Diaries

So another week gone by and another win by the boys in the winged helmets.  Hooray for nobody selecting Michigan lower than the Outback!  Although now nobody is selecting Michigan in the BCS, either. 

This week's lineup adds CNNSI's Stewie Mandel, along with ESPN's Adam Rittenberg, Mark Schlabach, and Brad Edwards; CBS Sports's Jerry Palm; BTN's Tom Dienhart; and CFN/Scout. 

The chart shows the MNC and all BCS bowl game projections, followed by the Big Ten bowl game projections.

So yeah, that's a big chart.   You can see Michigan bolded throughout.  The big changes for U-M are that Dienhart no longer has Michigan in the TicketCity, Rittenberg elevates us from the Insight to the Outback, and Palm drops us from the Fiesta to the Outback.  Potential bowl opponents include Georgia, South Carolina, and Arkansas. 

Rittenberg is now the only one to have a Big Ten team earn an at-large BCS berth (Nebraska to the Fiesta).  Last week, Rittenberg had msu-Rose and Wisco-Sugar, and Palm had Wisco-Rose and Michigan-Fiesta.

Everyone has Wisconsin to the Rose, except Schlabach, who sticks with msu.  Speaking of msu, they're predicted in the Rose (1), Cap1 (3), Outback (1), and Insight (2).  Michigan, on the other hand, is pretty much a concensus at the Cap1 (2) or Outback (5). 

Of note is that several of these guys are predicting 10 Big Ten teams to be bowl eligible: Wisconsin, Michigan, Nebraska, msu, Penn St, osu, Illinois, Iowa, Purdue, and Northwestern.  There is a clear top half and botom half, but that's just crazy, man.  That's why you're seeing random bowl games like New Era Pinstripe, Kraft Fight Hunger, and New Mexico Bowl.  Rittenberg can't commit, so he just puts Illinois in "Other". 

Since the defensive improvement has been far and away better than anything any of us could have expected, I thought it would be interesting to see the extent of the improvement in historical terms. I collected data on scoring defense and yardage defense from Rivals as far back as 2003 to the present. Here are the results (click on the graphs to embiggen):

And, to compare the two data sets, I've superimposed them by representing each as a percentage of the worst historical performance (i.e., 2010):

The result is striking. Thus far, Hoke, Mattison and the rest of the defensive staff have turned this squad into one of the best 3 defensive teams in the past 9 years.

UPDATE: MGoBlog user Mat suggested that I look at our defense's yards allowed per play. I did some googling and found stats dating back to 2003 foryards per play. The following graph is based on statistics that only take into account performances against other FBS teams:

Which confirms Mat's impression (and ours) that while this defense is excellent we are not yet elite. That's not surprising given that it's year 1 of yet another defensive system and that we are starting two freshmen.

This weekend, I took a trip to Happy Valley.  Yes, your read that right. Why, you ask? This had been planned for months as a good time to visit a friend in grad school there on a Michigan away game week, that conveniently matched up two good teams that should've been talking about a rematch from their last contest and the possible budding of a new rivalry.  My ticket was purchased, my friend expected me, so I went.  I'll delve a little into the awkwardness of everything but mostly wanted to give an in person preview of what Michigan can expect when Nebraska comes to Ann Arbor in a few days.

The tailgating to start the day was more than slightly subdued.  Sure, they still had beer, brats and music, but it did not feel like a matchup between two ranked teams vying for a possible path to the inaugural B1G Championship game.  Appropriately so given the awful tragedies that had taken place.  How much was out of respect for the kids and how much was the fact that they missed JoePa is up for debate, but I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt and lean towards the former.  Those of you that watched the game on TV likely saw the pregame honoring of the victims, which was done quite well.  When the teams met at midfield to pray, you could faintly hear the man speaking at the 50 from 20 rows up around the 5 yard line.  It was that silent.  Small groups of people tried to start chants but were appropriately shushed.  The crowd eventually got impatient and started a slow clap, which was not really disprespectful but did somewhat dampen an otherwise nice moment.  As the game started, there was cheering from the student section, but it all felt quite hollow, as it should have.  Late in the game it got as loud as I assume Beaver Stadium normally gets, but only for a brief period of time.  Overall, the weirdest and most awkward game I've been to by a longshot.  Downright eery.  Anyways, on to football things.

Taylor Martinez - boy oh boy is it tough to watch him throw.  But you already knew that.  What perhaps you didn't know is that every throw he makes is a frozen rope about 6 feet off the ground.  And this is not a good thing for him.  It appears that his chicken wing delivery doesn't afford him the ability to put any touch on his throws.  If I were the coaching staff, I would put a tremendous amount of emphasis on the D line getting their hands up. Having not watched a ton of their offense this year, I was suprised to see how often they went to the air early.  It appears that their game plan was to try to relax Penn State's stout defense, then run the ball late.  They stuck with the passing game despite its ineffectiveness for quite a long time.  

Rex Burkhead - Quick as hell and incredibly frustrating to try to stop.  They frequently will line up in the I and have Burkhead and Martinez switch places.  Burkhead is such an effective runner and Martinez such a terrible passer that it sometimes feels like they should do this permanently.  He's a decisive runner with solid vision and decent power who always seems to fall forward.  They've got a power runner whose name escapes me that they used in goal line.  He's effective.

The punter - Yea, the punter.  He's the third player I'm talking about. The punter.  He's that good.  He's like the space emperor.  He can coffin corner better than anyone I've seen in a long time and he'll bomb it as well.  Someone nearby asked what the name for the punter of the year award in college football was and suggested it be renamed after the Nebraska punter.  

