Team Talent vs Margin of Victory For OSU Under JH (2015 - 2019)
There seems to be a lot of back and forth regarding recruiting, development, coaching, etc. Folks are looking for a reason why we're losing to OSU and more so why the scores have been so bad the last two years. We want to know is it as simple as talent or is it coaching, scheme, development, attrition, or some other reason. I'd like to suggest it's as simple as talent, although I also recognize that Brown was hired to beat Meyer's offense and Day seems to be uniquely qualified to beat Brown's scheme as they coached together at one point. Anyways, here's a comparison of 247's Team Talent Composite for the last 5 years under JH and the margin of loss to OSU in The Game.
UM OSU Difference Pt Differential in Game
2015 #9 #3 6 spots 29 pts
2016 #8 #5 3 spots 3 pts
2017 #7 #2 5 spots 11 pts
2018 #8 #1 7 spots 23 pts
2019 #11 #2 9 spots 29 pts
As you can clearly see the larger the difference in the team talent composite, the larger the margin of victory for OSU with 2015, 2018, and 2019 being the worst. Unsurprisingly the two closest games were 2017 and 2016 where the team talent composite difference was only 3-5 spots. 5 spots in the team talent composite seems to be the magic number to be competitive and 3 spots seems like the number to actually suggest the possibility of a win instead of a close loss (assuming you don't get screwed by horrible officiating).
December 4th, 2019 at 10:26 AM ^
Lmao obviously I am not saying that a 30 y/o Mallett should have been on the team. Just trying to help put the talent gap into more concrete context. It seems OSU is always better than us, and also deeper than us. Those 9 players I listed give releateable examples of what a 5* might look like. Guys like Peppers, Gary and Warren would probably be better than their OSU counterparts, and guys like Campbell, Kalis, etc. would provide the depth where we can rotate or fill in for injuries.
December 4th, 2019 at 10:32 AM ^
That's kind of the point though. No recruit is a lock regardless of potential... therefore you need to maximize the amount of raw potential on your team. Then consider that a disappointing 5 star is still probably as good as your average 4 star and definitely better than the typical 3 star. It matters.
Ohio State currently has more 5 star rated recruits currently on their roster than Michigan has had on its roster, in totality, since *Ryan Mallet*. That's aboslutely stunning.
December 4th, 2019 at 11:08 AM ^
Yep, lol. And they also have an extra 11 four-stars. Basically they can field an entire extra unit.
December 4th, 2019 at 9:15 AM ^
Basing this off the ratings of 21 year olds when they were 17 or 18.
December 4th, 2019 at 10:16 AM ^
Yup - the skill players are highly developed and scouted prior to college ... and they play early because they are gone to the NFL after junior year. Just look at all the OSU 18 year-old 5-star WRs torching our 21 year old 3-star senior safeties. Justin Fields is only 19 and Dobbins started as a frosh. I like Haskins but he is only a 3-star 19 year old that missed a few plays that Dobbins would have made into TDs.
Recruiting the highest rated skill players really, really matters.
And if you are also gathering all the highest rated OL / DL material, then you are gold.
December 4th, 2019 at 9:19 AM ^
How many times do we have to the same conversation? OSU has simply been better.
December 4th, 2019 at 9:22 AM ^
Yeah, recruiting rankings trump everything.
I can hear Dickie V now: "HOT TAKE, CENTRAL, BAYBEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
December 4th, 2019 at 9:45 AM ^
People are critical of this post, but the OP put numbers to what we've been talking about. That helps.
December 4th, 2019 at 10:34 AM ^
Agreed - this is an excellent post. What can the coaches do for next year ?
We need to focus on that transfer portal and scour the earth for more Mike Danna's but this time at NT/DT. Kemp and Dwumfour were not big enough to hold up against an elite OSU line. Mone and Hurst could, but not our current roster. And Hinton and Smith are clearly another year away from that kind of impact. We have a NT/DT gap.
The other weakness next year is CB, we need to get a transfer (or two) even if it means lowering our academic standards to get a top JUCCO. There are diamonds in the rough out there to plug the gaps, but it will take effort and accommodation.
December 4th, 2019 at 10:07 AM ^
Talent gap makes a huge impact, but multiple upsets happen every year.
December 4th, 2019 at 10:19 AM ^
We had chance at an upset over the past 5 years, but it was taken away by bad officiating.
