Pictured, the closest defenders Jeremy Gallon saw all day [Upchurch]

1. The Six Factors

So, that was a lot of bonus yards. Michigan’s 385 yards beyond the first down mark was the highest mark in college football this year (largely because the game was close and all second half plays counted, unlike say every Baylor game this year). It was the 11th highest total since 2003 and narrowly edged the 2010 Indiana game (by 2 yards) for the highest mark for Michigan in the time period. For comparison, Purdue has 399 bonus yards on the season so far.

Add in Indiana’s 270 yards and this was the highest total for any game this season and the 13th highest total since 2003. There were a lot of big plays in this game. Also, not a lot of third downs, especially long ones and the ones that did occur were converted at a high rate, even after accounting for their short distance. The offenses may have done OK in this one. The important thing is that Michigan’s offense was better than Indiana at virtually all of these things, even if Indiana did pretty well themselves.

2. Individual Game Scores

Devin Gardner: +29.9 EV+, +118% WPA (1st)

The top quarterback score of the season, even after adjusting for what the average offense does against Indiana. This game finished as the #10 QB performance since 2003 and the second best B1G QB score behind CJ Bacher against Michigan State in 2007

Fitzgerald Toussaint: –1.8 (+5.3 before opp. adjustment), +11% (90th)

On the one hand, it was great to see some success from Toussaint, on the other hand, after adjusting for the Indiana factor, it was actually below average. At this point, my expectations are pretty low for the traditional running game. Toussaint had some nice success but given how bad Indiana was and that he still was only at 4.0 YPC until the final run, I don’t see things getting significantly better for him down the brutal November stretch.

Jeremy Gallon: +29.5, +84% (1st, obvs)

So this was a nice game for #21. This blew the doors off of any other receiving performance in the last 11 seasons. Gallon broke Stedman Bailey’s record set last year against Baylor by nearly 15%. I put together a quick chart of Gallon’s projected yards throughout the game.

After the first 70 yarder the pace shot up to nearly 600 yards and never dropped below 300 from then on. It was pretty amazing to see all the On Pace For jokes throughout the day and see that in the end, some of them undershot the final total.

Devin Funchess: +6.8, +15% (49th)

Tre Roberson: +15.5, +54% (4th)

Nate Sudfeld: –0.3, –6% (63rd)

Tevin Coleman: +5.6, +14% (11th)

Kofi Hughes: +9.3, 29%, (22nd)

Cody Latimer: +7.4, +19% (39th)

3. Game Chart

The six biggest plays of the game:

6. 11.1% Roberson runs for a 15 yard TD/Gardner hits Gallon for a 50 yard TD

5. –11.5% Tempo hits Michigan for the opening 59 yard TD pass

4. +14.2% Gordon picks off Sudfeld

3. +17.1% Gardner to Roundtree Gallon for 70 yards

2. –18.3% Michigan fumbles the snap at the doorstep of the goal line

1. –20.3% Roberson to Hughes (through Stribling) for 67 yards to bring Indiana within a two point conversion

4. Ron Zook Dumb Punt of the Week

Last week featured a couple of coaches who punted to win. Both Butch Jones at Tennessee and Bronco Mendenhall at BYU called for punts while trailing with under 4 minutes left in the game. Those made not have been the optimal choices, but both coaches managed to get the stops and convert the stops into game winning scores.

Brian Kelly went for the punt on 4th and 3 from the USC 38.

Northern Illinois and CMU will share this week’s award. Northern Illinois punted on 4th and 3 from the CMU 35 yard line. This happened in a game where Jordan Lynch set the single game rushing record and averaged nearly 10 yards a carry on 32 carries! CMU shares the award by punting away to Northern Illinois with 5 minutes left while trailing by 13 points. Somewhere Gary Andersen is nodding in approval.

Bonus Dumb FG of the week: Arizona State took it to Washington early, and Washington was facing a 4th and goal from the 9 midway through the third trailing by 20 points. Rather than push to truly get back in the game, the Huskies opted for the chip shot field goal to cut it from a three score lead to a smaller three score lead. Going for in on 4th and Goal from the 9 is usually not a no-brainer, but when trailing by 20 in the second half, there isn’t a great case for the field goal.

5. State of the Stats

The Six Factors for all teams can still be found here

• Devin Gardner’s record setting day has him up to fifth in the season QB totals (+11.5) behind Bryce Petty (+14.7), Johnny Manziel (+13.7), Marcus Mariota (+12.5) and Aaron Murray (+11.9).
• No player has been more instrumental to his team’s success than Gardner who has accumulated a season high 3.8 wins on the season and is still in first in terms of team replacement value, with Michigan 117 points better when he rushes or passes versus an average play from any other player.
• Jeremy Gallon’s big day has moved him up to #4 on the season at +9.9 behind Antwan Goodley (+11.5), Mike Evans (+11.5) and Brandin Cooks (+10.4).
• Devin Funchess is inside the top 40 at +5.8 and is third among all players listed as tight ends behind Jace Amaro of Texas Tech and Eric Ebron of North Carolina.
• Next week I’ll dive into the details behind Michigan State, but the offense defense splits are getting absurd at this point. The Spartan offense is ranked 100+ in four of the five defense independent factors and the defense is top 10 on three metrics.

6. Prediction

With no game this week, we’ll take a look at the season projection for Michigan. My numbers are more optimistic than most on the prospects for the remainder. I have Michigan as a favorite in all remaining games, with @NW, Nebraska and @Iowa listed as reasonable ~60% odds. My numbers aren’t big fans of either Michigan State or Ohio State, largely due to schedule concerns for both and offensive woes for Michigan State.

Next week I’ll dig more into the MSU numbers, but for now I have listed the original numbers as yellow and optimistic projections and a more realistic assessment (noted here as Pessimistic) of Michigan’s chances versus its two main rivals. Depending on your take on the games, this season is projecting to 9-10 wins, but with all the remaining games competitive, a lot of different outcomes are still on the table.