What is this diary? After each week, I take a deep dive into the box scores and team pages from Pro Football Focus, Game on Paper, College Football Data, and more websites for as many Big Ten teams as I can manage. I try to cover as many teams as I can each week, but life often makes that impossible. (This week, it didn't! I covered every team that played! [Kinda.]) I try to generate a couple blurbs based on the statistics I find compelling from each game/team. Really, there’s no formula. This is just a very paper-based, statistical approach to evaluating teams. And, also, sometimes I watch a little bit of film if I don’t believe the statistics and want to know what the heck is happening (see: Drew Allar).

Note: Games are listed in order of how much I think a Michigan fan will care about the (a) teams playing, and (b) outcome of the game

IOWA defeated MICHIGAN STATE (26-16)

How did the under not hit? I live in California, so there’s no way for me to legally bet on games unless I drive three hours to Nevada. However, I texted my best friend in Ann Arbor and told him he should invest his life savings on the under (36.5) on this game. In my mind, there was no feasible way that MSU and Iowa would top that. Welp, they did (because Cal Haladay returned a fumble for a TD and Cooper DeJean returned a punt for a TD), but either way the offensive numbers from this game are utterly abysmal. Combined, the teams averaged 4.2 yards per play (there are currently just five FBS teams averaging less than that per game this season). Game on Paper has these teams for a combined -52.0 offensive EPA in the game. There were 28 total third downs, and only five of those were converted (17.9%). There were 29 drives in this game: 13 ended in punts; eight ended in field goal attempts; six ended in turnovers; one ended in a turnover on downs; and one ended in a touchdown. Brutal football.

They need to call “Game Excitement Index” something else. I’ve written about it previously, but, if you don’t know what it is, GEI is a metric that uses in-game changes in win probability on a play-by-play basis to determine how “exciting” a game is. The higher the number generated from the metric, the more exciting the game is. A boring blowout will score one or less, and a true thriller will score five or more. For some reason, this MSU-Iowa game scored 5.10. The win probability did vary significantly throughout the game, but “exciting” doesn’t feel like the best word choice.

ON THE SPARTANS.

Noah Kim is (nearly) the Big Ten’s worst quarterback. Kim now has the second worst passing grade on PFF amongst Big Ten starting QBs (only Northwestern’s Ben Bryant is worse). What’s absolutely wild is that Kim leads the Big Ten in “big-time throws” (PFF’s stat for “a pass with excellent ball location and timing, generally thrown further down the field and/or into a tighter window”) with 11. What’s less wild is that he also leads the Big Ten in turnover-worthy plays, has the second most INTs (6), and the second worst adjusted completion percentage (64.9%). Excluding his game against Richmond, Kim’s stats look as follows: 73/140 (52.1%), 798 yards (5.7 Y/A), 3 TDs and 6 INTs. Look at just his Power Five opponents (Washington, Maryland, and Iowa) and those numbers are even more bleak: 55/107 (51.4%), 519 yards (4.9 Y/A), 1 TD and 6 INTs. His big-time throw to turnover-worthy play ratio also drops to 1:3 in Power Five games. Yes, the Iowa defense is a very good defense, but these are not the numbers of a QB who’s better than Payton Thorne (who nearly beat Georgia this week!).

A good example of PFF’s blocking stats making no sense. RB Nathan Carter has put together a respectable campaign this year (93 carries, 477 yards, 5.1 Y/C, 4 TDs), but there’s a clear distinction between his efficiency when running left versus running right. On 45 carries that have gone to the left of the center, he’s accumulated 287 yards (6.4 Y/C); on 47 carries that have gone to the right of center, he’s accumulated 186 yards (4.1 Y/C). What truly makes this stat confusing, though, is that Kevin Wigenton II and Spencer Brown (MSU’s RG and RT) grade out better in run blocking on PFF than J.D. Duplain and Brandon Baldwin (MSU’s LG and LT). Wigenton and Brown have run blocking grades of 61.4 and 65.2 on the season, whereas Duplain and Baldwin score 49.7 and 47.6. Get your act together, PFF. Please.

