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The Blockhams in "TWITTER STALKER"
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TWITTER STALKER
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Team Performance versus Scout Recruit Class Rank
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As I was reading through fellow fans' reactions to recent recruitment news, someone had mentioned that 'recruiting doesn't really matter.' I'd read that several places, and in the back of my mind I probably didn't believe it. So, I decided to see if the quality of the class as measured through the eyes of a scouting site really did matter.
Turns out, it may not really matter. (Note: This isn't an end all be all of an analysis, and I'm not an expert on Statistics, Recruiting or Women. I also only looked at the top 12 as this takes a lot of time, plus it afforded me another opportunity to disrespect Ohio.)
What?! How dare thee suggest class rank doesn't matter! I'd kindly refer you to the table.
What is this table that thee speaketh of? Uh, chart?
| 2011 AP | Team | Average Class | Difference | 2011 Rank - 2007/8 Class | 2012 Class | 2011 Class | 2010 Class | 2009 Class | 2008 Class | 2007 Class |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama | 8.4 | 7.4 | 10.5 | 2 | 7 | 10 | 2 | 1 | 22 |
| 2 | LSU | 10.0 | 8.0 | 12.5 | 7 | 9 | 9 | 3 | 7 | 22 |
| 3 | Oklahoma State | 29.0 | 26.0 | 29.0 | 27 | 18 | 18 | 45 | 40 | 24 |
| 4 | Oregon | 16.4 | 12.4 | 12.0 | 13 | 11 | 13 | 26 | 23 | 9 |
| 5 | Arkansas | 26.0 | 21.0 | 24.0 | 16 | 17 | 35 | 20 | 24 | 34 |
| 6 | USC | 5.8 | -0.2 | -0.5 | 32 | 4 | 5 | 9 | 9 | 2 |
| 7 | Stanford | 29.6 | 22.6 | 36.0 | 18 | 23 | 24 | 15 | 43 | 43 |
| 8 | Boise State | 68.6 | 60.6 | 52.5 | 53 | 65 | 97 | 60 | 64 | 57 |
| 9 | South Carolina | 20.0 | 11.0 | 11.5 | 9 | 12 | 34 | 13 | 34 | 7 |
| 10 | Wisconsin | 34.4 | 24.4 | 15.0 | 52 | 38 | 33 | 51 | 26 | 24 |
| 11 | Michigan State | 40.6 | 29.6 | 42.5 | 37 | 27 | 32 | 37 | 56 | 51 |
| 12 | Michigan | 14.2 | 2.2 | -4.0 | 4 | 29 | 12 | 14 | 6 | 10 |
| 16 | Oklahoma | 14.4 | -1.6 | 4.0 | 14 | 15 | 15 | 2 | 10 | 30 |
| 19 | Georgia | 10.4 | -8.6 | -8.0 | 20 | 5 | 21 | 4 | 5 | 17 |
| 23 | Florida State | 13.8 | -9.2 | -2.5 | 15 | 1 | 9 | 18 | 8 | 33 |
| NR | Notre Dame | 12.6 | - | - | 10 | 8 | 19 | 23 | 2 | 11 |
| NR | Texas | 6.4 | - | - | 1 | 3 | 3 | 7 | 16 | 3 |
| NR | Texas A&M | 21.6 | - | - | 11 | 30 | 25 | 12 | 15 | 26 |
| NR | Florida | 12.2 | - | - | 5 | 26 | 1 | 21 | 12 | 1 |
Alabama and LSU have consistently strong classes, and the oversigning debacle probably helps them out some more. They along with USC seem to perform commensurate with expectations.
Some of the interesting items are the massive difference between expectations and results for a few select schools: Boise St, Michigan St, Texas, Florida, Oklahoma St and Notre Dame. You can see for yourselves, but Boise St rocks it with classes that are rarely in the top 50%. Their average class is sitting at 70. Texas and Notre Dame have the opposite problem.
You clearly need to have quality players. However, strong coaching, an eye for talent and knowing how to use and motivate that talent go far. Also, it may suggest that these recruiting services "one size fits all" approach to ranking players and classes is largely irrelevant to a team's performance. There's a long list of 5* failures and world beating 3* guys.
I didn't do a regression analysis as I'm a) lazy, b) not The Mathlete and c) things seem fairly obvious after perusing the data. Also, any laser focus on a single aspect of a team's record will probably miss the forest for the trees, but I'm just trying to provide some evidence on this point specifically.
Let's talk data sources and definitions. I used the final AP Ranking for this past season. The class ranking data is from Scout. I imagine it would be easy enough to bump this against some of the other scouting services to see what they say, as well as perhaps the Coach's Poll and whatnot, but I my imaginary army of minions was busy doing something else. So, this is what we're left with.
The "Average Class" is the class average from 2007 through 2011. I felt that the 2012 rankings, while somewhat finalized, aren't really part of this equation, yet. More just a "that's kinda interesting" rather than a "I think there's something there."
The "Difference" is the difference between that aforementioned "Average Class" and the final 2011 AP Ranking.
The "2011 Rank - 2007/8 Class" is the 2011 AP Ranking minus the average of the 2007 and 2008 Recruit Class.
---
So, what do you think?
Coaching The West Coast Quarterback, By Al Borges
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As you may or may not be aware, our offensive coordinator wrote a book. I finally got my hands on it thanks to Michigan's ILL Department and wrote up a short summary/review of it. Take from it what you will.
Title: Coaching The West Coast Quarterback
Author: Borges, Alan. Borges, Keith.
