%231 jersey

News bullets and other items:

• Jabrill Peppers was held out of the second half by the coaches because of an ankle injury. He’ll play against Notre Dame
• Devin Funchess asked to wear No. 1 and cleared the number change with the Kramer family
• No word on what position Graham Glasgow might play
• Hoke wasn’t happy about ASU being able to run up the middle of the defense and will make adjustments before Notre Dame
• Dennis Norfleet's nickname is apparently Fleetwood
• Brady Hoke "Well,..." count: 7

“Football’s geometry. It really is.”

Opening remarks:

"Good way to start the season. As I mentioned to you many times before, this team has worked really hard and they've done a nice job. I think the leadership throughout has been good. I thought we played hard. Was a little concerned in the second half when they had the opportunity and they were running the ball on us through the middle of our defense. We've got to do a better job there but I thought the kids came out and played hard. Disappointing [to have] no turnovers defensively and we only had one sack. They get the ball out of their hands pretty quick and that's just what they do but should've been a little more than that. Had some opportunities and you've got to make them when you're there."

Is there an area that you were more impressed with between the points scored, the performance of 560 total yards, or the fact that the rushing yards surpassed the passing yards?
"I think the biggest thing was that we weren't competing with the scoreboard, we were competing with our abilities. That's what we talked about going into the game in how we wanted to play and how we wanted to go about every down. Statistics are statistics, and you can look at them and believe them or you can look at them and know that that's not really the true answer because there's a lot of things this football team has to do better."

Jabrill Peppers' status?
"He'll be alright. I'll be honest with you, at halftime just decided not to bring him out the second half. It's not a life-[threatening] injury or anything. He'll be ready next week."

Talk about the decision to give Devin Funchess the number one and how he responded.
"You know, the young man asked me about it and I said it was fine and I said call a member of the Kramer family and that's what he did. Ron Kramer may have been the best player ever to play here, the best athlete ever to play here and so he talked to Kurt, his son, and Devin being more of a wide receiver now obviously, he decided that's what he wanted to do. And believe me, I asked him who's worn the number one and he started with Anthony Carter and went down the list so I think that's...he earned it."

How he played today?

"Well, let me look at his stats.
/pretends to look at stats packet but doesn't because he's Brady Hoke and statistics are lies
"He was a presence out there."

Talk about the importance of 100 yard rushers and [playing] winning football.
"Well, we want to run the ball and to have two 100-yard rushers is a good thing. We wanted that offensive line to play together. We talked about taking them out the series before the last touchdown but really they haven't played as much together. You know, Kalis missed some of camp. Getting him back in and playing with him and the combination with him and Joe [Burzynski]. Getting Mason [Cole] as many snaps [as possible], especially with a quality guard next to him, I think, was important. I thought Jack Miller did a really nice job with our offensive line. Between the communication I was very impressed with Jack and have been all camp. They did a good job. There was a sequence – a series, two series in the second quarter where we lost some yardage on a couple runs and that bothers me. I think we want perfection and that's good because high standards should be high. That bothered us.
"There were a lot of big runs in there. You watch Jehu [Chesson] block, you watch Darboh block, little Fleetwood block, I mean, those guys open up a lot of the big plays."

[More after THE JUMP]

During a wee hours period break of a wee hours Wings game last weekend, I ended up in a conversation about the #1 jersey and who might be the next player to wear it. The guy was really high on Chesson or Drake Harris or some future giant; I was like thatsracist.gif because the best receiver since Braylon is on the roster RIGHT NOW

 

Upchurch

Unless you’re just categorically against changing numbers for seniors (which I totally understand in all circumstances but this), if we’re truly honoring elite receivers with the 1 jersey it could be time we give it to Jeremy Gallon. The case against: is 5’8, has always been just mediocre at returning punts and kicks, is 5’8, took some time to work his way up the depth chart, would ideally be a slot receiver because he’s 5’8. The case for: is secretly 8 feet tall, among his various Inspector Gadget peripherals is a cloaking device that saved Under the Lights I, and the WAR stat for receivers says he’s the best in the conference by a wide margin.

