Diaries

  Synopsis: After 6 games, Michigan is currently ranked #14 in scoring offense and #75 in scoring defense. Based on these rankings, M has a 43% chance for a +5 WLM (9-4 or better) season and an 83% chance for a winning season. The offense definitely had its worse game of the season scoring only 17 points (primarily due to TOs). Rushing yardage was about 50% of the average for the year whereas passing yards were fairly close to the average. The defense continued to struggle allowing 9 more points than average and about twice the average rushing yardage. Defense passing yardage was slightly below the average. Michigan's current PPG is 26.8 so the defense must hold teams below this number to improve their performance.

I always use scoring stats because yardage stats are inherently flawed. Being #75 in scoring defense is not good but U-Ms defense is not as bad as the #112 in total defense indicates. According to the S&P+ rankings at Football Outsiders, Michigan is ranked #62 in total defense. 

Based on the FEI (Fremeau Efficiency Index), Michigan is predicted to win between 7.5 and 8.1 8.1 and 8.5 (ED: corrected) games (excluding bowl game but adjusted with +1 for U-M's one FCS opponent).

Based on the FEI, Iowa is favored by just a single point with just a 51% PWE (projected win expectation). Using the Sagarin Predictor, Iowa is favored by 3.4 points (note the Sagarin Elo-Chess actually has M as the favorite by 6.7 points and the Sagarin overall rating has M favored by 1.4 points). (Vegas Odds Opened with Iowa favored by 3.0).

I am surprised at how close this game is predicted. The SoS adjustments are especially interesting because the FEI SoS Algorithm (explained here) shows Iowa with a more difficult schedule than Michigan but Sagarin has just the opposite. Iowa has also had an extra week to prepare due to their bye last week. IMO, Michigan will have to play its best game of the year and end up with a positive turnover margin to win.

  Overall this year, U-M is averaging 3.2 points per possession (PPP) and 46 YPP. The defense is giving up 2.2 PPP and 38 YPP. With an average of 12 possessions per game for each team, this translates into a 12 point advantage for Michigan.

DETAILS: Here are the FEI numbers ( FEI Forecasts and Football Outsiders FEI ). FEI is a weighted and opponent adjusted season efficiency and is expressed as a percentage as compared with an average FBS team.

Note that FEI completely excludes all non-FBS data (the W-L record is only for FBS games, etc.). Therefore, you need to add 1 to the projected numbers for FBS-MW to get the final predicted wins for U-M this year. Or, if using the FBS-RMW, add 1 to the current win-loss record to get the final predicted wins for the year.

The FEI is a drive based analysis considering each of the nearly 20,000 drives each year in college football. The data is filtered to eliminate garbage time (at the half or end of game) and is adjusted for opponent. A team is rewarded for playing well against good teams (win or lose) and is punished more severely for playing poorly against bad teams than it is rewarded for playing well against bad teams. I've included the GE basic data so you can see the impact of adjusting for opponent.  (See: Football Outsiders Our Basic College Stats )

Here are the Sagarin Ratings.

Sagarin uses two basic ratings: PREDICTOR (in which the score MARGIN is the only thing that matters) and ELO-CHESS (in which winning and losing only matters, the score margin is of no consequence). The overall rating is a synthesis of the two diametrical opposites, ELO-CHESS and PREDICTOR.

Per Sagarin: ELO-CHESS is “very politically correct. However, it is less accurate in its predictions for upcoming games than is PREDICTOR”.

Here is the U-M vs. Iowa National Statistical Rankings with the advantage for each category indicated (all categories within 10% are considered a "push").

Here are the week by week National Statistical Rankings for Michigan (cumulative thru the week indicated):

I have included the major rankings for offense and defense but scoring rankings show the best correlation to winning and losing. Scoring rankings are based on PPG. Rushing, Passing, and Total rankings are based on YPG.

Here is the basic data for Michigan (each individual week followed by totals and then average per game). I've included Total Possessions for Offense & Defense along with the calculated data per possession. Number of possessions do not include running out the clock at the half or end of game. Offense Plays and Defense Plays are better indicators than Time of Possession.

Using Scoring Offense and Scoring Defense National Rankings for the past 5 years (FBS AQ teams only), this table shows the percentage of teams that finish the season with a +WLM and a +5 WLM. For example, teams that finished in the Top 40 in both offense and defense had a 100% chance to be +WLM and an 82% chance to be +5 WLM (9-4 or better).