Publisher: Coaches Choice
Published: 2002
ISBN: 1-58518-341-5
Length: 120 pages
What This Book Is:
This is the kind of book I'd expect a high school offensive coordinator to be reading, along with giving his quarterbacks a copy of it. It does assume you already know the fundamentals and as such is light on the drills. The book tells you what kind of stance the quarterback should be in, but doesn't provide instruction for how to correct a quarterback's stance. That's left for other instructional videos (Borges also made a series of videos that carry the same title as this book).
What This Book Isn't:
This isn't some magical key into the mind of Al Borges. This book is written solely about the West Coast offense, long before the rise of the Gulf Coast offense (see snoopblue's diary on the Gulf Coast Offense).
Still Borges spent a lot of time on the West Coast and the West Coast offense definitely played a formative role in how Al Borges does things. Plus the book has value by itself, if you're a coach, it's worth at the very least paging through it.
Interesting Random Fact:
The only copy Michigan's ILL service could find is from the Library of Congress. So we don't own a copy of the book, nor does any other B1G school.
Preface and Chapter 1, The Fundamentals of QB Play:
The book opens up with a lot of the stand lines about what you want in a quarterback. You know standard stuff like leader on and off the field, toughness, etc. The most interesting part here I found were the quotes:
'Intelligence is important, but a great work ethic can overcome much of what some players lack in natural "smarts."''He [the QB] should know exactly how his coach thinks and be able to regurgitate it verbally at the drop of hat.'
The first quotation pretty much sums up Jason Campbell. At the risk of taking too much from a single sentence in the book, it does show a willingess to engage in development projects with high schools who have the talent and work ethic but no the smarts. The second quote is fairly standard, as every OC out there wants to mind meld with his QBs, but not ever coach uses regurgitate in their writing. Another point for Coach Borges.
One interesting comment though that did come out of this section is:
"Keep in mind that the quarterback does not look over 6' 4" and 6' 5" linemen. He is seeing and throwing through windows in the pass rush."
In other words, good line play can compensate for a shorter quarterback. Assuming the line knows where the QB is looking, it is their job to clear guys out of Denard's field of vision. Clearly it helps if the QB is taller, but in the book Borges specific states he values mobility over the QB standing tall and looking over linemen. An interesting fact to trot out next time you're stuck around family who want to complain about Denard being a midget.
Also in this section Borges covers the "Sprint Out" concept. Throughout the entire book, he stresses the idea of a mobile quarterback that can add an extra threat with his legs as being desirable. Although he does seem to be talking about more about a Tate Forcier kind of quarterback: pass first, use your legs to buy time, and then run for a few yards if needed. Also throwing the ball away is stressed as something that should be done as opposed to forcing the pass. You can tell the book was definitely written before the rise of the quarterbacks like Denard. The overall tone of the book though does suggest that even if we get RoboMorris, he'll be running more frequently than RoboHenne did.
We even get a little bit of option ball out in the book. Although it is merely two pages tacked on to the end of the capture on fundamentals. The main take away on the option is that "When executed precisely, the option can be low-risk and very productive." He only covers the speed and dive options though in this book.
Chapter 2, Philosophy of the Passing Game:
One of the concepts that Borges mentions here is that half the passing yards should come through the air and half the passing yards should come via yards after catch. So who knows, the days of the tiny little slot ninjas with cloaking devices might not be over. Borges also stresses the concept though of always having a deep threat wide reciever who on any play can be hit for 6 points. In terms of WRs Borges has three:
Hands Guy: Dependable at catching the ball.
Deep Threat: Can get six points
Route Runner: Most likely to be open.
From there the book goes into a review of the Delta, Flood, Option, China, Crossing, and One on One concepts. Also overthrowing or "putting it where only the good guy can get it" is stressed. So Denard's overthrows are actually a sign he is learning from Borges, although accuracy would be even better.
As an interesting side, Borges estimates that if the defense rushes six that it is unlikely for them to all remain blocked for more than 3 seconds. So if you are trying to raise a young quarterback run some drills to make reads and release within 3 seconds.
Chapter 3, Reading and Understanding
Chapter 3 is the diagram heavy chapter of the book. Covering reading the defense, hot routes, and the like. The most interesting part starts on page 40 with the contours of the defense. The contour of a defense is created by drawing a line from the one side of the field to other, connecting the defensive backs. So if all the safeties and corners are at the same depth you would have a flat line. As they move up or down you get peaks and valleys. The quarterback can guess the style of defensive coverage (three deep, two deep, man, etc) based on how the defensive backs are lined up. Although Borges does point out that a good defense will always run out of the same contour or change on purpose to bait the quarterback. A defense will poor coaching will tip its hand by changing the contour of the defense depending on the called play.
A good example of this would be when we'd push Kovacs up and create a contour that suggests we're blitzing Kovacs. We of course did just that with great success, but other times we'd have Kovacs drop and set him up for a pick. This might also help shed some light on the whole "Martin drops into coverage" thing we tried. You blitz Kovacs and then the QB throws in the direction of the blitz reflexively, but Martin is there to swat the ball.
In this chapter Borges also covers the different defensive aligments (4-3, Bear, etc) and their weaknesses. A common theme here is Borges seems to view a lot of the defensive sets as vulernable to inside-out. That is a runningback or tight end moving out and catching the ball, possibly with WRs to block and create a screen. As mentioned in snoopblue's review of the Gulf Coast offense, Borges likes throwing to running backs. Here we see the same theme covered repeatedly. Earlier when talking about receivers Borges stressed that you must have a running back with good hands.
