Bleacher Report - Articles by Ken Braun

Football Bowl Association and Other Bowling Thoughts

Ken Braun — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:19:41 -0500

My thoughts on the whole bowls vs. playoffs debate is a greyish area. The BCS is foolish, and stupid, and unfair; but we're also not going to get a 16-team playoff, and there's issues of complication with all points in between.

What I am sure of is that I don't need to be convinced how terrific college football is while I'm watching the waning days of same and pondering months of cold and darkness without it. Nonetheless, this is what the Football Bowl Association has been throwing at me for more than a week (see video on right of the FBA page, if you haven't seen it already).

The FBA adverts show spectacular and exciting plays, and then assert how wonderful bowls are. I'm supposed to come to the conclusion that one cannot happen without the other. This alchemy is much like the ethanol industry showing me pictures of cars moving as evidence that mixing corn and (lots) of tax dollars is something other than a tremendous waste of resources.

This reminds me a lot of last season, when the cable companies and the Big Ten Network were feuding, and my cable provider (Comcast) kept running commercials all season to inform me of their side of the story.

Instead of sympathy, these ads were providing a ceaseless reminder that if I dumped whiney Comcast and switched to a dish, then my monthly TV bill would finally produce more of the single most important reason to have a TV in the first place—college football.

The Football Bowl Association is its own worst enemy.

In other bowling news...

Missouri lined up in the neutral zone at least twice (and perhaps three) times in a row during the Alamo Bowl against Northwestern. I lost count. Exactly how does this happen with any regularity whatsoever for any player above the age of 14?

There's a ball and there's a down marker. Look at them. If you have to look backward to see either one, or if the ball looks like it's ahead of the down marker, then you sir are standing in a bad place. If you've had all spring, all season, and then a couple of weeks of bowl practice to work on this concept (to say nothing of however many years before that), then this shouldn't be a problem.

In any case, do not hire Mizzou grads as civil engineers.

Elsewhere in the Big 12, Oklahoma State QB Zac Robinson playing in the Holiday Bowl got demolished on every other down by the Oregon defense and somehow kept getting up and moving his team downfield—often by running the ball himself. He's surely not yet 40, and after watching this I'm not even sure he's really just a man, either. More like something made of big rubber bands and steel in the labs of Cyberdyne Systems.

Eventually, in the fourth quarter, the hits finally caught up, he started to hobble a little bit and his throws started missing. Oregon finally won this very entertaining game.

But hey, Robinson is a junior. He'll be back.

Finally, to go along with Mike Gundy's "kid who does everything right" rant, watching the Emerald Bowl and the aftermath of its drama regarding the suspended Miami QB, I decided that Randy Shannon's attitude toward his job is making me forget why I used to hate the Hurricanes.

Michigan State-Georgia: Capital One Bowl's Similar Teams With Different Dreams

Ken Braun — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:16:44 -0500

Michigan State's Javon Ringer and Georgia's Knowshon Moreno are both finalists for the Doak Walker "best college running back" award. So, with some excitement about two of the game's biggest running threats set to play one another in the Capital One Bowl on Jan. 1, what is the big statistic that tells you the most about this game?

How about this: Georgia's rushing offense is ranked just 54th in the nation, and Michigan State's is 66th. Both players are the main ball carriers on teams that—statistically speaking—have rather mediocre running attacks. Appearances and statistics, it seems, are deceiving.

The real big difference between these teams is trajectory. Georgia is coming off of a very strong 2007 and a BCS bowl win, returned 17 starters from last year, and was ranked the preseason No. 1 in both major polls.

The debated expectations for Georgia at the start of the season centered on whether Florida had a chance to upend their chase to the SEC title, not whether in-state rival Georgia Tech (preseason No. 50 in the Coaches' poll) would be the team to hand them their third loss on the regular season's final weekend.

By contrast, Michigan State owns three losses that every sane person would have predicted, a couple of wins that are more than pleasant surprises, and not a single unexpected loss.

A reasonable regular season for Michigan State, given last year's graduations and a tougher schedule, would have been another 7-5 mark followed by another mediocre pre-January bowl appearance. Even adjusting for the (entirely expected) season-ending blowout by Penn State, nine wins is evidence of a team playing well above expectations.

The Spartans lost big to their conference powerhouses (Penn State and Ohio State), and Georgia lost big to theirs (Florida and Alabama.) Both teams played and lost to one decent out-of-conference opponent (Georgia Tech for Georgia and Cal for MSU.) Each finished as the third-best team in their conference.

