S&P+: M at #6
Here’s the link. Top 5 are Alabama, Oklahoma, Georgia, Clemson, and OSU. PSU, Wisconsin, Florida, Cincinnati round out the top 10.
September 12th, 2021 at 8:51 PM ^
That's wild. Feel like doing the "we're not worthy" thing. But maybe we are? Party on, dudes.
September 12th, 2021 at 8:55 PM ^
I get the same feeling but putting up 350+ rushing yards against a good defense is nothing to feel bad about. The passing game was dreadful but that kind of rushing performance deserves to be celebrated. Plus the defense played well until they took their foot off the gas. A lot of things to be positive about after last night's game.
September 12th, 2021 at 11:47 PM ^
Was the passing game dreadful, or was it just not utilized? There's a big difference. I'm not sure we know the answer yet.
September 13th, 2021 at 1:36 AM ^
Under 3 yards per pass attempt is dreadful by any definition.
We used to only throw the ball 15-20 times a game or so in ye olde Schembechler/Harbaugh days, but we made them count because the defenses were so overplaying the run. Harbaugh threw about 20x per game in his senior season, less than that in earlier years. In 1986, he led the nation with 9.9 YPA.
Peak RichRod offense at WVU (the Pat White/Steve Slaton years) only had 10-15 pass attempts per game, but the YPA was 8+ in 2006 and 9+ in 2007.
We know the answer for this one game. We'll get better.
September 13th, 2021 at 2:33 AM ^
I'm not saying the passing game will be good in the future, but Cade was never able to get into a rhythm. Can't tell a guy to hand if off 10 times in a row and expect him to throw darts
September 13th, 2021 at 8:27 AM ^
To me it's more our record on the road vs a ranked opponent, which has been terrible, and the voters know this. Playing in Big House first three games isn't the test yet. And i wish our first game always be on road vs a top team, to set tone.
September 13th, 2021 at 10:47 AM ^
Both - it’s one thing to only throw 15-20 times per game because you don’t need to. The ‘problem’ is that those 15 passes were incredibly inefficient and unsuccessful. There’s time to figure it out, and we have the pieces to at least have a competent passing attack, but progess definitely needs to be made before we play wisconsin, psu, staee, and you know who
September 12th, 2021 at 10:25 PM ^
A time to repeat the mantra of every September:
(1) S&P+ and the like are, at their best, good directional tools, but
(2) their predictive power is also weakest at the beginning of the season, because
(3) there are still limited actual data points, intelligent priors are still a large component of the calculation (etc etc), thus
(4) use with appropriate caution.
September 12th, 2021 at 10:55 PM ^
And the numbers we do have include a lot of assumptions built on a small conference-only season last year, too.
Reminds me of the ratings that the Mathlete used to post. I remember how gaudy the projections looked in 2010 for four or five games... until we started playing the good teams on the schedule.
We don't know how good Washington is. They could be a decent Pac 12 team with a bad start; they could be awful. We've had wins that looked good early in the season turn out to be duds. And we've had wins that seemed closer than they should have been turn out to be high quality (remember Colorado in 2016?). A lot of season left to play. The numbers don't mean anything yet.
September 12th, 2021 at 11:44 PM ^
Agreed that the numbers don't mean anything yet.
(Except if they were really really bad.)
September 13th, 2021 at 11:08 AM ^
This is a lot of words to say…nothing?
“Washington could be bad, could be average, could be decent?”
September 13th, 2021 at 12:31 PM ^
For what it's worth, S&P+ is surprisingly high on Washington: something like #27 (saw it earlier but don't have access at the moment), and the highest rated 0-2 team. That may say more about S&P+ than it does about Washington, but then again we're in this thread.
September 13th, 2021 at 2:42 PM ^
If I'm not mistaken, S&P+ ignores games against FCS opponents. So it doesn't know about Montana; the only data the computer has is the loss to Michigan, and where they were last year.
