Wrestling Recap

After Cliff Keen Invite

Notes:

• Michigan hasn’t put out a full strength lineup yet for any duals or tournament.  This last weekends Cliff Keen Invite was the closest, still missing just 9^th ranked 125lber Sean Boyle. 

• The Wolverines have had two exhibition tournaments, a dual win at Buffalo 27-13, a dual loss at #11 Pitt 13-19 and a second place finish at Cliff Keen.

• Michigan went without #9 Boyle(125),  #1 Russell(141), #6 Grajales(149) and Collins(184) for the Buffalo Dual.  Only putting Grajales back in for the one at Pitt. 

• Kellen Russell missed both duals as he was selected to the NWCA All-Star match.  He ended up pulling out and not wrestling, but, was still honored.

• Michigan was ranked 8^th with 7 top 20 wrestlers.  (125 Boyle 9^th, 133 Stevens 13^th, 141 Russell 1^st, 149 Grajales 6^th, 165 Yates 18^th, 174 J.Zeerip 11^th, Hwt Apland 13^th)

Recap by Weight:

• 125 –  Grant Pizzo has filled in for Boyle, losing both dual matches and posting a 1-2 finish at Cliff Keen.  Would have been interesting to see how Boyle did at CK.  He would have made 4 top 10 competitors at the tournament.
• 133 - #13 Zac Stevens posted major decisions and bonus points in both duals against unranked wrestlers.  He went 4-2 and a 4^th place finish at Cliff Keen.  His losses came to #4 Stieber from Ohio (6-14) and #18 Keith from Harvard (0-6), while picking up a win against #17 Kiley from Nebraska (7-4).  Solid showing for Stevens.
• 141 – Michigan put out Donnie Watkins for both duals in place a Russell where he dropped both two unranked wrestlers.  Russell Returned for Cliff Keen for a 3^rd place finish and a 6-1 record.  His loss was to #15 and Freshman Hunter Stieber from Ohio (5-6).  He notched wins against #20 Pennesi from WVU (8-1), #12 Nevinger from Cornell (7-1) and #2 Novachkov in a tiebreaker from Cal Poly (same guy he beat for the National Title last year).  Bump in the road against Stieber, which he will see again a few more times.  Russell tends to wrestle on the edge with his tremendous feel and confidence, opening himself up for something like that.  The tournament winner was #5 Mangrum from Oregon State, so the field was pretty stacked at this one. 
• 149 – #6 Grajales missed the first dual where Mike Hillock fell to an unranked.  Grajales returned for Pitt and dropped a close one to #3 Nauman (2-4).  Grajales almost got his rematch at Cliff Keen, but, Nauman fell in the quarters, while Grajales took down #17 Walsh from Indiana (19-4) and #5 Von Ohlen from Air Force (9-1) to win the 149lb title.  Grajales dominated the tournament.
• 157 – Brandon Zeerip won both is duals against unranked competition.  He made a run at Cliff Keen before losing to #1 ranked and returning national champion 0-6 in the quarters.  No signature wins yet for Zeerip or bad losses.  I’ve said I think he is a top 20 wrestler by the end of the year.  He wrestled like it last year before getting wore down in his first full season.  He’ll still be in the fringe after this tournament.
• 165 – #18 Dan Yates off to a slow solid start.  Picked up both dual wins against unranked guys.  Posted a 4-2 record as well as a 7^th place finish at Cliff Keen.  His losses were against #12 Burak from Northern Colorado (6-9 in a tiebreaker) and #16 Ben Jordan from Wisconsin (3-8).  He gets another shot at Jordan Sunday when Wisconsin comes to Michigan for a dual. 
• 174 - #11 Justin Zeerip is up and running in his senior campaign.  He went 2-0 in duals with a pin and 4-1 at Cliff Keen with a 2^nd place finish.  He was aided by a med forfeit in the semis against #1 Amuchastegui from Stanford, but, only lost in a 5-6 tiebreak loss to #7 DesRoches from Cal Poly in the finals.  He is certainly one to look out for this year.
• 184 – Chris Heald filled in for Collins for both duals, going 0-2.  Collins returned for Cliff Keen and went 1-2.  His shot at #3 Bosak from Cornell ended in him getting pinned.  This continues to be the weak spot for the Wolverines. 
• 197 – The lone Newcomer to the projected starting lineup Max Huntley has started off strong.  He pinned in his dual at Buffalo and dropped a close one to #7 Wilps from Pitt (2-6) in the other.  He went 3-3 with an 8^th place finish at Cliff Keen.  In doing so he picked up a win against #19 Smith from Cal Poly (11-5) and closed the gap to Wilps in a 4-6 lose.  The Big Ten has some quality at this weight they need Huntley to compete. 
• Hwt – #13 Ben Apland got a tech fall in his dual against Buffalo and then dropped a 1-3 tiebreaker loss against an unranked at Pitt.  He fell in the quarters of Cliff Keen to an unranked Capone from Ohio (2-5).  Dropped another to #16 Barlow from Kent State (1-3 in a tiebreaker) and then won the 7^th place match over #20 Felix from Boise State (10-2). Finished with a 4-2 record. 