December 4th, 2019 at 10:52 AM ^
Would 2016 really been an upset though? The teams were probably about dead even at worst.
December 4th, 2019 at 11:06 AM ^
I don't remember what the line was, but last year was an upset. We were favored to win.
December 4th, 2019 at 10:19 AM ^
I've said it before, football is notorious for small sample sizes. You have 5 data points and are arguing for a statistical correlation. Yet you could take a different set of 5 data points (say MSU vs OSU 2011-2015 or Stanford vs USC 2007-2011) and find an inverse correlation.
I have two problems with the general argument that more talented recruits somehow justifies the 0-5 record against OSU. First, 0-5 is statistically very different than any other record. If Michigan should lose 70% of the time because of talent, then an 0-5 record still only has a 16.8% probability. Winning at least one game has a 36% probability. Put another way - even if OSU's talent means it should win 70% of the time, any record other than 0-5 has a probability of 83.2%. Going 0-5 is the outlier - it should not happen. It should not be expected.
Second, the talent = wins argument devalues program building and coaching, yet we see the impact of program building and coaching, and the limited impact of talent, in every sport. There's plenty of contrary evidence of less talented teams beating more talented teams, and if it really all boils down to talent, then what's the point of hiring good coaches? Of having good schemes? Of complementary football?
We have to value program building and coaching, and we have to believe (and expect) that talent alone will not dictate what happens. We should expect better.
December 4th, 2019 at 1:43 PM ^
Second, the talent = wins argument devalues program building and coaching, yet we see the impact of program building and coaching, and the limited impact of talent, in every sport.
I'm not sure many other sports are comparable to football. Maybe hockey? But, basketball and baseball are surely not. Unfortunately basketball (shooting) and baseball (throwing, catching, and hitting) are dominated by fine motor skills whereas football is dominated by gross motor skills (running, jumping, blocking, & tackling). A fine motor skill is less impacted by things like height, weight, speed...traits of athleticism. You can have a really bad athlete or a very undersized athlete like Dustin Pedroa or Pedro Martinez who is really good at their perspective sport. That is much less true in football. It would be very difficult to find an unathletic, slow, or undersized elite football player at a position other than QB, K, or P. Those are the only positions governed mostly by fine motor skill.
December 4th, 2019 at 4:56 PM ^
Let's take your hypothesis - "football is dominated by gross motor skills" and "height, weight, speed...traits of athleticism" are the primary determining factors in a football player's "talent."
What would be the null hypothesis? Football is complex, and factors other than "gross motor skills" and "height, weight, speed...traits of athleticism" contribute to a football player's "talent."
Can we rule out the null hypothesis? No. There are too many examples that support the null hypothesis - higher rated recruits that "bust," lower rated recruits that break out, track stars that are lousy receivers, and slow receivers that are stars (do you know Jerry Rice's 40 time?). Clearly, there's more than just "gross motor skills" and "height, weight, speed" that makes for successful football players.
Scheme matters. Coaching matters. Situational awareness matters. Complementary football matters. And yes, other skills besides "gross motor skills" and "height, weight, speed" matter, even for offensive linemen - skills like hand technique, foot placement, stance, balance, communication.
But even if we accept your hypothesis, despite the evidence to the contrary, and we accept that the more talented team will win a lot more, that still doesn't justify 0-5. Literally the only way that an 0-5 record should be expected is if Ohio State is more than 8 times better than Michigan (> 8:1 odds of beating Michigan in each game). Not even Vegas believes that.
December 4th, 2019 at 8:04 PM ^
What would be the null hypothesis? Football is complex, and factors other than "gross motor skills" and "height, weight, speed...traits of athleticism" contribute to a football player's "talent."
No, I think the null hypothesis is football is less impacted by things other than athleticism than basketball and baseball are.
It's obviously nuanced and not as simple as only gross motor skills matter football. Certainly things like development, effort, coaching, scheme, intelligence, etc. matter. As you said,
other skills besides "gross motor skills" and "height, weight, speed" matter, even for offensive linemen - skills like hand technique, foot placement, stance, balance, communication.
Of course...a guy like Kyle Kalis has all the gross motor skills...he's big, strong, fast, and agile. But, if he can't identify who to block he can't utilize those skills. But, at the same time, it's highly a 250 lbs DT is going to be able to beat him regardless of his technique or coaching because he's just not going to be big or strong enough to do so. When the margins of "talent" are closer those things can make the difference between winning and losing. But, as you can see by the difference between playing like PSU (#10 in team talent) and OSU (#2 in team talent) or Maryland (#27 in team talent), as those margins get further and further away it becomes harder for the less talented team to be effective. They have to be near perfect to beat a team with significantly more talent and eventually it becomes almost impossible (Rutgers #58 in team talent.
