The Official PennSt vs ][V][ichigan Game Thread

[Spartanmack]

I doubt TN can win out, but I think Michigan has a good chance of beating OSU in Columbus. THE GAME will not be easy for either team, but I think the Michigan offense is better than last year and the defense is also pretty darn good, maybe as good as last year. From what I have seen OSU is about the same on defense as they were last year, Michigan will be able to score points on them. I expect it will come down to whether the defense can get to Stroud and the oline can give McCarthy time to throw. It will be a tough game for both teams.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Michigan needs to focus on giving a beatdown to the Spartans right now.

I don't think there's a B1G defense that can stop osu - especially when Smith-Njigba returns, which according to my buckeye nephew who knows a couple of their 17 receivers, he's ready but they're not taking any chances and won't bring him back until they need him (my guess is at penn state would be the earliest). They're defense is better than last year and now they finally have something to prove in that game. If the weather isn't shitty again, I think that also works against michigan. I hope they beat them, but I don't think they will. If these two teams played at OSU 10 times, I think OSU wins 7 of them.

As for beating the Spartans this year, we're sub .500 so you definitely have a shot - you don't always beat us when we're sub .500, but you don't beat us when we're not.

 

[Spartanmack]

Right. ratings still need to be taken with a grain or salt. few of the best teams have actually played eachother yet. and like... if you actually watched the UT-Bama game (I don't think spartanmack did) you wouldn't be very impressed with either team, aside from the QB's hitting wide open receivers all day.

Bama played like shit, and UT STILL almost handed them a win.

in contrast, we lined up, and ran it right over Penn State all day, while stifling them on offense. Penn State KNEW what we were going to do and couldn't stop us.

If you take away the tipped pick-6 and Clifford's lucky run, the score would've been 41-3 or worse

yeah, they looked like shit and still had 569 yards of offense (with at least 8 offensive penalties) and scored 49 points. What did psu do looking like shit?

 

[tomdalton22]

I watched the UT / Bama game and it was the best game I have seen all year. I was impressed with both teams on offense. Alabama kept shooting themselves in the foot with penalties. Young really impressed me...he was getting hammered and kept coming for more. A lot of those hits on him would have been roughing the passer in the NFL's version of flag football.

I think the best way to look at it would be this. Look at Bama's remaining schedule vs. PSU. If you had to put money on one of those two teams to run the table, which would you choose? I would say Bama

 

[Michchamp]

yeah, they looked like shit and still had 569 yards of offense (with at least 8 offensive penalties) and scored 49 points. What did psu do looking like shit?

This sounds like the argument for why RichRod was a great coach.

 

[Spartanmack]

This sounds like the argument for why RichRod was a great coach.

Nice piece of revisionist history here - when those Rich Rod teams looked like shit it was because the MSU defense was pummeling Dennard into the turf, holding them to about 252/251/224yds and 21/20/17 points. In Rich Rod's 22 losses in 3 years at uofm, his teams scored over 25 points (half of what Alabama's offense did despite 8 penalties) just 6 times - they only scored more than 40 in a loss once, to Purdue who finished the season 4-8 (2-6 in B1G).

Edit: Rich Rod had 4 fewer losses in his 3 years at uofm (22) than Saban has had at Alabama so far (26). Maybe he was a great coach.

 

[Spartanmack]

I watched the UT / Bama game and it was the best game I have seen all year. I was impressed with both teams on offense. Alabama kept shooting themselves in the foot with penalties. Young really impressed me...he was getting hammered and kept coming for more. A lot of those hits on him would have been roughing the passer in the NFL's version of flag football.

I think the best way to look at it would be this. Look at Bama's remaining schedule vs. PSU. If you had to put money on one of those two teams to run the table, which would you choose? I would say Bama

OK, but if you take opposing teams offenses away, the TN win doesn't look all that impressive...

 

[bphillips4gg]

LOL, criticizing the rankings is ignoring the rankings. That's a good one. No, saying psu was overrated is NOT ignoring the rankings - it's directly addressing the rankings and pointing out in that particular case that they were clearly wrong. Saying stupid things like "take the rankings away and TN's win was not impressive" because they didn't win by 27 like uofm did, is ignoring the rankings.

Alabama wasn't ranked #1 after the close call with Texas - the were leapfrogged by Georgia in the AP poll. They regained the ranking in week 6 before playing A&M and they dropped 5 spots after losing on the road to the team currently ranked 3rd best in the country. Clearly, they weren't clearly overrated, not anything like psu, who got throttled by the first decent team they played.

