Fear and Paranoia in Ann Arbor

You found a trend with four seasons worth of data points? I'm shocked!

Are they really reliable indicators?  Can you post some 95% confidence intervals?

Wonder how this would change if the tomato cans were removed, Mathlete style, as these seem to be the games with the lowest fear / highest desperation levels.

Also, is a large spread between the F and D metrics (i.e. |F-D|) good for M?  If the team is expected to lose (high F, low D), maybe they play relaxed and pull out the upset.  If they're heavily favored (low F because the chance of upset is low, high D because a loss ruins the season), they would also of course tend to win.

Finally if you took the product of F and D for each game, you'd get something you might call "importance."  Does a team perform better / focus more for games that are important to it's fanbase?

The big thing that I am worried about is how State shut down the run last year.

By the way, anybody hear Valenti today?  He believes that Jones is going to Spy on Denard and nobody in the Big Ten is better at taking angles than Greg Jones. 

When Michigan is rolling, Brian tends to be less afraid, and more desperate to keep the trend going.  When Michigan is not doing so well, opposing teams tend to freak him out more, and the F/P level goes up.

It's more likely that we desperately need to beat crappy teams, but are less afraid of them while we're less likely to need to beat the best teams but are more afraid of them.

I am worried because State's offense is basically UMASS with better athletes. I also tend to agree with the worries of the first couple posters. I think State's defense may stifle our running game a little bit. I understand that Denard is a whole different monster and that our offensive line is much improved this year, but I still am not totally convinced about our running game yet. I think this game is going to reveal to us how good our offense really is. Not that Michigan State has a great defense, but I think their defense will be the best we have faced up to this point. I am hoping that this game both legitimizes and falsifies the data that has accumulated about our offense over the course of the first five games. Mainly that our rushing offense truly is lethal and dominant. 

But this is the very reason why I am nervous--I am not totally convinced or certain that our offense is as good as it has appeared to be thus far. This game is huge because it will reveal to us whether we are good enough to play with the big boys in the Big Ten again.

Gotta love an analysis analyzing the analyzer.

This kind of breakdown of Brian's predictions is something Brian himself must remain ignorant of, lest it influence his prediction-making.  It's like psychohistory -- it only works if the subjects remain unaware.

I don't think MSU will be dominating our O-Line on Saturday.  I think the offense will have a good showing. If they do stick more people in the box then DROB can burn them wth the pass, and if he does the run will open up. I think we will score 5 or more TD's on MSU.

Now the defense still worries me.  If they cannot stop the run it will be a long afternoon and the team wth the ball last may win. However, if we do stop the run there will be some 4 and outs by Sparty but there could be some big passing plays.  Final analysis, we cannot let MSU run on us and make long time of possession scoring drives. MSU's best defense will be long time consuming drives that keep DROB and company off the field.

The D for this game should be pretty high, I bet it's at least 9.

• +1 for RR hot-seat
• +1 for 3 in a row
• +1 for  bowl eligibility
• +1 for "see? it won't work in the B10."

Greg Jones as a spy, take comfort in that actually being the worst way that State could defend Denard. As a football coach spying a man up has this mirculous little effect on the psyche of the other players on defense. They begin to relax a bit thinking,"I don't have to make tht play, Jones has him." I've seen it time and again. Which is fine, as long as Greg Jones gets there. However, if a lineman happens to start blocking Jones, or even just gets  a piece of him, then you have no one responsible for DENARD! States best option would actully be to bltz the holy bejeesus out of Michigan, fill all the gaps with a man and get Denard in the backfield. It's the only way to stop him.....from running.

play a different guy because the stud is up against a mean defense?  I've made that mistake and discovered that the studs usually still perform in the big game.  Denard still gets 150+ rushing, and State's three TO's seal their fate.  Our D will play just well enough to win. 

IIRC we should have Shaw back, and perhaps Carvin J. 

You had me at "I feel like there hasn’t been enough analysis leading into the Michigan/Michigan State game this weekend".

this post made me both paranoid and desperate.