Borges also discusses how a defender who is backpedaling and flatfooted is always a threat because the QB never knows how well he'll jump. Borges really stresses you have to force the defenders into some kind of lateral movement that creates either a leading or trailing window for the ball. Consider for a moment on the bubble screen, if the DB doesn't backpedal off the WR (because they plan to play bump, bail or kick), you're left with a defender who is flatfooted, which Borges hates. Coupled with his love of inside-out, I can understand why he might have some objection to the bubble screen, if that area of the field is weak Borges appears to prefer to send a TE or a RB into it and throw to them. Take that for what you will and of course keep in mind the age of this book.
If you were lurking around the board earlier in the season you might remember a few debates on how our DBs always seemed to be a step behind the WRs. Some of the other posters did an excellent job explaining trail coverages. On page 69 of the book Borges provides a great rundown of both DB and Safety play techinques, including trail and robber. Someone with more patience than myself and access to the torrents from two years ago should consider going back and checking to see if we were frequently changing defensive contours (thus tipping our hand) and if we altered techinques frequently. Borges specifically mentions good defensives will frequently vary techinques. Each techinque has a set counter the WR can undertake, so good defenses will alter them. Bad defenses will not and thus make it easy for the WRs to adjust.
So a defense that rarely changes contours (or changes them to bait) but frequently changes techniques (bump, bail, engage, kick, backet, etc) is a well coached defense. Defenses that do the opposite are not. I think next year I'm going to watch a lot of Michigan games and then Arizona games and see if I can spot the difference and thus prove that Gibson is a terrible, terrible, coach.
Last Third Of the Book:
The last third of the book is a specific breakdown of various routes, the footwork involved in them, and the theory behind audibles. I'll gloss over it as it is mostly mechanics. Once again though definitely something to have any future QB you are trying to raise read.
One interesting section is on page 103 where Borges breaks down third down decision making. He does not say anything like "center it for a punt and play defense", so we're definitely out of the DeBord era for what it is worth. Here also is where Borges stresses he expects the QB to be able to run for 3 or 4 years and get the first down. However you only run if you have a clear lane, scrambling is solely to buy time for the pass. I'd imagine his time around Denard may have made him rethink that last bit.
The final thing of note is on page 105 where he talks about the 4 minute offense and how to bleed the clock while moving to score (and ensure the other team won't get a chance for a rebuttal). Borges gets real specific including that the team should unpile as slowly as possible after the running play to further bleed the clock. Definitely interesting as you never hear the talking heads on TV discuss the 4 minute offense.
The book concludes with some basic QB drills like scramble drills and throwing from your needs. Borges does mention footwork is much more important than arm motion. This helps explain why Campbell had a horrible throwing motion but always was good at planting his feet and aligning his shoulders.
Conclusion:
As I said this isn't like some super deep look at the mind of Al Borges or what he'll do here. This is a fairly straightforward "Here is how you run the West Coast Offense" text. That being said I'd encourage picking it up solely for Chapters 2 and 3. Read those two chapters, understand the diagrams, and you'll definitely increase your knowledge of the game. It's not that hard of a book to wrap your head around and you'll walk away with a greater appreciation for it.
By the way if you're a current student, staff, or faculty member, consider taking a moment to fill out a request that the library buy the book. The book itself goes for 20 dollars on Amazon or takes 3.5 weeks to get via ILL (and I'm holding the current copy of it, so you're out of luck). If a bunch of us request it, perhaps the library will buy a copy.
Reading the Tea Leaves: 2011 Postmortem Autopsy Edition
Last May, I read some tea leaves in anticipation of the 2011 football season. After careful analysis, I concluded that our defense was likely to go from terrible-to-average, and our offense from great-to-good. In all likelihood, it was thought at the time, that we'd go 8-4 or 9-3, with a signature victory over either Li'l Bro or Ohio. A dreary, depressing repeat of 2010's 7-5 was considered the second most likely scenario. All things pointed to "kinda, sorta better...but not really that much better." In other words, not necessarily better than Rich Rodriguez would have done in a hypothetical year 4, though qualitatively different.
Then, at midseason, I read some more. We'd made it to East Lansing undefeated--with 1 more win than we had when we played them in 2010, and 2 more than we had when we played them in 2009. Things looked pretty good. Though 9-3/good 8-4 was still considered the most likely scenario, now that gleaming city on the hill, a 10-2 regular season record, seemed attainable. Imaginable. Plausible.
Then we did it: we went 10-2. Then we did it some more: we beat Virginia Tech in a BCS bowl. In doing so, we accomplished a few things we hadn't done in a while, such as:
Winning 10 games for the first time since 2006-7.
Winning a bowl game for the first time since 2007-8.
Winning a BCS bowl game for the first time since...1999-2000.
That, deserves a big round of applause, doesn't it? So I'd like give it up for Team 132, Brady Hoke and the rest of the coaching staff for exceeding my, and most people's, expectations for the 2011-12 football season. Huzzah!
But...
That Sugar Bowl victory was a funny one, wasn't it? We didn't look like the better team most of the team, and our opponents looked like, well, they looked like the another team with really fast DEs and LBs and a moving rock at QB who can kinda sorta run and kinda sorta pass, but excels at shredding us for big gains. That's right, the Mississippi State team that beat us 52-14 in the 2010 Gator Bowl. Yet, somehow, this time they only scored 20...and we scored 23.
Nothing, and I mean nothing, captures the difference between 2010 and 2011 like the difference between our bowl performances. In 2010 we ran all over the field but couldn't score against good defenses when it mattered, while pretty much anyone with a pulse could score on us at will. In 2011, we sometimes struggled for yards, but scored as much against the good teams as the bad (excepting, of course, Minnesota). Good teams couldn't really put the ball in the endzone on us either, even when they picked up yards. We were good when it mattered; no, we were better when it mattered.
