Post Week 5: Yardage Analysis and Predictions + Score Predictor

Submitted by tpilews on

Okay, just a quick recap of the week that just passed. My predictor indicated UM would gain 522 yards of total offense. The offense gained 574 yards of offense, nearly 11% better than the predictor. The IU defense was predicted to gain 415 yards of total offense. They gained 568 yards, netting the UM defense at 136% of their projected output. Statistically, this wasn't their worst day (ND @ 144%), but it was still bad enough. Before the Indiana game, UMs defense was keeping teams to 99.34% of their normal yards on the season. That number is a fairly decent one. It took a huge hit this week and currently sits at 111.85%

On the brightside, UM's offense got better. Before the IU game, they were sitting at 154% total offense compared to what their opponents' defenses were giving up. With 574 yards of total offense, at 169% of IU's norm, the season average gained just over 6%. This margin kept UM above their opponents (MSU, Iowa) in the predictor. UM was also able to knock 12 yards off OSU's "lead" in their predictor.

The numbers.....

As you can see above, I added the next metric into the equation: a scoring predictor. I've calculated two scores based on differing material. The hybrid yards/point includes all of 2009 and the completed games of 2010. One thing to note in the comparison between 2009 and 2010 for MSU is that their offense is scoring more frequently than last year. On the flip side, despite UM gaining a ton more yardage this year, they are actually scoring at a slower pace than 2009. Well, does this mean UMs offense is less explosive and MSUs offense is more explosive than they were a year ago? Probably not. In 2009, UM was one of the top 10 team in net punting. This enabled UM to have better starting position on each drive. Makes sense. UM 2010 has had pretty bad field position for most of the year. The positive with this is that if the defense can improve and got off the field without giving up field position, the offensive numbers could skyrocket.

My prediction based on limited stats and the hope that UMs defense shows up this week:

UM 42

MSU 38

 

Interesting rank metric of teams UM will play/have played:

Comments

jmscher

October 4th, 2010 at 2:36 PM ^

"My prediction based on limited stats and the hope that UMs defense shows up this week:"

If i you are predcting that MSU gets 38 based on the hope that our defense shows up what you be predicting without that hope?

jmblue

October 4th, 2010 at 8:36 PM ^

MSU has scored 38, 30, 34 (28 in regulation), 45 and 34 (27 on offense) in its five games.  Not bad, but maybe not the juggernaut you're making them out to be.  The 45-point outburst came against a horrendous I-AA team. 

JGP

October 4th, 2010 at 3:36 PM ^

Really they only have to show up as much as they have all year since that is what his predictor is based on.  So maybe if they actually, you know, have a great game we could hold them to less than 38?

Mgobowl

October 4th, 2010 at 9:54 PM ^

You do realize that opposing offenses are putting up better than their average performances against our defense, right? To expect our defense to actually limit a team to 80-90% of their average offensive output would require a miracle. If we can "limit" MSU to their average, I would be incredibly happy.

Mgobowl

October 5th, 2010 at 12:38 AM ^

However, of those teams that we held below their averages, which ones were statistically significant?

2% (UMASS) and 6% (BGSU) below average do not strike me as significant (by eyeball test, no statistics). Those teams are certainly much lower caliber than UCONN and as such I would have expected defensive performance better than ours against UCONN.

Furthermore, was it our defense or UCONN's lack of execution that led to the 14% below average performance? As for BGSU, they were starting a QB with minimal experience, so was it us or them again?

When we have yielded above average numbers, they are to an extreme ... 44 and 36%

I like what you are doing with the data and I know it sounds like I'm just spewing but, but, but excuses... however if you look at the raw numbers in context, I don't know that you can predict our defense to hold MSU to 85-90% particularly when they have only done that to 1 out of 5 opponents this season.

This begs the question, which defense are we going to see come Saturday?

umjgheitma

October 4th, 2010 at 2:56 PM ^

Offense:

1) Get Molk/Omameh out on the LBs

2) Vary the snap count to keep the DL honest

Defense:

1) Have to rush 4 and up it to 5 time to time

2) Need to shave a couple yards off the coverage cushion, consistently giving teams 2nd and 3 is not going to cut it against more well rounded teams that can also run. 

joeyb

October 4th, 2010 at 3:02 PM ^

I'm pretty sure that they don't watch/listen to the snap count. Molk puts his head up right before he snaps the ball. They only way that I see to fake the snap count is for him to put his head up, put it back down, then back up again when he snaps it. I don't know if that counts as a false start though.

MGoBlog Fan

October 4th, 2010 at 11:22 PM ^

Michigan will need to score a lot, and quickly.

Michigan needs to have 12 offensive drives minimum, and probably 13, to win, barring turnovers.

Keep in mind that MSU is -1 net turnover margin against FBS opponents, and beat Wisconsin by 10 in spite of  a -3 TO margin.

Tater

October 5th, 2010 at 12:13 AM ^

I was thinking of trying to transcend my hatred for crunching numbers and doing something similar to this myself.  Now I don't have to.  Thanks.   

slipknot

October 5th, 2010 at 8:49 AM ^

Thanks for the hard work, but I must wonder....you're system ranks UMass as #1 offense and #3 defense that we will face this year????  Tied with OSU at 4 total points?

tpilews

October 5th, 2010 at 6:13 PM ^

This is just based on pure yardage, so you have to think of the competition as well. I guess the next step in my predictions is to calculate all scoring percentages, but that is a lot more data to copy down. Yards per point may give a more meaningful look into who a team really is.