Each year, of the 66 FBS AQ teams, 65% (43 teams) end up with a + WLM and 36% (24 teams) end up with a +5 WLM.

Below is an analysis of historical data on penalties in the Michigan-Iowa game dating back to 2003.  (FYI - The "Against" row lists penalties called against Michigan and the total yardage lost and the "For" row lists penalties called against Iowa and the total yardage gained due to these penalties.)

Based on the data, Michigan has averaged 4.2 penalties per game as compared to Iowa's average of 6.4 penalties per game. Not nearly as big of a disparity as the 4 penalty-per-game difference between Michigan and Michigan State, but a slight advantage nonethelss.  Interestingly, Michigan has been very consistent historically at around 4 penalties per game for about 40 yards lost per game in most rivalries that I have researched.  And Michigan appears to be on that same track this year (with the one abberation coming against Notre Dame in Week 2).

What it means for Saturday:  In a game where Michigan's offense is facing a strong defense and gaining yards may be more difficult than usual, penalties (like turnovers) can play a large role.  If you see 4 penalties from Michigan for 40 yards then do not fret.  However, if you see a flood of penalties from Michigan it might have a real impact on the game.  That's probably an obvious statement, but still something to consider nonetheless.

Saturday night, while we were doing our best to avoid the bros, the volleyball team upset #6 Illinois at Cliff Keen Arena.  It was a huge game for the spikers with Lexi Zimmerman posting her second career triple double (43 assists, 13 digs and 13 kills) in an epic performance, even for the best volleyball player in the history of the program.  Michigan now sits atop the Big Ten standings at 5-1 along with Illinois and Northwestern.

Senior setter Lexi Zimmerman is a two time All-American.  She's got ups.

This year the volleyball team expected a bit of a transition after making the elite eight and then losing outside hitters Juliana Paz and Megan Bower to graduation.  However the team is off to a scorching 16-2 start to the season, with a loss coming early on to Toledo and more lately at powerhouse Penn State.  How have they done it?  It's been an exciting mix of veterans and rookies for the Maize and Blue:

The Veterans

Everyone knows, or should know Lexi Zimmerman - the two time (soon to be three) All-American setter for the Wolverines.  Lexi is the floor general and has been doing what she does - DOMINATE - all season for the Wolverines.

Junior Alex Hunt needed to step up big this season for the Wolverines and she has.  She led the team with 19 kills against Illinois last Saturday and has shown that she can pick up the slack left by Paz and Bower.

Junior libero Sloane Donhoff anchors the back line for Michigan, routinely leading the team in digs. 

Junior middle blocker Courtney Fletcher got off to a solid start early and is well on her way to surpass her kill totals from last season.

The Newcomers

Several underclassmen have made a big impact on the team this year early on in their careers.  After appearing in only seven sets last season, RS Sophomore Claire McElheny is off to a great start to the 2010 season.  She has started 15 matches for the Wolverines and recorded 10 kills in M's upset of the Illini.  Her contribution has certainly been a big one and helped in the replacement of Paz and Bower.

True freshmen Molly Toon and Jennifer Cross have come on strong and are showing some promise for Michigan's future.  Jennifer Cross, a 6-4 middle blocker, has started 16 times this year for the Wolverines and notched 8 kills and 6 blocks against Illinois.  Molly Toon, daughter of the NFL's Al Toon, came up big in the Wolverines' win over Illinois, notching a career high-tying 9 kills. 

How They Got Here: 16-2 (5-1)

Michigan opened the season at the Toledo Classic, winning their first two games of the year before falling to the host Rockets in the championship game in five sets.  Since then the Wolverines have been on a tear.

M won 12 straight matches including an early season win at Oregon State and sweeps of the Michigan/adidas Invitational and the ASU Sheraton Tournament.

To start Big Ten play, Michigan hosted and defeated Iowa and #15 Minnesota before taking their first conference road trip.  On the road M beat OSU in 4 sets before travelling to Penn State.  While Penn State isn't the beast that they have been in years past (currently standing at 3-3 in B10 play), the Nittany Lions took care of the Wolverines in straight sets.

The Wolverines returned home this past weekend to defeat Wisconsin and Illinois.