I think the heart of what we're trying to get as is where is that threshold in CFB? How close do you have to be to the other team to consistently be competitive? I think in the current era that appears to be about 3-5 spots in the composite. Any more and we've not shown the ability to be competitive. Could a different coach do better?...maybe. There are also probably lots of coaches that would do worse and/or who couldn't get UM that close in the recruiting rankings. So, you'd have to find a coach who can both recruit at JH's level and who'd offer more of the other intangibles that would overcome more like 6-12 places in the composite. And, the current thought is there is no coach out there that can provide this that would go to UM.
December 4th, 2019 at 10:21 AM ^
Check out the current cfp rankings and 247composite. Heavy correlation. Some teams exceed their recruiting (iowa, Wisconsin, boise) many others under perform (texas, usc). But those that exceed are not beating the top 4-6 teams in the country either.
December 4th, 2019 at 11:14 AM ^
This is spot on. Over the past 5 years, our average player team composite ranking is about 9th. Yet our SP+ performance ranking is 7th. That indicates the coaches are developing our players to perform at a level higher than their raw talent.
Are we at a level to make that huge jump into an elite program like OSU? Not yet and it won't happen with 3-star DBs covering 5-star WRs. We need more Dax Hill type players to plug that big of a talent gap. 3-star DBs/WRs run 4.6 40s and 5-star DBs/WRs run 4.3 40s ... you can't develop that much of a speed and agility difference.
Edit - that speed differential is like 5 yards of separation on a 50 yard pass. It means TD versus broken-up. Hill and Thomas have that kind of speed, but other than frosh Dax Hill non of our other DBs have that kind of speed. OSU has had 3-4 WRs each year with that kind of speed, so they find the mismatches and the result is what it is.
December 4th, 2019 at 11:24 AM ^
In 2017 Iowa beat OSU (who finished the year 2nd in the FEI rankings) 55-24.
December 4th, 2019 at 1:46 PM ^
It can happen, but not very often. That's the exception and not the rule. It's also harder to be the exception when your rival prepares for you year round, hates your guts, gives you their best effort every year, and plays you the last game of the year preventing it from being a trap game. I don't think it's a coincidence that loss to Iowa came the week before their game against #11 MSU.
December 4th, 2019 at 2:45 PM ^
Agree. OSU will almost never take UM for granted.
December 4th, 2019 at 10:44 AM ^
This analysis is fundamentally flawed. How many guys in the two teams 2019 classes were actually starting this year? The better comparison would be OSU upperclassmen versus UM upperclassmen as those are the majority of the players making up the teams actually starting as major contributors. You would have to compare the margin of victory in a given year against the gap in recruiting two or three classes prior for a better analysis. So really this years game was more of a matchup between the two teams 2016 and 2017 classes, and while there is still a gap it is not as large as the last two year's classes. Which of course that just makes me even more depressed about the OSU situation cause it seems like it will get worse.
December 4th, 2019 at 11:26 AM ^
Olave last year was 18 year old frosh ... torched our 3-star senior DBs
Wilson this year is 18 year old frosh ... torched our 3-star senior DBs
OSU has 18 year old skill players that have routinely beat our veteran starters. Until we decrease that talent gap, it will be hard to score enough points to keep up with their offense.
December 4th, 2019 at 1:48 PM ^
This analysis does exactly what you want it to do. It's the "Team Talent Composite" which ranks all the scholarship players on a team's roster for that given year. So it encompasses, essentially, the last 4 recruiting cycles. It's a snapshot of the overall talent on the team right now.
December 4th, 2019 at 10:47 AM ^
This is stark, people need to realize that the ~120 point advantage Ohio State has over us is about the equivalent of the ~120 Point advantage we have over programs like Nebraska, Mississippi State, and Arkansas. When we play teams like Nebraska and Mississippi State, we have a large margin for error and simply out talent them even if we aren't executing well. What you saw the last 2 years against Ohio State is a more talented team with a larger margin for error also out executing their opponent.
