B1G East Tiebreaker Update
With annual Honey-Do Weekend approaching, time to update tiebreaker numbers in the unlikely event we somehow lose to Penn State.
OSU 6 (Wisc,Minn,Purdue)
Mich 5 (Neb.Minn,Purdue)
PSU 5 (Illinois,Iowa,NW)
As I interpret the tiebreaker rules, we need either to be in first place or in a two way tie at the top with OSU, so PSU drops out. 3 way tie likely reverts to next tiebreaker, essentially, who beat the B1G West Champion.
With this in mind, next week’s rooting interests (while raking leaves or coming along for Christmas shopping, of course) are:
Maryland to beat NW in Evanston
Nebraska to beat Purdue in Lincoln
Minnesota to beat Staee in Minneapolis
Go Blue!!
October 22nd, 2023 at 10:58 AM ^
Do or do not.
There is no tie.
October 22nd, 2023 at 12:02 PM ^
You win the thread.
October 22nd, 2023 at 11:01 AM ^
Just win, baby
October 22nd, 2023 at 11:11 AM ^
Win the games!
October 22nd, 2023 at 11:13 AM ^
I don’t have a sister to kiss, so my choice is ‘win all the games’.
October 22nd, 2023 at 1:08 PM ^
You're missing out
October 22nd, 2023 at 2:36 PM ^
Username checks out
October 22nd, 2023 at 11:18 AM ^
JUST WIN!!
October 22nd, 2023 at 11:20 AM ^
I take it you didn't watch PSU-OSU yesterday. Woof.
October 22nd, 2023 at 11:52 AM ^
The hype on Allar is bizarre.
October 22nd, 2023 at 12:01 PM ^
I think he's a good qB, first really away game in a tough environment under constant pressure and he didn't handle it well.
He'll be better against us at home and Penn State (probably, it is James afterall) will figure out some of their stuff isn't going to work against defenses like OSU and Michigan.
October 22nd, 2023 at 12:06 PM ^
I dunno. May be. He couldn't throw 4-5 yards on time. Forget the middle of the field. I can't recall if he actually threw to the middle of the field. He wasn't very mobile either. If he is that restricted, he will have a hard time moving the chain against us. He will have some yards but not consistently drive down the field.
October 22nd, 2023 at 12:06 PM ^
He is better than what he showed yesterday. We won't get the OSU version of him at home at PSU.
But he's still not the all-world beater that he has been hyped up to be. Nor should he be expected to be that. He still takes time to process what is happening if his first quick read under pressure is not there. He is also a statue back there and is not a good runner.
October 23rd, 2023 at 6:05 AM ^
At least arm punt. OSU fans are comparing their D to Georgia 21 because Allar was worse than 1 dimensional. When your 3 rows in the stands and need to have your head on a swivel, it’s pretty easy to call your defensive alignments.
October 22nd, 2023 at 12:20 PM ^
He'll probably be a good QB next season, but he's played in a training-wheels offense all season. Yesterday, all we learned was that Frames hasn't actually managed to (finally) build a real OL.
October 22nd, 2023 at 12:30 PM ^
He isn't trusted to throw the ball downfield, home or road. Those annointing him the savior of the offense were deploying feelingsball, not any substantive reasoning.
October 22nd, 2023 at 6:57 PM ^
Penn State had 4 different 3rd-down-and-(1 or 2 to go) plays yesterday. They threw the ball on all of them. And converted none of them.
Allar wasn't good yesterday, but the offensive play-calling wasn't helping. PSU ran power run packages A LOT against Iowa: go back to that game and darn near every 3rd-down-and-(1 or 2 to go) was a run. And they generally got the 1st down, against a legit Iowa D. Why the heck so radically different?
PSU coaches should have approached yesterday from a classic TresselBall POV. The last time they beat a Top 10 team in Columbus (2008), they played TresselBall then, throwing it only 20 times all game (winning 13-6). And that was with a relative veteran at QB: Daryll Clark was both older (22 vs 19) and had some solid road wins under his belt.
