Updated FEI / S&P+ Stats - "Our Offense is as Good as Illinois" Edition

Another weekly update on the advanced stats for Michigan and the Big 10.  Last week's version was titled "We are Maryland", and last week's results in the Maryland - PSU game bore that out.  Both Maryland and UM played very smilar games vs PSU (albeit Maryland beat them on the road, we did at home).  Here is the data from 2 weeks ago if you are a data nerd.

FEI should become more relevant as we go deeper into the season, and S&P+ is pretty linear throughout.   I am seeing a lot more dynamic movement in FEI week to week as more data comes in and it has strength of schedule as a key component.  S&P+ is more kind to the Big 10 generally as SOS is sort of filtered into some sub-measures but not as directly as FEI.

Last week we said facing Indiana would be like playing Miami (OH) type of defense and that was reality.  Their offense was even worse than expected and Kevin Wilson was kind enough to bench Tevin Coleman (i.e. the only weapon they have) for 3-4 series and their true freshman QB was as expected.  Indiana's rankings on offense are deceiving because most were derived with Sudfeld at QB so we got a neutered version of their team.   We'll discuss Maryland and Northwestern after the data but again... we are essentially Maryland.

Michigan stats

Offense:

• FEI dropped from 81 to 91 by not really lighting up one of the worst Power 5 defenses in the country (recall we put up 60+ last year on Indiana).
• S&P+ improved (yeah!) from 70 to 59 (thanks Indiana!)

Defense:

• FEI improved to 44 from 51 (while ok on the surface this is 9th in the conference)
• S&P + improved from 33 to 28! (6th in conference like last week)

Big 10 plus a few others:

TL;DR comments:

Big 10 football continues to suck at offense.  And UM's defense performance in many ways is more disappointing considering the dearth of quality offenses it has faced this year.  Essentially it's been MSU and Notre Dame - that's it (both ranked between 30-35 FEI and top 20 S&P+)   Utah wins with special teams and defense; their offense is turrrrible.

FEI has a direct SOS measure and with that there is not a top 25 oFEI offense in the entire league - that's pathetic.  OSU's oFEI actually dropped week to week despite scoring >50 as cupcake after cupcake on their schedule adds up the deeper we go into the season.  (OSU's S&P+ rank remains top 10)  MSU's rank actually improved by 10 by playing a bye - that's how bad the Big 10 is lol.  Maryland's improved quite a bit by scoring 20 on the Big 10's statistically best defense.  UM's offensive FEI trails only PSU in the conference. 

S&P+ offensive ranks are kinder to Big 10 football since SOS measures are not so impactful, but it's essentially a 4 team league on that measure - Neb, Wiscy, OSU, MSU. No surprises.

The Big 10 does better on defense - Wisconsin pitching a shutout on Rutgers (minus Nova) sure helped but they just got back their 2 d-tackles who were hurt v LSU and their defense is really picking up here lately.  While again they face a litanty of mediocre to poor offenses the Big 10 is still ranking pretty darn well.  Please not Utah's great rank too on defensive FEI (less stellar on S&P+) - they suffered tremendous graduation losses last year and play in a high octane offense conference but are this year's Stanford.

Opponent Watch:

• Northwestern has a likewise pedestrian offense, combined with a slightly worse statistical defense than UM.  But it's on the road.  As said last week, expect a lot of humping each other's legs as both offenses "rock and roll"... or just rewatch the 2013 NW-UM game.
• Maryland suspended Stefon Diggs vs MSU for not shaking hands with PSU pregame putting his hands in the face of a ref so expect Maryland's offense stats to suffer badly before we play them.  They look like a more slightly competent offense than UM combined with a slightly worse defense.  More leg humping.
• OSU - yeah Hoke is Earl Bruce in his last game ....or something.  I do think based on how PSU shut down OSU's offense UM will keep this respectable as OSU has played almost no one of value, but I expect the normal hijinks by our offense.  Maybe 27-10 type of game.