Denard leading nation in rushing... with a twist.
Picked up this little nugget from Stewart Mandel:
Officially, Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson is leading the nation in rushing (168.7 yards per game). Ironically, that wouldn't be the case if the NCAA counted the statistics from his rain-shortened opener against Western Michigan.
Sure enough, here are Denard's rushing numbers:
v. Western: 8 for 46 yards
v. Notre Dame: 16 for 108 yards
v. Eastern: 26 for 198 yards
v. SDSU: 21 for 200 yards
Denard's average of 168.67 yards over the three games that "count" puts him in first place, ahead of Oregon's LaMichael James (153.27) and South Carolina's Marcus Lattimore (152.75). However, if the stats from the Western game had counted his average of 138 yards would only be good enough for 5th place, behind a running back named Ronnie Hillman, whom you may have heard of.
Even if you assume that the 4th quarter of the Western game was played out and Denard rushed for another 50 yards (which is by no means guaranteed as the game was well in hand by the time it was called), it wouldn't have moved him anywhere in the ranking.
As brainless as the NCAA's refusal to count the statistics in a shortened game seems, they are actually doing us a favor in at least one statistical category.
September 26th, 2011 at 10:45 AM ^
That is strange but we've been to this dance before. This year it's about W's. Even after obliterating the record book last year the season had a pretty empty feeling by the end of it. It'd be cool if he could put up great stats but generally speaking, Denard rushing for massive yards a game has equalled a pretty one dimensional offense.
September 26th, 2011 at 11:01 AM ^
Negative guy weighs in.
<br>
<br>But he's wrong.
<br>
<br>Have we really seen this song and dance before? I remember Denard being knocked out of two games in the first four last year. He hasn't taken any punishment at all this year.
<br>
<br>Denard doesn't take the chances trying to stay in bounce and stretch runs like we saw a year ago.
<br>
<br>One last thing, if you think this opening big ten set up is anything compared to last year you need to watch some football my friend.
September 26th, 2011 at 11:10 AM ^
Congratulations on 10 spaces between each sentence you wrote.
It's not negative at all. If Denard can rush for 1000 yards a game and Michigan wins and he never gets hurt that's just fantastic. Give him the Heisman Generally speaking, if we rush the ball effectively with our running backs Denard doesn't have to rush that much which is better for the long term and also means our offense is more multi-dimensional. Remind me again how many rushes he had against Eastern Michigan? Oh yeah... Remind me again who our awesome starting running back is? Maybe Fitz will be the guy or Vincent Smith but there are questions there and Denard has had to shoulder more of the weight of moving the ball.
My point was, while the accolades are great, it may not be a good indication for the overall health and productivity of our offense. It might even suggest the rest of the offense is struggling. We know Denard can run, this isn't in question- but if he doesn't hit people with some more passes and if the running backs don't step up and carry more of the load it's not going to work every game.
September 26th, 2011 at 12:55 PM ^
It was only two. Watch some football.
September 26th, 2011 at 3:05 PM ^
Are some people that incapable of having a discussion about something to where Person A who has the ability to vote posts up or down and when Person B doesn't, but just because Person B doesn't agree with something Person A thinks or says, Person A just votes Person B's posts down?
Let me tell you, that is incredibly lame. I fully expect someone with the ability of voting to bury this post in this thread anyway, but before you do, let it be known that if you're Person A as described in my first paragraph, then you're a tool.
September 26th, 2011 at 4:12 PM ^
...you proved my point. Thank you.
September 26th, 2011 at 7:04 PM ^
Correction though: the post doesn't get "buried" unless people leave the standard setting on. I have mine set to allow all the posts to be visible, and anyone can do that if they like. On to yur point: some people reflexively down vote a post that they don't agree with, which is in fact, lame as hell. And people do mark opinions that are perfectly reasonable but which they happen to disagree with as "trolling." Nothing to be done about that. People also downvote someone complaining about that, which may be what happened here.
September 27th, 2011 at 9:12 AM ^
The down vote feature should be removed from this blog because it is clear that many people abuse that power. In other threads, I have made reasonable, sound arguments about topics and just because certain people did not agree with me, they marked them as trolling or flamebait. These idiots who do that (and I'm sure not all people who have the ability to vote are like this) are just power crazy fools and complete jackasses.
September 26th, 2011 at 1:22 PM ^
I think you missed the point.
/m. night shyamalan'd
September 26th, 2011 at 10:46 AM ^
Denard is just SICK. Ya'll think RR knew he was going to be this good when he recruited him?
September 26th, 2011 at 10:50 AM ^
I rolled my eyes reading your post title, but after reading through your elaboration, that is indeed one bona fide twist.
I will never doubt the Brhino Twist Designation again.
September 26th, 2011 at 10:54 AM ^
I was going to describe it, as Mandel did, as "ironic", but I didn't want the irony police hunting me down and locking me up with Alanis Morissette.
September 26th, 2011 at 11:05 AM ^
Ripping Alanis?!?! Not cool man. If only I had a knife...
...but all I have are these 10,000 spoons.
September 26th, 2011 at 11:11 AM ^
That is ironic, don't you think?
September 26th, 2011 at 2:28 PM ^
NO! Because there is no discrepency between what seemed to be and what is/was!!!!!!! !NOT IRONIC!!!@A1111!!121!!!!
September 26th, 2011 at 2:58 PM ^
Paging MGoUser icactus... the joke is waiting for you at the customer service counter... MGoUser icactus...
September 26th, 2011 at 11:37 AM ^
With a twist!
September 26th, 2011 at 12:14 PM ^
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/kdhhQhqi_AE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
September 26th, 2011 at 12:17 PM ^
Goddamit. I tried to embed the video, but I'm a moron. If someone could explain how to embed from youtube, I would greatly appreciate it (and it would make my posts so, so much funnier).
September 26th, 2011 at 10:52 AM ^
Why would it be strange that his average would drop if we counted a game as 1 whole game when it was actually just 3/4 of a game into his average?
September 26th, 2011 at 10:56 AM ^
If you look at the stats, you can see that DR only had 46 yds when the game was called, even if you say he would have gotten another 50 in the 4th (a big guess) then his average would fall to 5th. That is what the OP was stating.
September 26th, 2011 at 11:07 AM ^
I was more reacting to the press clipping then the OP, but that was stupid considering that ESPN has their own comment section.
September 26th, 2011 at 11:18 AM ^
it's too bad, then, that stewie mandel doesn't write for espn! ;)
September 26th, 2011 at 10:56 AM ^
Whole game, at that pace he only would have gotten about 60-65 yards rushing. That would knock down the average a fair amount.
September 26th, 2011 at 10:54 AM ^
It helps in the "per game" stats, but hurts in overall stats. It could be that Denard needs that extra 46 yards to take top rusher at the end of this season.
September 26th, 2011 at 11:22 AM ^
that since the game against western was fully in hand that Denard would have gotten 15 more carries in the 4th. for gosh sakes, he wasn't even hurt yet!
September 26th, 2011 at 11:24 AM ^
Related Question. As we watch all the on screen stats that show Denard rising up the UM all time record list for TDs and Rushing, id UM counting those 46 yards from Western? Not that it will matter by the time Denard stops running...
September 26th, 2011 at 11:30 AM ^
and so is the B1G.
September 26th, 2011 at 12:13 PM ^
<embed><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/kdhhQhqi_AE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></embed>
September 26th, 2011 at 10:28 PM ^
Before the game was over Michigan was just getting hot on offense and Denard could of ran for 100 in the 4th quarter easily