New S&P+ rankings, and a look at Michigan's next three oppnents
Here are Michigan's updated S&P+ rankings through six games.
Overall: 5 Offense: 25 Defense: 2 Special teams: 8
The stats of the opponents of Michigan's next three games:
Wisconsin:
Overall: 13 Offense: 8 Defense: 55 Special teams: 23
Michigan State:
Overall: 31 Offense: 62 Defense: 24 Special teams: 37
Penn State:
Overall: 7 Offense: 9 Defense: 20 Special teams: 98
.gif)
October 7th, 2018 at 12:45 PM ^
What the statistics say is that we lean to slightly favored in each game, but they should all be competitive and it's unlikely we'll escape from the stretch unscathed.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:53 PM ^
If we’re the same team we are when we set those statistics, then yes.
But Dwumfour, Gary, and Kemp were all part of those defenses that accomplished those statistics.
We’re certainly not the same defense without them.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:57 PM ^
How do you know we won’t have them for the next 3 games?
Gary is likely back for Wisconsin and early word on Dwumfour suggests that it isn’t a long term injury. No word any which way on Kemp.
October 7th, 2018 at 1:07 PM ^
We're also not the only team with injuries (MSU recently lost their best WR, right?) and it's not like either of those guys (yes, including Gary) has been completely irreplaceable this year. I doubt it impacts it that much.
October 7th, 2018 at 1:42 PM ^
Msu lost Felton Davis?
October 7th, 2018 at 1:54 PM ^
Cody White is out - I think he had more yards than Felton Davis until the Northwestern game, though Davis is a more frightening matchup.
October 7th, 2018 at 1:08 PM ^
Solomon could be back too and contributing for the first time this season plus Evans on offense as well as Black at some point soon. I think we will outperform our rankings not underperform
October 7th, 2018 at 1:16 PM ^
If Black can come back and look like he did last season, our passing game is going to be absolutely lethal.
October 7th, 2018 at 2:39 PM ^
Black will bee seeing his doctor today, and he is already jogging. Lets hope his xrays are good
October 7th, 2018 at 7:27 PM ^
It'll be interesting to see how Paye grades out OFR. My guess is that he'll hold up well on Saturday even if Rashan is limited (he most likely will play). With Winovitch at the other DE, M will be just fine. In the middle, "man-mountain" Mone will get as many snaps as he and his body can endure --- he would anyway, given WI's run-oriented attack. D Bush will be J Taylor's worst enemy; whatever other backs W puts out there M can handle.
Don Brown will scheme to ruin Hornibrook's day --- Hornibrook's a pocket guy, not known to have great "escapability." K Hudson should visit him regularly. Hill, Long and the safeties will take care of whatever wideouts and TEs WI has left to run routes out there.
And M's offense will take care of itself. Nebraska had 132 yards of offense against M. Against WI, Nebraska had 518 yards of offense. Enough said, and Go Blue.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:23 PM ^
Annnd I misspelled 'opponents' in the title. Please neg.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:50 PM ^
Oh, I thought that was a jab at MSU for not having much O this year.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:26 PM ^
I don't know why, but I think this is the year we handle Wisconsin. I'm slightly concerned that we don't have a Hurst/Glasgow at DT, and our DT depth is a little thin, but other than that I think having a solid-to-good QB puts us ahead of them. I'm also assuming Gary plays.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:33 PM ^
Handle as in game is never really in doubt or handle as in we just find a way to win? I don't think the former is likely despite their terrible loss.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:35 PM ^
I could kind of see Wisconsin turning into the PSU game from 97. It's setting up like a tough matchup but then we just dominate them from beginning to end. That defensive ranking for them is alarming, and they will be without a starting safety for the first half.
Otoh I could totally see us losing too. College football is weird.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:58 PM ^
I was thinking the same thing. 2018 Northwestern was our 1997 Iowa and Wisconsin becomes like the 1997 PSU. Of course the conference is deeper now so the analogies are tougher
October 7th, 2018 at 1:26 PM ^
"I could kind of see Wisconsin turning into the PSU game from 97."
