shouldn't forget what Michigan did against a good VaTech defense what are you talking about? I know you are not talking about Michigan's total of 184 yds and 12 total 1st downs that they put up against VaTech. VaTech held Denard to a 9/21, 117 yd performance. They held Fitzgerald Toussaint and Denard to a total of 56 yds rushing.
Denard is not a dual threat QB because he CAN'T PASS! You have to be able to have another skill to be considered a dual threat and Denard clearly doesn't have that. He is a one dimensional runner who collapses once you take the run away from him. He is quite possibly the worst passing QB in for any BCS school.
Fitzgerald Toussaint hasn't proved anything this year. He was talknig a big game in the offseason about how he was going to rush for 1500-2000 yds this season and through three games he has a grand total of 150 yds. That is a measely 50 yds/game average. At this pace Toussaint is on pace to rush for a grand total of 550 yds this season.
You say Michigan is one of the elite teams in the Big 10 which isn't really saying much considering every real analyst and sports writer almost unanimously agree that the Big 10 is an overrated conference. The Big 10 has consistently choked against SEC, PAC 12 teams the last 5-6 seasons. The Big 10 is now on par with the Big East and ACC.
And then you point out that Michigan's defense needs improvement when the defense has been the strongest part of the team this year. The defense held their own holding Notre Dame to only 13 pts and focing them into a number of different three and out situations only to have Denard throw an INT or fumble the ball and give it right back to them.
You say Michigan has been battle tested and proven? What have they proven? Michigan hasn't proved a thing yet this season. They blew out a bad UMASS team that is playing their inagural season in the FBS. And their only other win came against Air Force who they barely beat. Air Force mind you just lost to UNLV last night. UNLV is one of the worst teams in college football and has only won 4 games in the past two seasons. So I think that goes to show you how bad Michigan is. When Michigan had their chances to prove that they should be ranked or could hang with the big boys they got embarrased.
I really hope the rest of your articles on B/R are not this bad and poorly researched. You sound like homer fan that is just angry his team got dropped from the top 25.