Michigan looks to still be getting into the swing of things.  Which is fine, it’s a long season.  A Full lineup would have won the Cliff Keen tournament.  Ohio certainly showed they will make a big leap this year with their freshmen.  Michigan has a home dual Sunday the 11^th against Wisconsin that should provide a couple good matchups as they kick off the B1G schedule. 

Okay, we'll do the disclaimers first.

• Yes, this has spoilers.  If you haven't finished 3&O, close this tab now.
• Yes, I realize 3&O has been out for awhile.  I wanted to sit on it for a bit and gain perspective though.  3&O carries a rather heavy emotional payload, so I read it.  Set it aside, watched us win 10 games, and then reread it.  I was less suicidal the second time I read it.  If you want to complain about this kind of diary reopening old wounds, close this tab now.  
• I'm not going to cite things with page numbers or whatever.  If I miss use a quote, call me on it.  Consider 3&O to be a heavily cited work that gets the credit for most facts.
• It's long and doesn't have any pictures.  I'm sorry.

Now then, why am I writing this.  Because we're not entirely over RR.  We have people who still are up in their caves, wearing their turbans and engaging in the Freep Jihad.  We have people who scour every word written on the blog's mainpage and ranting at anything that might be critical of Hoke.  We have people who take praise of Hoke to be an attack on RR.  So I want to talk about the three years of sadness.  If you feel an angry rant coming on, last chance to close the tab.

Right before Bo passed he said that once he died, we'd find out whole the real Michigan Men were.  We did and it was damn ugly.

In the wake of Bo passing and RR being hired, we had three major players in Michigan football.  Lloyd Carr, Bill Martin, and Rich Rodriguez.  It would expand to 4 after MSC got involved and later Dave Brandon would replace Martin.   However the tone of the era was set by the actions of the first three.  

Lloyd Carr is the engima here.  He was successful at Michigan.  The only two coaches who had his number, Tressel and Caroll, ended up fleeing to the NFL one step ahead of the NCAA sanctions committee.  He also won a NCAA title and 78% of his B1G games.  He never lost more than 3 B1G games in a season and only finished below 3rd in the conference once.  At the same time he took a lot of heat form the fans.  Claims that he only won his ring with Moeller's players.  Heat over his Rose Bowl issues and issues handling the spread.  I still remember walking into the stadium one game and seeing an anti-Carr fan holding a sign.  It read "Osama Bin-Lloyden is destroying Michigan football".  The dude had a megaphone and was ranting.  I just had to shake my head.  Every year Tressel took him down, the fanbase got bitchier.  

Since Carr has been silent (no comments in 3&O or anywhere else for the most part since he retired) it's hard to know what he felt at retirement.  The evidence suggest he was burned out in 2006, but Martin had no replacement plan so he stayed on.  The Horror happened and the heat on Carr was turned up.  At the end of the day the best insight I have into Carr's mind comes from Bacon, who writes that Carr wanted to name his successor.  

