Updated FEI / S&P+ Stats - "Maryland is Who We Thought They Were - And a Lot Like Us" Edition
I'll be moving these advanced stats updates to the diary since its mostly for data nerds who like to read a lot of prose.
With that said with UM in a bye week this week's version will be shorter than usual due to not much to update. As we get deeper into the season, we are at the point now where you are who you think you were and your FEI + S&P+ data won't move too much unless you have a Wisconsin-Nebraska type of game which significantly changed Wiscy's offensive and Nebraska's defensive ratings.
If you are not familiar with these measures please go check out Football Outsiders; S&P descriptions here and FEI descriptions there. Contrast these to the simplistic "total defense" and "total offense" most of the world uses which is simply total yards gained or given up per game - which is apples to oranges based on what conference you play in plus does not account for garbage time. FEI has a much stronger SOS component to it, so S&P+ is more kind to the Big 10.
I've also added a new section below the main data for CC's so you can see how they stack up.
Michigan stats
Offense:
- FEI flat at 94
- S&P+ flat at 76
Defense:
- FEI flat at 35 (now 5th ranked in the conference as Iowa fell 1 slot behind UM this week)
- S&P + dropped from 31 to 33 (also improved to 5th in conference as Nebraska fell behind UM - this is the benefit of UM avoiding Wisconsin!)
Big 10 plus a few others:
oFEI | oS&P+ | dFEI | dS&P+ | ||
UM | 94 | 76 | 35 | 33 | |
MSU | 27 | 13 | 53 | 15 | |
OSU | 11 | 1 | 18 | 11 | |
ND | 31 | 16 | 21 | 43 | |
PSU | 104 | 85 | 8 | 13 | |
Nebraska | 40 | 26 | 26 | 37 | |
Rutgers | 63 | 42 | 63 | 66 | |
Maryland | 58 | 69 | 59 | 44 | |
Indiana | 85 | 68 | 87 | 96 | |
Wisconsin | 34 | 15 | 11 | 9 | |
Utah | 72 | 79 | 4 | 35 | |
Minnesota | 48 | 47 | 38 | 40 | |
NWestern | 54 | 87 | 42 | 51 | |
Iowa | 61 | 83 | 36 | 53 | |
Purdue | 67 | 72 | 68 | 63 | |
Illinois | 88 | 77 | 95 | 91 | |
Arizona | 28 | 49 | 29 | 44 |
Opponent Watch:
Maryland - same comments as last week. I've watched Maryland 3x this year including this weekend. Without Stefon Diggs and his 700 yardish receiving yards they are super not dangerous. Deon Long is decent and will probably give Ray Taylor all sorts of trouble but Trae Waynes erased him last week so CJ Brown was mostly throwing to a WR who had 0 catches on the year coming into the MSU-Maryland game. They have almost no run game not named CJ Brown; we actually have more of a run game - it's that bad. Their defense is middle of the road in a Big 10/ACC kind of way. D line played strong in 1st half before wearing down. This has all the earmarks of M00M for a good while before ending in a scintillating 17-16 affair. Or 14-13. Or 18-15. You get the point.
OSU - Florida went for the Earl Bruce "play with your hearts on your sleeve for your deposed coach" to close the season. UM is "still evaluating" so no hopes for an Earl Bruce moment. I expect a carbon copy off the MSU game where UM's defense keeps it relatively respectful for a half while the offense LOLs all day. Then OSU pulls away in the second half as Hoke claps. No M00O for you.
TL;DR comments:
Offenses - Not much to add here. OSU, MSU, and Wisconsin have offenses. Nebraska has a QB who makes Denard Robinson look like Dan Marino so when facing legit defenses they cannot do much (MSU/Wiscy). Thankfully it is the Big 10 where legit defenses are in short supply. Unless you go to NCAA.com and bring up "total defense" - which of last week told us we are in a golden era of defense with 8 of our 14 members in the top 25 of defense. WOO HOO. All other offenses in the conference are pretty hit or miss.
Unless they play Notre Dame at which point they look solid.
Except for ours.
Aside from that a lot of 1 dimensional (Minnesota/Maryland) or no dimensional (UM/PSU) offenses.
Defenses - The bye week was great for UM as it moved up 1 slot in the conference from 6th to 5th in both FEI (passing Iowa by 1 slot) and S&P+ (passing Nebraska). More byes please! Thank the football gods this defense doesnt face TCU/Baylor/West Virginia type offenses and found 1 of 2 Pac 12 teams (Utah/Stanford) with LOL type offenses to schedule as almost everyone else in the Pac 12 can throw like mad. And we don't defend throwing very well.
I tipped the hat to the PSU and Wisconsin DCs last week and let me tip it again to Wisconsin's (who I'd love as our DC). No gimmicky names or trademarks - just a bunch of decent athletes playing incredibly assignment sound football with premium level tackling. If not for 3 Wisconsin turnovers early in that game they might have held Nebraska to 10 or less. This with almost all new starters v 2013.
And just wanted to again point out the quirk with MSU's defense FEI rating. MSU plays a "break dont bend" defense - they rank high in almost every category except explosive drives. When they get beat it is not a 11 play 78 yard drive - it is a 60 yard run or a 45 yard pass. So FEI is punishing an otherwise "good" defense for that. If the Big 10 had any sort of decent QB play they'd have a lot more pain this year but aside from OSU and Purdue (yes Purdue) MSU has faced almost no throwing threats in their conf schedule.
New (and temporary) section
Real or imagined CC's data for comparison
oFEI | oS&P+ | dFEI | dS&P+ | ||
TCU | 21 | 12 | 9 | 14 | |
ASU | 13 | 34 | 28 | 30 | |
Oklahoma | 12 | 6 | 50 | 19 | |
OK State | 86 | 82 | 82 | 57 | |
LSU | 50 | 19 | 15 | 3 | |
Miss State | 25 | 5 | 6 | 8 | |
Kentucky | 77 | 52 | 83 | 60 | |
Tennessee | 71 | 48 | 20 | 24 |
- OK state in full tire fire mode - very young team but surprising this deep into Gundy's career to be this butt naked.
- LSU's offensive stats took a hit after a goose egg vs Arkansas
- Will be interested to see what Mark Stoops does in year 3 at UK - this is the year most of the top end coaches see significant statistical improvement when they take over bad teams.
November 30th, 2014 at 3:47 PM ^
How do we lose to Maryland
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