Turnovers and Special Teams–Updated Thru Wisconsin

Errors, Errors, and More Errors: As I watched the game on Saturday, it became obvious to me that turnovers may not tell the entire story. I saw error after error by M that caused many, many points to be left off the board. None of these are classified as TOs but can be just as damaging. So, I decided to see if I had lost my mind or not. I have not lost my mind. M had at least 8 ERRORS that cost us 21-35 points! Well, you say, every team makes errors, right? Wrong – Wisconsin had ZERO errors! BTW, W has 17 seniors (4th or 5th year) on their starting offense and defense. M has 5.

As weird as it may seem, the errors are a much bigger problem than the actual TOs. So, FOR GOD'S SAKE, QUIT STOPPING OURSELVES!

Synopsis for Turnovers: The game ended with 2 TOs for each team and, of course, a TOM of –0-. Gallon's fumbled KO return was followed by Rogers intercepting a pass on the same Wisconsin drive and saving at least a FG. Unfortunately, the interception came with only 30 seconds left in the half. Wisconsin's lone fumble led to a Michigan TD and Denard's lone interception on a tipped pass led to a Wisconsin FG.

Michigan has a TOM of –7 which is exactly ONE turnover less than it was last year before the osu game (after an additional –4 TOM in the osu game we ended the year at –12). TOs lost are now 123% of the average team and TOs gained are just 82% of average. Since we have a negative TOM, the overall ranking actually improved but is still FUGLY at #101. So – HOLD ON TO THE GOD DAMN BALL AND THROW THE GOD DAMN BALL TO OUR RECEIVERS!!

Synopsis for Special Teams: Unbelievable! Yet another missed FG and the 3 extra points by Gibbons barely made it over the crossbars. The fact that RR keeps having these guys kick the ball at all is the triumph of hope over experience. Hagerup continued to punt well with 3 punts and a net average of 40 yards. Stonnum did much better than Gallon at KO returns but that looks to be over with his injury. Not sure who will be returning punts and KOs against osu. That is too bad because KO and punt return yards allowed is a weakness of the boys down south.

National Rankings:

Details for Turnovers: Here is the Summary by Game. According to the folks at Football Outsiders  a first down TO is worth 5 points, second down TO is worth 4.5 points, and a third down TO is worth 4.0 points (regardless of field position!).

The extrapolation is a straight line [Totals] X [13 Total Games / Games Played]. AQ Best and AQ average is over the past 10 years. AQ Best is kind of funky because the team with the "best" in each category is different so the numbers don't add. But, it does provide a point of reference.

Here is the detail of each fumble/interception and a comment providing insight if the turnover (or lack thereof) was significant. Note, blocked punts are not considered a turnover and an interception of an extra point is not considered a turnover (player does not get credit for a interception).

Here is the overall summary by player (data in yellow was affected by this week's game).

Details for Special Teams: Here are the Punting and Kickoff statistics. (Touchbacks are included as –20 yards when determining net yards.)

Remember here are the correlations of TOM to WLM at season's end.