MSU Red Cedar Message Board

Who is whining? Approximately 70% of voters across the country? MSU still earned just as money at the end of the season as your at-large BCS draw, so whatever helps you sleep at night, little man.

You guys are the ones that posted it. I never said anything about the past.

He can't even process why it's ironic. Macomb CC or UM-D?

They were pretty fortunate throughout the year, I guess. I am not going to dissect stats because I don't give a shit, but the only games that always jump out to me are the ND game and the sugar bowl. They were outplayed and abused terribly in both of those games and through some absolutely absurd strokes of luck and terrible errors by their opponents, they were able to somehow win. That one muffed fake field goal off of a VT player right into the hands of some unsuspecting UM lineman? The sugar bowl was just a river of bullshit flowing in the right direction for UM.

EDIT: Also, pretty sure I remember Tommy Reese yakety saxing a ball right out of his hand as he started his throwing motion from like the 4 yard line and UM recovered. While it's lame to try to chalk up their success last year to pure luck, there were a number of huge moments that just fell onto their lap in their favor.

I realize I'm a little to late on this comment but here it goes anyway.

Funny, I thought I came to an MSU message board.

Sure they're our biggest rival and I'll enjoy their losses, but I am not about to get into a statistical breakdown of their performances. Fuck em, 4 in a row.

I'm hoping for no injuries for them this year. I just don't think they're nearly as good as people think they are. They rode a wave of good fortune to go along with a fortunate schedule last year. I don't want to hear the RR left the cupboard bare excuse should they lose a couple guys. I see them going 8-4 (losses to Bama, MSU, OSU and either ND or UNL) at best, even with all their starters. I don't want to hear any bs should a couple bounces not go their way this year and they end up even worse. Things like last year tend to even out over time.

Uhhhh perhaps you're forgetting Mitch Mcgary ?

uh you missed the point. he was going out of his way to degrade the 2011 season of UM without considering if these results are similar in teams with solid seasons. why would someone argue if a team was lucky if they understand their team was similarly lucky in good seasons? why would someone go out of their way to research all of these things if this is a common, logical chain of events for MANY teams who have fortunate seasons? the entire point is the OP was degrading the season of another team, regardless of rival, without doing the research to see if his own team had similar results at any time. short of this guy's friend saying MICHIGAN DESERVED IT AND MSU'S ONLY BEEN LUCKY WHEN THEY'VE SUCCEEDED, the OP is making an argument to drag down a rival's season without doing a level of research on his own. if MSU has never seen this amount of 'luck' in one of their good seasons, then he has a point.

tl;dr: why argue with someone about their season if its likely your own team had similar results in years previous?

Makes you wonder what it looked like the first 2 times Brady "Herp Derp" Hoke typed it, doesn't it?

Who brought this idiot back from the institute?

Your points are all completely illogical. You are ASSUMING that many teams have had such lucky breaks, when in fact it is only possible for a few teams each year to be ranked so highly in "lucky stats". Then you cite MSU's trickery as us being lucky, when in fact it speaks to Dantonio's risk taking and our superior execution; that is not luck.

The OP's point is not dependent upon MSU having/not having a lucky season at all. They are completely independent events, although this will be very hard for you to understand given your mental deficits. YOUR post, though, requires that MSU's season be lucky. So either back up your post with facts or go fuck yourself.

Again, that is a strawman, but you are too dense to understand that. You can argue whatever you want, regardless of what your team did, as it has nothing to do with his point.

Your problem is that you aren't very bright. You cannot grasp basic logic, which is pretty sad really. This isn't rocket science, it is Logic 101.

As far as your baseless arguments regarding other teams being lucky, read my post above that completely dismantles your inane suggestions. You're probalby too dumb to understand it, but I tried anyway.

It will, but UM can make it up in other areas. Lets say that instead of 20 fumbles recovered, they only recover 12 . . . . but Dennard reduces his INTs from 15 to 10, and UM picks off 12 passes instead of 9. That keeps their TO margin identical for the year, and none of those #s are anything but middling.

As they say, luck is preparation meeting opportunity, and UM put themselves in a position to capitalize on their schedule and opponents mistakes. Sure, the most dominating a team can be is to convert every third down and stop an opponent on every third down, while not causing any turnovers; i.e. beating a team without any "extra" help. A good example of a dominating victory in this fashion would be MSU's W over Wisconsin in 2010. State was actually -3 in TOs, yet outgained Wisconsin by over 150 yards, won the time of possession battle by 10 minutes (no small feat) and won the game by 10 points.

That said, it's not logical to expect all Ws to be in that fashion, and there's always going to be an element of luck associated with some of the wins on a 10+ W team. Look at LSU's regular season W over Bama. Bama missed 4 FGs. 4. In one game. In which LSU won by 3.

Good teams can have great seasons by taking advantage of their opponents. Really, MSU's 2010 season and UM's 2011 season were very similar:

1. 9 games in the State of MI

2. 4 straight home games to open the year (Ok, MSU played FAU at Ford Field in '10. So what)

3. Dramatic last second win over an 8-5 ND team in a home night game.

4. Defeated a top 25 opponent at home in convincing fashion (MSU: Wisconsin in '10; UM: Nebraska in '11)

5. Beat up on a lot of 6-6/7-5 type opponents (MSU: Illinois, Northwestern, Purdue, Michigan, Penn State, Notre Dame (regular season 7-5) in '10; UM: Western, Eastern, SDSU, IL, Purdue, Northwestern, Ohio State)

6. Lost on the road to Iowa

You can only play the teams on your schedule. I think most MSU fans feel that the '11 team was a level better than the '10 team, despite 1 more regular season loss; that's not too hard to accept, given that the schedule was harder in '11 than '10.

I expect a similar situation for UM. They should be a better fundamental football team in '12 than in '11, simply because it being year 2 of their coaches. Remember MSU improved from 7-5 to 9-3 in year 2 under MD. However, their schedule is prohibitively harder than what they faced in '11 (or what MSU faced in '08, for that matter). I expect them to finish around 9-3, give or take a game. I would be surprised if they finished 7-5, or 11-1. 8-4 is more likely than 10-2 in my opinion, just due to the road schedule, their struggles on the road last year (Bama neutral site vs. home game against a MAC team, @ND vs. ND at home, @Nebraska and @tOSU instead of home games for each) and at least 1 losable home game (MSU).

The fun thing is that this all plays out on the field. The Big 10 is going to be a blood bath this year: I see MSU, Michigan, Nebraska and Wisconsin all being about "9-3" quality teams at the present moment (aka, fall camp injuries/breakthroughs pending), and other than UM - Wisconsin, they all play each other. Maybe tOSU is that level as well, and tOSU plays all 4 of those teams. I really think 6-2 wins the division with tie-breakers, and it's hard to envision any Big 10 team rolling through their schedule undefeated. Throw in a fiesty Purdue and hard-hitting Illinois, and it should be a pretty wild ride.

Can the season start?