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There are so many things to say about the M football team, but even though I am leaning toward being more negative than positive about the rest of the season, I have to agree with the few bloggers who are reasonable and say "let's see what happens."  With all of the "FIRE RODRIGUEZ NOW"s and the "He needs another year"s I find myself gritting my teeth and wondering how people can be so strongly opinionated either way.  They either know much much more than I do (which is possible) or they know nothing at all (which is more possible).  Because, I have no idea what is going to happen now.  The good, of course, is that M's last two games (losses) were against the likely top two teams in the conference (I haven't done the Big Ten ladder, but they would probably be tied for first with Purdue, of course).  M's prior game (win) was to one of the worst teams in the league.  With that in mind, we can conclude that M is not one of the best teams in the conference.  And, M may not be one of the worst teams in the conference.  So, really, we should expect losses in the last two games, and possible wins in the other three.  Two of those three are on the road.  All three of them are against teams the M has lost to twice in the past two seasons in pretty ugly games.   But, all three are still ranked below M in the CFRC, showing that computers think M's overall performance this year has been more impressive than the other three.  In fact PSU and PU (the two road games) are 30 positions lower.

I haven't even mentioned the factors regarding M's personnel, such as (negative) injuries, defensive schemes, young players (I've heard that somewhere), and (positive) DRob when playing well, Forcier for his first 10 passes, improving receivers, punting).

So, after looking at all of this, my heart (the one that hates getting hopes up and then having those hopes sat on by an elephant) can't be confident M is going to win more than one game.  5-2 shouldn't make me feel this way, but 5-2 with an RR team isn't the same as any other M 5-2 teams.  Last year M was 5-2.  Finished 5-7.    In 2007, M was 5-2, finished 9-4.  2003, finished10-3.  2000, 9-3.  1999, 10-2.  1998, 10-3. 1994, 8-4.  1982, 8-4.  1981, 9-3.  1980, 10-2.  1969, 8-3.  1961, 6-3.  1956, 7-2.  1954, 6-3.  1953, 6-3.  1949, 6-2-1.  1945, 7-3.  1942, 7-3.  1939, 7-2.  1920, 5-2.  1914, 6-3.  1912, 5-2.
So, in the history of M football prior to last year, in seasons M started 5-2, the average number of victories at the end of the season (regardless of how many games played) is 7.6.  That is 2.6 more than RR had last year. Another record for RR.