Michigan State gets flagged a lot. As of this week, the Spartans are 124th in the FBS in penalty yards per game, averaging 78.3, and 127th in average penalties taken per game, averaging 8.8. (There are four Power 69 teams who average more penalty yards per game, and two of them might surprise you: Miami and Washington.) The numbers are slightly worse in their three Power 69 matchups: 9.0 penalties per game and 82.3 yards per game. There’s no one particular culprit, but on offense it seems like most of the issues have come on the edges of the line: starting tackles Spencer Brown and Brandon Baldwin each have three penalties, and the three tight ends (Maliq Carr, Evan Morris, and Jaylan Franklin) total five more. God forbid they start to face some actual DEs like Derrick Moore, Jaylen Harrell, Braiden McGregor…

ON THE HAWKEYES.

Bye bye, Cade. Hello, Deacon. Cade McNamara’s stint as Iowa’s savior was short-lived, as he was carted off the field on Saturday with a season-ending leg injury. Deacon Hill will replace him. Hill was a high-three-star in the 2021 class. He committed to Wisconsin, dropped back to pass just once for them in two years (he was sacked on that snap), then transferred to Iowa this off-season. Before Saturday, he’d gone 4/8 for 49 yards in spot time. Against the Spartans, his line was: 11/26 (42.3%), 115 yards (4.4 Y/A), 1 TD, 1 INT. That looks bad, but it’s worth mentioning that five of his passes were dropped (WR Diante Vines dropped three balls), which means his adjusted completion percentage is a manageable 61.5%. But it also looks bad because that was against Michigan State’s porous secondary (worst coverage grade on PFF amongst Big Ten teams). Up next is Purdue, whose secondary is also bad, but then the Hawkeyes face Wisconsin and Minnesota. Also, he’s officially listed at 6’3” and 258(!) pounds.

Iowa’s DBs are (almost) all once again fantastic. Despite the departure of CB Riley Moss and S Kaevon Merriweather, the Hawkeyes’ defensive backfield remains elite. Four of them rank in the top 13 of PFF’s defensive grade for Big Ten DBs. Both star corner Cooper DeJean and slot corner Sebastian Castro are allowing an NFL passer rating under 50. Safety Quinn Schulte has the second best tackling grade amongst Big Ten DBs. Safety Savier Nwankpa allows the fewest yards per reception (4.7) of any Big Ten DB targeted 10+ times. The weak link of the squad is CB Jermari Harris, as he’s allowing a 97.1 passer rating when targeted. This might just be rust: he missed all of 2022 and the first two weeks of the season with an injury; in 2021, he also allowed a passer rating of under 50. The Hawkeyes sport the second best coverage grade on PFF amongst the Power 69 teams (Power Five + Notre Dame). They’re one of three Power 69 teams to have a defensive success rate on passing plays below 35% and defensive explosiveness score on passing plays below 1.50 per College Football Data (CFBD); the other two are Georgia and Oregon.

The Hawkeyes have the best defense in the country. After holding the Spartans to zero touchdowns and a -0.35 EPA/play, Iowa is back to being number one in DF+, usurping the top spot from Michigan. Boo.

PENN STATE defeated NORTHWESTERN (41-13)

The final score is very misleading. Yes, a 28 point margin is substantial, but this game was tied 13-13 at halftime. Once Northwestern started to roll the dice a bit more (more on that later), Penn State was able to pile up the points, but only thanks to some very short fields: on their last five drives of the game, the Nittany Lions scored 20 of their 41 points, but only needed 28 plays and 120 yards (4.29 yards per play) to do that. In the whole game, Penn State averaged just 4.84 yards per play. This would rank 97th in the FBS if extrapolated out to a season, and that against a defense that’s presently rated 71st in DF+.

ON THE NITTANY LIONS.

The segment where I mock Drew Allar. There’s a part of me that’s proud of Allar: his 7.6 aDOT in this game is higher than his season average of 6.3. However, 7.6 is still lower than what any other QB in the Big Ten averages on the season. His YacPy* was once again astoundingly high (0.59), which indicates most of his passing yards came from work done by his receivers after the catch. Against Big Ten opponents, Allar has also seen a significant decrease in his accuracy: against West Virginia and Delaware, he completed 78.2% of his passes; against Illinois, Iowa, and Northwestern, he completed just 57.3% of his passes. His yards per attempt have also dropped from 9.62 in the non-con to 5.47 in conference play, which would also be the lowest amongst Big Ten passers. I still can’t wrap my head around why PFF has him graded as the third best passer (behind McCarthy and Tagovailoa, who finally passed him) in the conference. It’s like saying a 2nd grader is better at math than a 10th grader because the 2nd grader got an A+ on his arithmetic and the 10th grader got a B- on his trigonometry.

