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10-2 is great at Iowa or Michigan State.

At Michigan after Rodriguez and Hoke, it almost registers as a miracle. The point though is that for Michigan there are distinct kids of expectations for the team when it's in "climbing" mode and when it's in "maintenance" mode. And so far the administration and (vast?) majority of fans are judging it in climbing mode.

Maintenance mode probably requires East contention in something like 7/8 years and a conference championship at least 1/3 of the time.

This requires us to ask about realistic timelines for finishing the climb *into* maintenance mode. I think that's mostly a personal question, and anyone can frame it as they like. I see it as a long process (in the parlance of James Franklin again: that becoming elite is harder than becoming great) and that, if the goal is 11-1, climbing can be happening, but seem hidden, within a long string of 10-2's. My dream is to hold at 10 wins and wait. That makes breaking through to 11 statistically inevitable ... given the right patience.

10-2 beating OSU obviously is not the same at all as 10-2 losing to OSU.  That is a serious monkey I think.

(My own monkey is to beat Alabama, so monkeys are all over the place of course.)

My guess is 10-2 with a L in THE Game will start to lower level grumblings.  11-1 might as well with that loss if OSU is 11-1 or better.

10-2 beating OSU obviously is not the same at all as 10-2 losing to OSU.  That is a serious monkey I think.

(My own monkey is to beat Alabama, so monkeys are all over the place of course.)

My guess is 10-2 with a L in THE Game will start to lower level grumblings.  11-1 might as well with that loss if OSU is 11-1 or better.

Because of fan chauvinism and the pre-Harbaugh decade, I think MSU losses are a much bigger bugaboo than OSU losses. OSU losses are more survivable and less grumbly than MSU losses.

Michigan fans routinely accepted that a rebuilding Michigan should realistically lose to a Tressel/Meyer OSU. It was the stronger program and essentially always favored. Most importantly, Michigan and OSU respect each other. By comparison, Michigan fans never tolerate MSU losses. There aren't any qualifiers either -- there're no times where Michigan fans look around and say"hey guys, it's understandable this time." There's chauvinism behind that. And the pre-Harbaugh years (Dantonio starting 7-2) raised the urgency.

Of course, the rivalry is little known outside the state. So this is not the kind of thing you should be surprised you didn't know, Cincy.

Sparty vs Weasels is in my top 5 every year,some seasons number 1

It's interesting how wins and losses are not syllogistic, if that's the right word.

Some wins are better than others, but the losses that are worse than others are not symmetric with that.

To get more specific does anyone want to predict anything besides rinse-n-repeat for Michigan? Flexing their muscles against less talented rosters but playing mostly flat and lost against teams of equivalent talent and athleticism? Harbaugh season 5 no different than Harbaugh seasons 1 - 4?

AC already covered this somewhat, but at least to the reasonable fans, losses to teams that end up finishing top-5 or so (ie, tOSU most years lately, M's bowl opponents, etc) are at least understandable.  No fan is ever going to be happy about a loss so I'm not saying that, just that losing to a REALLY good opponent is understandable.