It's been awhile since our schools played

[gobluejeff86]

Hi to our bowl opponent! Hope to have some good conversations about our teams and upcoming game. Shortly before I attended Michigan, and during my time there, we played you at least twice. George Rogers broke our hearts one year, and a few years later we handled you pretty easily. Haven't read any of the posts yet, thought I'd start with a quick scouting report of my Wolverines and give you the prevailing feelings about the matchup up here, at least among my circle of fans.

Michigan is through the horror of the RichRod years, who may have been a good coach but was not a good coach for Michigan. We still aren't back to where we'd like to be, and I think SC has a clear edge on defense against our offense, and a less pronounced edge on offense against our defense.

On defense, if you can stop Denard Robinson-who may play QB, running back, or even slot receiver, you take away by far the most dangerous weapon we have. It's made M fans happy that Devin Gardner has stepped in and shown why he was so highly recruited as a quarterback, but he still lacks experience and will struggle against your athletic defense, especially because our offensive line is perhaps our weakest position group. We have a lot of help on the way, but for now we are undersized and undertalented. Your guy Clowney may set a sack record if we get behind early and are forced to pass.
Other than Denard, we have no running back who is even remotely scary-and our blocking fullback left the team suddenly yesterday.

On offense, you should be able to pass on our secondary. We love Greg Mattison at DC, but he's also working with less talent than we'd like this year.
We've been OK on defense, but many of us have the sneaky suspicion that it's all smoke and mirrors and pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain...so we'll see.

Bottom line, most M fans I know expect to lose this matchup, and just hope it won't be another baby seal vs. club matchup like our opener with 'Bama. To close, the most entertaining site that talks about Michigan football is: http://mgoblog.com/

Best of luck, looking forward to the game.

[Gaichon]

Welcome aboard. We're all looking forward to a great game!

[Roosterboy]

Welcome goblue.
I'm hoping we show up this time in the Outback.

I'm with you that Michigan is on the right track under Hoke...just got to get more talent and speed.
I'm looking forward to when Michigan starts dominating OSU.

Sadly for you, I hope we stomp Michigan into the ground...but after the game, I wish Michigan the best of luck.

[USCGrad2003]

Welcome GoBlueJeff86! I am really looking forward to this game, hoping for a good one.

[Cockholio]

Welcome! It's great to get a chance to interact with such a great fan base as Michigan has.

[Lonnie]

Welcome Jeff. I just posted a rundown of some of our players on offense and defense for you guys over on your site. Enjoy.

[garnet_black215]

Welcome to the board. Glad you're here and we're looking forward to the game.

Feel free to hang around talk football and other things after the bowl game.

[smoovecock]

I was in the Big House when we won....It was a pretty cool place to play with all the history and all...But I will say it was one of the quitest places we played in ....All those folks in that place and it was kind of golf claps through out the game...

[Acockolypse Now]

Really nice post. Welcome.

We've been very erratic in bowl games under Spurrier. If he feels like he has something to play for we usually show up. The year's he's not excited about it the team usually comes out and lays an egg.

Here's hoping he wants an Outback Bowl win.

[gobluejeff86]

It used to be that way, it's MUCH louder after our recent renovation. Skyboxes seem to keep sound in, crowd is younger and mostly stands all game-just a different vibe. The thing I remember from that game is Bo Schembechler trying a fake punt from our own 29, and failing. That led directly to an SC touchdown, and is the only time in 21 years that he tried anything remotely like that, in any phase of the game.

[gobluejeff86]

Spurrier has always seemed to be a little eccentric to this outside observer. I'm entertained by his quotes and think he's done a nice job with your program, but he's not your average big time college football coach.

[smoovecock]

Originally Posted by gobluejeff86

It used to be that way, it's MUCH louder after our recent renovation. Skyboxes seem to keep sound in, crowd is younger and mostly stands all game-just a different vibe. The thing I remember from that game is Bo Schembechler trying a fake punt from our own 29, and failing. That led directly to an SC touchdown, and is the only time in 21 years that he tried anything remotely like that, in any phase of the game.

