Michigan Football: PredictionMachine.com Picks Michigan to Win the Big Ten
Posted at 7:30am — 8/19/2012
Michigan Football: PredictionMachine.com Picks Michigan to Win the Big Ten
The Predictalator has played every 2012 college football regular season and bowl game 50,000 times before it’s actually played (Read more about How This Works). Based on that analysis, we present Michigan Wolverines Big Ten Champs and Rose Bowl Bound. We wish it was that easy because at this point right before the season we would gladly take it with the brutal schedule the Wolverines have this year especially away from home with Alabama in the Jerry’s World game, at Notre Dame, at Nebraska, and at Ohio State. Those four tough road games will determine how Michigan does this season along with where they will finish.
They rank Michigan #13 in their power rankings with a offensive rank of #20 and defensive rank of #8. Again if Michigan can rank that high for the season we will gladly take it right now. They project Michigan to finish with 9-3 record in the regular season.
They have Michigan ranked #1 in the Big Ten winning the conference title game over Wisconsin (since Ohio State isn’t eligible who they have finishing second in the conference).
Michigan is projected to be in the Rose Bowl this season and facing the runner-up from the Pac12 Oregon Ducks. They beleive the Rose Bowl game will be a shootout with Michigan falling to Oregon in a Rose Bowl shootout 41-33.
PredicitonMachine list the defensive back seven as the biggest strength to the team, the greatest weakness is the brutal schedule, and the most important offensive player if you cannot guess is Denard Robinson. William Campbell is listed as the most important defensive player, and the breakout candidate is Devin Gardner.
Again if Michigan wins the Big Ten, wins the conference title, and goes to the Rose Bowl win or lose this season it will be a positive and we would gladly take it right now with the brutal schedule and also the depth issues on both sides of the line and lack of elite skilled players on offensive side of the ball besides #16.
Big Ten Standings
1. Michigan Wolverines
2. Ohio State Buckeyes (No Bowl Game)
3. Wisconsin Badgers
4. Nebraska Cornhuskers
5. Michigan State Spartans
6. Iowa Hawkeyes
7. Purdue Boilermakers
8. Minnesota Golden Gophers
9. Penn State Nittany Lions (No Bowl Game)
10. Illinois Fighting Illini
11. Northwestern Wildcats
12. Indiana Hoosiers
Just in case anybody cares about the National Title game PredictionMachine has USC beating Alabama.
In the most likely BCS Championship game, USC tops Alabama, our projected BCS champion at this time last year, to keep the Crimson Tide from winning its second consecutive championship and the third in the last four seasons, which would also have been the SEC’s seventh straight BCS title. USC, also the most likely team within FBS to go undefeated this season, wins over Alabama at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida 56.5% of the time and by an average score of 26.5-20.2. Despite losing Kalil and DE/OLB Nick Perry to the first round of the NFL draft this season, USC returns 15 starters, plus the punter and kicker (not to mention the addition of Silas Redd, Penn State’s leading rusher from a year ago) from last season’s 10-2 team that was ineligible to play in the postseason.
Interestingly, Alabama ranks ahead of USC in our initial Power Rankings, but USC wins this game more often than not due to matchup advantages. It is important to note that, with three SEC teams in the top four overall (each projected to win 10+ games), eight SEC teams in our top 20 and Michigan (#13) on Alabama’s schedule, USC is far more likely to make the BCS Championship game than Alabama or any other specific SEC team. That being said, with that kind of conference strength (and the gap between the SEC and all other conferences widening), the SEC this year is as close to a lock as we have ever seen to put at least one team into the BCS title game.
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Written by GBMWolverine Staff
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