September 13th, 2021 at 8:18 AM ^
I think that the "real" polls with Iowa at #5 demonstrate the weakest of all the predictive tools. That is a low talent team who has gotten every break possible fall their way. They are well-coached and they play smart, hard-nosed football but they would likely finish fifth if they were in the East Division and drew Wisconsin to play as well. But no, they also have the benefit of drawing the weakest schedule of the entire B1G.
I cheer for Michigan but I am not a pathological homer. That said, at this time, Michigan may well be a top 10 team-maybe even top 5. I'm pretty sure they are better than Iowa-even a lot better. Nobody knows at this time.
September 12th, 2021 at 8:54 PM ^
Michigan, OSU and PSU are all tied at the same rank of 22.1. I assume he ordered them based on digits past what's shown in his chart but there's virtually no difference in SP+ between those 3 schools.
September 12th, 2021 at 9:01 PM ^
It’s probably an alphabetical thing.
September 12th, 2021 at 9:24 PM ^
But then we should be ahead of OSU. M comes before O in the alphabet.
September 12th, 2021 at 9:52 PM ^
#TheMichiganDifference
September 12th, 2021 at 10:05 PM ^
But "THEEEEEEEEEEE Ohio," etc. comes before "University of Michigan."
September 12th, 2021 at 10:52 PM ^
You’re correct. I read Bambi’s post and thought the order he wrote the teams was the order they are ranked. Had I just gone back to the op i’d have known that wasn’t correct.
September 12th, 2021 at 9:00 PM ^
I tried posting something about this earlier. For some reason, it was seemingly disallowed. NIU is #108, Rutgers is at #72, and Sparty at #33, FWIW.
Meanwhile Michigan is at #25 in both major polls.
September 12th, 2021 at 10:38 PM ^
Obviously its because nobody likes you.
September 12th, 2021 at 9:07 PM ^
Front page is going to go nuts. This is another situation on how some stats lack context, though. Like when Brian asserted in 2018/2019 that Shea Patterson was a very accurate deep passer, because he had a high completion rate for long passes.
September 12th, 2021 at 9:15 PM ^
- How the hell can you remember what someone wrote three years ago?
- Why would you remember it?
September 12th, 2021 at 10:08 PM ^
Most people have a memory better than that of a goldfish.
September 13th, 2021 at 2:09 AM ^
Your comment reminds me of the old David Foster Wallace speech:
One goldfish swims past two other goldfish. First goldfish says, "Good morning. Water's nice today." The second goldfish says good morning and the first swims off. Then, the second goldfish turns to his companion and says, "What the hell is water?"
September 12th, 2021 at 9:20 PM ^
Some good company. We’ll find out where we stand soon enough.
September 12th, 2021 at 9:21 PM ^
Obviously SP+ hasn’t read the 5000 posts here complaining about last night’s passing game.
September 12th, 2021 at 9:32 PM ^
Not only that - the S&P algorithm must more or less ignore passing stats
September 12th, 2021 at 11:07 PM ^
S/P+ measures efficiency, explosiveness, field position, and finishing drives. In other words it measures total success; unlike message board fans, it is indifferent to whether that success is achieved by running or passing.
September 13th, 2021 at 9:53 AM ^
Then my statement is 100% correct. S&P isn’t a balanced view of your team.
September 12th, 2021 at 9:29 PM ^
Win will cause me to: YELL IN ANGER. WHY DID WE HAVE TO WIN I WANT BE ANGRY I AM A MICHIGAN FAN.
Loss will cause me to: YELL LOUDER THAT I WAS RIGHT AND BE SATISFIED DEEP DOWN BECAUSE I CAN NOW PROCLAIM THAT I WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG AND HARBAUGH AND GATTIS NEED TO GO. SECRETLY I AM HAPPY.
Am I doing this right as a run of the mill Michigan fan? There can’t be any way Michigan is top 5 in anything. Just ask the rest of my run of the mill, know it all, fan friends.
Cackle with know glee if: We run for 1000 yards in one game but me and my fellow fans boo the team off the field because WHY YOU NO PASS THE BALL.