*YacPy = (yards after the catch) / (total passing yards)

Why aren’t we blaming the RBs? On the podcast this week, Seth said that he doesn’t blame the Penn State running backs for their low yards per carry numbers (combined, Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen average 4.10 Y/C; that number was 5.95 last year). I’m not disagreeing with Seth, but the numbers certainly are. For starters, neither RB has busted a run for more than 20 yards this year––once you get that far downfield, it’s often much more about the runner than how the line blocked for you. At this point in the season last year, Singleton had already ripped off two 50+ yard runs, and Allen (less the home run hitter) had a 37 yarder. Their breakaway yard percentages (percent of yards from runs of 15+ yards) is significantly down, too, most notably Singleton’s: 59.9% of his yards last year came on breakaway runs; that number has dropped to just 18.0% this year. Singleton and Allen are forcing fewer missed tackles, too: last season, they combined to average 0.25 MTF/C (missed tackles forced per carry); this year, they’re at just 0.14. Finally, according to CFBD, the line is getting even more push this year than last, jumping from 3.03 average line yards per carry to 3.24. Again, it’s not me disagreeing with Seth; it’s the numbers.

Penn State’s assault on QBs continues in earnest. Northwestern QBs Ben Bryant and Brendan Sullivan dropped back to pass 44 times against the Nittany Lions; they were pressured on 26(!) of those drop backs (59.1%) and sacked on seven of them (15.9%). That’s bananas. On the season, Penn State’s pressure rate is 43.6%; just in Big Ten play, that number jumps to an astronomical 54.6%. (It’s worth adding the caveat that they’ve played Illinois, Iowa, and Northwestern this year in Big Ten play. Illinois and Northwestern are two of the six worst pass blocking teams in the Power 69, according to PFF.) Penn State isn’t just getting pressures, they’re also getting sacks, as they have the second highest sack rate (11.94%) in the country. While their success is very much a collective effort (seven players have 2+ sacks, but no one has more than three), edges Chop Robinson, Dennis Dani-Sutton, and Adisa Isaac are worth highlighting (they all have win rates over 15% on all snaps, and over 23% on true passing sets). Linebacker Abdul Carter has also been a menace: his win rate of 18.6% is second highest amongst Big Ten LBs with more than 20 pass rush snaps this season. This vaunted pass rush has helped Penn State have the best defensive success rate on passing plays (26.6%) and passing downs (15.5%) in the nation.

ON THE WILDCATS.

Well, at least they played to win. Heading in, there was no reason for Northwestern to expect to pull off an upset: Penn State was 10th in SP+, and the Wildcats were 93rd. Even though the game was in Evanston, there’s no real home-field advantage to be had at Ryan Field. And, yet, interim head coach David Braun called this game in a very admirable, gutsy way––completely inverse to the neutered manner in which, say, James Franklin led Penn State against Michigan two years ago. Down 17-10 in the third quarter, Braun decided to go for it on 4th & 1 at his own 31 yard line(!), knowing some things would have to break Northwestern’s way if they were to pull off the upset. The Wildcats didn’t convert, but they held PSU to a field goal. On the very next drive, Braun AGAIN went for it on 4th & 1 at his own 34 yard line, but the Wildcats again failed to convert. The Nittany Lions scored on the ensuing possession, and that was more or less all she wrote. Either way, I applaud Braun for this, especially considering the ineptitude of the Northwestern offense in this game (2.78 yards per play).

Checking in on A.J. Henning. I wanted to do a paragraph about some of the good things Northwestern has going for it, but the only truly good thing I could find statistically was that they don’t take a lot of penalties (at least they’re disciplined somewhere). Instead, let’s just talk about our old friend A.J. Henning. This year, the former slot bug turned slot receiver has 17 catches on 29 targets for 115 yards (6.8 Y/REC) and 2 TDs. That’s seven more catches, 12 more targets, 39 more yards, and two more touchdowns than he ever had in a season at Michigan. Call it a career year! In 2021 and 2022 at Michigan, his aDOT was 4.4; this season, it’s 10.9! Perhaps most impressively, though, is that Henning has caught four of six contested balls. He’s only one behind the Big Ten leaders (Cam Camper and Jaron Glover) in contested catches. Keep on keeping on, A.J.

