Non-Fancy Stats comparison UM and OSU Season per game vs The Game
I am killing some time "working" from home today and have been absorbing content about The Game as much as I can since it happened. I don't get into all the fancy stats too much but I was wondering to myself how different each team played compared to the rest of its games so I thought I'd do some very basic digging into the stats of The Game, got season stats from cfbstats.com, and spent a little bit spreadsheeting.
I didn't include every stat possible in the spreadsheet and I'm sure you will see more in this than what I do but a couple of things stood out to me right away.
- We scored more points than they did.
- Total Yards. For the game, pretty even: 487 Michigan...458 OSU
- Michigan's was 36 more than average on 9.4 fewer plays...1.6 YPP better than average.
- OSU's was 93 less than their average on 8.2 more plays...2.0 YPP worse than average.
- People are saying that "OSU still passed for 394 yards against Michigan". True but that 394 was
- 29 yards over their season average per game (good for them)
- took them 8 more completions and 12 more attempts than average to get there (good for us - no huge plays)
- 2.4 yard per catch worse than their typical game this year.
- People are wowed by Michigan's 297 yards rushing. Admirable for sure but
- That was almost 73 yards more than our average game on 2 fewer rushing attempts...2 YPC better than average!
- OSU ran for 122.2 less yards than their average on 3.6 fewer attempts...3.4 YPC worse than their average.
- 3rd and 4th Down. I was frustrated with what seemed like their 3rd/4th down success - especially at the end of the game. I know that succeeding on 3rd and 4th downs means Michigan's defense was forcing them to fail on 1st and 2nd down quite often but these numbers are interesting to me
- M faced about 6 fewer 3rd downs than an average game, OSU faced 6 more.
- M succeeded 37% more often than average (found by dividing, not subtracting)
- OSU succeeded 16% less often than average
I don't know if this was Michigan's perfect game or OSU's terrible game - which the talking heads declared would be necessary for Michigan to win. I also don't know how much of OSU's terrible was because Michigan was forcing them to suck or how much of OSU's badness made Michigan look better than we should have.
I do know it was a super amazing game and Go Blue this weekend against Iowa!
November 29th, 2021 at 1:40 PM ^
They did seem to convert a bunch of 3rd downs. Particularly 3rd and long. What was HUGE, however, is that we forced them into 18 3rd down situations. The key to this game from a defensive perspective, was making OSU drive the ball to get their points. Michigan could not afford 3 play TD drives. Doing this shortened the game by default. It was damn near perfect from a defensive perspective. Stroud had about the quietest 394 yards passing I've ever seen.
November 29th, 2021 at 2:02 PM ^
also, keep in mind that all 3 osu TDs were barely TDs, just a matter of inches. the circus pylon catch. RB got stuffed at the goal line, many still not sure he scored. hutchinson barely misses swatting away the swing pass TD on 4th down.
so 21 of their points could have easily resulted in only 6 points or less. 42-27 was incredible, but in reality, it was closer to 42-12.
November 29th, 2021 at 1:40 PM ^
Double post
November 29th, 2021 at 1:40 PM ^
Just got an idea for 5 new threads brb
November 29th, 2021 at 1:44 PM ^
I don't know if this was Michigan's perfect game or OSU's terrible game
One thing I noticed and was surprised by is OSU didn't seem to do much to prevent the run game of UM. They just basically figured they could match up man on man, not stunt, not blitz, not put an extra guy in the box, and just win on talent. MSU had a much better game plan to shut down UM's run game. Maybe this has worked in the past when you had a Bosa brother or Chase Young, a dominant DT, some lock down corners, and disruptive LBs, but this year they didn't have any of those and they didn't make any adjustments. I'm not sure it will work again, but I'll take it!
November 29th, 2021 at 5:02 PM ^
Yeah it's striking to compare Michigan rushing attempts in the Game vs. the season average: they're essentially the same. In other words, Michigan won by being exactly what it has been all season. Amazing that OSU didn't have a more targeted plan to stop that.