Comparing Performance to Expectations (and 2011 to 2010)
To finish off the diary series, I thought I'd look back at the previous sets of predictions and see how they fared. The initial prediction of 9-3/good 8-4 was predicated on certain concrete ideas about how much we'd improve vs. our performance in 2010. So let's get compare those to what actually happened:
1. Defense.
Initial Prediction: A major improvement from wretched (ranked in the 100s) to average (ranked in the 60s-40s).
Midseason Preduction: These guys might be a top 30 defense.
Postmortem: To put it mildly, the defense exceeded all expectations. We weren't an average defense, as predicted back in May, or even a somewhat above average defense, as predicted at midseason. Rather, we were the #17 defense and #6 scoring defense. That's up from #110 and #107 last year.
Or, to put it in more objective terms:
| 2010 | 2011 | Differential | |
| Total Defense | 450.8 | 322.2 | -128.6 |
| Scoring Defense | 35.2 | 17.4 | -17.8 |
2. Offense.
Initial Prediction: A moderate decline in total yards and scoring.
Midseason Prediction: A moderate decline in total yards, but no decline in scoring.
Postmortem: We did decline in total yards from #8 to #42. But, in scoring, which is much more important, we went from #25 to #26.
In objective terms:
| 2010 | 2011 | Differential | |
| Total Offense | 488.7 | 404.7 | -84.0 |
| Scoring Offense | 32.8 | 33.3 | +0.5 |
...and there you have it. We gained fewer yards but scored more points on offense. We allowed fewer yards and even fewer points. Oh, and we kicked a few field goals, thanks to the Brunette Girls of the world.
Conclusions
For one thing, we now know that Mattison is a Defensive God. He, Hoke and the whole defensive staff pulled off something I previously thought impossible...turning a laughing stock into a top-tier unit in exactly 1 year. If we doubted that the problem was coaching before, we know it was now. This unit was the best we've had since 2006-7, and didn't have nearly the talent that defense did.
For another, we now know that Borges can roll with the spread, and will tailor his schemes to what he has around him. Looking forward to 2012 and beyond to the Devin Gardner year(s), this will serve us well. He might not be the offensive genius Rich Rodriguez is, but he's a crafty fella who knows how to win. Should work even better in the Shane Morris + deadly line of maulers era.
Finally, we can dig into the stats a bit and see that one of the underlying constrasts was in Time of Possession. I
t used to be common sense that you tried to dominate ToP, and then the revisionists came around and said that there was no evidence slow offensive teams did better than fast offensive teams. Now, instead, you were supposed to jettison the possession game and score quickly. Or not. Because it didn't matter.
What I learned this season was that ToP may not matter in many cases, but it sure does when you're exactly the kind of team that has close to zero depth on defense. Then you really should keep them off the field if you can. Oregon can do the uptempo thing because they have lots and lots of depth on defense. They may not be Alabama, but they have a legion of solid dudes they can substitute in and out, and that's exactly what they do.
In 2010 and 2011, by contrast, we had an uneven group of starters, and wisps of smoke behind that. Brady Hoke's decision to slow things down paid off for us in 2011, even if it meant losing a little razzle-dazzle in the process. Going uptempo or playing the possession game is a choice you make based on your personnel, not an ideological question with a "right" and a "wrong" answer. In 2011, we chose the right course for that roster, and it made a world of difference.
Minimum Playoff Size, Part III
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So here we go again, after Part 1 and Part 2. Before I dive in to this, I just want to remind everyone the point of this exercise.
At the end of the regular season, where can we split away the first group of teams and say "Everyone in this group is better than everyone else". This allows us to figure out the minimum size of a college football playoff that would leave us with no teams who could complain about being excluded.
My work from the first two parts (which takes us up through 2005) suggested that we've yet to exceed 4 teams.
As we move forward I'm curious to see if the elite category always stays under 4, or if it exceeds it.
2006/2007 BCS
Championship Game: #2 Florida blows out #1 Ohio State
Who Else Had A Claim:
Ohio State: Ohio State finishes off the year undefeated, complete with defeating #2 Texas and then later #2 Michigan. They also defeat #13 Iowa. An undefeated season in which you defeat the #2 twice is a great resume.
Florida: Florida sufers a 10 point loss to #11 Auburn in mid October. However they defeat #13 Tenn, #9 LSU, #25 Georgia, and #8 Arkansas. 4-1 vs ranked teams is a good record and in hindsight their defeat over tOSU proves they were an elite team.
ACC: Wake Forest wins the ACC this year. Their resume features them going 2-2 vs ranked teams (lost to #12 Clemson and #19 VT, beats #22 Georgia Tech and #16 BC). They'd go to lose the Orange Bowl to #6 Louisville. While Wake Forest offers a decent resume, they don't really stand out.
Big 12: Oklahoma started out the season struggling to beat UAB (24-7) which dropped them 5 spots in the polls. They go on to lose to #18 Oregon by one point in Autzen and lose by 14 points to #7 Texas in the Cotton Bowl. After that they go on to defeat #23 Missouri, #21 Texas A&M, and #18 Nebraska. So they come out of regular season at 3-2 against ranked teams and no wins over a top 15 program. Oklahoma reverts to early season form in their bowl and loses to Boise.
Big East: The Big East is actually decent this year. Schiano actually looks like a real coach at Rutgers, WVU is humming along, and Lousville under Petrino wins the Big East. Louisville defeats #15 Miami and #3 WVU but loses to #14 Rugters by three points. What really hurts Lousville here is that aside from WVU, Rutgers, and Miami, their next best win was over a KSU team that went 7-6. Losing to Rutgers is hard to recover from due to the weak overall schedule.