We all already knew Northwestern was bad. On Sunday, I posted a diary with a bunch of great team stats about Michigan. What follows are a bunch of bad team stats about Northwestern. Among the Power 69 teams, per PFF, Northwestern is: the 2nd worst overall team; the worst offense; the 2nd worst passing team; the 2nd worst receiving team; and the tied for worst pass rush team. The Wildcats have turned an above-average Group of Five quarterback in Ben Bryant (last year: 61.1% completions; 7.8 Y/A; 23 big-time throws, 11 turnover-worthy plays) into one of the worst quarterbacks in the Power 69 (58.6% completions; 5.7 Y/A; 5 BTTs, 9 TWPs). They in turn get no pressure on the quarterback: only one player with 10+ pass rushes per game has a double-digit win rate (interior lineman Najee Story at literally 10.0%). According to Game on Paper, their offensive EPA/play is 107th in the country, their defensive EPA/play is 105th in the country, and their net EPA/play is 120th in the country. They’re also 91st in net yards per play and 104th in net available yards (garbage time removed). My sister went to Northwestern for undergrad, and it’s just a very good thing she doesn’t care about Wildcat football.

MINNESOTA defeated LOUISIANA (35-24)

The Gophers should know their Greek isn’t a gunslinger. In the Power 69, there are 72 quarterbacks who have dropped back at least 75 times this season. Every single one of them has at least two “big-time throws” on PFF. Except Athan Kaliakmanis; he has zero. His NFL passer rating (76.6) is 8th worst amongst those 72 quarterbacks, and his Y/A (6.2) is 7th worst amongst those 72 quarterbacks. It continues to utterly baffle me that Minnesota went into the season thinking they had something at quarterback and let Kaliakmanis throw on 69% of their plays in Week One against Nebraska. The Gophers have since smartened up, only allowing him to throw more than 20 times in their game against North Carolina, in which they lost 31-13, so a game script of “throw a lot” makes plenty of sense. I expect Kaliakmanis to throw 20+ times against Michigan based on how the game should play out; I also expect those 20+ times to not go well.

Running by committee without Darius Taylor. In weeks two through four, the freshman phenom Taylor carried the ball 86 times for 529 yards (6.15 Y/C) and 4 TDs. Perhaps even more impressively, amongst Big Ten backs, he was fourth in yards after contact per carry, he forced 0.27 missed tackles per carry, and he had the second highest breakaway yard percentage. Then, he went down with a leg injury at the end of the Northwestern game, and Minnesota turned to Bryce Williams, Zach Evans, and Sean Tyler in his stead. Statistically, they acquitted themselves fairly well against the Ragin Cajuns (40 carries, 185 yards, 4.63 Y/C, 2 TDs), but this was against Louisiana, whose defense is middle of the pack at opponent yards per rush (3.8, 55th) and has played thus far Northwestern State (FCS), Old Dominion (109th in OF+), UAB (83rd in OF+), and Buffalo (97th in OF+). At the very least, there’s no long run affecting the Golden Gophers numbers: no back broke one for more than 18 yards. However, if Taylor isn’t back by Saturday, this looks like a feast for Michigan’s D-line.

Who needs Flip Dixon? There’s been some discussion on the blog about the concern Minnesota should feel re: Dixon flipping to Rutgers this offseason. While Dixon’s been terrific this season for the Scarlet Knights (3rd highest graded safety with 150+ snaps in the Big Ten), the Golden Gophers have the top two graded safeties with 150+ snaps in the Big Ten: Tyler Nubin (as expected) and Jack Henderson (totally unexpected). Nubin is a known quantity, and in all likelihood a first round draft pick come April, but Henderson is a SE Louisiana transfer who’s particularly killing it in the last three weeks now that he’s seeing significant playing time. In Minnesota’s past three games against North Carolina, Northwestern, and Louisiana, playing mostly in the box and slot, Henderson has 21 total tackles and 14 stops (unsuccessful plays for the offense). While he’s allowed 11 catches on 15 targets in those games, he’s only averaged 3.9 yards allowed per target, and has 2 INTs and 1 PBU to boot. (I’ll semi-gloss over the fact that the Minnesota safety with the second most snaps is Darius Green, who is the second worst rated safety with 150+ snaps in the Big Ten, thanks to his high missed-tackle rate [20.7%] and not-great NFL passer rating when targeted [98.6].)

