MSU Recap: How was the play Mrs. Lincoln?

We are who we thought we were. Denard is indeed awesome but human after all.

However, Sparty wasn't Sparty. They played hard, were disciplined and executed well with no turnovers.

They were better than we thought they were.

I would submit that the incompletion nullified by an MSU penalty and the subsequent Keyshawn Martin reception where he ran all the way across the field to gain a first on third and long were certainly among the most important plays of the game.

The computer predictions are interesting, i cant believe that we only have a 1% better chance of beeting Purdue than Wisconsin.  That simply cant be right. 

I think state is a better team than most gave them credit for going into last week.  And we could have one that game minus all the mistakes, further proof we can hang with anyone. but to win thise games we have have to play mistake free football on the offensive side of the ball, becuase the offense gets little assistance from the D.

If Denard leads Roundtree and lofts to Stonum (or Stonum doesn't slow down - so not entirely Denard's fault on that one), we're up 14-0.  Very different ball game the rest of the way.

Michigan went from a 22% chance of getting 11 wins to like, 1 1/2 %?  Ugh.  Not that I ever thought it was possible anyway, but what a grim shift ...

I know that with each week things change but I don't put much stock into your analysis. It changes too drastically from week to week.

The mean shifts with more observations... shouldn't be unexpected since Wisky gave up a lot more points to Mini than expected and Purdue upset an undefeated NU team. Iowa is scary as hell, I hope we can RPS the heck out of them, looking at their loss to Zona, we pretty much have to have ND Denard back although I wonder if Iowa's run game is as good as MSU's and I think Stanzi's efficiency rating is lower than Cousins, so the pluses may line up better.

We're now likely to lose at, at home, to Illinois?  Really?

on future returns.

That is the disclaimer for all the Mathlete does.  Now what would be very telling of his analytic method (but perhaps too painful to even contemplate) is if he applied this method to each game of the 2009 season as it progressed.

Was there the same slow improvement week to week while Michigan was building it's undefeated streak prior to last year's first loss?

Another request/suggestion I have is to find a way to measure the breadth of choice that exists in the offensive playcalling.  I've heard it stated indirectly, and in a variety of ways, that the disadvantage of getting behind is that it begins to limit the variety of plays that will be called.  A well coached defense will recognize this and start to bet against that narrowing option.  Until the MSU game, Michigan has lead the entire game every time (ND the exception, but in reality only 3 points up with plenty of drive time, so no real playcalling limitation, in fact the coaching statement was that they were "trying to run time off the clock" ).  So how do you measure this?  A simple measure of Point Differential?

Maybe I'm thinking of the movie Rounders too much, but it seems like coming out in the second half we had lost too many of our chips, and it was just a matter of MSU increasing the pressure until the game was gone for good.

The statistics don't measure what many players speak about on their game performance.  The difference in playing relaxed versus tense affecting confidence and performance.  Does this explain the plentitude of dropped balls from receivers who seem to have had hands of glue up until last Saturday?

Mathlete is correct, we assign narratives to the things we cannot directly measure and explain.  Our brains, our very psyche has evolved to fill in the gaps in our sensory experience that defy explanation otherwise.  And that is why we watch each and every game.  If this game were explained by numbers, like knowing all the cheat codes to your favorite video game, then the mystery is gone.  The reason for watching is gone.

I guess the question that each fan has to answer for themselves is, "where do you place your faith?  In seemingly arrogant unsupported claims proclaimed from THE_KNOWLEDGE? or in the always adjusting and recalculating, but statistically more likely (but never guaranteed 100%) results of Mathlete?

For me I don't focus on the narrative of the game, but on every game as a magical addition to the narrative of the season.  At this point I could collapse, losing all faith, and declare this season dead and buried, just like 2009.  Or I can see this past game as a time that a young team too desperately wanted to prove themselves to their coach, to their fans, to the world at large that this season was different.  So desparate that they turned their eyes up field befor they saw the ball into their hands, so desparate that they told themselves not to run, that it was more mature to wait, and wait, and wait, before throwing it into coverage still too tight to be worth the risk.

And this saturday I turn the page to the new chapter, bright with hope.  Hope that is many-dreaded, hope that is sieve-like to 3rd and long, hope that can't kick itself out of a brown paper bag.