And the 120 points will likely be 150+ next season as they are increasing their talent and ours will go down slightly with the loss of our 5 star QB, some high 4 star players, and probably our lone 5 star WR. So next season, the talent advantage OSU has over us will probably be greater than the talent advantage we have over programs like Michigan State, Maryland, and Virginia Tech.
December 4th, 2019 at 10:56 AM ^
your nuts....this is exactly how we should review the rivalry. Just like Fields said post-game. It needs to be maniacal in the approach. Every question, decision should start with OSU. we need to mirror their approach mentally and culturally as it pertains to "the game"....otherwise the results will continue to be the same......
December 4th, 2019 at 12:33 PM ^
Agreed! Time to go nuclear and start breaking the stupid NCAA rules like every other elite team does! We've got our heads so far up our asses with this self righteous "our students actually go to class" stuff.
Just win!
December 4th, 2019 at 8:23 PM ^
Maybe it's just me, but I wouldn't start by referring to the OP's nuts.
December 4th, 2019 at 10:58 AM ^
They were beatable on Sat, & they are one of the best OSU teams since the Zeke team. Have to play tight disciplined football to beat them ...& have a better D scheme.
December 4th, 2019 at 12:11 PM ^
Hahahahaha by who, the ravens???
Losers
December 4th, 2019 at 11:00 AM ^
It's also worth noting that there tends to be a large difference in point differential between those top few teams compared to the lower half of the top 10 in systems like SP+, e.g. 2-8 is about the same point spread as 8-25.
December 4th, 2019 at 11:00 AM ^
The talent at the QB position over the last 15 years is our biggest glaring weakness.
Alabama not as good without Tua. LSU is killing it now that they have Burrows. OSU gets lucky with Fields who is elite and have had better QB's for years (in Cooper years QB's were always just pretty good like ours now).
QB play is everything in college football. Makes the o-line look better, the receivers look better, and opens up the running game. Shea was the best we've had in years and definitely not elite - just pretty good and that's not going to get us over the hump.
Problem is that I don't think that QB is on the team. Those Heisman candidate QB's show themselves early and the hype is usually off the charts. We have talent at QB, but just pretty good again and that won't beat OSU!
December 4th, 2019 at 8:19 PM ^
Tom Brady says Hi. So does Dylan McCaffrey.
December 4th, 2019 at 11:21 AM ^
Why would the year’s class equate to the year played? I don’t disagree with your premise on talent but freshman don’t typically have much effect on a season.
December 4th, 2019 at 1:50 PM ^
I agree, but there is no tracking system for players in years 2-5 of the program. We can only look at either individual class rankings or the team composite unless you want to go through and manually remove the freshman and average the remaining guys. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest it's not worth the time it would take for my purposes, but if you're interested in that number have at it! :)
December 4th, 2019 at 11:24 AM ^
Because no team with lesser talent has ever risen up and beaten a better team.
Come on guys. Enough with this.
JH was hired to win stuff. He has not won stuff. And now it's a "Michigan" problem and not a JH problem? Good lord. When for the last 20 years, all we talked about how incredible this program was? And now it's not incredible?
I just do not understand the constant shielding for this dude.
December 4th, 2019 at 11:42 AM ^
I have never seen a coach so highly regarded when hired only to fall short of expectations considerably, and then had the narrative completely shift about what his expectations were when he was hired. It's insane to me.
December 4th, 2019 at 1:17 PM ^
All of our expectations are high for Michigan football, especially under Harbaugh. But the time frame some fans put on the turnaround were unrealistic given how far we had fallen compared to how high OSU had risen.
My view is Harbaugh is going to be like a Tom Osborne. Oklahoma under Barry Switzer had such a lock on recruiting and performance (cheating with PEDs?), that it took Osborne years to turn that tide and finally compete with Oklahoma. Osborne started with solid 9 win seasons and gradually got the players to build Nebraska back into a national power. It took nearly 10 years to beat Oklahoma and finish the regular season #1 (they lost that title game to Miami in '83). Ultimately, it took Osborne 20 years of excellence to finally go undefeated and win that national title.
Patience will be needed. The program was in the shitter under RR and Hoke. And OSU and MSU feasted on our demise. We have conquered MSU in year 5, but to gain parity with this OSU juggernaut will take even more positive recruiting cycles.
December 4th, 2019 at 1:55 PM ^
Agree completely. Happiness can often be defined as the difference between your expectations and your reality. Our expectations going in were beating OSU. We are slowly coming to terms with the fact that is not realistic given our current circumstances. With that simple re-calibration we can go on being happy by and large with our product of UM football.
