A cautionary word

Beware, as a fan, from burying teams for early foibles.  I see this on the message boards a bit, as overzealous fans try to proclaim "so and so is overrated".

For example, Michigan looked terrible today, but you can pretty much count on them getting their act together and having a pretty good football team come bowl season.

The same can probably be said of Auburn, and many others.  Even Oklahoma should somewhat recover from their disastrous start.

I remember in 2002, USC lost fairly close matches against Kansas State and Washington State, but transformed itself during an 8-game winning streak to finish 10-2.  It was good enough for a 4th place finish in the polls, but in all likelihood, the Trojans were the best team in the country, relative to everyone else, at the end of 2002.  Maybe there's another struggling team out there right now that people are looking to bury.  And maybe that team will turn itself around and look elite in November.

I tend to be a lot more dismissive of early losses and struggles---if---a team finishes strong, and provides evidence that their style of play is worthy of joining the nation's elite.  I hunch we'll see Michigan comfortably within the top ten when we're chewing the fat on here in November and December.

Remember when everyone was jumping on Virginia Tech last year for their loss to USC and NC State?  I guess they turned out alright.  Basically, we should just try and be careful to pounce unless we're personally convinced a team is weak (Tennessee, perhaps), period, and can provide some justification to that.