Sunday, August 31, 2008

Weak One

Well I hate to be right but I'd say my predictions regarding Illinois, Michigan State and Michigan were correct. Michigan's defense was way over rated and the offense was really bad period. 36 yards rushing?

If you are a UM fan you can say your special teams did well, your defense showed up in the second half and Shaw/McGuffie look like they can play pass catching receivers in the spread and both are true Freshman.

Illinois better find a defense or they will miss out on a BCS although Juice Williams showed they will be an offense threat every week.

Jekyll/Hyde QB aka Hoyer for MSU showed he hasn't matured enough to lead the Spartans to a potential New Years Bowl although Cal is a good team and I still see 8-4 as a real chance for the Spartans.

Rest of the games...Buckeyes showed they have a lot of depth on offense. Wisconsin..let me say this again with your QBs you will NOT be a Top Ten team this season. Northwestern, nice second half because your scoring against pathetic Syracuse in the first half was surprising...we think Coach Fitz will have the Cats winning the games they should win this year.

Minnesota...say good bye to your undefeated season next week against Bowling Green, Brewster has a lot of work to do to get this team out of the basement. I can't say anything of note for the remaining games.

Our first three "tests" for the conference have us 0-3 not a good start to dismissing Big Ten bashing around the country!

Friday, August 29, 2008

Predictions of Week One Key Games

There are 3 games of note this week during the non conference season. Here is the line and the over/under for these games.

MICHIGAN 3½ over Utah Total Points 40½
MISSOURI 8½ over Illinois Total Points 60
CALIFORNIA 5 over Michigan State Total Points 56

Illinois faces a very tough test against Mizzou and as big a fan as I am of this team playing onj New Years I don't see the Illini pulling off the upset. I do believe they will keep the game within a TD and thus beat the spread ( I don't bet on point spreads fyi). I also see both team scoring a lot of points so I would take the over.

I am in a quandry here on the MSU Cal game. I would pick the Spartans for sure if this was in E. Lansing. Historically MSU has gotten off to fast starts then peeters out..but Coach Dantonio runs a different program. California tanked at the end of last year but has a good coach as well. Cal's defense is faster and more athletic than in recent seasons and they are switching to a 3-4 to improve against the run. MSU defense will play hard hitting ball. I predict the Bears win, but by less than 5 and the combined score is under 56.

Michigan faces a stronger than you think Utah team with experienced skill players and a defense that understands the spread. Michigan's defense was HORRIBLE against the spread and a spring of playing against a WEAK spread offense won't change that overnight. Please remember our top 4 tacklers graduated...meaning we could be exposed against the run.

We have young running backs playing, inexperienced QB and young depleted O-Line. You will see more turn overs than you would normally expect so I see Michigan losing in a close game but I do believe the 2 teams will each score over 20 points

Sad to say but looks like we are 0-3 in big match ups this week

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Great Preview of the Big Ten season via the Chicago Tribune

Teddy Greenstein covers college football for the Chicago Tribune. He has been doing the individual team previews over the past few weeks and they've been pretty good..a couple were a little "iffy" in terms of sharing the possibilities for success of mid tier teams but overall good reads.

Today however Teddy and the Tribune did a great job in my opinion creating a pre-season guide. They covered a lot of the things I've talked about such as non conference schedule strength, question marks different teams have and more.

He put together predictions of how the Big Ten standings and overall win-loss records will be for each team (I'm just doing Big Ten conference records in a couple of weeks) and there was a decent article sharing how low the Big Ten has sunk in terms of the national media and fans around the country.

Earlier this week, Teddy was the first writer I've seen remind everyone that Michigan not only lost all their offensive players but their TOP 4 tacklers from last year. Makes you wonder how the UM defense is getting Top Ten ratings by certain media outlets?

I'd like to add that Scott Shafer was not the first choice of Rich Rodriquez and how much does anyone around here know about him and RichRod's defensive philosophy? Could work out great but rank them in the Top Ten nationally?

To check out the Tribune's coverage on the Big Ten click here

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Big Ten coaches rated..

Ok I will point you to this article and you can decide for yourself if they are all wet or not.