Minnesota might have the Big Ten’s worst tackler. What’s the most straightforward way to determine the worst tackler in the Big Ten? I’d say do the following two things: (1) Sort by linebacker, as that’s arguably the position where tackling is most important, and (2) sort the LBs by missed tackle percentage, of course. Those who truly top our list have a pretty low volume of tackles in general (Purdue’s Will Heldt has 2.5 tackles to four misses; PSU’s Abdul Carter has eight tackles to seven misses; and MSU’s Aaron Brule has 12.5 tackles to five misses), but then we get to Minnesota’s Maverick Baranowski (great name, BTW). He’s a high volume tackler (his 23 solo tackles are 6th in the Big Ten amongst LBs) and also a high volume missed tackler (10 missed tackles is tied for most in the Big Ten regardless of position). If I were an analyst, I’d recommend Minnesota use Maverick as a blitzer more frequently: on nine pass rushes, he has five pressures.

College Football Data lets you find specific awesomeness/awfulness. If you read my post on Sunday about how great Michigan is, you may have noticed (1) I posted a lot of data from College Football Data, (2) I posted a lot of stats about how terrific the Wolverines have been this year, and (3) I posted a graph that showed Michigan is one of the best teams when it comes to offensive success rate and defensive success rate. I spent some time looking at where Minnesota lands on different graphs when I plug in different stats. I was unable to find any graph in which Minnesota looks awesome, but was able to find a graph in which Minnesota looks awful, particularly for their upcoming matchup with the Wolverines. There are very few teams in the country that are worse at (a) offensive explosiveness, and (b) defensive power success rate than the Golden Gophers. In fact, there are only three teams in the FBS whose offensive explosiveness score is lower than 1.15 and defensive power success rate is higher than 0.85: UAB, Penn State, and Minnesota. What does this mean? It means Minnesota struggles to create explosive offensive plays (this is a problem against Michigan since the Wolverines have allowed two touchdowns against Big Ten teams and they’ve both been 60+ yard plays) and struggles to stop other teams from converting short yardage 3rd and 4th down situations (which are situations in which Michigan regularly finds themselves and regularly just decides to run an HB dive). Gung ho!

MARYLAND defeated INDIANA (44-17)

The Terrapins capitalized on short fields. Maryland’s first TD came on the opening drive of the game: Taulia Tagovailoa threw a 62 yard pass to Jeshaun Jones on a coverage bust, then threw an incompletion, then threw a 13 yard TD to Tai Felton. Afterwards, the Terrapins scored (TDs or FGs) on drives of the following length: 29 yards; 21 yards; 50 yards; and 6 yards. At that point, the score was 30-3 and the game was out of hand. They managed two long touchdown drives and a long missed field goal drive in the second half, but 23 of their first 30 points were helped by poor special teams play on the part of the Hoosiers (weak punts and poor coverage) and two turnovers on downs (Tayven Jackson was sacked for an 11 yard loss on 4th & 1 at the Maryland 39 for the first TOD, and the second came on a fake punt that fell one yard short of the first down line at the Indiana 32).

ON THE TERRAPINS.

Maryland pass-catchers share the wealth. No other team in the Big Ten has as many players with 15+ targets this year as the Terrapins (who have six). Four of those players have 18+ catches: WRs Jeshaun Jones, Tai Felton, and Kaden Prather, and TE Corey Dyches. All four of those gentlemen average over 2.0 yards per route run (there are only 18 players in the Big Ten with 10+ targets this year averaging over 2.0 Y/RR) and also have an NFL passer rating of over 100 when targeted. WR Octavian Smith Jr. and RB Roman Hemby also have 15+ targets and have double-digit catches, so this truly is an offense that can beat you with a lot of weapons. Those weapons are good after the catch, too; the only team with a higher yards after the catch per reception number in the conference are the vaunted Ohio State Buckeye receivers.

You can run on the Terps. Through five games this season, four teams (Towson, Charlotte, Virginia, and Michigan State) have averaged 5.0+ yards per carry (sacks removed) against Maryland, despite the fact that none of those teams have particularly good rushing offenses. Indiana was the only team to not average more than five yards per carry, and they still managed to get to 4.2. The Terrapins are simply liable to get pushed around up front, averaging 3.27 defensive line yards and a defensive stuff rate of just 14.3%. (They’re one of 25 or so teams per CFBD with greater than 3.2 defensive line yards and less than a 15% stuff rate.) The issue stems mostly from their interior defensive linemen: starters Jordan Phillips and Tommy Akingbesote have 64.7 and 63.5 defensive run grades on PFF, which rank 21st and 23rd amongst 35 Big Ten interior defensive linemen with 50+ run defense snaps on the year.