This really isn't an apt comparison—a critical aspect of that '97 game was that it was on the road in front of a hugely hostile capacity crowd. PSU was undefeated, ranked #2, and #3 Michigan was an underdog to a Nittany Lions team that at the time was considered a prime NC contender.
Wisconsin isn't undefeated, isn't considered by anybody other than Badger homers to be a legit NC contender, and the game is in Ann Arbor.
If any game on our schedule this year is analogous to the '97 game against PSU, it's in Columbus at the end of the season.
October 7th, 2018 at 1:32 PM ^
That's why I said "kind of." We don't have a true comparison to that game, and I'm not predicting a national championship. However, heading into the seaso there sure were a lot of people who though we had no chance of beating Wisconsin and thought we might even get blown out. Remember how Ace basically said that they have 5 all Americans starting on their offensive line? And that their defense will always be top 10 because they're Wisconsin? Right now it's looking like we are on a totally different planet than Wisconsin. According to the advanced metrics, there are three good teams in the Big Ten and a bunch of insignificant mediocre ones. And Michigan is one of those three.
October 7th, 2018 at 1:45 PM ^
"Otoh I could totally see us losing too. College football is weird."
This I totally agree with. I've seen a bit too much weirdness in the past 47 years of watching Michigan football to take anything for granted, but you're right about Wisconsin not appearing to be the juggernaut some thought it might be before the season started.
October 7th, 2018 at 4:12 PM ^
Don, you've only been watching Michigan football for 47 years? I had you at like late 60s or so, but maybe your'e more of young pup than I thought.
October 7th, 2018 at 2:04 PM ^
It's a decent comparison. The thing about PSU in 1997: they may have been ranked #2 to start November but they were never very good (and there were distinct signs of that before November).
Bill Connelly has applied his S&P+ analysis back for previous years, and PSU finished 1997 at 29th in S&P+. 29th - way back in the pack.
Wisconsin finishing 2018 ranked 29th in S&P+ (after being thought of as a MNC contender at season's beginning)? I can see that happening.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:50 PM ^
I’m with you. I was at the game last year, and through 3 quarters, we were the better team. Some of that may have been conservative playcalling on their part, as they ran their RB a lot on 3rd and 3-7 to go.
I think the home field advantage, plus Patterson makes me optimistic for this game. I dont see them putting up more than 20-23 points and we should be able to best that if Patterson plays well.
Go Blue.
October 7th, 2018 at 6:32 PM ^
UW had <100 yards offense until 5 min left in the 3rd Q. Taylor was bottled up except for his 50 TD run when Metellus took a horrible angle. Then Hornibrook tossed a couple of perfect passes and that was ballgame with our horrid O.
I think this squad can shut down UW to 150 yds if the DL health is decent by Sat.
October 7th, 2018 at 7:36 PM ^
I was also at the game in Madison last year. If Shea had been the QB, M would have won, hands down.
October 7th, 2018 at 8:37 PM ^
Or if they would have correctly ruled DPJ’s catch a TD
October 7th, 2018 at 1:45 PM ^
I was looking at the conference standings and noticed that we’ve scored 101 more points than Wisconsin. They played one good defense (Iowa) and we played one good defense (ND). Hard to say their other games have been more difficult than ours. So, seems like their offense is just a low scoring meat grinder. Jump on them and get a lead and they will have trouble recovering. With their defense being less effective this year, our prospects look good. Maybe not such a low scoring defensive struggle as the 2016 game.
October 7th, 2018 at 3:12 PM ^
M offense v Wiscy defense= Advantage Michigan
Wiscy offense v Michigan defense=Stalemate
Michigan wins special teams.
Michigan is home at night. Should be a win but when you factor in random chance, dumb luck, game of inches stuff it will probably be a nailbiter deep into this one. It would be great to see Michigan close it out with authority.