Pac: USC is its normal efficient self in terms of taking care of business, #19 Nebraska #20 Oregon, #17 California, #6 Notre Dame all fall to the Trojans. However USC appears to forget it has games against Oregon State and UCLA, losing to both squads. Oregon State does end up ranky #21 (10-4 record) but UCLA remains unranked and finishes up 7-6. So when the dust settles USC is 4-1 versus ranked teams with an odd loss to UCLA haunting them.
Independents: I'll mention Notre Dame since they were BCS eligible. They end up 10-2. Their failure is a weak schedule and the fact they're 1-2 vs ranked teams. Michigan and USC both crush them. They do blow out #19 PSU though 41 to 17. That is the second week of the season though and PSU finishes off 9-4 and ranked #25. A losing record against ranked teams does not make you elite, no matter how hard you kick Army's ass.
MWC: BYU is undefeated in the MWC and goes 11-2 overall. Their two losses are to an unranked Arizona outfit and #25 BC. They do defeat #15 TCU. Not good enough.
WAC: Boise runs the table to turn in an undefeated season. Their key problem is they do not play a ranked team. They do however defeat Oregon State in Week 2 and Oregon State ends the year ranked. Boise suffers from the fact that aside from Oregon State they only play a bunch of MWC and WAC teams. Undefeated loses some of its cachet when you consider the quality of the teams on the field.
The Verdict on 2006/2007:
This is a year I find hard to really make a call on. Ohio State went undefeated so they're in. Florida has a really impressive resume. On the other hand Boise has the whole "Hey we went undefeated" argument, but was hamstrung by a crap schedule and their only ranked win is Oregon State (who was not a good team early in the year and didn't really start looking like a ranked outfit until after they played Boise).
I'm going to be generous though and say this year you need a five team playoff field of OSU, Florida, Louisville, Boise, and USC to really settle it. OSU and Florida are clearly the big dogs on the block. However Lousville and Boise look legit but suffer from a lack of chances to prove themselves due to their weak conferences. USC also gets a nod due to their wins over ranked teams. Wake Forest would make a decent #6.
All that being said, I don't think anyone has the right to complain about Florida getting the coaches trophy. Still though this year I'll say 5 as the final verdict.
2007/2008 BCS:
Championship Game:#2 LSU defeats #1 Ohio State
Who Else Had A Claim:
LSU: LSU finishes off the season 11-2. They drop games to #18 Kentucky (how on earth did Kentucky get ranked..?) and unranked Arkansas. They defeat #9 VT, #14 USC, #7 Florida, #19 Auburn, and #15 Tenn. That's an impressive set of wins to make you forget the fact they lost two games.
Ohio State: Ohio State almost runs the table. Only on 10 Nov they lose to an unranked Illinois team by 7 points in Columbus. Beside that Ohio State defeats #20 Purdue, #25 PSU, #19 Wisconsin, and #23 Michigan. That's decent, but not great in that tOSU never plays a team in the top 15.
ACC: Virginia Tech loses early to #2 LSU (actually they're blown out and lose by 41 points). They also lose by 4 points to #2 BC on 25 October. In the ACC Championship game though they defeat now #12 BC by 14 points. Along the way they also defeat #22 Clemson and #16 Virginia. They're kind of like the diet version of Ohio State, they just lose to LSU in Sept instead of January.
Big 12: Missouri almost makes a strong case for a bid at the national championship. They defeat #25 Nebraska, #22 Texas Tech, and #2 Kansas. They lose to Oklahoma twice though an fail to win the B12. Oklahoma defeats #16 Texas, #11 Missouri, and #1 Missouri but loses to unranked Colorado and Texas Tech. All Missouri had to do ws beat Oklahoma in the B12 Title Game (Mizzou was ranked #1), but they didn't. So the B12 fails to produce a conference champ worthy of consideration.
Big East: WVU finishes up 11-2, but drops games against #18 South Florida and an unranked Pitt. They defeat #25 Rutgers, #21 Cincinnati, and #20 Connecticut. WVU appears comparable to VT.
PAC: USC seems to have settle in comfortable with the whole "loses two games every season" thing. They lose to unranked Stanford and #5 Oregon. They defeat #14 Nebraska, #24 California, and #6 Arizona State. USC is LSU with fewer wins over ranked teams.
Independents: Notre Dame is 3-9. Returning to Glory though.
MWC: BYU goes 11-2 again. They defeat an unranked Arizona, but drop games to Tulsa and UCLA. They do not defeat a ranked opponent. No sale.
WAC: Hawaii finishes off the season undefeated. However their own win worth talking about is when they beat #19 Boise by 12 points. They also need overtime to handle Lousiana Tech and San Jose State. Boise meanwhile isn't that great of a win considering they didn't beat anyone all year. They lost to Washington and needed four overtimes to beat Nevada.
The Verdict on 2007/2008:
The BCS conferences fail to produce any undefeated teams this year and that's a problem. Everyone manages to slip up against an unranked team. Hawaii is undefeated, but really they're only undefeated at punching small children and taking their candy.
When you compare say Ohio State, USC, VT, and WVU they're all fairly similiar teams. This year you could seed up a nice 6 team playoff with LSU, Ohio State, USC, VT, WVU, and Hawaii. Although if Missouri had won out, you'd have a possible 7 teams in play (or you could go punt Hawaii back to the sandbox and let them punch toddlers some more).
2008/2009 BCS:
Championship Game: #2 Florida defeats #1 Oklahoma
Who Else Had A Claim:
Oklahoma exits the regular season with on a single losss, to #5 Texas. They defeat #23 TCU, #16 Kansas, #2 Texas Texas, #12 Oklahoma State, and #17 Missouri. That's a nice resume right here.