Here I'm going to make a leap.  Carr felt like he'd accomplished a lot here and he definitely had.  However the fanbase was pretty bitchy by this point and a lot of people were happy to see Carr retire.  Basically it was a "Thanks for your service, here's your award, door is to your left" kind of retirement.  No one exactly went into mourning when Carr hung it up.  I see a potential situation where Carr felt bitter, underappreciated and not properly compensated in terms of legacy for his work.  In 3&O, Carr tells Martin that someday a MAC team was going to beat us.  Basically saying college football was getting tougher, more parity, and yet Michigan fans want to see the 100-0 scores that we'd manage in the early 1900s and when we didn't, we got bitchy.  Carr did a lot for us and we photoshopped his face on Bin Laden's body.  I can understand why the man might be bitter.  Carr ends his career wanting DeBord or English to replace him, but after his last few seasons the fanbase would go nuclear if either of them did.  Martin wisely says no to that.  Carr's legacy ends him him kind of coming close to getting run out of town, despite his body of work.  We all laugh at Minnesota for firing Mason despite his body of work, but we were dicks to Carr desite his.  (As a side note I'm using we here because we're all part of the fanbase, even the retards).  

So Carr is retired.  Burned out, but not going since he was an Assoc. AD.  Martin comes forward and coaching search begins.  Miles is ruled out early (Carr says "Hell No" and MSC backs him on it, insert various rumors about why here).  Martin screws up on a bunch of offers, Miles kind of becomes a hail mary option, Martin goes sailing and can't work his damn phone.  Carr meanwhile reaches out to RR as kind of an end around on Miles and so he is kind of naming his own successor.  Suddenly we have one of the top offensive minds in the country, a guy who won BCS games with WVU (while we lost ours), and a hot, young name in coaching.  

We also have a problem.  Carr is going off the reservation here and making first contact and from Bacon's work it carries the implication Carr did so on his own, at at the behest of Martin or MSC.  In the Bo era if you went behind Bo's back, you paid.  We're now at the point where a future Assoc AD is sneaking around behind his boss's back.  

Martin's cluelessness with personnel decisions continued.  When he interviews RR he tries to tell RR he has to keep Lloyd's entire staff.  MSC though is now taking a role in the process (post Miles clusterfuck) and shuts him down.  I want to break this down a bit though.  Martin asks RR to keep the entire staff in a meeting with RR and MSC jumps on him.  This wasn't something that Martin and MSC privately talked about on the way to the meeting.  This was the President having to slap the AD down in front of a potential new employee.  Way to plan ahead for interviews...

It also means something even worse.  Think about what Martin said.  "We love your spread and shred offense and want to hire you, by the way we want to you to keep DeBord on staff as the OC."  Think about that for a minute.  Bang your head into your desk.  Later in the meeting when RR says it will take him awhile to install his system and Martin says that's not a problem, you really have to wonder if Martin had any clue what RR's system was.  If Martin had any clue what he was getting into.  

Martin of course then lowballs RR's assistants and fails to secure Casteel.  So we arguably whiff on the second most assistant of RR's machine (I'd argue since RR is offensively minded, DC is more important than OC.  Coordinators of course are clearly more important  than posistion coaches).  We also screw up the whole firing of Carr's staff.  RR makes them wait in the hall and people like Gittelson (30 years here) are fired.  

This is a failure for everyone.  For Carr, for RR, and for Martin.  Carr's about to become the Assoc AD for football operations.  If he's so worried about his assistants getting treated fairly he should take a greater role in the process.  Martin should be finding jobs for people like Gittelson (there has to be come kind of generic title we can give him, keep him on the Michigan payroll, and reward his loyalty.  Barwis is now the man for football, we have dozens of weightrooms on the campus, we could have found Gittelson a place.  Same with the others, stuff them in some AD job until they find coaching work.  We're Michigan, we're supposed to be loyal.).  RR of course really fails at handling the firings well.  Carr of course ends up unhappy, somewhat openly advocating transfers, and the whole RR-Carr relationship goes sour.  

We know how it goes from there.  Freep columnists are harsh on RR, Carr era players attack RR in the media.  Martin does nothing public,  Carr does nothing public.  RR says the wrong things, loses games, and finally Grobans himself out of a job.  Plus of course getting bombed in the bowl didn't help.  

My reason for rehashing this 3&O content was to show the actions of people and compare them to Bo.  There was no "The Team, The Team, The Team". No concern for the players.