When I was doing the receivers pages of HTTV last week I went looking for some more advanced stats to put in tables aside from the usual Bentley things like receptions, yards, TDs, games played, and what you can get by dividing those things together. I remembered cfbstats’s Marty Couvillan last year made all of those targeting data available to the public, with an assist from Bill Connelly of Football Study Hall.*

What Marty did is took that play by play ticker information that the NCAA makes available, and through some ninja text-to-columns work, managed to pull out data for when each receiver was targeted. This is groundbreaking work in receiver stats, knowing what happens whenever a ball is thrown in the direction of a player. It still doesn’t say how well it was thrown, how deep if it wasn’t caught, or how many defenders had to be shooed off, but until we have official scorers UFR-ing every game this is about the best we can get. Guys like Bill began building their own stats out of the new data and came up with YRPR, which formula is:

• The % of your team’s targets you receive
• Times how many yards you average per pass thrown in your direction
• Times an adjustment for the rest of your team’s passing game so we don’t just get the guys with great QBs and lines
• Times an adjustment for how often your team passes, so that we don’t just award wide open receivers on run-heavy teams, e.g. Roundtree 2010.

And what it said was…

2012 Big Ten Receivers by YRPR:

Rk	Name	Targets	Catch Rate	School	Rk (FBS)	YRPR
1	Jeremy Gallon	79	62.0%	Michigan	14	169.56
2	Jared Abbrederis	71	69.0%	Wisconsin	22	149.32
3	Kenny Bell	77	64.9%	Nebraska	34	134.55
4	Allen Robinson	126	61.1%	PSU	36	133.27
5	Roy Roundtree	58	53.4%	Michigan	51	118.63
6	Corey Brown	85	70.6%	Ohio State	52	118.22
7	Devin Smith	58	51.7%	Ohio State	73	109.21
8	Cody Latimer	65	78.5%	Indiana	80	107.02
9	Shane Wynn	95	70.5%	Indiana	124	86.15
10	Kofi Hughes	81	53.1%	Indiana	129	84.95
11	A.J. Barker	46	65.2%	Minnesota	150	79.71
12	Antavian Edison	92	63.0%	Purdue	165	76.67
13	Quincy Enunwa	69	60.9%	Nebraska	180	73.28
14	Keenan Davis	88	53.4%	Iowa	193	70.45
15	Kevonte Martin-Manley	81	64.2%	Iowa	196	70.20
16	Drew Dileo	30	66.7%	Michigan	206	67.70
17	Jamal Turner	53	60.4%	Nebraska	216	65.02
18	Jacob Pedersen	49	55.1%	Wisconsin	221	63.33
19	Ryan Lankford	63	58.7%	Illinois	237	59.96
20	Kyle Carter	52	69.2%	PSU	240	59.30
	…
27	Devin Gardner	37	43.2%	Michigan	271	54.41
	…
33	Devin Funchess	28	53.6%	Michigan	324	47.86

I know what you’re thinking: that top five includes three of the receivers I drafted in last year’s Draft o’ Snark, and my fourth is in the Top 10. That and our tiny receiver who looks like Snoop was best in the conference and 14th in the nation. Not “one of the best after Allen Robinson and Kenny Bell and Jared Abbrederis and those Ohio State and Indiana guys,” but best-best.

Nationally Gallon was one spot behind West Virginia’s Tavon Austin, also a 5’8 mite, also the first receiver taken in this year’s NFL Draft. In fact most of the guys above Gallon were drafted this year—only USC’s Marqise Lee, SJ State’s Noel Grigsby, Bama’s Amari Cooper, Vanderbilt’s Jordan Mathews, and Fresno State’s Davante Adams return among those who finished above Jeremy Gallon in this metric.

When Brian gets to the receiver previews later this offseason he will undoubtedly point out that Gallon blew up after Gardner stepped in, projecting to Braylon-like numbers if you extrapolate the Gardner starts across an entire season. Well, the advanced stats guys took his entire year and said he’s Tavon Austin.

* [Where’s LSAClassof2000? Follow those links and stop writing personal diaries.]

[After the jump, how Gallon’s 2012 compared with those of past M receivers, and how the Big Ten has fared against the others]