Big Ten Beefmetrics

Submitted by Wisconsin Wolverine on
Hi all,
 
I like to compare things to other things, so I set out to visualize the size of our dudes vs. the size of dudes from the rest of the Big Ten.  I grabbed roster data from ourlads.com and just looked at the "first string" players on the depth chart.  For each team, I ordered the dudes by weight and plotted them individually as bars.
 
I can't quite embed it the way I want, but this link should get you to a full screen version of the interactive plot.  Michigan is visible by default, but you can click on any team in the figure legend to add / remove them from the plot.
 
I didn't realize it, but Michigan's first string of men may be the beefiest in the conference.  There seems to be a particular size advantage on the defensive line, but Michigan is simply bigger than a number of teams across the board, even down to the receivers and cornerbacks.  Gotta hand it to the strength & conditioning staff, they're deploying a lot of beef.
 
UPDATE: Apparently plotly has a limit of 500 views per day without a paid subscription.  I'll try to think of something.
 
UPDATE 2: Because plotly is throttling my interactive views, I'll paste images here of each head-to-head matchup, but you can't hover over each bar to see the player name :/
 
 
Michigan vs. Illinois
 
 
Michigan vs. Iowa
 
 
Michigan vs. Michigan State
 
Michigan vs. Minnesota
 
Michigan vs. Nebraska
 
Michigan vs. Northwestern
 
Michigan vs. Ohio State
 
Michigan vs. Purdue
 
Michigan vs. Wisconsin
 
Michigan vs. Penn State
 
Michigan vs. Rutgers
 
MGoBoard

LSAClassOf2000

September 23rd, 2016 at 1:59 PM ^

That Bielema was not there to personally witness and sample the sausages being made in the one clip is honestly a little disappointing even now, but you can't have it all. 

In all seriousness though, to the OP's post, that's some nice comparison graphing there - I like this. Just getting into using Plotly for some things around here. 

Joined: 01/07/2011

MGoPoints: 130561

Heptarch

September 23rd, 2016 at 1:47 PM ^

"For each team, I ordered the dudes by weight and plotted them individually as bars."

At first I read that as "plotted them individually as bears".  

Which would have been the most badass graph ever.

Joined: 12/29/2014

MGoPoints: 7023

1974

September 23rd, 2016 at 1:51 PM ^

I realize it's Friday and this looks like a mostly humorous thread, but the very mention of size is giving me some Michigan Football PTSD. There have been instances in the past where's Michigan's superior size was beaten by superior athleticism and ability. The service academies have managed to beat much bigger middle-of-the-road teams over the years. Coach Don Brown, too, has been known to deploy somewhat undersized "back seven" players.

Joined: 04/17/2011

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