LJ

November 15th, 2016 at 10:53 AM ^

They adjust for all that.  Rutgers is #122, so Michigan is probably not feasting off that too much.

People are forgetting that Michigan has beaten the tar out of some good teams this year.  Things are not as bad as they seemed on Saturday (though not as good as they seemed two Saturdays ago).

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DualThreat

November 15th, 2016 at 12:21 PM ^

But if we're 55% favored to beat OSU, wouldn't we be favored to win the East right now?

If the probabilities were independent, then yes I would agree PSU would be favored.  But the probability is not indepenendent.  It's conditional since PSU needs us to lose.

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FauxMo

November 15th, 2016 at 12:36 PM ^

Probably not, because we have a game before that against IU. And unless our win p-value is 1.0 there, it is the multiplicative of our win probabilities in those two games for us to win the East. So for instance, even if our win probability at OSU is .55, if our win probability against IU is .90 (for example), we only have a probabiltiy of winning both of .495, less than 50%. It gets more complicated if we add all the p-values for the other teams of winning out, etc., but PSU probably has a greater chance of doing so than us at this moment, given that they play MSU and Shitgers to end the year.

Oh, I'm sorry, did you want to talk about statistics, or were you just making chit-chat? :-)  

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MadMatt

November 15th, 2016 at 1:28 PM ^

Let's assume PSU's P-value against Rutgers and MSU is .90  They need to win both those games, and have OSU beat us.  .9 x .9 x .45 = 0.365, or Indiana beat us .9 x .9 x .1 = 0.081.  Adding the two scenarios together, you get 0.446, which is less that our 0.495.

You can tweak those values a bit.  I think our P-value against Indiana is more like .85, and Penn State's P-value against Rutgers is .95.

Michigan beats IU and OSU:

 .85 x .55

Michigan loses to IU, beats OSU, and PSU loses 1 or 2:

+ .15 x .55 x (1-.855) = .539

Penn State wins out; OSU beats Michigan:

.95 x .9 x .45

Penn State wins out; IU beats Michigan

+ .95 x .9 x .15   =  0.513*

* And you should subtract the chance that both OSU and IU beat Michigan while PSU wins out, so you don't count that event twice.  PSU's final chance is 0.513-0.058 = 0.455

We're favored, not Penn State.  (But, it does amuse me that even if OSU wins out, there is still a 0.855 chance they won't go to the B1G Championship game.)

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lhglrkwg

November 15th, 2016 at 12:46 PM ^

but at this point I'm just doing a gut-check comparison of which of these is more likely to happen

Michigan beats OSU

or

Michigan loses to OSU and Penn State beats Rutgers & MSU

The 2nd seems more likely to me and some of the fancystats agree

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MGoPoints: 87925

MadMatt

November 15th, 2016 at 1:50 PM ^

First, panic about the Iowa game is overblown.  Our offense laid an egg; it happens.  It doesn't mean the prior 9 games didn't happen, and it doesn't mean our offense will play just like the Iowa game the rest of the season.

Second, I'm seeing all kinds of ways Harbaugh can play mind games with uncertainty about Speight's condition.  Let's say Speight could heal up in time for OSU.  Hold him out against IU, and call plays that O'Korn can do well.  OSU doesn't know which offense they will face, so they have to prepare for both.  Or, they can let a coin flip determine whether their defensive game plan will be ready for their most important game.

Now let's say Speight is really out for the year.  Harbaugh keeps saying the QB is a game time decision; O'Korn plays against IU, and OSU in is the exact same situation.  Which offense?  Prepare for both suboptimally, or take a coin flip?

Third, I'd bet a substantial amount he has plays that unleash the Jabrill Kraken which we have not yet seen.

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DrMantisToboggan

November 15th, 2016 at 11:08 AM ^

OSU beats up a couple bad teams (yes, Nebraska is bad, especially without Armstrong, don't @ me it's true) and suddenly everyone thinks they are invincible again. Their score against Maryland was basically the same as ours. They still lost to a team we beat by 39 and barely beat Northwestern at home. 

 

This is the worst Urban team in a few years. I fully expect our defense to hold them in check for the majority of the day and our playmakers to win us the game. 

 

Taco and Butt are going to lock themselves into the first round of the draft with this game.

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M-Dog

November 15th, 2016 at 11:49 AM ^

It's more about matchups than who did what with common opponents.  Right now it looks like OSU has more matchups with us that they can exploit than we do with them.

These are the weaknesses we knew we had since the summer . . . the linebackers on D, and the O-Line on O.

In truth, Harbaugh did a great job of mitigating them, but they never really went away.

Against OSU with Barrett and company on offense, and a talented and aggressive OSU D-Line, they are going to be hard to hide.

 

 

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buckeyejonross

November 17th, 2016 at 3:17 AM ^

Pssssst It's because that's not what Peppers is good at.

He was recruited as a corner and he doesn't play that anymore. Because he can't cover people effectively one on one. So then he was moved to safety and played that all last year, but as we established, he isn't very effective in pass coverage and he doesn't have good ball skills or the ability to bait QBs into turnovers. So now he plays hybrid linebacker to take advantage of his two discernible defensive skills: he's athletic as shit and hard to block. That's it.

But he doesn't hold up well at the point of attack if a lineman squares up on him, and if he's not blitzing then he's just playing a shallow spy zone and largely doing nothing. He's a good blitzer, but fine. Ok.

So go ahead and cover Samuel with Peppers all game. Make him play to his weaknesses against the best offensive player in the conference and remove him from the LOS so he can't play to his strengths. We're all for that.

I'm sure there's a reason Peppers has never before been asked to do anything like what you want him to do on Samuel.

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