Other numbers show the trend of two teams arriving in the same place from different directions. Georgia finishes the regular season ranked 21st in the nation for total offense and 28th for total defense, while the Spartans are respectively 66th and 62nd.

The component parts that make up those big numbers tell the same story. One team doesn't look good on paper but manages to win games it should not. The other looks like it should be world-beaters, yet found ways to lose a game or two that it should have won.

Georgia is not a threat like Penn State or Ohio State. More like Iowa earlier this year, another team with a very good running back, this sets up as a game where Michigan State has a chance to beat what is probably a better group of players because they perform better as a team than the other guys do.

The Spartans are thrilled to be in Orlando on New Year's Day. Getting there shows that they can attain their goals and that they still have yet one more chance to exceed expectations.

For Georgia, Orlando is evidence that they failed to capitalize on nearly all of their preseason goals. However much the Bulldogs may say to the contrary, winning the Capital One Bowl will not mean nearly as much to them as it does to the guys on the other side of the field.

Leaving aside the stats, this is probably what decides the game.

2008 Michigan State Football By the Numbers

Ken Braun — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:12:41 -0500

The big numbers tell the Michigan State football story as the regular season comes to a close. Last year's group was a 7-6 team. Those that returned played a slightly tougher schedule in 2008 and have come out with (so far) a 9-3 record.

That alone appears as big progress, but in Big Ten conference games, the changes are more dramatic: A 3-5 record became 6-2 against exactly the same slate of teams.

Iowa and Northwestern illustrate this last point. Each was a 6-6 team a year ago with no bowl prospects, yet both defeated Michigan State. This year, both had markedly improved records (17-7 combined) and will go to bowl games. Yet this time both were beaten by the Spartans—soundly beaten, in the case of 9-3 Northwestern.

But some interesting nuance creeps up in the smaller statistics, particularly when you focus on just the eight Big Ten conference games over each season. It bodes well for next season.

Last year, Michigan State had the best scoring offense in the conference while winning those three conference games. This year, they'd fallen to sixth-best. Likewise, scoring defense last year was a dismal ninth, but improved to only seventh this year.

On and on this trend goes for every meaningful statistic. Total offense and defense last year were first and seventh, respectively; both fell to eighth this year. Red zone offense was first, but now third; red zone defense was seventh and is now 10th.

Last year's +2 turnover margin became this year's -1. For perspective, Ohio State finished first at +12.

For all of the deserved praise about Javon Ringer's running, he was just one man carrying the entire workload for a run-based offensive attack. The result was a 10th-place finish out of 11 teams for rushing yards. Last year, with the very able Jehuu Caulcrick sharing the load, the Spartans' rush offense was third. The difference was more than 80 yards per Big Ten game.

How do those mediocre-to-awful conference stats in nearly every major category, with many of them showing declines from last year's team that won just three conference games, translate into twice that many wins this year?

Unlike every other top team, third place Michigan State played all of the other toughest Big Ten teams this year: fifth place Iowa and co-champ Ohio State didn't meet; neither did fourth place Northwestern and co-champ Penn State. Every other team that played at least four of the top five finished with far fewer wins.

The stats are thus deceptive. The Spartans came within one game of navigating one of the toughest schedules in the conference to a share of the title. Throw out the horrible numbers from the blowout defeats against the co-champs, and the picture improves dramatically.

What does this mean moving forward?

In Mark Dantonio's first season, inheriting mostly somebody else's players, just 12 of 22 starters came back and the team won seven games. This year, 13 of 22 starters returned and they won (so far) nine games. Next season, it appears that 14 of 22 starters will return with two solid years of experience playing under this coach.

By contrast, Penn State returned 18 of 22 starters this year from a team that won nine games, and Ohio State returned 19 of 22 from a team that won 11 games.

Both of the programs sharing the title this year have stable leadership, have won nine or more games each of the previous three seasons, and were in no way having a "rebuilding" period remotely comparable to what Michigan State has been going through. They were supposed to dominate games this year. The only real surprise is those games where they failed to do so.

But going forward, the Buckeyes could lose as many as 10 starters next year, and the Nittany Lions 12. Both will likely still be good, but neither is likely to replicate what happened this season. The 2009 Big Ten race is wide open.

Next year, while Michigan State obviously loses a starting quarterback and tailback, they return the starting fullback, the tight end, and three of five offensive linemen. At receiver, only one backup—Deon Curry, with just five receptions playing in seven games—will graduate. Every other starting receiver and backup receiver will return.