..yea...That makes sense...You look up from the field and it seemed like the folks sitting in the upper part of the stands were a mile away....As far as the fake punt we saw it coming....Michigan was going to try it earlier but we showed coverage on the play...Then the next time around we saw they were going to set it up again so we baited the play and the bit and as you know it went nowhere...

[yazoo]

Originally Posted by gobluejeff86

Hi to our bowl opponent! Hope to have some good conversations about our teams and upcoming game. Shortly before I attended Michigan, and during my time there, we played you at least twice. George Rogers broke our hearts one year, and a few years later we handled you pretty easily. Haven't read any of the posts yet, thought I'd start with a quick scouting report of my Wolverines and give you the prevailing feelings about the matchup up here, at least among my circle of fans.

Michigan is through the horror of the RichRod years, who may have been a good coach but was not a good coach for Michigan. We still aren't back to where we'd like to be, and I think SC has a clear edge on defense against our offense, and a less pronounced edge on offense against our defense.

On defense, if you can stop Denard Robinson-who may play QB, running back, or even slot receiver, you take away by far the most dangerous weapon we have. It's made M fans happy that Devin Gardner has stepped in and shown why he was so highly recruited as a quarterback, but he still lacks experience and will struggle against your athletic defense, especially because our offensive line is perhaps our weakest position group. We have a lot of help on the way, but for now we are undersized and undertalented. Your guy Clowney may set a sack record if we get behind early and are forced to pass.
Other than Denard, we have no running back who is even remotely scary-and our blocking fullback left the team suddenly yesterday.

On offense, you should be able to pass on our secondary. We love Greg Mattison at DC, but he's also working with less talent than we'd like this year.
We've been OK on defense, but many of us have the sneaky suspicion that it's all smoke and mirrors and pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain...so we'll see.

Bottom line, most M fans I know expect to lose this matchup, and just hope it won't be another baby seal vs. club matchup like our opener with 'Bama. To close, the most entertaining site that talks about Michigan football is: http://mgoblog.com/

Best of luck, looking forward to the game.

Welcome.

I thought your pass defense was ranked second nationally. Maybe you meant we should be able to run the ball on your front seven. Our running game coordinator/OL coach coached at Appy State for the "Oh the humanity" game.

[DrCorona]

Our national passing defense ranking is a falsehood. We haven't faced any quality passers this year, plus most of the B1G ten tends to feature the running game. We're not real good at pressuring the QB, & we have no stud cover DB's. We have been fairly responsible with limiting YAC...& that's probably a pretty underrated feature.

[Gamecock303]

Did Quinton Washington really get moved to DT for you guys? what is the story behind that?

I hated that we couldn't land him...especially considering how weak our O-line has been

[yazoo]

Originally Posted by DrCorona

Our national passing defense ranking is a falsehood. We haven't faced any quality passers this year, plus most of the B1G ten tends to feature the running game. We're not real good at pressuring the QB, & we have no stud cover DB's. We have been fairly responsible with limiting YAC...& that's probably a pretty underrated feature.

I like your attitude. Last year the Nebraska fans were talking about some CB as though he would single-handedly shut down Alshon. Then, when we told them Alshon goes up against a better corner (Gilmore) every day in practice, they thought we were kidding. Turns out Alshon got MVP, and Gilmore was clearly the best DB on the field . . . and went hirer than their CB. Never heard anymore about it.

That said, I believe our coaching staff will watch film and find out that maybe you're undervaluing your DBs to some degree. You don't get to be second in the country against Big 10 competition without some skills.

[gamecockhub]

Welcome to the board. I was there in the big house when we won! Was a freshman at the time and was also there in 1985 when we lost at home. Looking forward to a good game!

[sc455]

good post blue..looking for a good game.

[cold_point_rooster]

Originally Posted by smoovecock

I was in the Big House when we won....It was a pretty cool place to play with all the history and all...But I will say it was one of the quitest places we played in ....All those folks in that place and it was kind of golf claps through out the game...

I was there also. And to this day the big house is one of my favorite places I've been to. Fans were nice as they could be to us. I remember being swept away by how big the place looked from the inside. On the outside I wonder where the field was.

Sitting in the airport the next day listening to Bo cry about getting beat was fun to.

Anyway, good to hear your thoughts.

[BigSteven34]

Welcome! Looking forward to a good game against one of the best programs in all of College Football!