Around the Big Ten

[WM Wolverine]

NW's performance vs Stanford just makes M's schedule look even harder, 7 wins?

[UMStan White]

Yeah the West looks great as BYU ass rapes Nebraska We could easily finish 5-7. Utah BYU Minn NW PSU mSU and OSU all look like losses

[Dr. Strangelove]

Well yeah, after a nice start to the day Nebraska is struggling, Penn State looks like shit, and Indiana is losing 32-21 to Southern Illinois.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Penn State may very well lose. They've looked lost and inept since the 1st quarter on offense.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Northwestern beats Stanford handily. Completely dominated the line of scrimmage and shut down Stanford's offense. Which is the offense that we will be running with an offensive line and a QB who are much worse.

I'll grant, there may be something to this .......

At first glance, it looks like spread (and this is almost a meaningless term these days but you get the point) v power (same caveat applies) produces a certain kind of football contest. The team playing the power offense, assuming they are moving the chains at times, tends to limit total plays in the contest to around 70 per team, around 140 (+/-). The scoring is lower, field position and ST play become more important, over-under is usually 40-50 in a contests like this than say, spready teams v. spready teams where you might see 155+ plays between the teams and an over-under of 70.

I think overall throwing a power team into any football contest limits variance from the mean in most statistical categories for that team while not eliminating variance for the spread teams at all.

I can see the benefit here, as long as the power team can score, run clock and use its ST play and defense to control filed position and what the spready team is trying to do...... run a lot of tempo and score a lot of points.

It's interesting.

Obviously, Harbaugh has to turn M into a power machine that's cranking out 4.5ypp on the ground and making key deep throws when they are there. Keep in mind, I think power teams still use some spread concepts but it's not their base, power is and plays that made Stanford good under Harbaugh good like the 26 power and 26 Counter F.

As Hanni points out, this kind of football isn't working at Stanford right now because power isn't working. M lost to Utah because, well, yes, turnovers, but the power game wasn't good enough fundamentally and esp. in the run game.

So, we still really don't know how this is going to play out. I don't think all is lost as a result of the opener, but there sure are questions in my mind about whether Harbaugh can pull off even 8 wins given what we've seen from team 136 and now, around the CFB world and the BT.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Compared with how Penn State looks, Michigan should be proud of their performance

Temple just rushed 2 guys against 5 and still sacked Hackenberg

[Dr. Strangelove]

24-10 Temple. It's over. Embarrassing

[Kstat]

Hackenberg played like devin Gardner today. So shell shocked he basically went into the fetal position as soon as he got the ball.

[Mike]

10 sacks by Temple in the last 3 quarters and 27 straight points.

[Kstat]

Nebraska just fell victim to a hairy Mary...by a bunch of Mormons.

Irony.

[whodean]

Utah would probably slot into the top of the big10, behind only MSU and oLIEo so the competition doesn't look so tough in conference (Northwestern looks promising)

[Prime2]

Last time Temple beat PSU it was 1941. Franklin is a genius.

[lineygoblue]

I've been trying to figure out since last year, why Penn State gets so much love.

As bad as Michigan was last year, they beat Penn State. Sackenburg appears to be as over-rated as Shane Morris.

I still think M can go there and sneak out with a win.

[Mike]

Agreed 100%, Liney. Franklin is their Hoke. I haven't seen anything out of that program since they got in trouble over raping little boys that should make anyone worry about losing to them on the field.

[lineygoblue]

I know they've recruited well, but if we've learned ANYTHING over the past 10 years, we've learned that recruiting doesn't always pan out.