Remaining Opponents' Offenses
With the Denard-show in full swing, the key for this season scope of wins (anywhere from 2 to 12) relies pretty heavily on our defensive performance. That being said... how would you rank our Big 10 opponent's offenses relative to UConn and ND - and what does that do for our expectations? Throw out all the other intangibles for now and try and see where we stand after two weeks worth of data.
Chart
| Rank | Opponent | PPG | SoS | Efficiency |
| 1 | osu | 40.5 | 59.5 | 36.45 |
| 2 | UConn | 36 | 71.5 | 28.80 |
| 3 | Iowa | 36 | 85.5 | 24.48 |
| 4 | Notre Dame | 23.5 | 47.5 | 23.50 |
| 5 | Wisconsin | 34 | 89.5 | 22.10 |
| 6 | Penn St | 23.5 | 60.5 | 20.91 |
| 7 | Indiana | 51 | 120 | 20.40 |
| 8 | MSU | 34 | 99.5 | 19.38 |
| 9 | Illinois | 24 | 82.5 | 17.04 |
| 10 | Purdue | 21.5 | 90 | 13.98 |
Metrics
Strength of Schedule is based on an average ranking of opponents played so far. FCS teams are given a rank of 120 for simplicity sake. I'd use the Blogpoll if they ranked all 120 teams but I just referenced (www.teamrankings.com) to get something quick and dirty. If there is something better I can use for reference in the coming weeks, let me know.
To get an Efficiency metric I first get a delta of SoS between each opponent and our opponent with the toughest SoS. (Currently ND at 47.5) For instance Iowa's metric would be arrived at by the following (120 - (85.5 - 47)) / 120. This is then multiplied by their PPG to give us an "effective" PPG weighted against competition relevant to Michigan. This metric is not meant to predict how many points our defense is going to yield to this team, but rather, it is a way of ranking the offenses that we will face relative to one another.
Conclusions Based on Not Enough Data
osu is the best offense we will face all year. BUT! We have already played some good offenses in UConn and ND! In fact the only other offenses that have numbers in that ballpark are Iowa and Wisconsin.
It will be very fun to see how these numbers stack up over the next two weeks while Michigan cleans up vs UMass and Bowling Green. I want to say for sure that this is an argument for at least eight wins, but I'll reserve judgment for two more weeks before I make that case. But for now, I think we can look at these numbers and add one more reason to the growing pile of why 2010 is NOT 2009!
GO BLUE!
September 13th, 2010 at 11:42 AM ^
But if last year tells us anything, it's that we need to enjoy being 2-0, and take one game at a time. Lets take care of business against UMass, show continued improvment on both sides of the ball, and continue to take care of the football.
September 13th, 2010 at 12:10 PM ^
Absolutely. And as a coach or a player, that's precisely the mentality to have.
As a fan, I'm so much less worried about UMass/BG @home than I am about what kinds of crazy rainbows and shenanigans are going to happen @ND.
September 13th, 2010 at 11:43 AM ^
appreciates this.
September 13th, 2010 at 11:50 AM ^
UCONN played FCS Texas Southern and dropped 63 on them.
September 13th, 2010 at 12:07 PM ^
This is true, but several of the B10 schools also played FCS teams and I try to account for this in the SoS.
Suffice to say not all BCS schools put up 63 points against FCS teams (VTech? Minnesota?)
September 13th, 2010 at 11:59 AM ^
Still worry about pass defence. They still get burned in the backfield against a good passing quarterback.
September 13th, 2010 at 12:07 PM ^
edit: wrong post to reply to!! :(
September 13th, 2010 at 12:23 PM ^
Is it not concerning that, while 50% of the defenses UConn & ND faced were ours, they are towards the top of the best offenses? Not trying to rain on the parade here, but that does seem like an issue...
September 13th, 2010 at 12:30 PM ^
Yep, extremely valid. Although UConn didn't have all that much success against us.
The next two weeks worth of data will be excellent. Since that point will either be diluted or exaggerated based on how ND (@MSU, Standford) and UConn (@Temple, Buffalo) perform.
Does UConn continue to blow inferior competition out of the water? Does ND put up comparable points against two more BCS opponents?
Also, I'll be trying to refine my metric this week that takes into account more of a specific offensive vs defense rankings instead of just overall SoS which should help limit this source of error.
September 13th, 2010 at 1:34 PM ^
is probably MSU.
However, according to the Freep, Dantonio has this all under control by granting full pardons and allowing them to be on the team.
That is what you meant, right?
September 13th, 2010 at 5:09 PM ^
As long as we continue to grow and fix some of the angles of persuit on our defense then we will be fine. We forced six 3 and outs against a Notre Dame team with a very explosive offense. I'm also certain that with the way that our offense is performing that we will certainly beat a team or two this year by shootout. What at once looked like a 7-5 season at best is starting to look like 9-10 wins are a possibility. Amazing how the right quarterback in this system puts this offense into almost unstoppable status. We need to get better on 3rd downs. In the UConn game we were 11-14 on third downs. Against Notre Dame we were atrocious at best. Had we converted some of those 3rd downs we would have beaten up the Irish alot worse then we did.