First off Martin flushed his legacy with the RR hire.  The man put us in the black, he built a beautiful athletic campus.  He set us up with the stadium suites that generate an amazing amount of revenue.  We have the world's largest indoor practice facility because of him.  Crisler doesn't look like shit anymore because of him (DB did it with his revenue).  We could afford to offer Harbaugh 5 million a year because of him.  We could pry Mattison out of the pros because of him.  We have a massive bank account, a massive revenue stream, and top shelf facilities because of him.  We also had the NCAA investigate us and a civil war because of his poor personal management.  If we had a comptroller hall of fame, he goes in the first round.  As it stands though he is remembered for going boating during a coaching search with a cellphone he could not operate.

I love Carr and anyone who bothers to read my posts knows I'm in the Carr defender category.  Carr has done a lot for this University.  On the field and off the field (namely his fundraising for Motts is really his greatest achievement as a human being since sick kids are a million times more important than kicking around an inflated pig's bladder).  Yet when the time came he wasn't a Michigan Man.  RR's teams were loaded with Carr's recruits.  Yet he turned down 8 chances to speak to RR's teams.  It's fine if Carr wanted to dislike RR.  RR did fire all his friends and talk a lot in public, the antithesis of Carr.  However when our fanbase errupted into a civil war it was the players, the players that Carr recruited who suffered as the program was ripped apart.  Carr must have promised these kids B1G rings when he recruited them.  Yet he shut up and didn't do anything when the program collapsed around them.  It's almost as if he told them "transfer, because I'm cutting all ties and won't be around to help you after the Bowl".  Bo was known for walking into people's offices and telling them "You need to shut up".  Bo would have been defending the kids and the program.  Carr was silent.  At best he did nothing, at worst he was using his players and contacts to undermine RR instead of help him.  I have no idea what Carr did during those three years, but he wasn't a Michigan Man because he definitely wasn't using his power to support the team.    

I'm going to be brief on RR since we've dissecting him a million times on this board.  He made a lot of mistakes on the field in terms of the defense.  Off the field he really failed to win the political battle that comes with being the head coach at a name brand football school.  Yes the deck was stacked against him, but even so he tended to make things worse, not better.  For example RR played under Nehlen, a Bo assistant.  He learned about "Those Who Stay Will Be Champions" from Nehlen and used it himself when he coached at Glenville State.  Yet he never told those stories despite the fact they instantly put him on the Bo tree and made him more acceptable.  More importantly is how quickly he broke down.  His locker room destroying rage, this "fuck you" ridden tirades over his headset when Tate made a bad play.  Yes it is projection, but you have to wonder if in year 4 or 5 he goes all Woody Hayes on a DB or Bob Knight on someone.  I don't believe RR as a person would ever do that, but people do snap.  At some level when you read how broken down RR was as Year 3 went from 5 and 0 to 2 and 5, you have to wonder if it was a mercy firing.  

What we see there are three people who aren't bad people.  Martin made us rich, Carr did a lot for the program and the school, RR wanted to make this his destination school and cared for his kids, and he did install the offense we hired him to install.  Yet everyone had their flaws.  Blindess with personnel hirings, a failure to support RR the way Bump supported Bo, and the inability to properly adopted Michigan mannerisms/fix the damn defense.  No one is the devil here or an incompetent, but no one is Bo either.

Then there is the fanbase, us.  That member of our fanbase who called a regent to complain that RR used "ain't" in a press conference (seriously, fuck you whoever that was).  The fanbase who the minute Bo died, demanded someone else become Bo.  Then when everyone showed they were mortal, not Bo, and could make mistakes we devolved into armed "Old Guard" and "New Guard" camps.  Communist football vs primitive saurian Llloydball.  We all agreed Martin was a moron who couldn't work a cell phone, picked a coach (RR or Carr) and tried to crown him as the new center of Michigan football.  We also didn't exactly cover ourselves in glory.

That's what we need to take away from the RR era.  Our dad died.  Uncle Lloyd turned out be a distant and cold paternal figure.  Uncle Rodriguez went through a rough time and had a melt down.  Uncle Martin was busy clicking buttons in excel.  So a lot of the fanbase regressed from Michigan Men into bitchy children who said mean things on the radio or wrote them, despite the negative impact they had on The Team.  