Defensively, two of the four starting linemen and two of the four defensive backs depart. All three starting linebackers return, two of whom—Greg Jones and Eric Gordon—are sophomores that finished ranked No. 1 and No. 11 in the conference for tackles. Ohio State's two-time All-American senior James Laurinaitis, soon likely to be a high NFL draft choice, finished second behind Jones.

Note that the running game actually performed better with more than one back carrying the load. That will be the case next year. Despite losing Javon Ringer, it is possible that the rushing attack will get stronger. The key is likely finding two or three Jehuu Caulcricks on the team, and not necessarily finding another gem like Javon Ringer.

Likewise, the new quarterback—either Kirk Cousins or Keith Nichol—will have a full set of experienced receivers to throw to. Each quarterback also has playing experience, though Nichol's was at Oklahoma, where he failed to beat out Sam Bradford for a starting job (no shame in that.)

There is, in short, a lot of promise that a good team can get a whole lot better very soon.

Saving the best for last, the Big Ten schedules rotate, and the change is very generous. The Spartans will take a two-year break from Ohio State and Indiana and face Illinois and Minnesota instead.

In the non-conference, the tough season opener on the road versus Cal becomes a home opener against Montana State, with also—in likely order of difficulty—Central Michigan, Western Michigan, and Notre Dame.

No disrespect to those I-AA teams, as we know how they love coming to Michigan, nor to two of the MAC's very best programs right now, but nobody on that list is likely to compare to what Cal was this season. (Notre Dame, I will flatly predict right now, is going to rival this year's mediocrity unless there is a leadership change.)

Taking a break from the Ohio State juggernaut is obviously huge. If the 2008 Spartans had instead played the teams on the 2009 schedule during this season, it's not implausible that they would be 11-1 right now, having lost only to Penn State at the very end. That might have been good enough for a BCS game.

This spring, I looked at the season and saw eight wins and a fourth place finish. I got nine wins and third place, guessing only one game wrong in that early estimate (Wisconsin.) Again looking forward at this very early date, even better things for 2009—including a conference title—are not out of the question.

The future is bright. The State of the Spartans is strong.

Michigan State-Penn State: Underwhelmed With Excitement

Ken Braun — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:51:28 -0500

So it comes to this. The night before what could be Michigan State's biggest win in...a long time. I've had two weeks to prepare for it, two weeks to write something about it, and two weeks to get really jacked up about it.

Yet, I have nothing.

Rather than eagerly anticipate the possibility of sharing the first Big Ten title in 18 years, and getting that first game of the season insomnia the night before, I am instead pre-resolved to losing this game and moving on to finish with a nice bowl game.

The first problem is that I hate—HATE—road games. Yelling at a television just doesn't get it done for me. I'd be fired up and ready for a game against Florida International if I had my tickets and a tailgate lined up.

But mostly, I have not yet been wrong on a Friday night before a game. When I think they'll win, they win. When I know they'll lose, they lose. There's nothing psychic about this, since guessing based on the pre-game point spreads would have gotten anyone the same result.

If you go back to May, in one of my very first posts, you'll see the whole season predicted thus far to within one game of actual results. The only one I got wrong was Wisconsin, and I had moved that one over to the "win" side of the ledger weeks before the game started.

Otherwise, there was no reason to alter my May prediction during any other game this season. And, as noted, by the night before I was already guessing the outcome correctly in all cases.

In May, I expected to lose to Penn State...and badly. I still do.

Again, there's nothing special about my predictive powers. I blame Mark Dantonio for turning this into a delightfully boring team that gives 110 percent every game. They are predictably good, but not (yet) predictably great, so their 110 percent isn't going to measure up against some others (i.e. Cal, Ohio State, and Penn State).

I am thus a victim of trusting my own realistic expectations. I think that I've already seen the end of this game.

Michigan State doesn't have what it takes to win a share of the Big Ten title this year. But what might keep me awake tonight is thinking that they could very well be the favorite to take it outright next year. A clear majority of the starters will return from a team that (if am joyously wrong) could win 11 games this season.

In 21 years as the biggest of Spartan fans, I've never been as ill-prepared for an earthshaking upset as I am right now. And paradoxically, I've never been so hopeful about their future.

What a great season this has been. I can't believe it's not over yet.

Michigan State-Purdue: Spartans Refuse to Lose

Ken Braun — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 09:19:04 -0500

Every Big Ten game is important, particularly with a conference title still out there, but you could make a strong case that Michigan State needed this 21-7 victory a lot less than any other game this season. Instead, they turned the situation into yet another of many "statement" games to tell themselves and the world that the culture of this program is like nothing that came before it.

