SIAP: Yards against Staee this year - two notable outliers
- Western Michigan -- 383
- Oregon -- 432
- Air Force -- 428
- Central Michigan -- 340
- Purdue -- 301
- Rutgers -- 349
- Michigan -- 230
- Indiana -- 389
- Nebraska -- 499
- Maryland -- 289
- Ohio State -- 132
November 23rd, 2015 at 9:38 AM ^
CARE ABOUT STATE. Never have.
November 23rd, 2015 at 9:38 AM ^
November 23rd, 2015 at 9:40 AM ^
it is time to officially stop or open an account with RCMB. They beat us this year. They have nothing to do with us now. This is not MSU week.
November 23rd, 2015 at 9:43 AM ^
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November 23rd, 2015 at 9:51 AM ^
Board had a near MSU v. OSU outcome meltdown. We should not care that much. The outcome of this weekend arguably made The Game bigger in some ways. I will peak at the MSU game to check the score but this is going overboard. It is now fixation.
November 23rd, 2015 at 9:59 AM ^
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November 23rd, 2015 at 10:04 AM ^
"The outcome of this weekend arguably made The Game bigger in some ways."
Oh, so possibly (probably?) not having the division title on the line makes The Game bigger? That definitely makes sense.
November 23rd, 2015 at 10:06 AM ^
don't seem that familiar with this game.
November 23rd, 2015 at 10:22 AM ^
You don't seem familiar with reality.
November 23rd, 2015 at 10:41 AM ^
November 23rd, 2015 at 10:45 AM ^
does that matter now, though?
November 23rd, 2015 at 11:27 AM ^
November 23rd, 2015 at 10:57 AM ^
I really don't want to know when you'll peak. TMI!
November 23rd, 2015 at 9:55 AM ^
Michigan is highly interested in the outcome of the MSU game this week, obviously.
November 23rd, 2015 at 9:57 AM ^
may be. I hope to God the team isn't. If Michigan has the slighest interest in what is going to happen after their game this weekend they are going to get pounded.
November 23rd, 2015 at 10:10 AM ^
We are fans on this board. So...
November 23rd, 2015 at 10:59 AM ^
Speak for yourself. I'm a starter on the team. Actually no, I'm Harbaugh.
November 23rd, 2015 at 10:44 AM ^
November 23rd, 2015 at 11:58 AM ^
Seems like you kinda do. If we were talking about Utah, you wouldn't be acting this way.
November 23rd, 2015 at 9:36 AM ^
November 23rd, 2015 at 10:45 AM ^
OP said, "Dantonio's insane obsessive hyper-game-planning."
If simply game planning harder for the best teams were all it took to stop the best teams, and game planning as hard as OP is talking about is as common as you seem to be implying, then these outcomes wouldn't be outliers at all.
Regardless, I don't agree with OP's premise. This is just a coincidence.
November 23rd, 2015 at 10:59 AM ^
November 23rd, 2015 at 11:02 AM ^
*Dan'toneo. Mike Dan'toneo
November 23rd, 2015 at 12:12 PM ^
November 23rd, 2015 at 9:39 AM ^
Last week, I found myself pulling for Ohio State, which is like ipecac for the soul. Now I find myself pulling for Penn State with their program's/administrations awful history off the field?
Situational ethics - I get it. But ewwwwwwh.
Anyway, this is an interesting post. Unfortunately, Coach D'Antoni knows he is playing for the B1G East, so he's not going to let his dorm vikings sleep past PSU.
November 23rd, 2015 at 10:51 AM ^
November 23rd, 2015 at 9:38 AM ^
MSU plays to the level of their opponents. They've managed to not get burned playing with fire all but once, so we can only hope that it happens once more on Saturday. Either way, we need to take care of our own business in The Game.
November 23rd, 2015 at 9:39 AM ^
that he gets his players to play their best against the best. Quality coaches have that ability. For OSU, the weather limited their ability to attack the weakness that STAEEE has. Instead, they were forced to pound it into a strong DL. Odds of that going well = Not Great Bob...
November 23rd, 2015 at 10:22 AM ^
MSU played in the same weather, yes?
And the "not great, Bob" thing is already old as dirt.
November 23rd, 2015 at 11:35 AM ^
Doesn't mean the matchups aren't affected. They didn't play with the same secondary. Team A vs. Team B, where Team A has no pass D to speak of. Team A obviously would love to make the game one-dimensional, cutting out passing entirely, which high winds and bad weather tend to do.
November 23rd, 2015 at 9:39 AM ^
Ohio State has been out of sorts quite a bit this year. Not taking anything away from their defensive effort vs Michigan, but Jake Ruddock seems to have really taken off the last 3 weeks, so perhaps that also contributed to the low(ish) yardage output.
November 23rd, 2015 at 9:40 AM ^
Seems to be working quite well for them lately.
