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]

 

[Patrick Barron]

Running Back

Original piece

What I Got Right: Almost everything????

What I Got Wrong: Hawaii (6)

Of all the positional groups, this was the one I think that I got most correct (though the next category rivals it). My top three was Ohio State, Illinois and Penn State, and in a re-rank, I'd have the same top three, though with Illinois moving ahead of OSU. The Buckeye and Nittany Lion RBs had slightly better stats than Chase Brown's at Illinois, but those two teams feature good passing games that take pressure off the running game and opening up running lanes. Chase Brown was the lifeblood of Illinois' offense, with everything built off of him. He carried the ball a ridiculous 328 times, and felt he should be rewarded for that. However, Miyan Williams is awesome, and so are the duo of Kaytron Allen and Nick Singleton. Some great backs in the B1G this year (a shame we couldn't put Mo Ibrahim on this list because Minnesota wasn't on the schedule). 

I was also right about MSU and Maryland coming in middle of the pack. Jalen Berger/Elijah Collins and Roman Hemby/Antwain Littleton II had solid years on teams without great OLs, but with decent passing attacks. Similarly I was correct about the cellar of the list, with Nebraska, Iowa, Indiana, and Rutgers at the bottom. If there was one slot I missed among B1G opponents, it was Indiana, who I pegged second-to-last but would move up two slots on a re-rank. Shaun Shivers and Josh Henderson managed to rush for over 4 YPC behind a horrendous OL and added a huge component in the passing game which few other RBs on this list contribute. 

The one team I was wrong about was Hawaii, which I ranked 6th, in the thick of B1G teams, because of Dedrick Parson. I trusted the PFF rankings and track record in the Mountain West, but he did not have the kind of season to warrant that ranking. I'd still keep Hawaii 10th (i.e. first among non-conference opponents) but Parson's 4.4 YPC clip was not worthy of being ranked where I had him. 

 

[Patrick Barron]

Receiver 

Original piece

What I Got Right: Almost everything??

What I Got Wrong: Nothing major

Another positional group I did very well on was receivers, where no team moved more than two slots in my personal re-rank. Ohio State stays at the pole position, though with much less separation than anticipated given the essentially season-long injury to Jaxon Smith-Njigba. After that, the top five moved around a bit, but those five teams (OSU/MD/PSU/MSU/Nebraska) all stayed top five on the re-rank. I bumped MSU up two slots on my re-rank to #2... even though Jayden Reed had a bit of a down year, the explosion of Keon Coleman into a legit contested catch artist gave the Spartans two studs at the positional group. Nebraska moved up two slots as well due to Trey Palmer becoming a top five WR in the league, while Maryland and Penn State moved down two slots each due to slightly disappointing years from some of their stars, Rakim Jarrett (injury-related in part) and Parker Washington. Still, I'll take getting the top five right, even if the order was a bit off. 

I fared just as well with the bottom half of the B1G. Illinois moved up two slots from #8 to #6 thanks to a really nice season from Isaiah Williams and surprising competency from their outside guys Pat Bryant and Brian Hightower, while Rutgers moves down a couple slots. Mostly nitpicking. The non-conference I was right about as well, correctly projecting the order of CSU, followed by Hawaii, followed by UCONN. Colorado State's Tory Horton deserves a shoutout after a 1,131 yard season that earned him All-MWC 1st Team honors. 

 

[Bryan Fuller]

Offensive Line

Original piece

What I Got Right: Ohio State (1), Illinois (2), Iowa (8) 

What I Got Wrong: Nebraska (4), Indiana (5), Penn State (7), Colorado State (11) 

I was pretty hit or miss with the OL group, getting a few teams right on the money and others way off. I was correct about the top of the league. Even though OSU's OL had its trouble in run blocking on standard downs, they were an elite pass protection unit and did enough on the ground to allow its rushing game to run all over most opponents on the schedule. Not better than Michigan, but this is a ranking of just The Enemy and thus they are #1. Illinois was close with another team I was wrong about when it came to 2nd-place on my re-rank, but it was close enough that I'm taking the win anyway. The Fighting Illini had lost some pieces in the offseason but I still liked their collection of talent enough to put them 2nd on a list that was generally without many good OLs to speak of. Illinios wasn't great, but they were pretty decent in both run blocking and pass blocking, which is more than you can say about almost any other team. 