They gave up a 4-1 turnover advantage to Purdue, a team that desperately needed this win to avoid sending Joe Tiller into retirement with a very disappointing losing season. With an 8-2 record and a comfortable bowl game already secured, Michigan State theoretically had fewer motivations to overcome those mistakes.

The Spartans were also a tired and sore football team, having played a game every single Saturday of the season thus far, the only team ranked in the top 25 with 10 straight football games already in their rear-view mirror.

You're supposed to lose—and very badly—when you're tired and give up that many chances to a hungry opponent. Instead, the Spartan defense decided to crank their game into a gear nobody yet knew they had.

Shannon Shelton of the Detroit Free Press notes that no team, during all of the dozen years of Joe Tiller's spread offense revolution at Purdue, had held the Boilermakers to under 200 yards of total offense until Michigan State did it yesterday. This includes the very stingy defense that propelled Ohio State to the 2002 BCS Championship and various others.

Yet for the first three quarters and through part of the fourth, the Boilermakers were held under 100 yards. Down 21-0 in the fourth quarter, almost half of their total yardage for the day came on their only scoring drive, a 98-yard touchdown march that ended with just 42 ticks remaining on the clock.

There seems little doubt that if Michigan State's defense had needed to stop that drive to preserve the win, or just wanted a 21-0 shutout a little bit more, even many of these yards might not have happened.

The old saying goes that the game is played by "Jimmys and Joes," not "X's and O's." I noted last week that Michigan State is statistically a very mediocre team producing extraordinary results.

A legion of recruiting nerds will doubtlessly tell you that they are ranked eighth in the conference for total offense and fifth for total defense because they just didn't bring in as many four-star players as the teams ranked ahead of them. They'll say with knowing looks that this matters a lot.

Go tell Charlie Weis and Phil Fulmer.

On paper, most teams look "better" than Michigan State, but numbers cannot measure the culture. The best teams believe that they have a hundred ways to win every game, no matter the circumstances, while lesser teams have fewer answers.

There's no statistic to measure precisely where any given group is at relative to the others, but it is the most important factor in the game: Do their coaches have them prepared to play and thinking like winners?

With the turnovers and fatigue and whatnot, there were a lot of ways for Michigan State to lose to Purdue and just as many reasons why they should have when the ball started bouncing away. But win they did, and not just to get it done and escape.

Instead, they put up a dominating performance, virtually announcing for the entire afternoon that this is the kind of game that they expect to go on winning, one way or another, for a good long time.

The New Same Old Michigan State Spartans

Ken Braun — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:01:08 -0500

“The team will play better when the coach gets players that understand his way of doing things."

This now famous refrain of the Michigan football fan since last December has morphed from the "objective hope" of wanting Christmas Day to come into the "anxious hope" that comes with wanting and praying for the end of April 15th (or Friday the 13th?).

More remarkable than the spectacular ruination of this optimism for fans of the Wolverines is that the most appropriate application of this hope was never Michigan football to begin with. Since before that December day when the Wolverines hired Rich Rodriguez, and even more so right now, it is a better description of Michigan State and Mark Dantonio.

Two years ago next month, the Spartans were on their way to being a demoralized 4-8 football team with a fired head coach and an uncertain future that likely didn't include a postseason anytime soon. But one year later—one year ago—they had become a 7-5 team headed to a bowl game and had lost no game by more than a touchdown.

Using whatever new recruits were willing to take a chance on a reclamation project, and motivating what remained of the guys that had won just four times the year before, Mark Dantonio and his staff had whipped somebody else's players, used to somebody else's system, into his team—winners—in just 12 months.

Best of all, they were getting noticeably better as time went on, with their comeback win as underdogs against Penn State to end the regular season arguably being their most impressive performance of the year.

At this point, Spartan fans were justified in upgrading their expectations. It was reasonable to conclude that the 2008 season could step up a notch from there.

With full confidence that Michigan State had a real winner of a coach, my version of boundless optimism this spring was to predict an 8-4 season with a fourth-place finish in the Big Ten, noting that a "better team than last year is playing a much tougher schedule."

In that prediction linked above, I expected the four defeats to be against Cal, Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Penn State. But halfway through those projected failures, and for the second season in a row, I am again forced to set aside more reasonable pessimism and mutter in amazement that the "team will play better when the coach gets players that understand his way of doing things."

Wondering how many more pleasant surprises are in store for a Spartan team that is punching above its weight is turning into a regular holiday tradition. You could almost start referring to it as the "Same Old Spartans."

With perhaps only one exception—Northwestern last season—these new "Same Old Spartans" have won every game that they should have been expected to win. Last year, against Wisconsin, Michigan, and maybe on the road at Iowa, they found ways to lose winnable games against teams that were their equal or better.

