[Tuck4Bama]

The refrains are pretty common.


This team just isn't very good. ... This team can't throw the ball deep. ... This team can't beat Ohio State.

All of which might turn out to be true.

But one of the few certainties about this University of Michigan football season, with six games played and six games remaining, is that nobody - not you, not me, not Lloyd Carr or the Wolverines themselves - knows whether the team we've seen so far will turn out to be the team we see the rest of the way.

It was only six weeks ago, remember, that most of us were confident Chad Henne was a Heisman Trophy candidate and the combination of Henne, tailback Mike Hart and wideout Mario Manningham would be one of the most dangerous skill trios in college football.

What Michigan got instead was a one-trick pony in the form of Hart doing just about everything but kicking field goals (and, hey, let's be honest, maybe he should have tried).

Henne? Started the season with two puzzlingly ineffective games, then missed two more games with a knee injury. If you believe Mel Kiper, his NFL draft stock is basically in free fall.

Manningham? Only one of the biggest disappointments of this college football season, showing lackluster effort and inconsistent production prior to being suspended from last week's game for undisclosed reasons by Carr.

Next six weeks to reveal U-M football's identity

[EmpireWF]

I'm starting to come around on Michigan right now. I'm going as far as to say they will beat the Buckeyes in November.

(now watch, they'll lose this weekend)

[Tuck4Bama]

If OSU and Michigan were to play today I would have to pick Michigan. They seem to have put the two losses behind them an have taken aim at the rest of this season's games.