The team I had tied with Illinois on the re-rank was Penn State, which in the preseason I had all the way down at #7. PSU still had problems in pass protection because the RT remains a turnstile, but the consistent competency of the IOL, combined with the emergence of star LT Olu Fashanu, had me moving Penn State way up the list and taking the L on that projection. On the flip side, I was far too high on Nebraska and Indiana. The Huskers didn't move down too much (from #4 to #6), but their pass protection was way worse than I anticipated, finishing in the 110 range of most pass protection metrics on Football Outsiders. Speaking of which, ouch on Indiana. I had the Hoosiers #5 (middle of the B1G opponents!) preseason and they bellyflopped like a sumo wrestler off a diving board. Indiana had the single worst OL in the conference and one of the very worst in the country, ranking 127th in average line yards, 128th in stuff rate, and 111th in passing down sack rate, and that's despite an all-screens offense. Their RT was the worst P5 lineman Michigan saw all season and having them middle of the list was a major botch. 

I will take some credit for Iowa, though, who were right down at the bottom of B1G opponents in the pre-season and stayed there on the re-rank. Iowa was in the 120s in most of those metrics, an unmitigated disaster in pass protection and on the ground for the most part, which I predicted pre-season. Finally, I do want to point out something I was wrong about in the non-conference, which is Colorado State. I had them 11th in the pre-season and 12th in the re-rank, which sounds fine, but remember the non-con teams were essentially competing for the bottom three slots. I thought CSU would be bad on the OL but not catastrophic. Turns out that catastrophic was an understatement. Michigan devoured their OL in game one and we thought it was a good sign for the future, which turned out to be bunk when CSU ceded 9(!!!) sacks to MTSU the next weekend. In total, they gave up 59 sacks this season, four more than any other NCAA team (Akron), and 13 more than third-worst. Their passing downs sack rate was worst in the FBS, a full 4.2% worse than any other OL in the country(!!!!). I know that their run blocking metrics were better, but the pass pro situation was so historically awful that I have to say I admit I did not see that coming.  

 

[Patrick Barron]

Defensive Line 

Original piece

What I Got Right: Iowa (1), Ohio State (4), Rutgers (7), Indiana (8), Hawaii (12) 

What I Got Wrong: Michigan State (2), Nebraska (4), Illinois (6), Maryland (9)

Another hit-or-miss group, I was mostly right about who would suck but missed some teams moving way up and others moving way down. I was right that Iowa and Ohio State would have decent to good defensive lines, and that Rutgers, Indiana, and Hawaii wouldn't. Those teams were all in either the same slot, or one slot off on the re-rank. But I had my fair share of misses here. The two teams that haunted me the most on this ranking, MSU and Nebraska, reared their ugly heads here. The Spartans moved way down, from #2 to #6 on the re-do, which was a combination of injury (which hampered their top end DT talent like Jacob Slade) and pass-rushers flopping. Jacoby Windmon had a great start to the season and then flamed out before suspension due to the Tunnel Incident, and further injuries devastating the EDGE position led MSU to trot out inexperienced players. I expected them to have a fierce defensive front and instead it was largely not a cause for a concern for the good teams on the schedule. That is, until you got into a goal-line stand situation. 

As for Nebraska, I assumed some drop-off compared to last year, when they had one of the best DLs Michigan saw in the B1G, but I didn't realize it would be that severe. Nebraska fell from #4 in my re-rank to #9, dead last among B1G opponents. The presence of Garrett Nelson was nice for pass-rush purposes, but he could not cover up the fact that Nebraska was forced to start several unplayable DTs, and got little help from the other EDGE spot. The flop of TCU transfer Ochaun Mathis hurt there. I went into the year expecting Nebraska to have a solid DL but after Northwestern's RBs rushed for over 5 YPC in week zero, I knew I'd missed the mark. If there's one lesson to learn here, it's sell your stock in Transfer U type schools when it comes to preseason projections. 

I was also wrong about Illinois and Maryland, who I under-sold. Illinois was a defense I was a bit skeptical of coming into the year (see: secondary) given heavy losses to graduation/NFL, but Ryan Walters and Bielema re-stocked the cupboard in a hurry. Instead of a middling-to-subpar DL, Illinois boasted the best three-man defensive front Michigan saw all season, which beat Michigan up in the trenches during the 3rd quarter of that game at the Big House. All credit to the Illinois staff, I won't underestimate them again on defense. As for Maryland, I hated their DTs a year ago and with little personnel change entering the season, I assumed it'd be more of the same. Instead, incremental improvements were made across the line and the Terps had a passable defensive front, one that held its opponents to <4.0 YPC this season. 