This year, they have evolved another step, finding ways to beat teams that outplay them—even potentially better teams—such as Iowa and now Wisconsin.

Two games remain, and a New Year's Day bowl game may have already been locked up. It's November, and they still control their own destiny for the Big Ten title and a trip to Pasadena. Even if they don't win another game, they've already passed all the tests put in their path at the beginning of the year.

To get an idea of how outsized this group is playing, get a look at the BCS rankings, which say that they are the No. 18-ranked team in the land. Then compare this to their rankings for everything else.

66th for total offense: Eighth in the Big Ten.

60th for total defense: Seventh in the Big Ten.

50th for scoring offense: Fourth in the Big Ten.

37th for scoring defense: Sixth in the Big Ten.

Etc.... In just about every statistical category, they are not a top 25 team, and often not a top 50 team—except one: They find a way to get wins, even against teams that are statistically superior.

Brian Hoyer, foolishly maligned by some ignorant media and fans earlier this year, is one reason why. He has thrown just four interceptions all season—roughly on par with where he was last year.

His oft-cited low completion percentage has been mostly a combination of avoiding those interceptions and having many good throws mishandled by his receivers (a problem still much in evidence during the Wisconsin game.)

The Spartans win because they have a smart quarterback who minimizes their mistakes and keeps them in the game. This is to his credit as a player, but it is also great coaching.

Remember last season, when Devin Thomas, who had been virtually ignored under the previous offensive system, came out of nowhere and became Michigan State's most dangerous weapon at receiver? This season, that role has been taken over by former walk-on Blair White.

I'm not sure which evolution is the most impressive—and we still have another season to watch White get even better—but in either case, there's a coaching staff that gets to share credit with some hard-working players.

Of course, you cannot leave out the contribution of Javon Ringer. But even with him, the Spartan rush offense is ranked just 60th in the nation and eighth in the Big Ten. When Ringer is gone and no longer carrying the load all on himself, it's possible that those who remain and those yet to arrive could step it up a notch and even make things better.

Iowa, behind the bruising running of Shonn Greene, now has the nation's 26th-best rush offense. Greene, a junior, is Iowa's version of Devin Thomas or Blair White. No season with more than 200 yards before this one, and suddenly he is into November with more than 1,200 yards, ranked third in the nation, and running people over every time you watch him.

For Michigan State, similar stories exist at other positions, such as the defensive secondary, but in every case what is going on is still a work in progress. Most of the college experience for most of Michigan State's team is under a different set of coaches.

It's too bad this year's seniors can't hang around and make up that lost time, because the Same Old Spartans will probably be playing much better after the coach gets players that understand his way of doing things...

Apocalypse Rod: Michigan's Colonel Kurtz Mission

Ken Braun — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:45:51 -0400

I began this season thinking Michigan would have a very rough time of it but eventually start coming around. My theory was that the defense, which was expected to be very good, would carry the offense, which wasn't, and that by the end of the season Michigan would get back to being Michigan again.

Somewhere on my homepage blog, following the Utah game, I noted that I wouldn't be surprised if a rapidly improving Michigan was 5-6 going into the Ohio State game and yet good enough to pull the upset. That, after all, is the kind of thing Michigan does: Win when their backs are absolutely against the wall.

It's what makes them Michigan.

I don't believe any of it anymore.

I think what is happening right now IS the new Michigan. While they'll obviously not be this bad for long, there's mounting evidence that the Wolverines have inked a contract with mediocrity.

Back on May 12, I was predicting a serious adjustment period by Michigan standards, but hardly extreme for the rest of the college football world. Still, I was going further than most by picking them to go 6-6 and finish sixth in the conference.

"6. MICHIGAN (6-6 and 4-4)

"In addition to conference defeats against Mich St, OH ST, Penn St and Wisc, they may also get beat by Toledo and Utah—two potential champs in their respective conferences—or maybe Notre Dame (hey, if App St could do it...). Perhaps the weakest Michigan team in 20 years plays a deceptively tough schedule..."

On July 28, I was considering the possibility of a modest losing season, but still granting that Michigan would eventually get back to being Michigan again...

"My worldview does not include a Michigan team that does not win at least 50 percent of its games, but that is a possible outcome this season. Not probable—I think nine wins is as likely as five—but a losing season is weirdly thinkable..."

But all this was because I was being realistic about the challenges facing the new coaching regime. I argued a couple of weeks ago, following the Toledo game, that the current struggles didn't necessarily reflect poorly on Rich Rodriguez, noting that he is...