October 7th, 2018 at 4:49 PM ^
We beat Wisconsin 2 years ago. Last year we if they don't screw up the DPJ TD and Peters stays in game we probably win. You make this sound like some minummonum task. We are favored. It will be fine.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:27 PM ^
Amazing to see Wisconsin's offense ranked that much better than their defense.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:39 PM ^
Preseason projections are still built in to that too...their defense is shit.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:30 PM ^
i don't think they watched wisconsin in the first half yesterday
October 7th, 2018 at 12:51 PM ^
Nebraska is bad. Very soft defensive line. Match that with a very physical Wisconsin offensive line, and you get that first half.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:32 PM ^
Lord help us all if we don't beat sparty this year.....
October 7th, 2018 at 12:51 PM ^
Might dominate them.
October 7th, 2018 at 1:36 PM ^
I would really enjoy that, but I have a hard time believing it'll happen until I see it. We didn't even dominate them in 2016 when we should have.
October 7th, 2018 at 2:01 PM ^
We led 30-10 in the fourth quarter. Their last TD came with one second on the clock.
October 7th, 2018 at 2:17 PM ^
And after the refs decided that the MSU OL could tackle Taco Charlton and hold the other DL.
October 7th, 2018 at 2:12 PM ^
Wasn't that the 'barf game' (seriously) when many on the team were throwing up in the morning from bad food at a restaurant the night before? Or is that some urban legend?
October 7th, 2018 at 12:35 PM ^
It's amazing that Wisconsin has the worst rated defense of the teams listed. You could argue they have played the weakest schedule of the 3.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:43 PM ^
S&P+ factors in schedule.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:37 PM ^
Schedule actually looks a lot more favorable than at the start of the year.
- Of the three tough game stretch only MSU is on the road and they look the worst of the three (likely to not even be ranked) and I’d rather play in EL than Camp Randall or Beaver Stadium. Less travel and we’ll probably have fans there.
- Wisconsin is clearly not the top 5 team that was predicted and their pass defense has been shredded both in terms of roster and on the field play.
- Penn State is after our bye and before Rutgers so we get to rest up and prepare pretty much solely for them whereas they play Iowa before us and Wisconsin after. And again it’s in Ann Arbor.
Obviously still a tough stretch but we’ve got a lot going in our favor.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:51 PM ^
If PSU waxes the floor with them next weekend, that stadium will be mostly maize and blue, similar to 2016.
October 7th, 2018 at 1:14 PM ^
Dantonio has definitely already conceded that game. The next two weeks will be Michigan prep.
October 7th, 2018 at 2:51 PM ^
Didn't we have a bye before PSU last year? That didn't work out so well.
Bye weeks are way overrated IMO.
October 7th, 2018 at 3:20 PM ^
No. PSU was the one that had the bye. Arguably part of the reason they had a game plan that torched our D early.
Our bye was before MSU which doesn’t help my case though. I remember because we were 4-0 after Purdue when OKorn looked good. Had a bye to get him starter reps then pfffffft massive fart against Sparty.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:39 PM ^
Ouch. That defensive rank for Wisconsin is pretty bad, and I don't think their offense matches up with our defense well at all. Maryland had some pretty crazy rushing stats before yesterday, and they did absolutely nothing against our D. I like our chances there.
October 7th, 2018 at 2:09 PM ^
Careful using our defensive performance against Maryland's run game as a predictor for how we'll do against Wisconsin's. Very different challenges. Misdirection and options versus physical pounding. I think we can match up well with Wisconsin, but I'm a little worried about how banged up our DTs and Gary seem to be.
October 7th, 2018 at 3:19 PM ^
Yeah, of our DT only Mone and Marshall seem fully healthy. I didn't see the Kemp injury. Did it look bad enough that he might miss time? If both Kemp and Dwumfour are out I can't see how they can avoid having Gary play inside and keeping Paye on the field. Paye has stood out.
October 7th, 2018 at 12:41 PM ^
OSU dropped to #4 overall and their D dropped to #27, out of the top 25 for the first time all year. I'd also be willing to put money on that ranking being held up significantly by preseason projections.