the enemy 2022

The 2022 college football regular season has come to an end and, aligning with the end of the calendar year, I thought it was time for some reflection. David and I have a long-running gag on the HockeyCast where I say that I am not a scout and he responds that I am- while I maintain that I am indeed not an NFL Draft or NBA scout, I do have to admit that at least in the region of college football I am. That's the basis of what Fee Fi Foe Film is. Moreover, by doing my "The Enemy, Ranked" series back in August, I am also in small part a forecaster. 

If you are a scout or a forecaster (or both), and you want to be honest and accountable, you have to admit you get things wrong. Being open about what you got wrong is actually a routine exercise for people in this business; The Athletic's NHL Draft scout Corey Pronman does regular pieces about prospects he was a wrong about, and one of my one-time favorite elections forecasters, Harry Enten, used to do "What I Was Wrong About This Year" pieces back when he worked at FiveThirtyEight. This sort of piece is a routine exercise and I have been long overdue for one. So, in honor of the B1G season ending, I wanted to look back at my The Enemy, Ranked pieces from August and, using data and scouting I collected from FFFF, look at what preseason prognostications I was right about, and which ones I was dead-wrong about. 

Quarterback

Original Piece

What I Got Right: Ohio State (1), PSU (4), Indiana (6), Iowa (8)

What I Got Wrong: MSU (2), Illinois (9), Michigan's hypothetical ranking 

Let's start with a bang. I don't think my rankings were too bad overall, but I definitely missed some things. Putting Ohio State and CJ Stroud at the top was correct, but I'm not taking much credit. Stroud was a Heisman finalist last year... it was a layup. I was also right slotting in Sean Clifford and PSU in the 4 slot, and I don't think characterizing Indiana as "not good" and Iowa as "rancid" were off the mark.

The misses are sizable though, and boy was I wrong about Payton Thorne. To be fair to myself, he got considerably worse and it's hard to forecast regression from college athletes, especially absent injury. Just ask Brian and his pre-season 2019 expectations for Shea Patterson! In all seriousness, Thorne had a rough season. His TD passes dropped from 27 to 19 and INTs increased from 10 to 11. Struggles with accuracy forced MSU to make him throw more screens, boosting his completion percentage but dropping his yards-per-attempt and making him a less dangerous QB overall. On a re-rank, I would have Thorne in the 6 slot, a big fall from 2. 

The flip side of that coin is Illinois and Tommy DeVito, who I had 9th (dead last among B1G opponents). Entering the season I was skeptical of DeVito. He'd gotten worse at Syracuse and dealt with injuries, and part of the ranking was the backup situation. If DeVito got hurt, *Artur Sitkowski* was the backup. I was very nervous and on paper, Indiana's Connor Bazelak was a better transfer QB addition. Totally wrong! DeVito had a very nice season, 15 TDs to 4 INT, 7.2 Y/A, and 70% completion and played the majority of all but one game. Screens boosted his numbers some and I'm not going to act like DeVito was a gunslinger, but he had some great performances this year, including a strong one against Michigan. Illinois fielded another strong defense and returned Chase Brown, so we can chalk up their considerable improvement from 5-7 last year to 8-4 (should've been 9-3 or 10-2 too) this season largely to Tommy DeVito. He was a huge step up from the corpse of Brandon Peters and I would have him in the middle among B1G opponents on a re-rank, way up from 9th. 

The rest of the rankings were fine. If I were re-ranking them, I'd go (1) Stroud/OSU, (2) Taulia/MD, (3) Clifford/PSU, (4) DeVito/Illinois, (5) Thompson/Nebraska, (6) Thorne/MSU, (7) Bazelak&Williams/IU, (8) Petras/Iowa, and (9) TrifectaOfSuck/Rutgers. Most of these were within one or two slots of where I'd pegged them. Nebraska moved down two slots but that was attributed to Thompson's injury. INTs were a bit higher than I'd have liked but he got zero pass protection help and still engineered a good vertical passing game when healthy. Huskers probably would have been fourth ahead of Illinois if Thompson was healthy full-time.

The final thing I got wrong here was where I said Michigan would rank, which I said at the time would be roughly fourth. People got mad then and yup, they were right! In fairness to me, Cade McNamara's body of work last year was fine, not particularly great. This year? Michigan's QB play was a step up. JJ McCarthy had a higher completion percentage, higher Y/A, more TDs, fewer INTs, and added a hugely important rushing/scrambling component. Michigan's QB play was firmly a tier above the other non-OSU B1G teams and I was wrong for having them in the same conversation of Nebraska, MSU, and PSU pre-season. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: More hits and more misses]

Previously: Quarterback, Running Backs, Receivers, Offensive Line, Defensive Line, Linebacker 

We have made it to the end. The Enemy, Ranked 2022 reaches its conclusion today with defensive backs rankings. As I mentioned in the LB post, I'm counting DB-shaped hybrid space players here, so most teams will have five starters listed, whether that's for a HSP or a true nickel. At the end of this piece, I will briefly drop in special teams rankings and then will wrap this whole series up by reviewing what we learned about the opponents on Michigan's 2022 schedule. 

12. Hawaii 

Hawaii starts at the bottom on all three defensive articles and this one is pretty clear as to why: there are five DB slots and they do not have a single returning starter. Most of these players were not even on the island last season, as the secondary is largely built through transfers. Transfers who barely had roles elsewhere, mind you. Projected DB starters JoJo Forest and Hugh Nelson II are both former or current transfers. Forest arrives from Oregon State after not seeing the field a year ago, while Nelson was Hawaii's #3 corner last season, a year after transferring from Georgia. He did not do particularly well in that role. Reserves are ex-benchwarmer transfers from Maryland and Iowa State and starting nickel Malik Hausman transfers from Arizona after being exclusively a special teams player. 

It doesn't get much better at safety. Leonard Lee was on the scout team the last two years and Matagi Thompson was a 2* recruit in 2021 who didn't see the field that fall. Backups Noa Kamana and Meki Rei also have little experience, the latter a transfer from Washington. It's a DB room that is cobbled together from players who were not good enough to see the field on defense a year ago, either at Hawaii or elsewhere. Several of the transfers didn't arrive until the summer, so to say this will be a messy patchwork is an understatement. It's likely going to be brutal. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: A defensive article where Iowa ISN'T #1?]

Previously: Quarterback, Running Backs, Receivers, Offensive Line, Defensive Line 

We have just two pieces to go in 2022's edition of The Enemy series. This piece covers linebackers, which this year we will use to only refer to true LBs. We included EDGE OLBs in our last piece on the defensive line, so they are out of the picture for this, and I am classifying nickel-shaped spacebackers as DBs. As a result, only a few teams here will have more than two starting LBs, but I may mention who the SAM is for teams that shift between a true 4-3 and 4-2-5.  

12. Hawaii 

The Rainbow Warriors start at the bottom for the second straight defensive article, and that's in spite of having a returning starter at one of the two positions. Penei Pavihi is the returner and the leader of this group, someone who graded out extremely poorly in the PFF numbers, and he's joined by Isaiah Tufaga, a rotational piece from last season who is sliding in for the departing Darius Muasau. Tufaga didn't fare much better to PFF's data when he got on the field and both players have major athletic limitations. The depth is thin, as you'd expect for a team with as much turnover as Hawaii has endured... Logan Taylor redshirted last season and Noah Kema arrives as a JUCO guy. A pretty brutal situation. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: Less depressing LB situations]