You're completely ignoring the point or it's going over your head. If it wasn't Bama then nobody would be giving Tennessee credit, let alone lining up to blow them. Sure they put up 49 points, but they also gave up 46. They're an incomplete team and just because they won a game by 3 points when they had everything in their favor (home, night game and jacked crowd, opponent giving the 130 yards on penalties) doesn't mean that they are a better team than Michigan or Georgia or Ohio State. But because of the name on the other team's jersey everyone is completely ignoring the fact that they gave up 46 points and needed 130 yards and a missed field goal from the other team to squeak by.

 

[bphillips4gg]

I watched the UT / Bama game and it was the best game I have seen all year. I was impressed with both teams on offense. Alabama kept shooting themselves in the foot with penalties. Young really impressed me...he was getting hammered and kept coming for more. A lot of those hits on him would have been roughing the passer in the NFL's version of flag football.

I think the best way to look at it would be this. Look at Bama's remaining schedule vs. PSU. If you had to put money on one of those two teams to run the table, which would you choose? I would say Bama

Bama doesn't have to play Ohio State. Penn State does. I don't think either of them get through the rest of the season without another loss. Bama to Mississippi and PSU to OSU.

 

[Michchamp]

Bama doesn't have to play Ohio State. Penn State does. I don't think either of them get through the rest of the season without another loss. Bama to Mississippi and PSU to OSU.

a lousy situation would be if Tennessee loses only once to Georgia and Georgia & Mississippi run the table, and either ends up with a single loss in their championship game. We'd have two 1-loss SEC teams and an undefeated one.

espn will be running non-stop coverage of why it makes sense to have 3 SEC teams in the playoff

 

[wlvrnstlr4life]

If the weather isn't shitty again, I think that also works against michigan. I hope they beat them, but I don't think they will. If these two teams played at OSU 10 times, I think OSU wins 7 of them.

And how did the weather affect last year's game? I'm fuzzy on that one.

 

[Michchamp]

And how did the weather affect last year's game? I'm fuzzy on that one.

watching one team control the line of scrimmage for practically an entire game is - in my mind at least - like the most BASIC way to understand which team is better. like if you can do that, you're the team that's going to win most games... the other team only wins on lucky bounces or fluke plays.

I'd think any football watching adult could grasp that after watching a game, but I forgot "the spartanmack principle."

Kinda like how Penn State was ahead briefly in the game, even though they had 1 first down compared to 20 and almost every drive was a 3-out.

 

[Spartanmack]

You're completely ignoring the point or it's going over your head. If it wasn't Bama then nobody would be giving Tennessee credit, let alone lining up to blow them. Sure they put up 49 points, but they also gave up 46. They're an incomplete team and just because they won a game by 3 points when they had everything in their favor (home, night game and jacked crowd, opponent giving the 130 yards on penalties) doesn't mean that they are a better team than Michigan or Georgia or Ohio State. But because of the name on the other team's jersey everyone is completely ignoring the fact that they gave up 46 points and needed 130 yards and a missed field goal from the other team to squeak by.

Somebody's missing the point, but it's not me. It WAS Alabama, who is without a doubt a far superior team to penn state. You can't ignore that point if you're trying to make the case that TN shouldn't have passed uofm in the rankings. That and the rest of their resume, which is clearly more impressive than uofm's is the whole point. Other than a few people who gave them first place votes, nobody is saying they're a better team than GA or osu - they're ranked #3 BEHIND Georgia and osu. But enough people think they're better than uofm and as of right now, they absolutely have a case. It's not rock solid, but it doesn't have to be (nor can it be) and, as has been said many times, it also doesn't matter at this point.

Beating 3 ranked teams including the #1 team in the country makes them worthy of being the #3 or 4 team in the country right now regardless of who they passed to get there. You guys just like to play the victim and act like everything is stacked against you. Be happy with the #4 in week 7 (because it doesn't matter). Win out (or don't) and all of this week 7 belly aching about how disrespected you are still won't matter.

 

[Michchamp]

Tenn only beat a ranked Pitt team after Pitt missed two FGs. they were otherwise pretty evenly matched.

and they only beat a ranked UF team by 1 score after almost giving up 600 yards to UF (!!!)

their win over Bama included elements of both those issues

Tenn is not a fundamentally sound football team. I would not have had them jump UM based on the games last weekend. To do so, you need to engage in some logical gymnastics whereby rankings only matter for UT's opponents but not UM's.