Florida loses by a single point to Ole Miss early in the year. They go on to defeat #3 LSU, #8 Georgia, #23 South Carolina, #24 Florida State, and #1 Alabama. Also a very nice resume.
ACC: Virginia Tech loses 4 times in the regular season, three times at the hands of unranked teams. Yeah that's just not going to cut it. Next!
Big East: Cincinnati loses to Oklahoma by 26 points early in the year. They also fall to unranked Connecticut. They beat #23 South Florida, #20 WVU, and #20 Pitt. It's a decent season, but it isn't equal to Florida and Oklahoma.
Big 10: So many repressed memories. Anyway Penn State wins the conference with one loss to unranked Iowa. They defeat #21 Illinois, #24 Wisconsin, #10 Ohio State, and #15 Michigan State. They have a resume that is almost comparable to Florida in that they both lost to an unranked team. Florida though beat a lot better quality of ranked teams that PSU did.
PAC: USC slips early against unranked Oregon State. They defeat #5 Ohio Sate, #23 Oregon, and #21 Cal. It's a decent resume but not great.
Independents: Notre Dame is 8-5. Nope.
MWC: Utah is undefeated. They defeat #24 Michigan and this turns out not to be all that hard to do (we do not *loads shotgun* finish the season *places shotgun under his chin* ranked *blam*). They also defeat #11 TCU and #14 BYU. In the Sugar Bowl they prove themselves legit when they defeat #4 Alabama.
WAC: Boise finishes up the year with an undefeated season and a win over #12 Oregon. They go on to lose to TCU in a bowl.
The Verdict on 2008/2009:
The issue is the undefeated MWC and WAC teams mess this all up. Subtract them out and you can say Oklahoma and Florida were definitely the best. PSU is about half a step back due to the lesser quality of their ranked wins. USC is right behind PSU. The issue though is if you do that, you end up leaving two undefeated teams out in the cold.
On the other hand if you let the MWC and WAC in, you have to let PSU and USC in. Yes those last two have loses, but they have more ranked wins than the MWC and WAC champs. So this year you need 6 again:
Florida, Oklahoma, PSU, USC, Boise, and Utah.
2009/2010 BCS
Championship Game: #1 Alabama defeats #2 Texas
Who Else Had A Claim:
Texas finishes the season undefeated, although they only do play three ranked teams. Still if you make it out the B12 undefeated, you deserve consideration.
Alabama makes it out of the SEC undefeated. They're in.
ACC: 10-3 Georgia Tech fails to win the conference, falling to 9-5 Clemson in the ACC Title Game. Clemson ends up vacating the game though. Either way neither Clemson nor GT compares to Texas or Alabama.
Big East: Cincinnati gets in on the undefeated action, with wins over three ranked teams along the way (#21, #23, and #25). Undefeated is nice, but they did have a soft schedule. Also Florida beats them by 27 points in the the Sugar Bowl (although to be fair, Kelly had left for Notre Dame prior to the bowl).
Big Ten: Ohio State wins the Big Ten but loses to #3 USC and unranked Purdue along the way. They defeat #11 Penn State and #15 Iowa. That's good, but it isn't a top shelf resume.
Pac 10: Oregon wins the PAC10. They beat #18 Utah, #6 Cal, #4 USC, and #13 Oregon State. Thety lose to #14 Boise and unranked Stanford.
MWC: TCU finishes out undefeated, defeating #16 BYU and #16 Utah along the way.
WAC: Boise finishes out undefeated. The only ranked team they defeat is Oregon on opening day.
The Verdict on 2009/2010:
Well this is easy. 5. We have 5 undefeated teams and all of them defeated at least one ranked team. Ohio State and Oregon can go argue over who deserved the #6 seed, although I'd say OSU since Oregon had already managed to lose to Boise.
2010/2011 BCS
Championship Game: #1 Auburn defeats #2 Oregon
Who Else Had a Claim:
Auburn is undefeated out of the SEC. That gets you in.
Oregon is undefeated out of the PAC10, that also gets you in.
ACC: VT wins the ACC with two losses. #5 Boise State and FCS level James Madison. No, just no.
B12: Oklahoma wins the conference, but loses to #16 Missouri and unranked Texas A&M along the way. So no dice considering we have undefeated teams in play.
Big East: No team in the Big East finishes the season ranked or with fewer than 4 losses. So no.
Big Ten: Three way tie with MSU, Wisconsin, and Ohio State. Ohio State goes 12-1 but of course ends up vacating everything except their loss to #18 Wisconsin. Wisconsin loses to MSU but beats Ohio State and gets to go to the Rose Bowl. Sparty loses to Iowa and gets the Capitol One Bowl. With undefeated teams in play, this isn't good enough.
MWC: TCU finishes out undefeated as well. Defeats #24 Oregon State and #6 Utah in the regular season. They also defeat #4 Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl.
WAC: Nevada finishes 12-1 with a lone loss to Hawaii. With undefeated teams in play, this isn't enough.
The Verdict on 2010/2011:
Three. The undefeateds: Auburn, Oregon, and TCU. Wisconsin makes a nice 4th in a four team playoff system.
2011/2012 BCS
Championship Game: #2 Alabama defeats #1 LSU
Who Else Had A Claim:
#1 LSU: Undefeated. Looks good.
#2 Abalama: Did not win their conference. Did not win their division. Did with the national championship. How on earth does that one work...? So no. You want to play for the crystal ball, win your conference.
ACC: If Virginia Tech managed to beat Clemson, they'd come out of the ACC undefeated and have a legit shot at preventing the LSU vs 'Bama rematch. Instead they let a three loss Clemson win the ACC. Clemson of course gets beat so badly by WVU you'd think General Grant was leading the Mountaineers.