"...a proven coaching talent, and once he’s had time to build his kind of system the results should happen on the field. A new winning culture may finally grow..."

That last part is the conventional wisdom on this situation, something I usually try very hard to avoid buying into.

I'm now ready to take it all back.

The Spartan game did it for me. I've NEVER seen a Michigan team playing at home get handed that many mistakes by ANYONE, let alone Michigan State, and not make them pay for it. The Michigan that I know doesn't let that sort of thing pass, particularly with their backs against the wall and needing a win more than at any time in the last 40-plus years.

No, this isn't the Michigan football team anymore, at least not in any way that I recognize the term.

While there's nothing to back up making foolish predictions of endless losing seasons, I think it's exactly the right time to peek at the available evidence and seriously wonder whether the new coaching staff is a second-rate replacement for what came before it.

Start with defense, which everyone (including me) thought was going to be one of the very best in the conference, if not the nation. Since fur trappers began navigating the Great Lakes, the Michigan Wolverines have been about defense. Last year's group was ranked 24th in the nation for total defense, a very typical Michigan ranking.

The new coaching staff inherited a healthy seven starters from that group and generations of tradition, yet now they're 79th for total defense. If that doesn't improve, it will be their worst finish for that stat since at least 1999 (maybe longer—the NCAA website doesn't go back any further.)

And it's not getting any better. During the opening game, Utah put up 341 yards of offense on the Wolverines. This is the third-worst offensive performance to date by the still unbeaten Utes. Likewise, Notre Dame's 260 yards of total offense two weeks later against Michigan was the very worst offensive outing of the season for the Irish.

For the early games, the Michigan defense wasn't great, but it was pretty good, and you had reason to think it would get better.

But fast forward to Michigan State last week: The 473 yards that Ringer and Co. hung on Michigan was their second-best outing of the year, eclipsed only by the 497 yards that the Spartans rammed down the throats of Indiana's defense several weeks earlier.

Only the defenses of Coastal Carolina, Temple, and Syracuse gave up more yards to Penn State than the Wolverines did.

This growing and very uncharacteristic problem for Michigan on defense obviously has little to do with Rich Rodriguez trying to install a new offense. Teams are getting better at moving the ball on Michigan as the season gets older.

On offense, it's just the opposite.

For game number one, the Utah defense allowed the Wolverines just 203 yards, the Utah defense's third-best such performance to date (they are currently ranked sixth for total defense.)

The ongoing problems with the Wolverine offense since then are too numerous to recite, but even here it is stunning to note that their SECOND-worst yardage total of the season came in their most RECENT game against Michigan State.

Just as revealing, the 252 yards gained by the Wolverines last Saturday was the second-lowest total allowed by the Spartans on the season. Only Florida Atlantic, a pass-heavy offense playing very cautiously in a monsoon, gained fewer yards against the Spartan defense.

Even after this, the Spartans are still ranked just 56th for total defense.

Gaining 203 against a good Utah and then just 252 against a medium-good MSU seven weeks later—that is not much progress at all. It is even realistic to call it regression.

Michigan is 111th in total offense. Their punter has kicked the ball more distance than the Michigan offense has moved it.

After the Toledo game, Michigan AD Bill Martin compared this disaster to Nick Saban losing to Louisiana-Monroe last season, as if Michigan would also rise from the ashes to No. 2 next year.

The small difference is that at one time last year, Alabama was a 6-2 football team that had been as high as No. 16 in the polls. They were still 6-4 when the upset to La.-Monroe happened and eventually finished 7-6 after going to and winning a bowl game over Colorado.

So, yeah, Toledo would have been exactly like La.-Monroe if Michigan were a mediocre team going through tough adjustments, rather than an awful team digging itself into deeper holes.

Most (but not all) of Rich Rodriguez's strongest résumé bullet points come from the three consecutive 11-win seasons put up in his final years at West Virginia. Without that, he doesn't get the Michigan job.

When he arrived at West Virginia in 2001, winning the Big East conference title required beating teams like Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College. By the time he actually started winning Big East titles, those heavyweights were gone to the ACC, and in their place names like "Rutgers" and "South Florida" began creeping to the top of the conference standings.

With all of the Wolverines' troubles, one can't help but wonder how much better Rodriguez's first season would have gone if Penn State, Ohio State, and Illinois had all left the conference upon his arrival.

Michigan State @ Michigan Recap

Ken Braun — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 05:52:18 -0400

The heart says this is a big win. The head says otherwise. They're both right.

Emotionally, this was the biggest win of the year. But for what it says about where Michigan State ranks as a Big Ten team and a college football power, it's about as important as beating Indiana. Maybe lower.

