The Rest of College Football

[iam416]

Really? I’m not impressed with anyone that OSU can stop. Purdue was a legit problem. O’Connell is really good and so is David Bell. And Brohm.

[Hannibal]

MSU has legit skill players. They just came apart against y’all.

JMO.

[iam416]

Thorne is average. Without at least a good QB the skill players can be contained. Honestly, Cade, O’Connell and Stroud are the only legitimately good QBs in the conference and that’s why it is, IMO, garbage.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I’m honestly not sure M has played even a legitimately good offense all year. I think Purdue may be legitimately good and that’s about it for OSU.

The B10 is just bad. IMO.

Without digging around for numbers to support that position, I think you are right but, again without looking just by seeing games and won-lost records, is there any P5 conference that is not dominated by 1-2 "slightly flawed" teams. In some cases I think that's even a stretch as there is some HS level, bad coaching and play going on within probably 80% of FBS teams. The ones playing decently have been playing that way for a long time and there are identifiable reasons for that - a concentration of talented recruits that are brought up to become starters by getting good coaching among them. That's certainly a 10K look.

...... and is there a "legitimately good" offense out there? If I just look at total offense (and I think that's a very limited view of assessing the total team package) and then arbitrarily use scoring 40 points as the cut-off, there are 8 of them and eyeball checking the total package, OSU, UGA, Alabama, Cinci roughly in that order are in that group. M is just outside of that group at #15 and 36.9 ppg. Nebraska at #17 is the best offense that M has played by that measure. Take a look at the box score here: https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb...-nebraska.html

Trying to dig deeper to answer talent's question I looked at FEI (ESPN Power Index). Top 8 teams in order, UGA, OSU, Alabama, M, OU, ND (fuck them, just because), Oki St. and Cinci. The outlier here when looking at the two measures is M. I took a glance at scoring defense thinking that if a team is ranked 1-8 in that category they faced all offenses and done well but the correlation doesn't seem to be too strong. The only two teams 1-8 in both total offense and scoring offense are M and UGA. Does that mean M has played all offenses, some of them good on the day they played them and done well.

So, after all of that, has M faced a "legitimately good" offense? Neb? (see above). MSU? Probably not based on their performance yesterday but both offenses were probably the best M has faced on the Saturdays they faced them and you all know how much credit I give to MSU for winning that crap fest. You don't? None actually. I can make an argument that M has faced two "legitimately good" offenses. Both MSU and Neb are in the FEI top 30. But, WTF do I know and does it really matter for next Saturday?

Anyway this is as much fun talking CFB in November and with just one game left on the regular season schedule as I have had in a long, long time. What I'm hoping for is a game that is won by the players and coaches and not by factors out of their control. 6d in advance, one of those factors out the control of players and coaches, the WX, looks good per the NWS (partly sunny, hi of 38). I actually think that BT refereeing, at least in the games I've watched, has improved in the calls that seem to be most problematic - offensive holding and defensive PI. The "let them play" thing seems to be happening more often than in the past. That's good. I think most would agree that when a play goes to review, the refs are getting it right about 98% of the time - the 2% at a critical juncture though, can be frustrating. On balance consistency of rules interpretation and penalties called wrt them is now reasonable.

[Obi-Jon]

I fear this more than the buckeyes. (That's Liney on the left)



refs.jpg

[THE_WIZARD_]

MSU got less than 250 yards against UNL in EL...and ZERO first downs in the second half. They are no offensive juggernaut.

[iam416]

I don’t really care about relative ranking. I care about yards per play and points. More the former. I think Purdue under O’Connell has either the #2 or #3 best offense in the conference. Sparty and UNL are probably next but they don’t have a consistent passing game. And in this day and age you have be able throw the ball.

M is pretty good at running the ball and really good at ball control passing. If they could stretch the field vertically then I’d say they could maybe compete for CFP. They have enough offense to beat OSU and win the B10, but they don’t have realistic CFP hopes (and neither does OSU).

[THE_WIZARD_]

:::rolls eyes:::

[lineygoblue]

I fear this more than the buckeyes. (That's Liney on the left)

How long have you known me? I haven't been that small since 1974.

[Obi-Jon]

I photoshopped it so people wouldn't poke fun at you. (Been a while, 1995-96 I think. Didn't we catch a Wisconsin game in '98?)

[lineygoblue]

98 sounds about right. We'd been over at the old FREEP site for about a year or so.

[WingsFan]

Don Brown finally made it to HC and the East Coast at UMass. Arizona was a disaster.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Don Brown finally made it to HC and the East Coast at UMass. Arizona was a disaster.

He was their HC once before, back before they jumped to FBS and wrecked their program.

[JRB]

Twitter is abuzz this evening with reports that Florida is hiring or will soon hire Billy Napier. I haven't seen anything resembling an official announcement yet, but a lot of people seem to be convinced this is happening.

[iam416]

AA would surely have thoughts. Or at least a thought.

Yes, I still miss Alabam”Alum”