On a side note, Allar was emotional post-game and held himself accountable. That doesn't necessarily mean he's due to improve. But it's different than James Franklin, who was not holding himself accountable post-game (ducking questions on his 1-9 record vs OSU), and whatever is going on at USC (none of the players were available after the Utah loss! None!).
October 22nd, 2023 at 8:30 PM ^
I just don't know how much leeway Franklin has left at this point. He absolutely needs a good showing (though not necessarily a win) against Michigan. If the Wolverines show up to Happy Valley and feast in that game, there's just no way the temperature on his seat doesn't go up at least a few degrees. Beating Ohio State and winning the B1G in 2016, plus any non-playoff NY6 Bowl wins can't really be keeping him above water any longer, can they?
October 22nd, 2023 at 9:59 PM ^
His seat is not hot. Three NYD6 Bowl victories - those 3 all coming in the last 5 non COVID seasons - aren’t nothing.
There are only six programs with three or more NYD6 Bowl wins over the 9 years - Alabama, Clemson, LSU, OSU, Georgia and Penn State. Five of those 6 have won a national title, one of the six hasn’t been to a singe CFP.
PSU under Franklin is the very definition of “very good but not elite.” His seat isn’t hot. It won’t heat up at all short of a real collapse (finishing 8-5), which I can’t see at all.
October 22nd, 2023 at 10:54 PM ^
Fair enough.
October 23rd, 2023 at 6:08 AM ^
Yeah it’s hard to fire a guy for that record. Even if it doesn’t tell the whole story of just how much you suck. Maybe he needs to turn to the military to right his ship.
October 22nd, 2023 at 11:38 AM ^
We are not losing to Penn State. Or Ohio.
In fact, I think we may beat the absolute hell out of one or both of them.
Our starters haven't even played a full game yet and we're killing everyone on the schedule.
October 22nd, 2023 at 11:53 AM ^
Based on what we have seen so far this year and especially yesterday, agree with you Mad Hatter.
Fun fact, for all the handwringing about Michigan's schedule this year, most teams Michigan has played to date have a winning record . UNLV is now 6 & 1. Without wanting to look ahead too much, excited about what I think is coming at PSU.
October 22nd, 2023 at 12:11 PM ^
SD, well, ECU is 1-6 and Bowling Green is 4-4 but your broader point that the overall list is proving more mid than awful, is surprisingly arguable
October 22nd, 2023 at 12:59 PM ^
Sorry I missed that and thanks for pointing that out politely.
October 22nd, 2023 at 12:17 PM ^
“every team Michigan has played to date has a winning record now except Sparty.”
LOLWUT
ECU is 1/6, BG is 4/4, and IU is 2-5
October 22nd, 2023 at 12:52 PM ^
Wins and losses are just statistics.
/funchess'ed
October 22nd, 2023 at 1:02 PM ^
My mistake in forgetting Indy as well Don. Guess I got overexcited about UNLV being 6 & 1 and beating Sparty 49-0. My bad. Well done.
October 22nd, 2023 at 8:16 PM ^
Don't forget Sparty sitting there at 2-5.
October 22nd, 2023 at 12:02 PM ^
How many snaps has JJ played in the 4th quarter this year? Same with Blake. I know Donovan has 4th quarter snaps but that's about it.
I doubt nothing will change after the Purdue game so we'll have to wait until Nov 11th at PSU to see (expect) if most of starters on both sides of the ball play meaningful 4th quarter minutes.
October 22nd, 2023 at 11:43 AM ^
Just Win Baby!
October 22nd, 2023 at 11:49 AM ^
If Michigan loses to Penn State they're not winning a playoff game, so let's just skip that whole thing and win all of them.
October 22nd, 2023 at 12:02 PM ^
This feels pretty ridiculous. It’s a road game against a good team in college football. Osu won the title in a year they lost at home to a mediocre Virginia tech. One bad game means little
October 22nd, 2023 at 12:32 PM ^
Honest question, how many times has the national champion lost a game in November since the CFP started?