 

[tomdalton22]

Tenn only beat a ranked Pitt team after Pitt missed two FGs. they were otherwise pretty evenly matched.

and they only beat a ranked UF team by 1 score after almost giving up 600 yards to UF (!!!)

their win over Bama included elements of both those issues

Tenn is not a fundamentally sound football team. I would not have had them jump UM based on the games last weekend. To do so, you need to engage in some logical gymnastics whereby rankings only matter for UT's opponents but not UM's.

They are both pretty even. Sagarin has UM 4 and TN 5

https://sagarin.usatoday.com/2022-2/college-football-team-ratings-2022/

Of course, he also has AL above TN a few days after TN beat them.

He has PSU 20th

 

[Michchamp]

They are both pretty even. Sagarin has UM 4 and TN 5

https://sagarin.usatoday.com/2022-2/college-football-team-ratings-2022/

Of course, he also has AL above TN a few days after TN beat them.

He has PSU 20th

yeah, his methodology works that way. I don't disagree with his rankings, although Alabama might still be too high. They don't account for lucky breaks or bad coaching decisions (which all went alabama's way against Texas and A&M)

but good teams lose to not-so-good teams all the time; I think as things play out, Alabama will have a better season than UTenn. But they do have an easy schedule remaining, aside from Georgia.

 

[Spartanmack]

Tenn only beat a ranked Pitt team after Pitt missed two FGs. they were otherwise pretty evenly matched.

and they only beat a ranked UF team by 1 score after almost giving up 600 yards to UF (!!!)

their win over Bama included elements of both those issues

Tenn is not a fundamentally sound football team. I would not have had them jump UM based on the games last weekend. To do so, you need to engage in some logical gymnastics whereby rankings only matter for UT's opponents but not UM's.

That?s simply false. No gymnastics required to see that psu?s ranking was clearly way off. The logical gymnastics are coming from the people who think uofm beat a legit top 10 team by 27 because they?re just so fundamentally sound and that they would do the same thing to Alabama or TN right now.

 

[Michchamp]

That?s simply false. No gymnastics required to see that psu?s ranking was clearly way off. The logical gymnastics are coming from the people who think uofm beat a legit top 10 team by 27 because they?re just so fundamentally sound and that they would do the same thing to Alabama or TN right now.

who said anything about Michigan beating Alabama or Tennessee by 27? You're arguing with yourself here, Schizo

 

[rumseyhouse77]

TN beating UT Martin 52-7 in the first half. Very impressive. Justifies that #3 ranking in some people's minds I am sure. I wonder if TN will keep their starters in for the 2nd half?

Clemson losing to Syracuse at the half 21-10, I wonder if Syracuse will jump Michigan if they win the game.

 

[Monster]

Why is everyone so worried about where we rank right now? Polls don't mean shit right now. Beat sparty, win out until OSU (avoid trap of Illinois) and beat the buckeyes im columbus and we'll be #1 or #2 heading into the playoff. Lose any of those games and we are lucky to get a #4 seed. Our destiny is in our own hands and being ranked 1, 2, 3 or 4 does not matter right now. Fuck tennesee,clemson, bama and all the others. We're in control. Win and we're in. Lose and we need to hope others lose.

 

[wlvrnstlr4life]

Why is everyone so worried about where we rank right now? Polls don't mean shit right now. Beat sparty, win out until OSU (avoid trap of Illinois) and beat the buckeyes im columbus and we'll be #1 or #2 heading into the playoff. Lose any of those games and we are lucky to get a #4 seed. Our destiny is in our own hands and being ranked 1, 2, 3 or 4 does not matter right now. Fuck tennesee,clemson, bama and all the others. We're in control. Win and we're in. Lose and we need to hope others lose.

I think what in boils down to in some peoples minds is that the higher Michigan is ranked, the better possibility of getting in as that 4th team in case they lose on a last second fg in The Shoe. Everytime, the SEC is the beneficiary in this type situation. If UM is 2 or 3 and OSU is 1 or 2 in the match up and UM goes down in a close one, how far should they drop? Especially if people are saying OSU is the best team in college. Shouldnt the Wolverines benefit? I think this is what people are arguing.