Around the Big Ten

[froot loops]

MSU didn't lose due to the officials.

[Cody_Russell]

[froot loops]

ASU looks like it has a good defense, it's hard to tell because half the game the State offense refused to put the ball in the air or run to the tackles. They thought run up the gut was the best play.

At least the Canaries won.

[iam416]

I had my 2001 Canary kit on for the final 40. Seriously. Fantastic day at Carrow Road and for humanity.

[Hannibal]

Larry Nasser U put up over 400 yards and still somehow managed to only score 7 points.

[froot loops]

I had my 2001 Canary kit on for the final 40. Seriously. Fantastic day at Carrow Road and for humanity.

After Aguero scored that 1st one I figured the onslaught in the 2nd half was on so I went on a run but I still had it on the radio. The Pukki goal was a win for humanity.

[Hannibal]

Are you <bundles of sticks> talking about soccer?

[Hannibal]

Pretty good CyHawk game going on here.

[iam416]

[WM Wolverine]

B1G needs to schedule more FCS opponents. These G5 programs are too competitive.

[Cody_Russell]

[iam416]

Purdue's loss was understandable. Iowa's win was very good.

Michigan State and Penn State are massively flawed on offense. I actually think Penn State is worse on offense at this point (and worse on defense). Sparty has some players on offense. Stewart is a nice WR. I really like Collins (the rest of that stable should get spot duty only). They have good TEs. And Lewerke can be credible as an RPO guy. However, their entire staff failed sideways and they all operate under the tenets of Jim Tressel. Penn State is just really bad running the ball. And Clifford isn't the answer, yet.

Maryland, like Michigan State, had no real business losing that game. The parade of errors inside the 20 was almost unbelievable. However, It does get you back to you earth a bit. They have played essentially one game (Howard can't possibly count in any sense -- not even a Middle Tennessee or FAU sense). McFarland remains a bad ass, but their OL is dicey and their WRs can't generate space. Jackson has to be much better for them to be even competitive against East defenses.

Illinois just sucks.

Going forward, nothing has changed my mind about Wisconsin winning the West. We'll see how they do against a pipe-hitting defense this week. Wisconsin, again, suffers from an unfair schedule -- Ohio State AND Michigan. Iowa will be around. They're a hard team. And they have just enough, in terms of playmakers, make things happen. Nebraska finally got things going just a little bit. They have Illinois next week. They should rail Lovie and then they get Ohio State in Lincoln.

In the West, I like Ohio State's progression. To reiterate, you can't overemphasize how awful Schiano was last year. Mattison only has to be solid to turn that defense into something solid. I think everyone knows that Mattison is a solid DC. And, of course, they are a Fields injury away from disaster. Penn State and Michigan State are one-dimensional at the moment, but I actually like Sparty's potential to be effective on offense. I'm sure when they play Ohio State they won't operate with such sheer stupidity as they did yesterday. Penn State scares me not one lick. M is the big question mark in the East. I was never a big believer in Shea, but I do think he's better than THIS. And with DPJ coming back to go along with Nico and even Black, there's no way they should be bad on offense. But, I also don't think their defense matches Sparty (or maybe even PSU). So, I still have the East as fairly wide open.

[Jeff Buchanan]

The BIG with several absolute sludge-fart games including MSU/ASU, PSU/Pitt and Iowa/Iowa State. Low scoring, down in the dirt mud wrestling contests.

It just astonishes me that there is this incredible distance between the teams that look sharp at the top of their conferences - the ones we can anticipate will be vying for the 4 CFP berths +ND - and the rest of P5 teams.

3 weeks in, at the top of those conferences + ND, we have Clemson in the ACC, OU in the B12, Nobody in the P12 worth talking about, osu in the B10E, Wisconsin B10W, UGA in the SECE, Alabama in SECW.

Those top teams have scored 1085 points while holding opponents to 246. On average, after three games, those 7 teams are each scoring 52 points per game. Meanwhile, the second and third tier teams who might have a shot are either losing games they shouldn't lose or winning them in low scoring affairs by a couple of points with average scoring under 28 points.