Big12: Oklahoma State defeats #8 Texas A&M, #21 Texas, #19 Kansas State, and #11 Oklahoma but trips up against unranked Iowa State. Still though unlike Bama they won their division and their conference.
Big East: WVU finishes the season with three losses, included getting their ass kicked by LSU. They beat #23 Cincinnati for their only ranked win. Not good enough.
Big 10: Wisconsin removed themselves from consideration when an unranked Ohio State team defeats them. They also go 1-1 vs Sparty. Sparty loses to Notre Dame and Nebraska in the regular season and earns themselves another trip to a non BCS Bowl.
PAC: The PAC is a mess. Stanford and Oregon both finish off the season 8-1 in conference play. Oregon beats Stanford, but loses to USC. They also lost to USC. They defeat UCLA in a gimped championship game (USC cannot attend due to sanctions) and win the Rose Bowl.
MWC: TCU finishes of with two losses. To Baylor and SMU, so they're out.
WAC: Boise is now in the MWC. The WAC no longer matters.
The Verdict For 2011/2012:
I'd say two for this year. LSU and Oklahoma State. If we're doing a 4 team playoff you can toss Wisconsin and Oregon in. Stanford and Alabama can go play in the "Did not win division or conference Bowl". The winner can go on to play Sparty for offseason whining rights.
The Mininum Numbers Upon Review:
- 1998: 4
- 1999: 2
- 2000: 4
- 2001: 4
- 2002: 2
- 2003: 3
- 2004: 3
- 2005: 2
- 2006: 5
- 2007: 6
- 2008: 6
- 2009: 5
- 2010: 3
- 2011: 2
Some Thoughts:
You have to win you conferece...I strongly advocate this rule for a couple of reasons. First off we're going to have issues pushing through too large of a playoff bracket. The current cluster of bowls are against a playoff as it threatens their revenue stream. The bigger a playoff is, the more is weakens the bowls since it means they'll have fewer good teams to pick from. Let the bowls have teams like 2011 Michigan, 2011 Alabama, and 2011 Stanford as a way of placating them.
Secondly by requiring to win your conference we make the title games the de facto first round of the playoffs. It becomes a specialized round in which you are required to remove any sibling who might be a threat to you. It becomes kind of a unique aspect of the playoff in that you always get seeded against your sibling challenger first. Of course the B12 needs to get back up to 12 teams and stop with their round robin play for the field to be 100% even in this regard.
4 teams playoff...This system works well enough for 10 out of 14 years. In those 10 years, if you select 4 teams there is not a team left out of the playoffs who can say "I have a resume equal to the #1 seed". There can be some quibbling over who got the #4 (and maybe #3) bid, but you can definitiely say anyone complaining is lesser than #1 and #2. For example see 2002 and 2005.
6 team playoff...This system is needed for 4 out of 14 years. It also has value in years like 2002 and 2005 where it would let you bring along more teams and avoid disputes who gets the lower seeds.
4 vs 6...Here I think is where it gets interesting. Consider the teams who broke the BCS. TCU, Boise, and Utah (Hawaii also gets an honorable mention.). It's rare to have all 6 BCS conferences produce elite winners, instead 2 to 4 BCS conferences product elite talent and then the MWC/WAC contributed teams that break a 4 team system. TCU is now in the B12 (and before that were headed for the Big East). Boise is headed for the Big East. Utah is in the PAC. Hawaii meanwhile lost their coach, appears to have ties to the Hawaiian Mafia and has fallen off.
In the independent ranks, BYU and Notre Dame might one day built themselves in to the next BCS Busters, however the B12 could absorb BYU and there are a few landing spots for Notre Dame.
Houston also started to put to together some scary offenses, but found themselves raided for talent (Holgorsen, Sumlin come from there). Tulsa also started to build itself up a bit, but Graham was lured away.
Meanwhile Lousville and Cincinnati have degraded, so Boise moving in to the Big East is a good thing. So I think with 4 vs 6 it comes down to the question of if you believe college football is getting better or just has peaks and valleys.
If you feel that college football is getting better across the board then you likely prefer a 6 team playoff (or maybe more) since you figure that years like 1999 and 2000 when you'd have to let in weak teams to get to six are now a thing of the past.
On the other hand if you figure that it is a normal cycle of life for some teams to get good while others fall (rise of Boise, Utah, and TCU while Cincinnati and Boise fall), then perhaps 4 is more appealing. Yes you'd have years when you'd have a problem, but that problem is self correcting in that the weaker conferences will be raided and create room for the rising powers to upgrade their lot in life.
Personally I come away from this view with the view that:
- 4 is enough for now (given the MWC and WAC just got raided)
- B12 needs to get up to 12 teams
At this point we'd have 6 BCS conferences with at least 12 teams and each conference having a title game. That leaves you at the end of the regular season with 6 conference championships and history suggests that normally at least 2 of the confereces will have be having off years and can be eliminated via polls. As I mention above this also makes the conference championship games a round of the playoffs. It as also makes the regular matter. Consider the years when a 4 loss team won the Big East. I don't really feel they should have a shot at the national championship. So discarding teams like that ensures that no one will slack off in the regular season. Also if conference winners autobid in, it creates scenarios where you pull your starters when playing teams that aren't in your division, since all you care about during the regular season is winning your division.
The 4 team playoff becomes this weird animal where up to 12 teams can have a shot at the playoffs going in to the title game weekend (assuming B12 gets back to 12). 6 will lose and go off to bowls. 2 will be eliminate by polls and go off to bowls.