October 22nd, 2023 at 1:10 PM ^
2016 Clemson lost to Pitt
2017 Alabama lost to Auburn
Also, 2021 Georgia lost to Alabama in December
October 22nd, 2023 at 3:54 PM ^
Georgia I could remember, the others not.
October 23rd, 2023 at 6:15 AM ^
Yeah but the college football overlords weren’t conspiring to destroy those programs like they are us. We can’t so much as have even the slightest chink in the armor. We need to pave teams and leave absolutely no doubt that Stallions was just good at what he does and wasn’t hiding in trees with the Hubble telescope to gain an edge.
October 22nd, 2023 at 1:04 PM ^
IMO, that's apples to oranges. That VT game was the 1st or 2nd game of the year and OSU still won the Big Ten. If for some reason we played PSU to kick off the season and it was our only loss, obviously we could improve throughout the year. However, losing at this point in the year to a QB who is clearly as limited as Allar and with our way better offense than OSU this year would, IMO, be indicative of our seemingly great play being fool's gold from our weak schedule.
October 22nd, 2023 at 1:48 PM ^
Getting to the CFP when you're a 1-loss non-conference winner is not a safe bet. Not sure this is the year where that's going to happen.
October 22nd, 2023 at 6:21 PM ^
5 1-loss non-conference Champions have made the CFP all-time. 3 of those were in the last 2 years (Georgia 2021, TCU & Ohio State 2022).
So it can happen.
But --- the big caveat: none of those 5 made it at the expense of a 1-loss conference Champion.
I agree with you that this would be a tough year for a 1-loss non-conference Champion. If any of Oregon, Oregon State, Utah* or Texas win-out: they'd be 1-loss conference Champions. I definitely think they'd make the CFP over a 11-1 U-M (or 11-1 OSU).
----
* I'm assuming those Pac-12 schools make the Pac-12 title game at 11-1. They have their own conference tie-breakers to navigate (even more complicated than the B1G's).
October 22nd, 2023 at 11:51 AM ^
Those all seem pretty likely… I would guess each desired win is the favorite in their respective matchups
It ain’t gonna matter though, so whatevs
October 22nd, 2023 at 11:53 AM ^
I can't see Penn State improving so much i 2 weeks that there is a chance is hell that they will beat Michigan.
October 22nd, 2023 at 11:56 AM ^
Wonder if R. Day and OSU excuse makers think this tiebreaker unfairly advantages Michigan since it suggests OSU might not need to win out.
October 22nd, 2023 at 11:59 AM ^
Beat Penn State and don't worry about ties.
October 22nd, 2023 at 12:35 PM ^
Is Penn St even that much better than the other BIG teams we've played to date? I'm not so sure after yesterday. Their defense is better but that offense is offensive. So we beat them 31-3 instead of 52-3.
October 22nd, 2023 at 1:12 PM ^
Yes they are better, top 10 in SP+ prior to this game - and we’ve often struggled in Happy Valley. I expect a much closer game than if we played them in Ann Arbor.
(Allar also went into this game completing like 20% more at home than away.)
October 22nd, 2023 at 2:14 PM ^
we’ve often struggled in Happy Valley
2015 - Michigan beats PSU by two scores, 28-16, and kneels down to end the game in the PSU redzone.
2017 - PSU wins big (42-13)
2019 - Michigan nearly comes back from a 21-point deficit but loses 28-21 when a pass is dropped in the endzone in the final minute
2021 - Michigan wins 21-17.
Basically we've struggled in 1.5 of our last four games there, with teams (2017 and '19) that were significantly worse than this one.
October 23rd, 2023 at 6:18 AM ^
I’ll give Allar a 20% bump all day long. That simply means he’ll be able to complete a 5yd pass.
October 22nd, 2023 at 12:57 PM ^
A three-way tie is still based on Big Ten West opponents' won-loss. And given how bad that division is just beating their champion won't swing the needle enough.