 

[David Wilcomes]

Linebackers

Original piece

What I Got Right: Iowa (1), Penn State (3), Ohio State (5), Maryland (7)

What I Got Wrong: Nebraska (2), MSU (4), Indiana (6), Rutgers (8)

This is another group like the DL that saw about half the teams stay in their slots, but then a couple teams move way down and a couple teams move way up. Moving down? Well, surprise, surprise, it's Big Red and Sparty again. Nebraska was my #2 ranked LB corps coming into the season and that was another fat L for me. The return of two starters in Luke Reimer and Nick Henrich, one of whom I really liked in 2021, seemed like a good bet to be a solid-to-group. Unfortunately, Reimer regressed considerably and Henrich got injured halfway through the year. The first man up off the depth chart, Chris Kolarevic, also regressed, and by the time they faced Michigan, they were starting a true freshman at one spot, a player with no idea how to play LB at the FBS level. Nebraska's LBs had the biggest fall of any positional group in this piece, from #2 pre-season all the way to #9. (*begins writing the line "I will never trust Nebraska again" 70 times as punishment*) 

As for MSU, regression was a theme there. Cal Haladay had a surprisingly strong 2021 season as a RS FR and seemed on track to be a classic old school All-B1G LB by the end of his career before taking a sizable step back this season. To make matters worse, he didn't get much help. The aforementioned Windmon oscillated between EDGE and LB before suspension, and Ben VanSumeren was, well, Ben VanSumeren. MSU dropped from #4 on my pre-season rankings to #8. 

Indiana and Rutgers are in the "moving up" category. IU's Cam Jones got a star on my FFFF diagram and his tandem with Aaron Casey was my #2 ranked LB group on the re-rank, two above average starters. Toss in Dasan McCullough, who had a strong freshman season as an OLB/EDGE type guy, and Indiana was stronger at this position than expected despite losing Micah McFadden. Rutgers moves up from an expected horrible position of #8 to a respectable #5 on re-rank, a testament to Greg Schiano's defense and the ability to fill holes. I went into the season terrified of how bad the Rutgers LB room could be after losing all four contributors from 2021, including star Olakunle Fatukasi. There was little in the way of proven players anywhere to be found on the depth chart, yet the Scarlet Knights plugged the hole, with Tyreem Powell and Deion Jennings stepping up to be acceptable B1G starters. Not stars, but not cyans either, and that's a major step up from what I was expecting. 

My successful picks were also plentiful thankfully, starting with Iowa, which was an easy #1 selection and nothing changed there. Jack Campbell and Seth Benson were the best LB tandem in the conference and the backbone of one of the nation's best defenses. PSU and OSU both stayed where I expected them to be more or less, with the Buckeyes moving up one slot on Tommy Eichenberg's breakout season. Maryland also stayed put thanks to the surprising excellence of true freshman Jaishawn Barham, who made up for Ahmad McCullough and the others playing poorly. I kept Maryland at #7 in the re-rank. 

 

[Bryan Fuller]

Secondary 

Original piece

What I Got Right: Iowa (3), OSU (4), Maryland (7), MSU (8) 

What I Got Wrong: Indiana (2), Illinois (6) 

My #1 secondary group entering the season was Penn State, which moves down a couple slots despite having two star corners in Kalen King and Joey Porter Jr.. The results they produced in the secondary were a little underwhelming given the talent but the talent was there. Taking their place at #1 was Iowa, which I'm still claiming as a victory because they were top three on my list. The Hawkeyes lost key DB contributors in the offseason and saw no drop-off, thanks in part to Cooper DeJean becoming a star corner. Ohio State also slotted in at roughly the same spot as I expected, middle of the B1G opponents- good against most teams but vulnerable to exposure against good passing attacks. I also did well at the bottom of the conference, with Michigan State and Maryland indeed putting together two subpar secondaries, though the Terps had more bright spots than the Spartans. 