Nebraska's corners - they're good.  It's hard to tell how much of Penn State's ineffectiveness passing was due to McGloin - or, as he's known, "The Scranton Slinger", and how much was due to the corners, but I felt like receivers were consistently well-covered.  Penn State doesn't have world beaters, but Moye is a solid receiver and I often watched him get locked down.  Obviously everyone knows about Alphonso Dennard, and he was as advertised.  The rest of the secondary was also great, though.  

I had more to say, but my memory escapes me on a few of my mental game notes. Overall, Nebraska definitely seems beatable.  They execute the triple option damn well, and can eventually burn you with it, but their offense feels like a middle of the road B1G one, and I think the statistics bear that out.  Their defense is meh, but the secondary does worry me.  An ability to lock down several receivers with man coverage could pose problems.  This will definitely be a game where I'd like to see a lot of 4 wide with zone running.  Getting into an Ace formation and the like and running play action pass probably won't fly as they'll be able to both confidently load the box and shut down whoever is on the outside.  

After a one-week hiatus, the Big Ten Recruiting Rankings are back. There's even a new Michigan commit, so I might actually front-page this sucker for the first time this season. The past couple weeks saw a fair amount of movement among teams at the top of the rankings, while the bottom half remained static. Action since last rankings:

10-30-11: Ohio State picks up Michael Thomas.
10-31-11: David Perkins decommits from Notre Dame.
11-3-11: Michigan State picks up Ezra Robinson.
11-5-11: Wisconsin picks up Reggie Love.
11-8-11: Michigan picks up Drake Johnson.
11-11-11: Joey O'Connor decommits from Penn State.

Chart? Chart:

*ESPN doesn't rate JuCos, so Isaac Fruechte and James Gillum (Minnesota), Darius Stroud and Jacarri Alexander (Indiana), Steffon Martin, Devin Smith, and Greg Latta (Purdue), and Zaire Anderson (Nebraska) 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.

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” 
Albert Einstein

Learn from yesterday...

Common sense tells us that facing a team coming off of a bye week should be a disadvantage.  Give a good coach 2 weeks to prepare for a game and they will have their team refreshed and focused, ready to take advantage of what their next opponent gives them.  Mark Dantonio had the Spartans ready to exploit Michigan's flaws and that preparedness (plus a bit of dirty play) allowed Michigan State to dominate us. Brady Hoke used Michigan's bye week to effectively put the loss to Little Brother in the rearview and had the Wolverines ready to put Purdue away in style.  When Miles faced Saban after each had a bye week the result was one of the most epic battles I have ever seen.  This is what good coaching can do with a bye week advantage.

Ron Zook is a bad coach, this is known.  It is remarkable how bad he is though, when looking at his record after bye weeks.  Over the past 4 seasons (2008-2011) Illinois has had 6(!) bye weeks, with two in both 2009 and 2010.  Their record following these bye weeks?  0-6:

2008: Lost to Penn St 38-24

2009: Lost to OSU 30-0, Lost to Cincinnati 49-36

2010: Lost to OSU 24-13, Lost to Fresno St 25-23

2011: Lost to Michigan (woot!)  31-14

That is epic fail.  Ron Zook should be fired.

It was a very satisfying win for Michigan however.  Yes, the lack of redzone efficiency kept the game interesting for far too long.  This just magnified how much better this defense is than anything we could have reasonably expected.  The zone blitzing destroyed Illinois.  The run defense was smothering.  Even the prevent defense worked almost to perfection, with Illinois needing almost 7 minutes to score when they were down 3 scores with 10 minutes to go.  They kept plays in front of them, tackled in-bounds, and strangled the game.  Giving up the 4th-26 was painful, but by that point it was forgivable.  Greg Mattison has done better than anyone could have expected.

Live for Today…

Several players/coaches should take particular pride in their accomplishments yesterday:

1. Greg Mattison - Seriously, can we get this guy a raise?  I know he already makes a lot of dough, but he has earned it and then some.  This defense makes such incredible leaps forward with each game... just remarkable.
2. Fitz Toussaint - Got his swagger back right out of the gate.  Get this guy a tear-away jersey and he would have had 250 yards.  It makes so much more seem possible when a top running back steps forward.
3. Devin Gardner - Looked much less lost out there.  Clutch TD throw on 3rd and long really put the game away.  Still needs work, but perhaps the future is looking up for DG.
4. JT Floyd - Beautiful anticipation on the interception that kept Illinois from making a comeback.  Played well against Jenkins, really taking away the Illini's best weapon for most of the game.
5. Jeremy Gallon - Great job on punt returns.  Really helped Michigan flip the field position in their favor.

Also of note:  Martavious Odoms nice TD grab, Denard Robinson 2 TD runs, RVB 2.5 sacks, Desmond Morgan blowing up fools, Mike Martin is Mike Martin

Hope for Tomorrow

Michigan comes back home to wrap up the season sitting at 8-2.  The rest is gravy. Every Michigan fan should be pretty happy with how the team is progressing.  I have not felt this confident about the future since 2006 at least.  Nebraska will be a tough test in a week, but I think Michigan will be competitive in that contest.  Ohio just lost to Purdue and is a team that Michigan should beat.  It is the biggest rivalry in all of sport though, so anything can happen. Regardless of how the last two games go though, this team has made this fan happy and excited about seasons to come.  It is great to be a Michigan Wolverine.

Go Blue and stay safe!