2010 Michigan State

Though we're not one of them, being one of the few teams that had to play all three Big Ten 2010 Champions, and since we generally hate all three, I figured Michigan bloggers might be in a good position to adjudicate the mess atop our conference this year.

Base comparisons are as follows. I would appreciate any comments, and would like to change it up based on your opinions.

	Michigan State	Ohio State	Wisconsin
Loss	6-37 @ Iowa (-2)	18-31 @ Wis.	24-34 @ MSU
Ohio State's loss to Wisconsin was by more, but Wisconsin won the turnover battle by 3 and still lost to Michigan State by 10. They're pretty much even. Michigan State got beat much worse (-1) by a worse team (-1)
BCS OOC	34-31 ND	36-24 Miami (+1)	20-19 ASU (-1)
Notre Dame and Miami are both erratic, 7-5 teams against tough schedules but Ohio State didn't make it close, while MSU needed a fake punt conversion (that was covered!) to beat ND. I count both of those as better than ASU, who will finish 5-7 most likely a tough (-1) to Wisconsin, though they get the benefit of the doubt next close one.
Big Ten 1	34-24 Wis (+1)	20-17 @ Iowa (-1)	31-18 OSU (+1)
The Iowa game is Ohio State's biggest win, and it wasn't that great of a win -- as close as the 3-point spread looks (-1). MSU/Wis and OSU/Wis were dominating wins over Top 10 teams. (+1)
MICHIGAN	34-17 @ Mich	37-7 Mich	48-28 @ Mich (+1)
Easiest comparison to make. Ohio State and Michigan State both dominated thanks to Michigan mistakes, while Wisconsin made its trip to Ann Arbor a bloody affair (+1) from kickoff.
Purdue	35-31 Purdue (-1)	49-0 Purdue (+1)	34-13 @ Purdue
Ohio State murdered (+1), Wisconsin held serve, Michigan State (-1) needed a 4th quarter comeback to beat a worse Purdue team than either other one played
PSU/Iowa	28-22 @ Penn St	38-14 Penn St	31-30 @ Iowa
Iowa's a better 7-5 team than Penn State, but the close road win didn't tell us much. Ohio State got the Lions at home when they were worse, but they did better. 0s all around.
Minn	31-8 Minn	52-10 @ Minn (+1)	41-23 Minn
Pasting, bigger pasting on the road (+1), pasting.
Illini/NW	26-6 Illini	24-13 @ Illini	70-23 NW (+1)
Illinois is better than Northwestern. MSU came on late but came on. Ohio State made it a lot closer. But Wisconsin's 70-point finale against a worse Northwestern team (+1) is more impressive.
Ind/NW	35-27 @ NW (+1)	38-10 Ind.	83-20 Ind. (+1)
MSU looked to lose to Northwestern right up until the end, but they're a much better team than Indiana so (+1). Ohio State did what it was supposed to, but Wisconsin put up 83 (+1)
OOC	38-14 WMU	45-7 Marshall	41-21 @ UNLV
Pasting, pasting, slightly worse pasting but on the road.
OOC	30-17 Fl.Atl (-1)	43-7 Ohio	27-14 SJSt. (-1)
FL-Int. kind of made it close (-1) and so did SJ State (-1) while OSU rolled over Ohio
TomatoCan	45-7 N.Colo	73-20 EMU	70-3 Austin Peay
Doesn't count -- any FBS team but EMU might give Ohio State a
TOTAL	-2	+2	+2

It's not a perfect line-up, but it gets the job done, giving us some close and semi-close apples and oranges to compare.  The +'s and -'s are simply numeric comparisons for how the teams did against each other on that line, i.e. they say how much each team disguished itself from its two conference competitors in that comparable.

You can argue a lot of my conclusions.

So Michigan State's resume, lined up as best as I can, is substantially behind that of Ohio State and Wisconsin. I wouldn't feel bad about ranking them several slots behind the other two if there are some other 1-loss teams. Remember above where I said Wisconsin gets the benefit of the doubt? There you are. I'd put them slightly over Ohio State, whom they defeated. The late-season murderous rampage worked.

Okay, bloggers. Fisk away.

Normally, this would be the time frame in which I would create one of my all-killa-no-filla-and-nothing-remotely-resembling-an-opponent-highlight highlight reels, but I find myself with a little free time thanks to Saturday night's dong-punching (because when Michigan loses, There Are No Highlights).

Naturally, I used this time to revisit a three-week-old dong punch, the MSU game. This is the video companion to the Backside DE Pursuit Picture Page. But enough about my dong and punches thereto.

Wha'happon: It's early in the second quarter; MSU just scored on a 61-yard run that illustrates what can happen when you don't get any backside pursuit (which moment of defensive glory I'll be MPP'ing soon; I can only deal with one catastrophe at a time). Michigan runs Denard off left tackle with Hopkins as lead blocker. Schilling pulls around, but because his pull is disrupted by the MSU DT, he's not a factor. Lewan and Webb destroy the right side of the MSU DL, Molk takes out the WLB, and Hopkins gets a solid block on the SLB. Even without Schilling helping lead the charge, this looks like a huge play or even an answering 60-yard TD after Denard WOOP!s Greg Jones. HOWEVA, Dorrestein can't maintain his block on the DE, who hauls ass all the way across the formation and trips Denard up after seven yards.

I slowed the captions down considerably from my previous two efforts (for those of you doing videography at home, the rule of thumb is to leave a title up for THREE TIMES AS LONG as it takes you to read it aloud, but that seemed bloody ponderous when I tried it, so I cut all those times back somewhat). I'd say "Enjoy," but you're really not going to enjoy it. I'll just say "Watch and learn," because I sure as hell did.