The Big Ten Is Put Off Because Of Storms

THE BIG TEN IS PUT OFF BECAUSE OF STORMS

For those that were wondering where this diary was this week, it was in my head. By this, I mean that I had every intention to do it as normal, but because my life goes to hell when the weather goes to hell due to my real-life job, things like this get put off until the next available moment. Indeed, that moment did not come until this morning as the storms from Sunday did a good amount of damage around southeast Michigan.

This week’s entry will be somewhat abbreviated, however, so if there is more specific information that anyone would like, I can produce it.

SCORING OFFENSE AND DEFENSE:

At this point in the season, it seems unlikely that anyone will catch Ohio State and their 49.4 points per game average, but Michigan does sit in the next tier, if you will, with Wisconsin, Indiana and Nebraska as teams that can put some points on the board. In our case, we have 34.3 points per game on average and that is good for fifth in the conference. When it comes to giving up points, Michigan sits in the middle of the conference approximately at 25.2 points per game allowed. By leaps and bounds, the most generous teams are Illinois, Purdue and Indiana. I doubt that changes now.

TOTAL OFFENSE AND DEFENSE:

Last week, it was mentioned that our attempts at forming an identity on offense were creating a bit of a muddle when it came to our average yardage differential. Despite how the Northwestern game may have looked, no harm, no foul this week – we still sit there with a slightly positive differential. Wisconsin and Purdue are the extremes in the conference, one because of their rushing attack and the other because of their ability to crater themselves with a mere thought.

RUSHING OFFENSE AND DEFENSE:

At this point, it is well-established that we have some issues with the when, how and why of rushing, and our rushing offense is still twice as productive as Purdue, which is good for 11^thin the conference. Ohio State and Wisconsin have essentially made the most prolific rushing offense a two-team race this season, leaving the rest of us to try and catch up. However, we are still quite proficient at stopping runs overall, as you can see below:

PASSING OFFENSE AND DEFENSE:

We’ll start with defense here – we allow an average of 236.4 yards per game through the air, which is 10^thin the conference. Interestingly, our pass efficiency defense rating is 117, which is third in the conference. So, we have our moments, but we’ve given up some good sized plays. That aside, Michigan is doing quite well on passing offense, as you will note below:

DOWNS AND DIFFERENTIALS:

In what has been a slow slide since the Michigan State game, Michigan is now in a rare position of having a slightly negative third down differential. As we know, that won’t make it impossible to win, but it typically makes it a little more difficult. It can be considerably more difficult actually, if the differential is well into negative territory. Michigan’s average differential is -0.80, which is not unrecoverable but it does speak to some of our issues with sustaining drives. If nothing else, we do average more first downs than our opponents, which does help some.

SPECIAL TEAMS: