This is the year Lovie finally has an ultimatum. He's gotta win 5 game this year. Another 3/4 win season is treading water at this point.
Rutgers and the three non con games (EMU loses a decent amount of production, and they really are just a slightly above average MAC team this year) are cant misses. Between Purdue and Minny, we have a couple borderline tossups (Minny isn't gaining much steam and even with Brohm Purdue faces a lot of attrition--good class incoming though). Wisconsin, NW, and heck NU/MSU aren't world beaters and we should at least of shots in those games. Maybe we are that crappy loss for Iowa in another sure fire 8/9 win campaign for them. Michigan will Michigan, but really, you can't ask for a softer B1G schedule than ours.
If Lovie can't get to a bowl game, the experiment is over. That being said, I believe he will (seriously, he can basically stumble into this one).