Let me share my criticisms after scanning through the 1-119 listing.

1. It is inconsistant. In some cases coaches get great ratings for leading a turnaround for a program in other cases they do not. How does Ron Zook rank 51? I guess maybe due to the Florida job? He is ranked below Charlies Weis...COME ON!!

2. First time head coaches getting any kind of ranking...how does Bill Stewart of West Virginia get ranked above anyone

3. Brett Bielema 21st? Seems like a stretch given what he inherited vs a lot of other guys who started with less. That doesn't mean I don't think he has the potential to be a Top 20 coach.

Lastly, I have to beg to disagree with the Number 1 vs Number 2 choice although I will say all the Top Ten are pretty accomplished coaches.

You can see the story posted on Fox Sports

Saturday, August 23, 2008

More Preseason Ranking this time CFN top offenses

Actually College Football News ranked all 119 BCS level teams.

Ohio State #3 Wisconsin #9 recvd reviews as part of the Top Ten..

The Rest of Us
Penn State 15, Illinois 19, Northwestern 27, Purdue 31, Michigan State 37, Michigan 47, Minnesota 51, Iowa 58, Indiana 70

Utah 18th, Cal 29 and Missouri #4 all rated higher than Michigan, Michigan State and Illinois their resepective opening week opponents.

I would say Illinois is a bit low, Wisconsin without a returning QB is definitely high and the rest are about right although MSU might be a shade better than 37th.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Predictions from the "experts" and media

At some point maybe at the end of the season we will compare how well the pre-season polls match up with the final BCS poll to see which publications offer the most accurate prognostication. Have you ever seen a publication rate itself in this manner? I have not.

Long time readers will remember that I in fact do come clean and share how well I predicted. Admittedly I have tended to make my predictions only for the Big Ten season not the entire schedule. Last year I made my conference selections BEFORE the first game of the entire season however I predicted only the Big Ten standings..I’ll explain why I am switching back to the old formula in a later post.

I took the main 5 pre-season polls, if you have another one I should include I will be happy to add it in an amended post, just comment below. I included a couple of new columns. First I used the average rating to predict conference placing. Note these are NOT my predictions. Secondly I wanted to show which schools had wider variances in rankings than others.

For 5 schools; Indiana, Minnesota, Purdue, Northwestern and Iowa there are only 2 data points as the other 3 polls only rate the top 40 or so schools based on votes for the Top 25. The variance of these schools therefore is limited.

The Delta for Ohio State is a whopping One but that isn’t much of a surprise. Wisconsin however is amazingly consistent among the pollsters. Is anyone else surprised at this lack of variance or more surprised by the average ranking?

By far Michigan has the biggest delta ranging from a 24th place by USA Today to a 54th by Sports Illustrated. I explain this by several factors: Michigan has a new coach and virtually a completely new set of offensive players. No one else has fewer returning starters on offense. Secondly it could be that after 20 years of often over ranking the Wolverines someone at SI finally said enough and trashed them this year. USA Today and Athlon are among the publications that always tend to give Michigan the benefit of the doubt.

Michigan State has a healthy variance as well which can be explained several ways. First my guess is some of the lower rankings are based on people not doing their homework and realizing the job the coaching staff at MSU has done. Second, a number of publications and voters have seen 3 decades of roller coaster Spartan teams (sometimes within the same game! And are leery of ranking this team too high this year.

Last comment. I threw Utah into this post to show how it’s not so crazy to think Michigan is the underdog in Week 1.


AP ESPN USA Today SI Athlon Conference Finish Delta
Illinois 20 22 19 23 16 3 7
Indiana NR NR NR 82 65 10 17
Iowa NR NR NR 31 38 7 7
Michigan 31 37 24 54 28 5 30
Michigan State 35 31 40 38 49 6 18
Minnesota NR NR NR 78 78 11 0
Northwestern NR NR NR 50 53 8 3
Ohio State 2 3 3 2 2 1 1
Penn State 22 20 22 22 23 4 3
Purdue NR NR NR 59 54 9 5
Wisconsin 13 12 12 10 12 2 3

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Are we in the Era of the Big One?