As we enter the new era, 10-2, now willing to pay top dollar for top coordinators, with a guy who gets Michigan, and RR has a new job in a BCS conference, I think it may be time to let it go.  At the end of the day we don't have a good guy and we don't have a bad guy.  Martin, Carr, and RR all did a lot for this school and they all failed it.  Any debate where you try to annoint one guy as the devil and one guy as the angel in this era is just going to generate a flamefest because each side has plenty of material to cite.  The actors here were all humans who were successful in some areas, but unlike Bo they weren't successful in every area.  No one was bad, they just weren't Bo and that is fine because being Bo is a high standard to live up to.  As we go forward we need to stop looking for a new Bo.  Bo's dead.  But a new one will emerge.  Just as it flowed from Yost to Crisler to Bo.  Don't try and place someone on that throne by force though.

We should also remember how a house divided cannot stand against itself and more importantly how we hurt the players on the field with the whole civil war.  We owe people like Graham and Moundros something.  They gave it all on the field on Saturday while the fanbase was busy having a flamewar.  

Oh and always remember Sharp and Rosenberg suck.  

If we're going to keep one thing in our mind as we move forward, it should be that comment from Bo about how we'd find out who the real Michigan Men were when he died.  We did and we need to remember what that cost us.  It's up to us to keep it together now, because we won't have Bo to walk into our lives and tell us "You need to shut up now".  

Ok, so this has been bouncing around my head while I was cleaning up the fallen branches from the recent snowfall.  I'm not going to say anything too wild and crazy here (down with the BCS), but maybe I'll say it in a different way.

Conference championship games:  EPIC FAIL

First of all, conference championship games are highly overrated, especially when they are rematches.  Ideally, the conf champ game should decide who the champ is for the conference (regardless of which team wins).  However, this is rarely the case, and when there is a rematch, this game will often muddy the waters even more.  As an example, let's take a look at the championship games this season to see if this ever happens:

MAC:  NIU vs. the Bobcats.  Both teams were 9-3, but NIU was 7-1 in the league, while the Bobcats were 6-2.  Toledo muddies the situation because they were also 7-1 in the league (but 8-4 overall).  It seems like Toledo could have an argument for being the "best" in the conference if the Bobcats had won.  Championship game FAIL.

Pac 10:  Oregon vs. UCLA.  What a joke!  Obviously this FAILs.  But let's pretend that USC was bowl elgible, an Oregon vs. USC game still doesn't work because of Stanford.  Championship game FAIL.

Conference USA:  Houston (12-0, 8-0) vs. Southern Miss (10-2, 6-2).  Here, they had a clear cut champion, who ended up losing.  And let's also note that Tulsa was 8-4 (7-1)...so in effect they played a game between the #1 and #3 teams for this one...and the #3 team won.  Championship game FAIL.

SEC:  The well known case of LSU (12-0, 8-0) vs Georgia (10-2, 7-1).  Raise your hand if you think that Georgia winning that game meant that they were the best team in the SEC...anyone...Bueller?  Right, me neither.  So why did they play this sham of a game?  Because they couldn't play...

SEC championship (part 2):  This will be LSU vs Alabama in a game that should be televised on Jefferson Pilot.  Alabama LOST.  At HOME.  They couldn't even win their DIVISION, much less their CONFERENCE.  The result should be different in the superdome?  Even if Alabama wins, who should the champ be?  13-1 LSU or 12-1 Alabama?  The word of the day is specious (link provided for any SEC fans who got lost here).  SEC championship DOUBLE FAIL.

ACC championship:  Virginia Tech (11-1, 7-1) vs. Clemson (9-3, 6-2).  At least they got the best two teams in the league for this one.  But, in my opinion, this league again had a clear cut champion.  For this one, it could be argued both ways:  VT still has a better overall record, but Clemson beat VT twice, and these two teams were the class of the league.  I'll give this one a PUSH

BIG championship:  Sparty (10-2, 7-1) vs. Bucky (10-2, 6-2).  Here we had a clear cut champ.  And if Sparty had pulled it off, I wouldn't have any qualms about calling little bro the conference champ.  But they didn't.  And now, who should be the champ?  Should Sparty?  I mean they split the season series, and both games were competitive.  And let's not ignore Michigan and Penn State--both 6-2 in the league and having an equal number of losses as MSU and UW.  Championship game FAIL.