ON THE HOOSIERS.

The Hoosiers’ rush offense is abominable. According to CFBD, there are only two teams in the country whose rush offense has a predicted points added lower than -0.1 per play and a success rate lower than 30%: Iowa State and Indiana. They’ve utilized three backs fairly equally: Jaylin Lucas, Christian Turner (Michigan transfer), and Josh Henderson (out the past two weeks due to a leg injury). Removing their stats from the Indiana State game in Week Two (because Indiana State is ranked 203rd on Sagarin, making them a middle of the pack FCS team, aka bad), that trio’s stat line looks like this over four games: 86 carries, 221 yards (2.57 Y/C), 2 TDs, and just seven rushes of 10+ yards. QB Tayven Jackson also has 19 designed runs on the season which have gone for a grand total of -3 yards (not a typo). PFF grades them as the second worst running team in the Big Ten (ahead of Iowa) and the second worst run blocking team in the Big Ten (ahead of Northwestern).

Uhm, uh, what’s going on with Cam Camper? The Indiana WR probably wouldn’t have landed on many All-Big Ten ballots this year, but the stats show him to be one of the better pass-catchers in the conference: among players who’ve seen 15+ targets this year, Camper has PFF’s 4th highest receiving grade, the 4th most Y/REC (19.2), the 3rd most yards per route run (3.0), and the tied-for-most contested catches (5). So why in the world did he only play five snaps against Maryland and run just one route? The Hoosiers have such a limited number of weapons that they can’t afford not to use one of them. Perhaps it has something to do with the firing of offensive coordinator Walt Bell the day after the loss, but this is still pretty bizarre and indemnifying.

The Hoosiers are allergic to other teams’ quarterbacks. Without the Indiana State game padding their stats, Indiana has just two sacks across four games to start the season. Over the season, they’re 125th in the FBS in sack rate at 2.84%. Indiana’s best pass rusher is defensive end Andre Carter, whose win rate of 12.9% is just 18th best amongst Big Ten edges with 50+ pass rushing snaps. Lanell Carr is their second best: his 10.5% win rate places him 24th on that list. The Hoosiers don’t get much from their interior linemen either: Philip Blidi, LeDarrius Cox, and Marcus Burris Jr. are t-13th, 21st, and 30th in win rate amongst interior defensive linemen with 50+ pass rush snaps. Linebackers Jacob Mangum-Farrar and Aaron Casey are 11th and t-27th in pass rush win rate amongst LBs with 10+ pass rush snaps in the Big Ten. Indiana blitzes its defensive backs infrequently enough that their stats don’t matter. All this is to say that from every level, Indiana is one of the worst teams in the Big Ten at getting to the QB.

PURDUE defeated ILLINOIS (44-19)

Penalties and 3rd downs tell all. Upon reviewing the box score, the teams had many statistics that were very similar in this game: Purdue accumulated 406 yards, and Illinois accumulated 375; Purdue averaged 5.72 yards per play, and Illinois averaged 5.68; both teams lost one fumble and did not throw any INTs; Purdue possessed the ball for 31:56, and Illinois possessed it for 28:04. But two stats (other than the final score) leap off the page: penalties taken and 3rd downs converted. While the Boilermakers were flagged just three times for a total of 15 yards, the Illini were flagged nine times for a total of 83 yards. Purdue came in well under their season average of 59.6 penalty yards per game, but this was in lock-step with Illinois season-long average of 72.0 (120th in the FBS). Furthermore, Purdue was able to convert 8/13 third downs (61.5%), a slight improvement from their season-average of 44.9%, whereas Illinois only converted 2/13 third downs (15.4%), a step down from their season average of 35.0% (94th in the FBS).