A 35-21 etching in the record book doesn't tell the whole story.

A normally very reliable Spartan placekicking unit missed three field goals, and an officiating crew with good eyes on the field watching the game in real time was overruled by some blind bats in the replay booth who can't read a rule book. '

Generously giving Michigan a field goal in place of the Brandon Minor "touchdown" and giving Michigan State just one of the three botched field goals, the final score goes to something like 38-17.

And that's before we get to the fumble that set up the phantom touchdown, a pile of offside penalties by the Spartan defense and other little bits of slop that should have been avoided and have been in other games.

The Spartans were their own worst enemy for much of this game, and that was compounded by football gods also working against them. All the fates were cutting Michigan's way on their home field and yet they still lost by two touchdowns.

A good team overcomes these things on such days. That used to be Michigan. It's now Michigan State.

For a variety of psychological reasons, MSU needed to win this game to finally bury the "Same Old Spartans" naysayers. It wasn't their last chance to do it, but this was their very first chance under Mark Dantonio to show that they could bounce back from getting their butts kicked and still win an important game on the road.

Mission accomplished. "Same Old Spartans" no more.

Now, take off the winged helmets and the broken-down, over-sized high school stadium full of weepy, spoiled fans reminding us of national championships won before their birth. What does the head say about this win?

What kind of team did Michigan State just beat?

Shocking as it is to write this, the win over Michigan shows again that the Spartans have become good enough to reliably walk over the also-rans of the Big Ten. No more. As I said earlier: It's like beating Indiana.

Given what we now know about Iowa, that win was more impressive. The same can be said for the decisive road win over Nortwestern and the home victory against Notre Dame. All three are better teams than what Michigan has devolved into.

Likewise, reversing the loss to Cal on the road and (obviously) beating Ohio State at home would both have been much bigger victories. Clearly, so would a stunning and improbable upset at Penn State to end the season.

Hail, hail... Looked at this way, the Spartans just beat the seventh most challenging team on their twelve game schedule.

The heart can't help but enjoy this. The head is just relieved that it's over and can't wait for Wisconsin.

A Rivalry in Ruins: Spartans Vs. Wolverines

Ken Braun — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 16:31:44 -0400

Dear Wolverines:

Wanting to beat the crap out of you every year used to be fun. Now that it's expected of us, I am left with nothing but angst. By turning your team into so much crap, so fast, you've ruined everything.

I hate you.

This year's retooling Michigan team was supposed to have a strong, experienced defense to go with a green but improving new offense. I let myself imagine them playing the role of perfect foil for a nicely improving Michigan State.

I had assumed that the winner of this game could emerge with the respect of being legitimately "good," perhaps one of the top four teams in the conference, while the loser would be left to slink away modestly and try to earn respect and a bowl bid in other ways.

In this scenario, losing to you this season would still be rough, but not totally unexpected (been there, done that, Big Sister). A win, on the other hand, would tell the Spartans that they'd taken an important step forward.

Instead, your self-inflicted descent into chaos will leave the Spartans with no credit for beating you—even in your own damn stadium—and only limitless grief for losing.

And that's why I hate you

I could accept it if you had slowly devolved into mediocre futility, like Notre Dame did.

Once upon a time, I sincerely enjoyed the week before Notre Dame, giddy at the prospect of winning and able to adapt and move forward after a loss. Back in the late 1990s, Notre Dame was the kind of game that allowed Nick Saban's Spartans to measure their upward progress.

Slowly, as we started regularly beating the snot out of the little leprechauns (9-3 over the last 12 tries), and it became clear that a lot of others were doing it as well, I got used to the idea of just being anxious about the humiliation of losing to them and began to nervously expect wins.

As far as my pre-game level of anticipation or concern, they have evolved to become something akin to a good MAC team: A loss to them is a solid indication that Michigan State is not going bowling.

But nothing of this gentle adjustment period has happened with Michigan. After beating the Spartans the last six games and not losing to them at home since 1990, you chose to fall into total futility before we ever got a sufficient chance to rub your noses in it and experience the joy of beating a rival for its own sake.

Now, instead of a Christmas-morning type of anticipation over this game, I am filled with only the angst that goes with awaiting somebody to emerge healthy again from routine surgery.

Without us getting the chance to fire a shot in your demise, you have become the "trap game" rather than the "big game." You're now just something to worry about the week before we play Wisconsin.

What remains? Even when playing against you and expecting to win, all I have to offer is schadenfreude.