JH is a good coach and produces a good product. He has made adjustments to deal with problems /shortcomings and will continue to do so. Is he Meyer or Saban, no? Unfortunately some thought he was and that is frustrating. But we can accept he's still really good, albeit it not elite and still be happy. With respect to OSU, check back in another 3-5 years.
December 4th, 2019 at 12:24 PM ^
OSU over the last 10 years is the best they have ever been in their history. Same cannot be said for us.
If you don't think they were head and shoulders better from just a straight player ability standpoint than us then you were watching a different game.
Their O line the last two years has completely destroyed our D line and that's been the difference maker. They give their QB a clean pocket for any throw they want to make and give their backs 3 yards before they're even touched.
Nothing to do with coaching. When you can just bully the opponent on the line, you win. You can blame crossing routes or whatever you want all day, but that's not the issue.
December 4th, 2019 at 8:33 PM ^
This incredible/invincible Michigan team from the last 20 seasons, can you help me spot it?
December 4th, 2019 at 9:58 PM ^
I'll stop "shielding" for Harbaugh as soon as I get a straight answer from the anti-Harbaughs on who the hell you think is going to come to Michigan and take it to heights never before seen.
Feels like you guys engage in a ton of revisionism btw. I remember when Harbaugh was hired there was tons of hype, of course, but also a pretty consistent narrative that it was going to take 3-4 years to turn the sinking ship around. Most had Michigan pegged at about 7 wins in 2015. They win ten that year and by 2016 winning ten games is a disappointment and Harbaugh's a failure.
Sad to say a lot of you will probably think the same thing about Howard in a couple years if he can't make a final four by then. Lots of people calling for Beilein's head before that run they made in '13. Point is, most people don't know fucking shit and would see the program ran into the ground as they lash out over being disappointed about their own delusional expectations.
December 4th, 2019 at 11:53 AM ^
That does not prove it is a talent difference causing blowouts. Q
compare the Michigan point differentials with PSU, MSU, etc
Much bigger talent gaps. Smaller point differentials the last few years.
Maybe it's coaching?
December 4th, 2019 at 2:00 PM ^
compare the Michigan point differentials with PSU, MSU, etc Much bigger talent gaps.
PSU is #10 in the team talent composite and UM is #11. We lost on a last second dropped TD. Last year UM was #8 and PSU was #13. UM won by 35 pts. It makes perfect sense to me.
December 4th, 2019 at 12:10 PM ^
LOL great analysis bro, the gap from #2 to #7 is certainly equivalent to #7 to #12, and its definitely the same across years. And yea that makes a lotta sense we'll see instant recruiting gap to point differential correlation.
This is lazy. There's clearly a few teams separating themselves with respect to recruiting and many others trying to keep up. Gotta recruit top 3-4 type classes consistently for 4-5 years and then you're top tier, save for certain "down" years due to lower volume.
December 4th, 2019 at 2:02 PM ^
This is lazy.
Says the guy offering no data.
December 4th, 2019 at 12:13 PM ^
If you look at recruiting rankings over the past 5 years, OSU averages the number 5.8th ranked class in the country (which is good for third best in that time frame), while we average 15.4th, good for 16th.
We've been consistently performing ABOVE our talent level over this time frame, but OSU is just on another level talent wise. It's only going to get worse (as OSU has currently the 2nd ranked class and we have the 8th) unless we get better on the recruiting trail.
How do they such consistently better players? OSU under Urban went total warfare on us, burning Atlanta, fire bombing Dresden, dropping A bombs on civilian cities, and it worked. They break nearly every NCAA recruiting and student guideline but it works. Similar to Alabama, Clemson, and the other contenders.
The rules of The Game have changed, and we're getting left in the dust.
December 4th, 2019 at 12:45 PM ^
JH has had good O game plans against OSU quite a few times, including last Sat. Players have to make plays also though, & we can't have OSU fan refs in there like 16' as well.
The defense needs a new plan. DB has failed twice in a row now ...
December 4th, 2019 at 2:18 PM ^
Recruiting classes over 94 in 247 composite:
#1: OSU '17 _94.59 21recruits
#2: Bama '19_94.38 27
#3: OSU '18 _94.29 26
#4: UGa'18 _94.23 26
#5: USC'18 _94.23 18
That's what the last two years has faced.