ON THE BOILERMAKERS

Devin Mockobee falters, and Tyrone Tracy steps up. Mockobee was a nice story last year: a walk-on RB who ran like a freight train towards a scholarship. This year, well… six fumbles in five games would be a little too much for any coach to trust. Thankfully for Boilermaker fans, Tracy has picked up the slack and then some. With 43 carries, 285 yards (6.63 Y/C), 4 TDs, and zero fumbles in his last four games, he’s now PFF’s second highest graded RB in the Big Ten. He also has received their highest elusiveness score thanks in some part to his absolutely mind-boggling 0.59 missed tackles forced per carry. (To get a sense of how absurd that statistic is, consider Blake Corum averaged 0.29 MTF/C last season, which was the highest graded season in the history of PFF.) What also makes this ridiculous is that Tracy’s longest run this season is only 24 yards. Generating these numbers without breaking a couple big ones makes you a total stud (or just shows that you really don’t have jets).

The Boilermakers are really, really bad tacklers. According to PFF, Purdue is the worst team in the Big Ten at tackling, and the third worst in the Power 69. Safeties Dillon Thieneman and Sanoussi Kane are two of their worst offenders. Thieneman actually has the second most total tackles in the Big Ten this year with 44.5, so his eight missed tackles on the season aren’t that criminal (14.3% missed tackle rate, which is not good but not defense-breaking). However, Kane has made just 30.5 tackles and missed 10; thus, his missed tackle rate of 22.2% is a serious problem. Edge rusher Nic Scourton is also problematic (26.7% missed tackle rate), as is linebacker OC Brothers (24.0% missed tackle rate). Only the lowly Northwestern Wildcats’ 61 missed tackles on the year comes close to rivaling Purdue’s 65 missed tackles this season.

ON THE FIGHTING ILLINI

Does the offensive line hate Luke Altmyer? No starting Big Ten quarterback has experienced more pressure in sheer volume and rate than the Ole Miss transfer. He’s dropped back to pass 176 times this year and been pressured 72 times (40.9%). He’s also been sacked more (18 times) than any other Big Ten QB. Altmyer doesn’t seem particularly adept at dealing with this pressure either. Despite the fact that he has some giddy-up, he struggles to avoid the rushers––he’s been sacked on 25% of his pressured drop backs, second most frequently in the conference behind Heinrich Haarberg. This has all led to Illinois landing at 121st in percentage of drop backs that end in a sack (11.23%) When Altmyer does get the ball out, it rarely goes well: PFF grades him as the second worst Big Ten passer when under duress (NW’s Ben Bryant is worst), probably because in those situations his completion percentage is 32.6% and he’s thrown 3 picks (tied for most with J.J. McCarthy [sad face]). The main weakness on the OL is the right tackle position. Zy Crisler started the season there, but after two games in which he allowed nine pressures on 65 pass blocking snaps (13.8%), he was sent to RG. Left guard Isaiah Adams replaced Crisler and has fared slightly better, but not by much: 14 pressures on 128 pass blocking snaps (10.9%). I’ve scoured the Illinois blogs (kind of) and haven’t found anyone calling for a change yet.

The demise of Illinois’ defensive line is semi-inexplicable. Last season, the top five snap-getters on the Illini defensive line (Jer’Zhan Newton, Keith Randolph Jr., Seth Coleman, Gabe Jacas, and Calvin Avery) all received grades of 69.9+ on defense from PFF. This season, though, four of those five have returned (all but Calvin Avery, whose snaps have been replaced by Denzel Daxon), but only two of them (Jer’Zhan Newton and Keith Randolph Jr.) have grades of 69.9+ on PFF. What’s more, both Newton and Randolph’s grades have fallen significantly from last year: Newton’s dropped from 91.5 to 77.1, and Randolph’s dropped from 79.0 to 69.9. So what gives? Is this all because Ryan Walters left to take the Purdue head coaching job? Can Newton’s drop in score simply be attributed to the fact that he’s already missed eight tackles this season, after he only missed five all of last season? Can the same be said of Randolph, who’s missed six tackles this season after missing just four last year? Either way, this (in tandem with the absolute plummeting of the Illini secondary [more on that in a later week]) has led to a collapse from a defense that was elite a year ago to merely competent this year (45th in DF+).

RUTGERS defeated WAGNER (52-3)

Wagner sucks. They’re 247th in Sagarin (only 261 teams are ranked).

Rutgers also beat them 66-7 last year. You scheduled them twice?

Five (5) Scarlet Knights had rushing touchdowns in this game. Cool.

Wagner averaged just 2.86 yards per play. Also cool.

Rutgers went 5/5 on fourth down conversions. That’s actually… something?