Fun With Charts (How Good Is Our Defense)
October 21st, 2018 at 3:24 PM ^
Screwed up the image for rushing yards but I can't edit, because of course.
October 21st, 2018 at 5:14 PM ^
You forgot to include the blue bar for the MSU rushing game. Oh wait...sorry, I could barely see it. :-)
October 23rd, 2018 at 3:14 AM ^
Even better if you don't include the garbage time drive in which they netted 48 yards... yes, more than HALF their game total.
Without that meaningless series against the second stringers, that's 13 series for a whopping total of 46 yards, or 3.5 yards PER SERIES (and I'm not even including the kneel down at half time)
That, my friends, is how good our defense was.
October 21st, 2018 at 3:31 PM ^
SMU was our hardest game . . .
October 21st, 2018 at 3:33 PM ^
I think this shows just how much the refs boned us that game. As bad as it's been, that was crazy even by our standards.
October 21st, 2018 at 3:51 PM ^
My initial reaction to that comment was no way, that's absurd. But... looking back on it all, they did play us relatively tough. Can't say I understand it.
October 21st, 2018 at 5:31 PM ^
The refs have been so much better since they boned us on that bullshit holding call.
October 21st, 2018 at 7:52 PM ^
Yeah, it's crazy that SMU is the team that we struggled with the most and come up almost average as everyone else has played them.
Don Brown's defenses have been so good, I get irrationally mad when the other team gets a first down. I mean, the other teams should get first downs, I just don't think our defense should ever give them up based on how well they play.
Just need the passing game to hit on all cylinders, and we have a team that should be fully prepared to take on Rutger in 3 weeks (I know I shouldn't be looking ahead, but who can blame me).
October 21st, 2018 at 3:35 PM ^
Could you graph in English? ;-)
Just kidding.
October 21st, 2018 at 4:01 PM ^
Your chart seems to imply that MSU only had 15 rushing yards agsinst us. Surely you missed a decimal point or something
October 21st, 2018 at 4:04 PM ^
Nah, the cute arm-in-arm pre-game walk they do doesn't count.
October 21st, 2018 at 4:33 PM ^
I think I'd flip the order of the bars.
Left (red): How they normally do
Right (navy blue!): How they do against us
but, nice!
October 21st, 2018 at 6:13 PM ^
Then you should make them next time. Idiot.
October 21st, 2018 at 10:20 PM ^
I don't get the hostility. All the guy did was make a recommendation about the preferred order of presentation, He didn't even mention fucking your mother.
October 22nd, 2018 at 4:08 AM ^
I like the suggestion. Perhaps after PSU.
October 21st, 2018 at 5:22 PM ^
Don Brown has been figured out!
October 21st, 2018 at 5:45 PM ^
Give the DC a bye week recruiting trip to Boston, with a couple seats to game 1 at Fenway!!!
October 21st, 2018 at 6:39 PM ^
Guessing after last year DB will be hunkered in a bunker somewhere all week watching film of PSU and scheming something diabolical.
October 21st, 2018 at 6:45 PM ^
I’ve had arguments with people who say Michigan’s D is overrated because we haven’t played any highly ranked offenses. My argument was that perhaps these offenses aren’t ranked as high BECAUSE they played Michigan. So I did the math (this was prior to the MSU game mind you) but we played three teams who would be ranked in the top 25 offenses if you exclude the Michigan game from their record.
I haven’t updated the data past the Wisconsin game and it’s only based on yards per game, but I thought it was interesting. What I found was that on average Michigan opponents dropped 17.8 spots in the total offense rankings simply by facing the Michigan defense.
October 21st, 2018 at 7:04 PM ^
I think we have a very good defense but we haven't played a very good offense yet and might not until the bowl game/ playoffs. Lets see how we do against better than average offenses like Penn State and Ohio State two of the top 3 offenses in the B1G.
October 21st, 2018 at 7:17 PM ^
We already dominated Wisconsin, which at the time, was a top 3 nationally offense.
October 21st, 2018 at 7:22 PM ^
UW was the other top 3 B1G offense. In fact, UW was #8 in S&P+ when they faced us. They are now (and still) the #10 S&P+ offense. Also ND has a pretty good offense. Don't say we haven't faced any good offenses, because that trope is tired...
October 21st, 2018 at 7:26 PM ^
Michigan has played Nebraska, Western, and Wisconsin, who would all be top 25 in terms of yards per game if you excluded Michigan dominating each of them.
Avg offense rank: 62.8
Avg offense rank if you exclude playing Michigan: 45
and lets be clear, those averages are severely weighed down by playing SMU.
4 of Michigan’s first 7 games were against top 50 offenses. If you exclude playing Michigan, it’s 5 top 50 and 3 top 25.
October 21st, 2018 at 9:51 PM ^
What I consider very good offenses are ones that can scheme to beat you and aren't one dimensional like most of the B1G teams. WMU is a good MAC offense, Wisconsin ran up yards against poor defenses, etc. Half the B1G teams are running OSU's offense that everyone has figured out. None of those teams are going to do well against the elite defenses.
I watch a lot of non B1G games - the B1G is not a very good conference this year when it comes to offense - especially the kind of offenses that could do damage against our D.
We may indeed have the best D in all of college football but IMO we have not played a legit very good offense yet. On the flip side we have played some very good defensive teams.
October 21st, 2018 at 7:56 PM ^
So, if this is supposed to be a reflection of the M defense, special teams and defensive scores by the other team should be removed?
October 22nd, 2018 at 12:54 AM ^
Good point. I didn't take the time to do that and it would be a lot more work, but maybe after PSU.