I'm not entirely sure what this points to as with only 3 games (some cases only 2), it's hard to draw conclusions from the data. But I'll take a wild guess here: coaches running any kind of low risk power scheme with a flavor of conservatism in it - and I don't care if the team is spready or hybrid-pro-style schematically - is likely to get it's doors blown off by teams, like the ones above, playing ball to the wall aggressively right now.

I'll point to Michigan, and there are others, because I'm eyeballs deep in the analysis of their play and it isn't, by any measure, balls to the wall aggressive in terms of the character of it's offense. It seems so fucking obvious to me that you are not going to compete, not going to win championships, trying to win them sludge-farting your way to victory - seemingly a Michigan football tradition. An in-game strategy leaving an outcome to the last few minutes of the 4th quarter or in OT is simply inviting randomness to determine that outcome. NOT A WINNING STRATEGY when compared to that of the teams we can see are going to compete for those four CFP spots.

[iam416]

I don't you can reduce it to one thing, and I think you'd agree. I definitely agree that you can't run a Tresselball/MANBALL offense anymore. But, I think most teams have moved beyond that. Of the teams you mentioned, they all run some variation of a "spready" offense, but to way varying degrees. Oklahoma and Georgia aren't anywhere close. Wisconsin, I guess, isn't even spready at all. The teams you referenced all have ballers. Even Wisconsin has enough talent to be really effective without a standout QB.

Penn State is more spready than not, but they absolutely can't run the ball. And it remains to be seen how good their offensive staff is. M's offense can't be effective if Shea is ineffective. He's had two average to below average outings.

Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State and Clemson are the 4 most talented teams in the country, and I don't think it's even close to number 5. Oklahoma has enough talent to work with Lincoln Reilly, and they have themselves a QB (and they haven't played anyone, at all). Wisconsin has Jonathan Taylor and their standard 6'7/350 oafish caucasian mauler line. Notre Dame has Ian Book, but I think they'll get housed by Georgia.

[Jeff Buchanan]

......... M is the big question mark in the East. I was never a big believer in Shea, but I do think he's better than THIS. And with DPJ coming back to go along with Nico and even Black, there's no way they should be bad on offense. But, I also don't think their defense matches Sparty (or maybe even PSU). So, I still have the East as fairly wide open.

I think you are right about Patterson not being"THIS." More analysis of the Army shit-show continues to find it's way to mgo diaries and boards. https://mgoblog.com/diaries/analysis...-army-1st-half. I suppose there is a point at which post-game analysis becomes redundant but the questions involving Patterson's play and Gatti's play calling (it doesn't matter if Harbaugh is involved or not) remain muddled. Analysis helps here.

The link above does a good job evaluating the play of Patterson (keep or give) and that of the play calling. First half only, 2nd half pending. Pictures are worth a thousand words. It's pretty clear that from this analysis Shea was better than we might have thought he was and blocking dorfs cancelled a shit-ton of what would have been big chunk plays in the run game. The play-calling in the first half was generally good if not a bit too power oriented out of rather spready, shot gun formations for my taste (see comments in the post above). But we should expect this approach going forward from Harbaugh/Gattis..... possibly to M's disadvantage.

Hayes was a liability in pass-pro and that probably and correctly limited PAs and might explain why Nico didn't get the long balls we think he should have. Blocking assignments in the run were a problem. Much larger in post game analysis than we thought they were early in the week as bad hot takes and general complaining from the peanut gallery predominated. What we tend to lose sight of in the deeper analysis and film-study though, is the impact of what amounts to 5 turnovers. Those just exponentially add to the problems that the players and coaches have to deal with.

All things considered, having Runyan and DPJ back may encourage more deep balls off of PA. But I wouldn't expect M to go all aggressive. Just not in their DNA to do that. I'm not confident M football can advance to an elite level with this power approach. It's an approach to hi-tempo, spready football that looks like it relegates the passing game to a lower tier as long as the run game is efficient in moving the chains and scoring.

I think M's defense is better than you are giving it credit for ...... that's because of Don Brown who has recovered his value, IMO, after the debacles that were the osu and UF games. What his D did against army - we've seen the numbers - was pretty remarkable and bailed his ass out of my fire. As you like Mattison's steadying effect on osu's D and, by extension, Mattison himself, I feel that way about Don Brown - excellent coach that can get his players, all of whom are pretty talented - to do what he intends given whatever weaknesses the defense has organically, e.g., the interior DL and Ss.