Tonight: MSU at 7pm; Saturday #20 Northwestern at 7pm (Live on BTN)

If you want to feel better about little sister, come to Cliff Keen tonight, where the Wolverines should be able to take care of the Spartans.  Alex Hunt currently sits are 989 career kills and the good money says that she will notch kill 1000 against MSU tonight.

As previously mentioned, Northwestern is tied with Michigan atop the Big Ten standings.  So Saturday's matchup is a big one with a lot on the line.  Michigan will head back out on the road so it's important to get this win to set up what could be a great Big Ten season.

Looking Forward

Wed., Oct. 13	vs. Michigan State *	Ann Arbor, Mich.	7:00 p.m. ET
Fri., Oct. 15	vs. No. 20 Northwestern *	Ann Arbor, Mich.	7:00 p.m. ET
Fri., Oct. 22	at Indiana *	Bloomington, Ind.	7:00 p.m. ET
Sat., Oct. 23	at Purdue *	West Lafayette, Ind.	6:00 p.m. ET
Fri., Oct. 29	at Illinois *	Champaign, Ill.	7:00 p.m. CT
Sat., Oct. 30	at Wisconsin *	Madison, Wis.	7:00 p.m. CT
Fri., Nov. 5	vs. Penn State *	Ann Arbor, Mich.	7:00 p.m. ET
Sat., Nov. 6	vs. Ohio State *	Ann Arbor, Mich.	6:00 p.m. ET
Fri., Nov. 12	at Minnesota *	Minneapolis, Minn.	6:00 p.m. CT
Sat., Nov. 13	at Iowa *	Iowa City, Iowa	7:00 p.m. CT
Fri., Nov. 19	vs. Purdue *	Ann Arbor, Mich.	7:00 p.m. ET
Sat., Nov. 20	vs. Indiana *	Ann Arbor, Mich.	7:00 p.m. ET
Wed., Nov. 24	at Michigan State *	East Lansing, Mich.	6:30 p.m. ET
Sat., Nov. 27	at Northwestern *	Evanston, Ill.	7:00 p.m. CT

If Michigan can go to 7-1 in conference play this week, they set themselves up for a legitimate run at a Big Ten Championship.  The Big Ten is one of the best volleyball conferences in the nation, though, so they'll need to show up every night.  A westernish road trip to Indiana and Purdue should produce two victories, but road games are road games.  It'll be the following week at Illinois where we see what this team is made of.  In their first true road test they fell hard to the Lions.  Can they show up and upset the Illini for the second time on the season?

After four on the road, it doesn't get any easier with Penn State coming to town.  But with Penn State's losses to graduation this could be the year (last year M took them to 5 sets) that Cliff Keen witnesses a victory over the Nittany Lions.

NEEDS MOAR PAZ

I agree.

Better.

I spoke with Dr. Phillips LB Darryl Monroe today, and he updated me on his status. He's a teammate of recent commit Demetrius Hart, and Michigan recruits S Roderick Ryles, WR Chris Gallon, and 2012 QB Nick Patti.

Yes, it's that time of year, when baseball rules supreme. The World Series is coming up in short order, and while Michigan doesn't have any horses in the playoffs, that doesn't mean that the Wolverine baseball team isn't making news. That news, at least for today, is the announcement of Michigan's 2011 schedule.

The University of Michigan baseball program and head coach Rich Maloney announced on Tuesday (Oct. 12) the 2011 schedule, which features games against at least four teams that advanced to the NCAA Tournament, a mid-week home series against Texas Tech, and the full 27-game Big Ten slate.

Looking over the schedule, this year seems a little bit harder than in years past, and that's saying quite a bit. The big weekend series of the non-conference, at Stanford March 18-20, will be a giant test for the Wolverines; we've known about it since last year's season opening podcast.

Michigan did upgrade some of their other series as well, particularly in the mid week. Along with the annual home and home with Notre Dame (May 3-4), the Wolverines will play host to Texas Tech (May 10-11), marking the first time Michigan has hosted a Big XII opponent.

Coach Rich Maloney on bringing on the tougher schedules:

"I think you want to play a challenging schedule so that when you're coming to Big Ten play, you're ready to challenge yourself," Maloney continued. "Hopefully, you have worked on some things that maybe you hadn't worked on as much. But you've had experience against quality teams so you've been challenged. […] We felt it was a benefit to our kids because you learn about your team and yourself when you battle through the rigors of a tough non-conference schedule and this will be no different. We're going to have to play well to win those games early in the schedule, but ultimately it will prepare us for the Big Ten season."