November 23rd, 2015 at 9:44 AM ^
That's why their rushing numbers were so low. They should've stuck to the running game or been more creative with it.
November 23rd, 2015 at 12:06 PM ^
Word. They weren't throwing downfield. Might as well ride Elliot.
A few thoughts I can't shake:
1) He expected to beat MSU with a conservative gameplan. State's secondary was a mess and he didn't expect the MSU's offense to make plays.
2) The gameplan was conservative because Michigan.
3) The conservative gameplan became more conservative with bad weather.
4) OSU, from top to bottom, was already looking toward The Game. I know, I know, MSU has been more of a relevant matchup for them, but The Game is part of their culture. They can't escape it anywhere they look.
November 23rd, 2015 at 10:12 AM ^
I agree that OSU should have given the ball to Elliott more, but Elliott is acting as if he was averaging 7 YPC, when in reality he was averaging under 3 ypc, with a long of 7. I wouldn't say he was particularly effective when he had the ball.
November 23rd, 2015 at 11:15 AM ^
Elliott also complained about the types of runs, saying they should have run more power since they had success gashing the MSU defense with those plays on one of their short scoring drives (or something like that).
Wasn't only about numbers. He asked the coaching staff to run different plays to achieve better results.
November 23rd, 2015 at 11:27 AM ^
Elliott had only two carries in the second half, IIRC. You generally expect a back to be more effective as the game winds down.
November 23rd, 2015 at 9:48 AM ^
I am sure Harbaugh had not been insanely preparing for MSU and OSU all off season/season too. I mean - how crazy of a coach to prepare more for your biggest rivals. How crazy of your players to get up the most for your biggest rivals.
I mean, it's all outlandish.
Here is 1 common thread in both games - both coaches went very conservative in game plan for whatever reason vs MSU on offense. OSU for weather reasons and apparently in reading 11W this weekend Barrett has stunk on the long ball. And up til the last 3 weeks Jake could not throw the long ball with success. Hell he was struggling on intermediate balls up to 15 yds (often throwing behind wr, or at feet)
Both teams mostly ran offenses that fed directly into MSU's strength of run stop.
MSU has given up 29 passes of >20 yds this season, the worst in the Big 10. Neither UM or OSU could succeed at doing that to them. Nebraska did it at will. If either OSU or MSU joined in that party they both win going away.
November 23rd, 2015 at 10:24 AM ^
I admit, I've been thinking a lot about how different the UM-MSU game would have been had Rudock been playing like he is now that day.....He would have toasted that secondary.
November 23rd, 2015 at 9:57 AM ^
I'm not a statistician, but technically Michigan's total, while lower than average, doesn't seem to truly be an "outlier". Nebraska's output was 45% (156 yards) above average, Air Force and Oregon were both about +25% (85 yards). Michigan was 33% (112 yards) below average or in the same deviation ball park as Nebraska, Oregon and Air Force, albeit in the other direction. For completeness, OSU was 61% (210 yards!) below average.
November 23rd, 2015 at 9:49 AM ^
November 23rd, 2015 at 9:59 AM ^
But maybe another 70 yards and 7 more points and that fluke play is just a blip in our memory.
We need to get better on the ground against MSU. Hopefully next year with 4 out 5 OL back and MSU losing 3 out of 4 on the DL we can establish a run game.
November 23rd, 2015 at 10:35 AM ^
The MSU game was not our most efficient obviously, but it is interesting all the same that 3.96 yard per play and about 0.4 points per play were enough to win had that one particular fluke not happened. In recent years past, that would not have cut it against Michigan State generally.
November 23rd, 2015 at 9:50 AM ^
Our offense was pretty anemic when we faced them. Our run game was still a piping hot piece of crap and Rudock hadn't started playing better yet. Vs OSU they just dominated a good offense.
November 23rd, 2015 at 9:51 AM ^
While those two games are the outliers statistically, if our downfield passing game was where it is now for the MSU game, we would have torched them. We also had quite a number of short fields to work with. OSU did too, but their numbers wouldn't change all that much considering how wretched their offense was all game.
November 23rd, 2015 at 10:04 AM ^
That means Barkley should run for 100+ and Hackenburg should go for at least 275. I'll take it.
November 23rd, 2015 at 10:08 AM ^
Who cares? What is the point of this thread?
November 23rd, 2015 at 10:19 AM ^
November 23rd, 2015 at 10:25 AM ^
Shorts is overrated. Just saying.
November 23rd, 2015 at 10:35 AM ^
This has nothing to do with msu prepping for teams. for whatever reason michigan and osu decided not to test msu's secondary, which is their biggest weakness. literally every other team on that list threw deep on msu and did so often. many of them also threw several picks with that strategy (which michigan and osu didn't do) and notice that michigan and osu came the closest to beating them (aside from nebraska)