football

Interesting article by Dave Revsine of Big Ten Network on some stats for this week in the Big Ten. All teams are included but I will just put down a review of what was written about Michigan and MSU. I'll post the link at the bottom for those that want to see all of the teams stats.

Michigan

• Last weeks offense put up yards quick, but wow. 574 yards in 1,093 seconds, thats 1 yard every 1.9 seconds! Perhaps a new nickname similar to point a minute, yard a second?
• Denard has more total yards than 34 teams, with 1,913. Some teams on that list: Texas, LSU, Florida.
• As you all know by now, first to get 200/200 in two games.
• Michigan had 12.8 yards per play last week.
• Another one most of you know, 8 td drives of less than a minute this year

Michigan State

• Last time they beat Michigan 3 straight times was 1965-67 when Bo was still at Miami of Ohio
• Since last season Sparty is 8-0 when winning the time of possession, 3-7 when losing it. That stat doesn't seem to have much relevance against Michigan though.

http://www.bigtennetwork.com/dpp/sports/football/dave-revsine%27s-big-ten-numbers-week-6

It’s 4th & 10 with a minute remaining, and Michigan trails by one point. There are no time-outs remaining. The ball is centered between the hash marks, there is no wind, and the field is dry. What yard line would be the tipping point between attempting a field goal, and going for it?

As a point of reference, Rodriguez has said that his kickers can make 50-yarders in practice (he doesn’t say how often), which would make the 33 yard line the outer limit. Given their performance to date, I doubt that he would actually try it from that distance with the game on the line.

But what distance would he attempt? I am guessing that he would certainly try a 40-yarder; much more than that, and I think he would take his chances with Denard.

What do you think?

Lately I've noticed several threads that all go something like, "This media person thinks X but I think Y!"  Seeing this and also knowing how mgobloggers like having lots of small threads even less than they like the opinions of media people, I thought I would try turning them all into one big thread.

The main benefit is for people who want to get some insight into the game that's outside of, or even contrary to, what the mainstream media is reporting.

A couple of the ideas below are drawn from this blog, some come from blogs like SBNation, but most of them come from someone who doesn't know that much about football (me), even though he's been watching it since he was a wee tyke waiting for Bo to throw his headset into the ground again so that his dad would laugh.

So, without further ado:

Advantages - Things the media missed that will help Michigan

Brandon Herron.  Although he's not a safety that's coming back, Brandon Herron is a junior.  And that means experience -- something the defense needs just as much as it needs deep-backs.  Also, his return frees up Roh to play at DE and rush the QB like a hungry Rhino with rabies.  Which leads us into....

Hitting Cousins on the Road (courtesy of this thread by brewandbluesaturdays).  It turns out Kirk's numbers drop pretty reliably in road games.  Check out last season's difference in his average per-game stats.  HOME: 16/24.5 (60%) for 220 yds, .33 INT, 1.5 TD, and 4 wins out of 7.  AWAY: 17/31.2 (54%) for 233.4 yds, 1 INT, 1.8 TD, and 2 wins out of 6.  Some of this stems from a tendency for Cousins to make mistakes when under pressure.  The combination of MSU's first true road game, the increased stadium noise, and the return of Herron bode well for Blue.

Denard Robinson.  Okay, the media has said plenty on this front.  But one thing they haven't brought up is his history (a short one, yes) against the Big Ten.  Last year, Denard ran just fine over Big Ten defenses.  Overall, he rushed for 351 yards, averaging 5.1 per carry.  Much of that came against stalwart defenses like Iowa, Penn State, and Wisconsin; and, all while he couldn't pass.  They knew he was going to run and still could do little to stop him.  His average bumped up to 5.8 ypc against those three.  Here's the other thing that often goes under the radar: Denard's pass-efficiency is now #3 in the country.  So, guess what?  He can throw now too.

Penalties and Turnovers.  Yes, the media has pointed out how MSU is the most penalized team in the Big Ten (91st nationally) and ranked 8th in turnovers (67th nationally).  They might even mention how well Michigan is doing: 5th in penalties (32nd nationally) and 3rd in turnovers (15th nationally).  What they don't mention is that this is key to Michigan's defense doing anything.  Although our defense has about the same strength as recycled tissue paper, its greatest only hope is for the opponent to make mistakes.  By playing bend-dont-break and stopping the big plays, Michigan will force MSU to run as many plays as possible, hoping to increase the number of drive-ending penalties and turnovers they commit.

That Golden Dome.  Despite being so early in the season, Michigan and State have one mutual opponent: Notre Dame.  Of the two games, Michigan won theirs more convincingly.  They did it on the road, and they didn't need a trick play in overtime.

Disadvantages - Things the media missed that will help State

Again.  Carry on.

Michigan State is unleashing a massive amount of spurious and unfounded edits upon all sports articles, as some fellow editors and I had to lock Michigan-related pages.

Please be mindful of Sparty trolls on Wikipedia.  It appears they're...everywhere.

I posted this a couple of days ago as a comment in a thread, but it got buried pretty quickly, so now that I can post diaries I thought I'd post it again.

I wanted to look at the breakdown of Rich Rodriguez's previous offenses, and in particular the main QB's run-pass balance and the fraction of runs by the QB.  I'm only looking at RR in Div 1A (so Tulane OC, Clemson OC, WVU and Michigan), and I'm skipping the mess that was the 2008 offense.  Data comes from the year-end statbooks for each team.

Here is the overall production chart.  QB is the main QB (from what I could tell) - in 1999 Brandon Streeter got a lot of playing time (mostly passing), and in 2001 Rasheed Marshall got a decent amout of playing time.

Team Production:

QB Production:

Denard has already had more passing yards and almost as many rushing yards as 2005-era Pat White.  If he averages just over 100 yards passing per game for the rest of the season he'll have more passing yards than any of RR's QBs other than Shaun King.  If he kept on his current pace (unlikely), he'd end up with almost as many yards as 1997-era Shaun King.  If he averages just over 60 yards rushing per game for the rest of the season he'll have more rushing yards than 2007 era Pat White.  For total offense he would need to average just over 160 yards per game to best Pat White's best season, and just over 315 to match Shaun King.  At this point it looks like Denard is the best all-around QB Rodriguez has had to date: almost as good a passer as King and as good/better a runner as Pat White.

Next I want to look at the breakdown of plays and yards between run and pass, and in particular the QB's share of production.

The first two data columns are the percent of all plays and all yards that come from all runs.   The third and fourth are the percent of all runs and rush yards that come from the QB.  The fifth and sixth are the percent of all plays and all yards that come from the QB.  The seventh and eight are the percent of the QB's total plays and yards that come from his runs.

RR has historically varied a fair amount in how much of his offense comes from running the ball - this year we're about average for what he's done in the past, and less run-oriented than for example 2005 West Virginia.  However, our rush offense is by far the most QB-based of any previous offense, far outstripping the one-man show of 2000 Woody Dantzler, and 2007 Pat White.  If we look at total offense, this year's team is more QB-focused than any of the Clemson or WVU teams, but actually on par with the Tulane teams.  Looking at Denard's run-pass balance he's actually right around Pat White's typical split, though he is certainly more run-focused in his production than any of RR's other quarterbacks.

This is just a high-level overview.  I can't break down the kinds of running or passing plays RR is using from this data.  The offense certainly feels very different than the Pat White-era WVU teams in formation and play style, and the YouTube highlights of Woody Dantzler I've seen have the QB iso type feel that we're seeing a lot from this year's team.  I think the main message is that even within his system RR will adapt his style, both at a high level and at the formation/play level, to match his talent - which is what he should do.