November 29th, 2021 at 1:51 PM ^
I think looking at the distribution of scoring drives (# of plays, time taken) over the season versus this game will be critical.
Similar to the 2018 game, when M got behind early as they kept punting/FGs while OSU scored TDs, this game also turned in a similar fashion in the Q3. OSU went punt-punt and M went TD-TD. Game basically was over. The next two OSU drives were TD-TD but took a lot of time. M held serve and game over.
November 29th, 2021 at 2:17 PM ^
I don't know if this was Michigan's perfect game or OSU's terrible game - which the talking heads declared would be necessary for Michigan to win.
This would carry more water IF Michigan actually played a perfect game or had some ridiculous bounces that were inexplicable, which didn't happen (mostly because they ran 40 times so "bounces" didn't really take place).
Cade had a shot to put the team up 14-0 in the first quarter, the entire stadium was set to go off like a firecracker, and he threw into double coverage for a pick when Edwards had just broken WIDE open for the TD. That's not perfect. In a lot of instances, that erases momentum and a top 2 team with an offense tuned like a Corvette goes off.
OSU's WRs made 3 (I think, maybe 4) catches that only Julio Jones makes. People bring up the 2 "drops" that they had, but those were bad, turfed passes from Stroud who was under pressure. Hard to make those catches as well. Moten dropped an arm punt right before half so again, not getting ALL the breaks! The only marginal drop was Olave's on what would have been a TD, though Gray closed quick and attacked his hands so maybe not even a ball Olave could hold on to. Going 6 for 6 on circus catches in a game just doesn't happen. That doesn't mean OSU didn't play well, it just means they're not Calvin Johnson.
Michigan beat them, from the 1st snap to the last. The scheme and play calling on both sides of the ball was next level. OSU came into this game with possibly the best offense in the history of college football. They were expected to challenge UGA for the title. The weather, while cold and snowy, was not a driving rainstorm the likes of 2015 MSU-OSU or 2017 Michigan-MSU. It was manageable. That was an ass whooping plain and simple.
November 29th, 2021 at 2:27 PM ^
I haven't seen this anywhere else or verified myself but I heard from Jansen on the radio last night that Michigan had ZERO third downs on offense the entire second half. Scored on every drive. Ran the ball almost exclusively, and were 0/0 on third down. That is incredible.
November 29th, 2021 at 2:30 PM ^
we failed to convert on 2nd down twice but the resulting 3rd down plays were nullified by OSU penalties that gave us 1st downs without having to run an official 3rd down play
November 29th, 2021 at 2:38 PM ^
Will this be submitted as a Buzzfeed article?
5 things you didn't realize about this year's version of "The Game"......number 1 will shock you!!!!
November 29th, 2021 at 2:45 PM ^
Are you also an asshole or just an asshole?
November 29th, 2021 at 3:59 PM ^
The final OSU completion and subsequent yards should come with an asterisk, seeing as it was a 4th down play that ended 5 yards short of converting.
November 29th, 2021 at 6:30 PM ^
It wasn't a fluke. It was an all around - We Will Not Be Denied - effort from every player/squad on the field. The O-Line has been a rock all season and this was their best. Couple that with HH in Beast Mode and it was a beautiful thing to watch. One dropped pass from the receivers and another that probably shoulda been hauled in - in those conditions is somethin I would take every game. Despite the yardage the D played great with Hutch going insane. Their 1st TD was a perfect throw and better catch. No Can Defense.
Far from perfect. The INT was maybe the worst decision/throw I've seen from Cade. Easy pitch and catch to Edwards is a jog into the endzone untouched. CJ maybe the same on the farside. Interfering with a guy making a fair catch at the 3 cant happen, but did. Dropped a lob pass for an INT at the end of the 1st. Those are a potential 10 pt swing or more.
OSU put the ball on the ground 3x from 2 bad snaps and a fumbled handoff and lost a total of 3 yds from them, and we lost the turnover battle. That's a fluke.