Other non-conference opponents include a three-game series with a Rutgers (February 25-26) team that just missed the NCAA tournament last year, a weekend at Winthrop (2 games vs Winthrop, 2 against Stony Brook), a four-game weekend in at Sam Houston State (March 4-6, which I undoubtedly will be attending at least Saturday and maybe Sunday), and the season-opening Big Ten/Big East Challenge, with matchups yet to be determined. Michigan is also continuing their series with Florida Gulf Coast, who had a great Michigan alumni showing last season.

As for the conference season, Michigan misses Michigan State during the official Big Ten season, but like last year, the two schools have managed to secure a series against each other. Unlike last year, the schools will play a three-game weekend series (March 25-27) in place of the tomato cans both would usually face in their respective home openers. The Wolverines will host Friday and Sunday, with the Saturday game in East Lansing. I love this scheduling tactic as it eliminates the annual RPI vacuum surrounding IPFW, Oakland, or worse.

In the REAL conference season, Michigan does get two of the toughest series at home, with Indiana in week one of conference play (April 1-3) and Minnesota near the end of the season (May 6-8). They will also host Illinois and Penn State. That leaves road series at Purdue, Iowa, Ohio State, and Northwestern. That's a pretty tough road schedule, with Purdue and Iowa returning plenty of talent and Ohio State having a new, aggressive coach.

Unlike last year's schedule, I'm not sure I can even get close to predicting a win goal for Michigan right now. Questions are a plenty in the starting rotation and in the outfield. I want to put out a guess around 36-19 overall and 15-9 in conference, but that's a lot of guessing. If that were to come true, Michigan would almost have to win the Big Ten Tournament to make the NCAA. Right now, until I see our starting rotation prove themselves, I think that's probably a reasonable baseline -- neither too high nor too low, but also not a concrete floor.

UPDATE: According to Chris Webb of Buckeye State Baseball, Michigan's Big East opponents in the challenge are UCONN, St. John's, and Louisville. That's three tournament teams from last year added to the schedule and one tough weekend to open the season.

Last week I looked at UM's 2009 vs 2010 numbers and came up with some numbers that point to a Michigan loss, but I held out hope that the Michigan offense wouldn't suck like they did against Sparty last year - yeah...  So this week I'm just sticking to the numbers in hopes of reverse jinxing us into a win :)

This week I took it one step further and looked at all of Iowa's 2010 results, comparing them to their 2009 common opponent results (as best as you can -- PSU is nothing like the PSU from 2009 but it's the best you can do).

UM's numbers took a bit of a dip both offensively and defensively after the MSU debacle and we now have this for the D:

And this for the O:

Now for some scary numbers: Lets look at Iowa thus far. Their D:

And their O:

Ok so we already knew that Iowa has an absurd D but what about comparing both UM and IA to this point last year...

And for D-I Opps only:

So, compared to last year at this point our D is much worse, our O is a bit better and Iowa has made huge strides on both sides of the ball (pick-6's and special teams points aren't counted in this). With that in mind what happened last year against Iowa?

* means that I used the D-I only numbers

Well, pretty much only the Iowa O met their numbers for the season average while our D, O and Iowa's D took a big hit.

If we only look at UM 2010 vs 2009 we get a predicted score as such:

Then if we look at only Iowa 2010 vs 2009 we get this:

Basically everything spells doom.  Even if you put in a full 6-pt swing from the change of home venues, we're at best looking at 31-24 Iowa. Sadly, I'm going to go with the average of all four numbers and throw in a 3-point swing for home field advantage (not 6 as we're treating 2010 as a seperate entity) and I end up with UM 19 - IA 32. I'll do a bit of DO NOT PUNT rounding and IA's penchant for FGs for an official prediction of UM 21 - IA 30.

I'd do a full review of the MSU numbers but it's painful so the quick and dirty is the O took a 56% decrease in PPP (3.5 season avg vs 1.55 actual) and the D took a 69% decrease (1.84 season average vs 3.10 actual).

P.S. Dear Denard - please just run once your internal timer has gone off and prove the numbers horribly wrong!! :)