ESPN: Wolverines are facing first legitimate challenge for Little Brown Jug since '05

[BleedGopher]

per ESPN's B1G early look: Setting up Week 5

Five things to watch in Week 5

1. What's next for Michigan?: There was only one team in the league not celebrating Saturday night, and the driving rainstorm wasn't what cancelled the party for Michigan. The Wolverines are still a mess on offense, seemingly incapable of finding the red zone and strangely allergic to maintaining possession of the football, and those problems have left Brady Hoke in a tough spot heading into Saturday's Big Ten opener with Minnesota at the Big House. There doesn't appear to be an easy fix at this point, though a change at quarterback is probably where Hoke will start. But no matter who starts under center, the Wolverines are facing their first legitimate challenge for the Little Brown Jug since losing it in 2005 -- and watching the Gophers put their hands on it would only make life tougher for Hoke.

http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/107760/b1g-early-look-setting-up-week-5

Go Gophers!!

 

[Gopher07]

Not sure I buy that categorization; in hindsight, sure, they've beaten the piss out of us since 2005, but I'd say 2008 looked like a more legitimate challenge heading in. Gophers were 7-2 (3-2), Michigan was 2-7 (1-4), and the game was in Minneapolis. I don't have the historical spreads but I have to imagine we were favored.

 

[MrGopher]

Not sure I buy that categorization; in hindsight, sure, they've beaten the piss out of us since 2005, but I'd say 2008 looked like a more legitimate challenge heading in. Gophers were 7-2 (3-2), Michigan was 2-7 (1-4), and the game was in Minneapolis. I don't have the historical spreads but I have to imagine we were favored.

This is exactly what I thought of too. Then again, maybe the thought was that if it was in the Dome, Michigan was never going to lose anyway. So maybe this is our first legitimate crack at them since '05.

 

[BarnBoy]

G-darn-it. Can the game at least be close? I have visions of 35-0 at halftime and the Wolverines suddenly "finding their offense".

 

[BarnBoy]

How smart are college coaches?

Ok... sorry for the troll-like headline. Now that I have your attention.

How often do you think coaches know they are going to win when the game is a pick'em or they are underdogs? Ever? I'm not talking about the "rah rah, we're going to beat them" confidence that all coaches and teams should have. I'm talking about actually being able to get in a coache's head (which would never happen) to understand his take on an upcoming game. When a game plan is so good that it works to perfection on Saturday. Serious game planning. Coaches don't generally throw other coaches under the bus, so this is really one of those things that is never really known.

I seem to remember watching a documentary on BTN about Nebraska's championship season. Osborne would tell his team at halftime what was going to happen in the second half. Basically predicting things. Sort of like that.

Not at all a prediction for the Michigan game, just a mid-week thought.

 

[bleedsmaroonandgold]

I was just about to say the same thing about 2008. I'm pretty sure I did look up the line at the time and we were favored. Obviously, the game turned out lopsided, but to say that in the lead up to it we weren't a legitimate challenger is incorrect.

 

[Monty519]

Oh yeah, we totally should have won in '08. I think there were some leftover affects from that Northwestern letdown the week before though (Pick 6 finish) that lingered into the next week. That game literally blew up that season, with Decker getting hurt on the play and all of that.

But this week would probably be the 2nd best set up for us as far as Michigan vulnerability and us being decent enough to do anything about it (if we can complete a forward pass a couple times).