In the 1970s the Big Ten was known as the Big Two and the Little 8 due to the dominance of Michigan and Ohio State and actually this was true for much of the 80s and well even the 90s. However the addition of Penn State, Barry Alvarez coming to Wisconsin and Illinois, Purdue, Michigan State and even Northwestern caused the expression to be minimized.

However we may be entering or may have already entered a new era..the Big One and the Little Ten. Consider what Ohio State has accomplished in the past few years:

2005: Tied with Penn State for Big Ten Championship
2006: All alone, undefeated in Big Ten play
2007: All alone, undefeated in Big Ten play
2008: Ranked #2 in the Nation in pre-season and heavy favorites in the Big Ten

Winning a 3rd sole Big Ten title isn't quite enough to state the case for the Big One, although it comes close given the co-championship in 2005. But looking forward, on paper Ohio State might be able to extend its dominance to 5 or more Big Ten titles in a row.

Rival.com rankings of recruiting classes

2008: Ohio State ranks #4, next Big Ten team is Michigan at #10
2007: Ohio State ranks #15, only Michigan at #12 ranks ahead of them
2006: Ohio State is #12 with only Penn State ahead of them at #6
2005: Ohio State is #12 with Iowa #11 and Michigan number 6

Class of 2009 early ranking..Ohio State #1, Michigan #4 and Michigan State #10

On paper Michigan is the only team that is even close to the year in year out recruiting of the Buckeyes and it will take at least 2 years for Rich Rodriguez to stock his team with offensive players who can handle the completely new offense. Some of Michigan's classes of 2007 and 2006 have already left (Boren and Mallett among others).

But championships aren't won on paper that's why they play the games but when you combine talent with good coaching and stay healthy, Ohio State has a bright future moving into the '10s!

Sunday, August 10, 2008

The first of several "experts" talk about the Big Ten Seasons

Sprint it's own YouTube channel. Interesting perspective on Michigan's opening game and talks about the Buckeyes:


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Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Non Conference wish list

Ok I complained about the current Non Conference schedule so here is one game per team I wish was added to this year's schedule.

Illinois vs Clemson: We need more Big Ten ACC games
Indiana vs Notre Dame: Completes the Indiana Championship Tournament
Iowa vs. Nebraska: This would complete the round robin King of Corn tournament (Iowa St)
Michigan vs. California: Two top academic state schools with liberal reputations
Michigan State vs. Alabama: Saban against the school he left for "the big time"
Minnesota vs. Connecticut: Up and coming Big East team against our worst team
Northwestern vs. Vanderbilt: Our small school against the SEC's
Ohio State vs. Georgia: an SEC team before the National Championship..good practice
Penn State vs Pitt: Old Rivalry I remember as a kid...got this one from the Fox Story below
Purdue vs. Air Force: Astronauts against Jet Fighters
Wisconsin vs. Texas: When is the last time you saw the Badgers play a Big 12 school

There are a bunch of other non conference "wish games" offered by Fox Sports.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

What a way to ruin the beginning of the season

Well it's that time of year again where instead of focusing on who is winning starting positions and planning tailgates we are bombarded with news of unlawful behavior on the part of "student athletes". While Georgia has now lost 5 players to suspensions, the Big Ten seems to be getting a lot of press with losses throughout the conference

A few samples:

Michigan Kevin Grady suspended for alledgedly driving with .2+ alcohol in his blood, 3 times the legal limit. He is still suspended but "practicing with the team

Wisconsin bum Lance Smith was suspended for UW's five road games last season and now he is off the team for good. The university suspension was handed out after Smith was arrested and charged with battery and disorderly conduct last summer.

Iowa faces an investigation by the state legislature concerning how it handled sexual assault charges by one of its players and a possible cover up .

And the infamous Outside the Lines show on ESPN covering the 46 violations of Penn State football players in recent years. While they may or may not have painted a slanted picture, JoePa's comments that most of his players are 19 or 20 years old and like all young adults, he said, they make mistakes. Yeah typical young adults get into knife fights with teammates?

Get real JoePa..every team has a bad apple or two...you sir have allowed your program to include too many thugs!

Let's hope the "silly season" is over and that teams worry more about injuries than court appearances..