So by my estimation, championship games are 0-6-1 this season.  (The SEC gets the -2 because of the double fail...no relevant championship game, and forcing a MNC game that means nothing!)  Conference championships:  Defend your existance

Fixing the BCS:

Moreover, we have another problem.  Oftentimes, the conference championship game loser gets punished because they played an extra game against a high quality opponent.  In all of the AQ conferences the championship game loser could have easily been bumped from a BCS game.  Join me in "maximum chaos world."

Oregon loses to UCLA.  UCLA goes to the Rose Bowl and Stanford still gets a BCS bid.  Oregon plays in the nobodycares.com bowl.

Georgia beats LSU.  Georgia and Alabama get BCS games.  LSU gets the Capital One Bowl.

UW beats MSU...MSU gets Outback Bowl (not even the Citrus...)

MSU beats UW...we can probably assume the same.  (or maybe UW gets the citrus over Nebraska, who they pummeled).

VT beats Clemson...Clemson joins Oregon in the nobodycares.com bowl.

Clemson beats VT...If Boise State and/or Houston had stayed undefeated VT probably doesn't make it because of the autobids.

We replay the 2006 season in 2011.  UM and OSU both get to the game undefeated.  This also sets the schedule for the championship.  OSU wins game 1 at home, Michigan wins game 2 in Indy.  IIRC, Wisconsin was ~#5 in the polls that year.  OSU falls below UW and UM and UW go to a BCS game.  

Flip that scenario (UM wins game 1, OSU wins game 2, UW/PSU/Neb/MSU/Iowa is sitting at 4 or 5 right behind #1/2 UM/OSU).  Now Michigan gets the Capital One Bowl.

To make the BCS have some semblance of logic, and to be consistent with their own mantra (each game matters), they need three rules.

1. The national championship must be between two teams who won their conference.  [Otherwise LSU v. Alabama part 1 didn't matter]
2. In order to qualify for the BCS from a conference with a championship game, you must play in the championship game (i.e. you must win your division).  In order to make it from an AQ conference with no championship game, you must be #1 or #2 in your league. (Less important because of ties and other clusterf-y things at the top of some conferences.)  [Otherwise winning your division/finishing ahead of someone in your conference standings doesn't matter]
3. Any championship game loser must not be punished in the BCS standings by playing a CG.  If they qualified before the CG (from an AQ conference), they should stay qualified.  [Otherwise you get punished for playing a game rather than a tomato can.]

I realize that these rules put a torch to the BCS games that they've got, and it would leave out a number of heavy hitters from this season's BCS (Michigan, Alabama, Stanford)--but then Boise State likes this just fine thanks.  I know it's not perfect, but the BCS is inherently flawed.  That is why we need:

A playoff system

First off, I don't care about the bowl system, as it is so lovingly called right now.  We have way too many bowl games, and too many of them already are untenable, especially for teams that don't travel well.  Colleges need to learn to say "no" to ticket guarantees and force these games to justify their own existence.  If the whodafcares.com bowl was no longer in existence it would be just one less game that I don't watch.

Secondly, as Brian said:

Let's go back to first principles. What is the point of a playoff? Most soccer leagues across the globe play a balanced schedule and eschew the playoffs entirely. The season determines the champion. To them, the American way of doing things is stupid. And when you've set up your league such that everyone plays everyone else home and away, it is. Around here, however, there are very big leagues where balanced schedules are impossible and at the end of the regular season you're not quite sure who the best team is. So it makes sense to have the teams that you think might be the best team play each other.

All I've really done so far is extend this same argument:

Playoffs are assets when both of the following criteria are met:

1. The regular season is insufficient to determine a best team.
2. The winner of the playoff can reasonably claim to be the best team.

to conference championship games.  I'm not going to make another bracket here, but I think if we eliminate conference championship games, we could add one more round to Brian's playoff proposal since we have one more week to play with.  At this point, any idea is better than the BCS, right?

