Adv. Stats Schedule Rundown - Week 12 Results

Submitted by Ecky Pting on

Here's the Advanced Statistics Schedule Rundown for UM as of the end of Week 12, and despite the Buckeyes intentionally throwing that game against Sparty, the chart is still including a B1G Championship Game since UM still has somewhere in the range of a 10:1 to 4:1 chance to play into it. Iowa, of course, is a lock for Indy even if it dumps the Nebraska game, so they're the de facto opponent. Here's your embiggable chart:

Fancy Stats Comp Sched Rundown, 2015 wk 12

The race in terms of fancy stats has taken a slight turn in M's direction on account on the heels of essentially dominating performance of PSU, which has effectively rekindled the S&P+ romance with M. OSU's debacle didn't help its position, which pretties things up nicely looking into The Game. Of course, the same can't be said for MSU, but overall as of this writing, MSU still sucks. What follows below is a discussion of some of the details and week-to-week fancy-stat trends of M, OSU, MSU, PSU and Iowa.

In the S&P+ ratings, M improved its standing in Offense again over last week's results, moving up one position from #42 to #41, while MSU climbed from #32 to #29. OSU plummeted from #16 to #23, PSU dropped from #66 to #68. On S&P+ Defense, M took an impressive stand against PSU, particularly on the DL, and moved back up from #3 to #2. Putting Taco on the end and moving Hurst over appears to have been the proper remedy in lieu of the approach attempted at IU – so this bodes well for The Game. Moreover, the rating improved by 0.3 points from 12.0 to 11.7. Likewise, the PSU & MSU defensive units continued to register improvements. PSU moving up slightly from #13 and #11, and MSU significantly from #35 to #21. OSU dropped one spot from #7 to #8. Overall, M and OSU swapped order in the rankings: M now at #4, and OSU at #5, with the spread opening once again by 2.0 points to M -3.8. Despite yet another win, Iowa dropped again in overall S&P+ rank from #28 to #29, with the net spread vs. M increasing by 0.6 points to M –7.5.

As for the FEI Ratings, it appears M has managed to turn around its retrograde Special Teams play, moving back up from #15 to #14 – but still a far cry from having been #1 just 3 weeks ago. Giving up a blocked punt were probably neutralized by Lewis' fabulous KOR as well as the fumble recovery on the botched fair catch by PSU. The next closest teams are Iowa and OSU at #33 and #40, respectively. As for MSU and PSU Special Teams ... they continue to wallow in the lower echelons.

FEI warmed slightly regarding M's offense, which improved its rating while holding its rank #39, thanks yet again to a gritty, workmanlike performance by Jake Rudock. The running game is what it is, but at least coupled with an array of screen passing schemes and some solid pass protection, it can be sold off enough to make play-action effective. This is a situation where scheme is everything, and it appears by virtue of M having gotten this far on that basis, M's coaching staff are schemers extraordinaire. MSU also held its rank at #19, as did PSU its middling performance, shifting from #75 to #76. OSU meanwihle dropped by a good chunk from #31 to #38 – just one ahead of M! On the other hand, Iowa popped up from #32 to #24, so good for them. Wouldn't it be interesting to see a matchup of Rudock and C.J. Beathard in the B1GCG?

Carrying on with the trend from last week, the most alarming aspect here is the FEI Defensive numbers, which sees M continue retrograde movement from #7 to #11, while OSU stepped up from #11 to #8 – a remarkable reversal. MSU also popped up from #31 to #24 however, PSU and Iowa's defenses continued to slip from #14 and #36 to #17 and #44, respectively. As such, the FEI and S&P+ characteristics for offense and defense are largely congruent.

FEI Overall rankings show M held steady at #10, while OSU gave MSU the #6 spot while retreating to #9. PSU continues to wallow in mediocrity, sliding back from #48 to #51, and Iowa slipped a good bit from  #19 to #24.

Rolling the S&P+ and FEI numbers together, Connelly & Fremeau come up with the F/+ Combined Ratings, in which M swaps places with OSU, moving into the #5 spot, while OSU drops down to #6. MSU advances significantly from #15 to #10, but is still not as highly regarded as two teams from whom they've managed to steal games. PSU drops from #36 to #40, while Iowa continued its decline as well from #23 to #24.

Last but not least are the Football Power Index (FPI) ratings from ESPN. Here as well M reversed last weeks trend, moving up by 0.5 points from #17 to #16, while OSU held onto its CFP placement at #4, but with a 1.0 point lower score. As with S&P+, the total spread moved 1.5 points in M's favor from M +3.7 to +2.2, not a bad trend going into The Game! What's more, the spread between MSU and PSU, at MSU –5.4, is also within one score. Now, if Hackenberg can just get enough time to put a deep ball in the seam between MSU's safeties, they might still do what OSU did not.

Yours in football, and Go Blue!

Comments

LSA Superstar

November 24th, 2015 at 4:37 PM ^

I love this post, but you need to update after Conolly fixed the numbers this morning.  There was an Oregon State problem that caused their offensive efficiency to skyrocket due to a glitch, and this bumped our advanced stats higher than they should have been.