I misfired on Indiana and Illinois, with the Hoosiers being my biggest positional group miss besides Nebraska's LBs, dropping from the #2 DB group all the way to #8. I had a lot of reason to believe in IU entering the year, with two starting corners returning (both of whom had been stars in the past), in addition to a starting safety coming back. Problem was, many of those players played badly. Tiawan Mullen, once one of the top DBs in the B1G, gave up 16 more catches than he did in any other season of his career. Jaylin Williams, the other CB, gave up a far higher catch% than any season of his career and posted his worst PFF grade. Both players were starred on past FFFF diagrams and this season both were subpar players, despite being in their fourth years as contributors. Hard to have seen that coming! Indiana gave up more passing yards than any other B1G team by a long shot as the secondary melted down, and I was completely blindsided by that. 

Illinois is the other side of that coin. Like with the DL, I expected the losses in the offseason (including graduating a 3rd round pick safety!) would hurt them more than it did. Instead, Illinois had, for my money, one of the top two secondaries that Michigan saw this season. Devon Witherspoon made the jump from good to elite, Sydney Brown stayed very good at safety, and they got contributors from other pieces around the defense. Illinois gave up the fifth-fewest passing yards in the FBS this season, best in the B1G, and while that isn't all the secondary, the secondary played a huge role in it, far better than what I expected. 

 

[Patrick Barron]

How Michigan would have ranked

Revisiting my rankings of Michigan in all these categories, I was pretty close to correct on most, with the exception of QB, which I included in that section of the piece already. Everything else was mostly the same ballpark. Compared to the opponents, I put Michigan at #1 in RB/OL, #2 in QB, #4 among receivers, and then #3 DL, #3 LB, and #2 secondary. The latter three I found particularly interesting because compared to opponents, I think Michigan had either the best or second best defense this season (Iowa was very close for me), yet their positional groups are a slot below that and none of them were #1. To me this speaks to Jesse Minter's coordinating, as well as the "no star" nature of this defense. The sum of the parts are very good no question, yet this defense is better than the sum of its parts. 

 

Summarizing my re-rank and postseason B1G Power Rankings 

I want to close this out sharing a visual of my re-ranks, as I did for the original rankings in the wrap-up piece: 

With that in mind, I'm going to give you some B1G Power Rankings in a tiers format to close out the season. Here's the way I saw the 2022 B1G Football season: 

I. Michigan, Ohio State 

II. Penn State

III. Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Maryland, Purdue 

IV. Wisconsin, MSU 

V. Nebraska, Indiana 

VI. Rutgers

VII. Northwestern 

Some will probably quibble with OSU and Michigan in the same tier given the outcome of The Game, and look, Michigan to this point is the better team. But SP+ and the total body of work says that those two are close enough to each other to be in the same tier overall, even if one team seems to have the other figured out right now. Penn State is in its own tier, but a step below OSU and Michigan after getting crushed in the Big House and proving to be its own undoing against OSU at home.

The next tier was a grouping of teams who all had moments where they looked dangerous but had some flaws. Illinois was clearly the best of those to me, but they faltered in crunch time and blew games they should never have against Indiana and MSU. Win those two games, Bert, and you'd have been in PSU's tier. But offensive limitations as a not-dynamic offense rendered them incapable of coming back against MSU and a defensive meltdown on the last drive versus Indiana were the difference.

Iowa was a dominant defense, atrocious offense, same old song and dance. Minnesota was a diet version of Iowa, and worse after Morgan got hurt, but eight wins is nothing to scoff at. Maryland was a good team so long as you didn't make them play in the rain- their performance vs Michigan and OSU proved that. And Purdue? Well, they were the team on this list with the best sense of how to actually win games and not just light up efficiency metrics. They got to Indy for a reason. 

Wisconsin and Michigan State were two teams I debated putting in different tiers but decided against it when I recalled that MSU beat Wisconsin this season. Both had major flaws, Wisconsin getting to bowl eligibility because they play in the West and it turned into a monsoon when Maryland came to town, while MSU faceplanted against Indiana and cost themselves bowl eligibility. These were two 6-6ish teams who finished one win on either side of the distribution from that number. Indiana and Nebraska inhabit a tier of "intriguing but bad", playing some competitive games from time to time but having major problems on defense. 

Finally, I carved out two separate tiers for Rutgers and Northwestern. Rutgers won one B1G game and were rarely ever competitive, which deserved to put them below Nebraska and Indiana. However, they were not, to me, as deserving of "unmitigated disaster" status as Northwestern, a program that needs a total rehaul from top to bottom in the offseason. I will leave you with this parting gift about the Wildcats: their QBs combined to throw 10 TDs to 17 INTs and complete <60% of passes for 6.1 Y/A. Brutal.