September 12th, 2021 at 9:40 PM ^
This season around college football is already giving off 2007 vibes.
September 13th, 2021 at 8:19 AM ^
I would like 2006 vibes better, thank you...
September 12th, 2021 at 9:49 PM ^
Nice. I was actually worried a little about the Penn State game until seeing this.
September 12th, 2021 at 9:53 PM ^
Hat tip to Fickell. He really has tapped our old recruit area and is coaching well. Hopefully we get Shepard.
September 12th, 2021 at 10:14 PM ^
I think he hooks a lot of recruits by singing that song about Lunch Lady Land.
September 13th, 2021 at 4:09 PM ^
It doesn't hurt that the virus limited on-campus visits.
(If you've been to UC's campus, you'll understand.)
September 12th, 2021 at 10:27 PM ^
I'll take it. But the stats are only good until they're not. Let's outwork and outimprove everyone else.
September 12th, 2021 at 10:31 PM ^
SP+ gets more accurate later in the season. I wouldn’t read more into this beyond: “we are currently exceeding preseason expectations.” But that can change, and often does.
I’m cautiously optimistic, but not more than that.
September 12th, 2021 at 11:00 PM ^
Hmmm... No. 6 sounds impressive, until you realize Michigan would for sure be No.1 if Harbaugh has not screwed up the wingtips on the helmets and made them look like horns...
September 12th, 2021 at 11:23 PM ^
Great.
September 12th, 2021 at 11:49 PM ^
FWIW, Michigan is 12th in ESPNs Football Power Index: https://www.espn.com/college-football/fpi
Those rankings pass the eye test better than S&P+ (which doesn't have Oregon top 10? Huh?), IMO.
Washington is ranked 56th which is behind all the remaining teams on Michigan's schedule except Northwestern and NIU (Nebraska is surprisingly 37th).
September 13th, 2021 at 9:18 AM ^
SP+ had OSU's post-game win expectancy at 59%. They did a poor job finishing drives but they put up a ton of yards. I didn't see it but apparently they failed on 3 4th downs?
September 13th, 2021 at 10:54 AM ^
Yeah, this was a pretty back and forth coin flip for sure. But when you're even with OSU at the horseshoe, you've obviously played a great game. OSU did move the ball and yes, failed on 3 fourth down (out of 5 attempted).
One thing S&P+ doesn't consider is a HORRIBLE holding call on Oregon that turned a 23 yard gain to the OSU 13 into 2nd and 20 at the 46 with 1:08 to go in the first half. That took 3 to 7 points off the board for Oregon.
September 13th, 2021 at 11:49 PM ^
SP+ also doesn't know Oregon gave up that 30 yard TD throw because a guy was looking at his wrist lol.
September 13th, 2021 at 12:39 AM ^
We've beaten a MAC team and a team that lost to Montana.
We are doing good things so far but we really don't know where we are on the decent to great scale.
I will wait till we play Wisconsin in October to really evaluate the team. If we come out of Madison 5-0 then maybe we're a good team.
September 13th, 2021 at 8:23 AM ^
"I'll wait until we are 15-0 before I determine whether or not we are a decent team."
And if Wisconsin loses before we play them, then wait until OSU? You can only play the teams on your schedule. If you beat the teams on your schedule, and do so fairly easily, then you are allowed to be happy, even as a Michigan fan.
We are 2-0 and OSU is 1-1. Enjoy that for a minute. Also feel free to chuckle about Rutgers having a better record than OSU right now.
September 13th, 2021 at 9:49 AM ^
I didn't say I won't enjoy it. There is just no way to declare that we're a Top 10 team yet. We clearly deserve to be ranked somewhere.
Wisconsin plays Notre Dame next so they could definitely be 1-2 when we play them. I still say they will be a legit test. If we go into Madison and come out 5-0 we are a team capable of having a very good season.
September 13th, 2021 at 2:05 AM ^
[Counting Crows voice]
They paved Washington / And put up a fancystat