History shows that all 6 BCS conferences rarely produce elite teams at the same time. To get to six elite teams for a playoff you need the MWC and WAC producing talent. Those conferences have just been raided (either for coaches or for entire programs) and it seems unlikely we'll see elite talent from the non-BCS conferences for a time period. So if we're seeding 6 every year, we run the risk of having to seed really unworthy teams for #5 and #6.
Basically 4 means you're killing two teams via poll voting and that can at times present problems. 6 teams means you're letting inferior teams many years, but avoiding having the polls as the headsman.
One other comment...if you let all conference champs always get into the playoffs... Giving any conference an autobid to the playoffs is bad for the regular season. Consider the following scenario. Michigan and Ohio State have both won their divisions and are about to play The Game (as in 2006). This means they will meet in the conference championship game no matter what happens in The Game.
If the conference champ of the B1G automatically makes the playoffs, you have a massive incentive to sandbag The Game. You want to the win the B1G Title Game, The Game is meaningless. You actually have an incentive to hide your playbook (since you're playing again next week) and pull players to avoid an injury. #1 OSU vs #2 Michigan is a lot less epic since the coaches care more about winning the following week. If Michigan loses The Game, but beats OSU in the Title Game and goes on to the playoffs we'd be a lot happier than if the opposite outcome happened.
If only 4 out of the 6 BCS Conference champs make it to the next level though that changes. Now you not only have to win your conference but also put together a resume that beats at least of the other conference champs. So then going 2-0 against Ohio State becomes more important.
In Closing
Whew, it is finally done...
I walk away from this really feeling like we're in a situation where we can move forward logically. If you simply average the numbers for each year, you come up with a 4 team playoff working just fine.
However that ignores the fact that in recent years we had some seasons where 5 and 6 team playoffs were needed. On the other hand, the BCS conferences raiding the MWC and WAC may have put an end to that trend.
As it stands I would consider the logical action to be pushing for a 4 team system to be ready to go when the BCS expires. Install that system for a time period and then watch to if programs arise out of the MWC, WAC, and C-USA. If they do, when the 4 team expires, consider moving to a 6 team system.
An Interview With Charlie Callinan
Filed under:
Jersey City (NJ) St. Peter's Prep junior Charlie Callinan is one of several wide receivers currently on Michigan's radar for the class of 2013. Callinan already holds an offer from Rutgers and his interest from several BCS programs in the Midwest and East Coast. The 6'4", 205 pound prospect is a member of the ESPNU 150 Watch List, while 247Sports ranks him as the #15 player in New Jersey and the #49 overall receiver among the junior class. Callinan has been in regular contact with Michigan assistant Curt Mallory, and I had the chance to talk to him last night about the recruiting process and where he stands:
ACE: How is everything going in your recruitment? Which schools are going after you the hardest right now?
CHARLIE: Everything is going pretty good. Right now, coaches are coming through, making their stops, just talking to me and watching us work out. I'm in contact with a bunch of coaches and schools, so it's been going pretty good. The [schools going after me the] hardest right now would probably be Rutgers, Michigan, Michigan State, Boston College, South Carolina, UConn, and Virginia.
ACE: Do you have any early favorites out of those schools?
CHARLIE: I don't really know about favorites, but I'm definitely interested in checking out those schools. I could see myself at every single one of those, and I've heard a lot about all of those schools. I don't really know about favorites, but all of those schools are pretty nice.
ACE: Talking about Michigan specifically, which coach has been in contact with you, and what's your impression of the coaching staff and the school?
CHARLIE: I've been talking to Coach Mallory a lot, Curt Mallory. He actually gets on a personal level with you, we'll talk a lot and we'll talk about how the week is going and stuff like that. He'll talk about the school and all that—he's a good guy and I heard a lot about him, I've heard a lot about the program, so I'll probably make it up there for a visit and check it out, and I'll see how it is.
ACE: How did you junior year go in terms of your personal performance? If you know your stats off the top of your head, feel free to rattle them off.
CHARLIE: It wasn't that good—we're more of a running team, so I don't get many looks at receiver. I'm still the number one receiver on the team. I had 35 receptions for 550 yards and five touchdowns.
ACE: If you had to scout yourself, what would you say are you biggest strengths as a player, and what are you looking to improve for your senior year and beyond?
CHARLIE: My strengths are [that] I can use my size pretty well, and I'm a pretty big kid. I'm about 6'4", 205, so I know how to use my size, and I know the game pretty well. I'll run really good routes and I'm just smart with the game, I can read coverages and all that. My speed is getting there, and I'm working on it, but next year that's what I'm mainly focusing on. I'm pretty fast now, but I really want just high-end speed. You can always get faster so I'll be working on that.
ACE: You mentioned Michigan as a possible visit destination. Are there any other schools that you're planning on taking a visit to at this point?
CHARLIE: Yup. On the 11th [of February] I think I'm going down to West Virginia for a visit, and then in the next coming month or so I'll be going down to Michigan State and maybe Virginia and UConn.
ACE: Do you have any idea in terms of a potential timeline?
CHARLIE: No, I have no clue. A lot of my friends committed before the season, I know some kids who committed after, and they pretty much told me that you've just got to know where you want to go to school before you jump to any conclusions. When I realize what school I want to go to, I want to make sure it's the right school, check it out even deeper, then I'll make my decision. There's no really telling what it's going to be.
ACE: What's going to make you know that a school is for you? What are the factors that you're looking at when it comes down to picking a school?
CHARLIE: The environment around me, the team, how I get along with the coaches, pretty much the overall environment. I'm not going to go to a school where I can't really get along with the coaches—it won't be a fun four years or however many years. I'm just looking for a school where I can be successful, do well academically and just as well on the football field.