Michigan gets a commit as I'm writing this, which is always pretty cool. There's a fair amount of movement this week (OK, two weeks, as I was foolish enough to think I'd do mid-week rankings after Rivals finished their re-ranks) thanks to a few decommits and Rivals coming out with new rankings. Action since last rankings:

11-20-11: Pharaoh Brown removed from Michigan commit list.
11-22-11: Ohio State picks up Adolphus Washington.
11-24-11: Illinois picks up Dami Ayoola.
11-27-11: Ohio State picks up Ricquan Southward.
11-29-11: Minnesota picks up Alex Keith.
12-1-11: J.P. Holtz decommits from Penn State.
12-2-11: Deion Jones decommits from Nebraska.
12-4-11: Michigan picks up Amara Darboh.

Chart? Chart:

*ESPN doesn't rate JuCos, so they are counted as unranked recruits for the sake of consistency (trust me, it makes sense when you look at the spreadsheet).
^The average of the average rankings of the four recruiting services (aka the previous four columns). The figure is calculated based on the raw numbers and then rounded, so the numbers above may not average out exactly.

On to the full data, after the jump.

It’s not quite the fourth quarter against Notre Dame, but Saturday had as many ups and downs on the Win Chart as any we’ve seen this year.

We’ll go with 5 plays each this week to mark the occasion.

Top Plays:

1. Play 112, 14.2%, Robinson to Odoms on 3rd and 11 to give Michigan the lead back for good while the OL gave Denard all day.

2. Play 163, 11.2%, Robinson to Dileo for 28 yards on Michigan’s final drive.

3. Play 22, 11.1%, Robinson runs for 41 yards to tie it up early.

4. Play 165, 9.5%, Robinson runs for 14 yards to keep the clock moving and the drive going late.

5. Play 137, 9.3%, the defense gets in the mix, stopping Miller on 3rd and Goal from the 2, leading to the FG instead of a touchdown.

Bottom Plays:

1. Play 7, –12.8%, Miller goes deep for the first score of the game.

2. Play 95, –12.0%, Miller goes deep a second time to give Ohio a halftime lead.

3. Play 172, –8.8%, Steve Watson’s personal foul pushed 3rd and Goal from difficult to impossible and increases the degree of difficulty on an impending field goal.

4. Play 134, –8.6%, Miller goes for 23 yards to give Ohio 1st and Goal at the 5 late in the third quarter.

5. Play 74, –7.1%, Miller uses my favorite NCAA Football play with an athletic QB, the wrong way speed option for a TD.

Ohio Game Scores

Rushing: +12, tops in Big Ten play and behind only SD St and E Michigan on the year

Passing: +11, second only to Northwestern on the season

Rush Defense: –9, worst score of the season

Pass Defense: –7, only Notre Dame was worse

Special Teams: +3, the late field goal pushed this to the top of the list for this year

Denard: As I tweeted earlier this week, Denard had the 5th best game of any QB this year at +24. It was both his best passing (+13) and best rushing (+11) game of the season. It was only the 7th +10 rushing performance by any QB this year and the first to pair it with a passing number higher then +3!

Toussaint: +1, a solid but not spectacular day.

Miller: Braxton Miller is going to be a force. His +15 (+6/+9) was his best game of the year by 6 points. His three games have been his three best. Had Ohio gone with him from the start Ohio is probably has at least 8 wins now.

Saturday’s +23 was the 9th best opponent adjusted offensive game of the year for any team and the best game in BCS conference play.

Fired Coach Dumb Punt of the Week

Several good candidates this week. Clemson punting from the 35 late in the third trailing by two touchdowns. Ohio punting from the 36 trailing by 6 in the third. This week’s award goes to the $8 Million Dollar Man Mike Sherman who punted from the 41 twice in the second half, going on to blow their 42nd 6th lead of the season and losing the final chapter of the Texas-Texas A&M rivalry on a last second field goal.

Big Ten Projection Recap

On Aug 26th I posted projections for the season, it’s now time to pay the piper and see how they PAN‘d out.

Team: Pred W, Pred B1G W

Illinois: 8.0, 4.5

Indiana: 2.9, 0.6

Iowa: 7.8, 4.6

Michigan: 8.0, 4.8

Michigan St: 8.0, 4.7

Minnesota: 3.9, 1.2

Nebraska: 10.1, 6.1

Northwestern: 3.9, 1.7

Ohio: 9.3, 5.8

Penn St: 8.5, 5.2

Purdue: 5.7, 2.7

Wisconsin: 10.3, 6.3

That’s an average error of 1.4 games/team in total and 1.3 in conference play. Ohio was clearly my biggest miss, missing both numbers by about 3 games. Wisconsin was dead on and Iowa, Minnesota, Penn St and Purdue were all pretty close. I had the top and bottom of the Woody division correctly ranked but the middle was a mess. For the Bo division I swapped Nebraska and Sparty both nailed the other 4.