But hope none-the-less.  Seemingly too weak to jump out of Pandora's box, but yet the most enduring aspect of the human spirit.

We were outplayed by a better team.  

We had too many flaws to cover.  Like a pass defense currently ranked 119th out of 120 FBS teams and ranked the 102nd worst overall.  Like a poor special teams showing compared to the Spartans.

Once our offense sputtered, we were in it deep.

We have a long way to go.

Can we erase this game?

I keep seeing this sentiment that we were totally outplayed.

I saw a TO margin that had been steadily positive instead end up in the negative.

I saw a game in which we entered the MSU redzone on 6 out of 11 possessions, which over the past 5 games would've meant 42 on the board. And instead ended with 17.

Sparty is a solid team, without a doubt, and deserved to win that game, but it seems that because of the last 2 years, the emotional spectrum of this board has shifted from "all-consuming glee" to "Kurt Cobain" in the span of one game largely because of a defense that broke instead of bent and Denard having an off day.

That's why I love these posts, because they value reason over emotion.

If you had told me after half the season, Michigan would be projected mathematically to have a 95% chance to win 7 or more games, I would've been ecstatic.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a swing of 1.5 games off the season predictor is HUGE.

It's also, I think, a normalization. Our offensive output was not sustainable; our defensive output was.

I believe that defense is more of a constant than offense, and that this is why good offensive teams tend to lose a few games they normally wouldn't. Our defense is going to give up 30 to 40 points per game no matter who's doing it to us, provided their offense executes. We didn't make execution very hard for MSU -- the hardest thing they accomplished on offense was getting off a flea flicker and completing the pass even though it was covered (oh, and finally injured Mike Martin on their 9th chop block). My point: going forward any games we are going to win will most likely be done so by scoring a ton of points.

I'm a little amazed about Illinois being the favorite, given that part of their recent surge (IME) is because people have not been able to make enough adjustements to their new QB and running attack.  Not saying UM will be that team, but that game is so far in the future that by then I expect them to come back to earth a bit.  Beating a pretty bad PSU team on the road is impressive, but that OSU game was clearly one that the road team overlooked until Illinois punched them in the collective mouth.

What I learned from Saturday

What I took from this game was that the Michigan Offense can't just run over a good defense.  I don't think that MSU didn anything more special than gap control defenses up front and then mixing up man and zone coverages behind it.  And because they were disciplined and stayed in their gaps, they were able to contain our running game. 

Looking forward

I really think that we have some games that will be difficult because of the opponent's defense:

• Iowa (10.2 ppg, 242.2 ypg, B10 #1)
• Penn State (18.0 ppg, 314.8 ypg, B10 #4)
• Illinois (17 ppg, 304.8 ypg, B10 #3)
• Wisconsin (19.0 ppg, 304.3 ypg, B10 #7)
• Ohio State (13.5 ppg, 236.3 ypg, B10 #2)

I think that these defenses are as good, or better than, the MSU defense (18.3 ppg, 336.7 ypg, B10 #T-5).  Iowa's offense compares well to Indiana's offense (statistically) and Wisconsin and Ohio State are the #3 and #1 scoring offenses in the Big Ten respectively.  Penn State and Illinois are gaining (on average) about 50 ypg LESS than Minnesota.  Purdue's defensive stats:  21.0 ppg, 357.4 ypg, B10 #8.  There seems to be a bit of a drop-off between Wisconsin and Purdue.  Plus, their offense isn't doing so great...which leads to my projections:

Projections:

Really conservative:  We beat Purdue.  That's it.  (6-6)

Conservative:  We beat Purdue.  We split against Illinois and Penn St. (7-5)

Moderate:  We beat Purdue.  We beat both Illinois and Penn St. OR split those games and win one against Iowa, Wisconsin, or OSU. (8-4)

A little crazy:  We beat Purdue, Illinois and Penn St.  We win one against Iowa, Wisconsin, or OSU. (9-3)

What I really want:  I'm totally clueless about these things and we are going to run the table...11-1

Probably the moderate choice, winning against Purdue, Illinois, and Penn St.

Disclaimer:

All stats taken from Rivals.  Obviously, I haven't made any cool adjustments to the stats (efficiency or opponent adjustments) like others have.  I just wanted a quick and dirty way to compare these defenses.