Nationally, picking conference winners went decently. Virginia Tech is favored in the ACC title game, along with other picks of mine like Wisconsin and Oregon. West Virginia is right in the middle of the Big East mess. If Alabama could make a field goal they would be playing for the SEC title and Oklahoma is playing for the Big XII’s BCS berth at bedlam.

In the smaller conferences, Tulsa, Toledo, Boise and Nevada all had shots but fell just short of championships while Troy wasn’t even close in the Sun Belt.

Advanced Metrics All-B1G

Offensive players are listed as PAN (per game)/WPA (total). OL is excluded because I have no stats specific to players. TE are evaluated solely on receiving. Defensive players are listed as Plays/Value (count and magnitude of plays made negative to the offense). Kickers and punters are cumulative for the season.

This is not meant to be absolute, but it is a ranking based solely on the advanced metrics, no judgment calls on my part.

First Team

QB

Russell Wilson, Wisconsin +13/+3.4

RB

Montee Ball, Wisconsin +5/+1.2 & Marcus Coker, Iowa +1/+0.7

TE

Drake Dunsmore, Northwestern +3/+0.8

WR

Jeremy Ebert, Northwestern +8/+2.1 & Marvin McNutt, Iowa +7/+1.3 & AJ Jenkins, Illinois +7/+1.3

DE

Broderick Binns, Iowa 47/32 & Whitney Mercilus, Illinois 35/36

DT

Devon Still, Penn St 45/28 & Johnathan Hankins, Ohio 50/21

LB

Jonathan Brown, Illinois 75/41 & Lavonte David, Nebraska 59/29 & Gerald Hodges, Penn St 52/28

CB

Josh Johnson, Purdue 33/21 & Bradley Roby, Ohio 21/27

Safety

Brian Peters, Northwestern 32/28 & Drew Astorino, Penn St 34/18

K

Dan Conroy, Michigan St +12.4

P

Ben Buchanan, Ohio +10

Second Team

QB

Denard Robinson, Michigan +7/+3.5

RB

Fitzgerald Toussaint, Michigan +1/+.4 & Rex Burkhead, Nebraska +0/+.3

TE

Jacob Pedersen, Wisconsin +2/+0.3

WR

BJ Cunningham, Michigan St +7/+1.1 & Nick Toon, Wisconsin +6/+1.0 & Da’Jon McKnight, Minnesota +4/+0.8

DE

John Simon, Ohio 40/25 & Michael Buchanan, Illinois 38/18

DT

Mike Daniels, Iowa 40/22 & Akeem Spence, Illinois 40/18

LB

David Nwabuisi, Northwestern 51/21 & Ian Thomas, Illinois 47/20 & Will Compton, Nebraska 49/18

CB

Tavon Wilson, Illinois 28/17 & Ibraheim Campbell, Northwestern 25/17

Safety

Jordan Kovacs, Michigan 17/27 & CJ Barnett, Ohio 25/18

K

Brett Maher, Nebraska +11.8

P

Cody Webster, Purdue +8

Ryan van Bergen, Mike Martin and Kenny Demens all narrowly missed spots on the second team defense.

Upcoming Schedule

Don’t know if articles will be coming weekly, but I have a number of articles and ideas in the hopper for the pre and post-bowl season.

A bowl game preview

The promised Game Theory Manifesto

A 4th down redux, a more detailed look at fourth down decision making with an added tool of offensive and defensive strength sliders for dynamic decision making.

A critique of success rates and the concept of “staying ahead of the chains”

A semi-related post on why I think the running back position is overrated

A more detailed looks at the EV and WPA implications tied to UFR.

EV and WPA by coaches and if I can find a good source of history, coordinators, as well.

Some recruiting themed posts around signing day on the back of a massive recruiting database I am building on the back of my play by play database. I think there is a lot of potential here, just don’t know if I can pull it off.

Any user submitted ideas that are sure to be better than what I have listed so far.