Here goes:

Michigan State beating you this Saturday will guarantee the worst regular season for Michigan in more than 40 years and leave you with no remaining postseason options outside of the Motor City Bowl (and George Perles can't wait!).

You have spoiled our rivalry and disrespected the game of college football with your putrid performance this season. If the Spartans are up by double digits late in the fourth quarter, and then score another touchdown, I'll be the guy screaming, "go for two!"

Spartans vs. Ohio State Recap

Ken Braun — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:58:33 -0400

"If you have nothing nice to say, then don't say anything at all."

"A picture is worth a thousand words."

A clever neologism should be minted from the merger of that pair of bromides and it would capture perfectly Ohio State's 45-7 dismantling of Michigan State. I don't speak Russian, and the English language is an insufficiently depressing tool to explain this game from the Michigan State perspective. What's left is rather the opposite of writer's block: Much to say, yet no way to say it.

Conversely, the nice words about Ohio State flow easily and the pictures don't begin to do justice to it all.

I'm writing this on Monday night. If on that first fake hand-off by the Buckeyes, Terrelle Pryor had run out of bounds and hid instead of headed to the end zone, then I'm reasonably certain that the entire Michigan State team and the ABC broadcast crew would still be quizzing Beanie Wells about what he did with the football.

It was exquisite. When Pryor was already ten yards downfield, half of the home crowd was still cheering a big "stop for no gain" by the defense, not yet noticing the deception nor that Pryor had the ball.

And on it went.

Pryor running. Wells running.

Pryor stiff-arming defenders. Wells stiff-arming defenders.

Pryor throwing calmly from behind protection. And Pryor throwing on the run... off his back foot... for a touchdown.

Jim Tressel took a calculated risk when he inserted the freshman as his starter over the Big Ten's best rated QB from last season. The gamble was that he could get the youngster's game smarts to match his boundless talent without costing Ohio State a football game (or more) during the transition. It was touch and go for a couple of weeks, but against Michigan State the crisis period ended abruptly. Ohio State now has two superstars in its backfield.

In the fourth quarter, the Buckeye faithful sitting behind me started laughing and yelling: "he's only a freshman—it only gets worse from here!"

True enough.

And, of course, it was a needless effort: The Ohio State defense scored 14 points all by itself and held the Spartans to seven. Put in the second-string Ohio State offense, tell it to just take care of the football, and the Buckeyes might still have won and easily covered the three-point spread.

Against such a machine, Michigan State needed a lot of extra turnovers to compete. Instead, the Spartans gave up five and got zero.

The really scary part about this is that Michigan State played the Buckeyes MUCH closer last year in Columbus. And that was a less-talented Spartan group playing an Ohio State team that went to the national championship game.

So what does that say about the group of Buckeyes on the field today?

This is not the same OSU that lost to USC in September. It will be very interesting if those two tangle again in a Rose Bowl (or something more?)

Rather than the more poised group that beat Northwestern the prior week, Michigan State sent the sometimes clumsy group that eked out a win against Iowa. And Ohio State sent one of the best teams in the nation ready to play its best game yet this year.

That's a picture worth a thousand ugly words if you're a Spartan.

Spartan Seasons 2008: Dantonio's Moment of Silence

Ken Braun — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 02:46:39 -0400

Before dissecting the solid performance against Northwestern and launching into my weekly look forward to the many big games ahead, I need to stop and note that recent events cry out for a change of longstanding Michigan State tradition.

The anticipated disemboweling of the Wolverines at the hands of Penn State begins at 4:30 this Saturday. As the Ohio State visit to East Lansing kicks off an hour earlier, it is possible that the halftime announcements at Spartan Stadium will include a lopsided update from Happy Valley that causes the assembled Buckeyes and Spartans to put aside their differences for a few moments of common merriment.

While the cultural norm in these instances has for decades been laughter, cheers, and high fives, the world has changed. With potentially MANY future opportunities of this sort, the situation now calls for more dignity. More respect.

Last year, following the Appalachian State upset, Coach Dantonio pointed the way. The new standard for Michigan mockery should be a moment of silence.

From here on, every time it is announced that the Wolverines are behind, I propose that the crowd should make their statement with exaggerated index finger to lips, telling one another to hush up and properly honor the ineptitude.

A stadium full of Ohio State and Michigan State fans this Saturday is the perfect opportunity to start it all off.

With that aside, I turn briefly to the Northwestern game.

Unlike previous games, I am devoid of serious nitpicking here. This was a solid performance against a decent team. The continued improvement of the backups in the defensive secondary has been terrific. The receivers held on to the ball, Hoyer played well, Ringer did his thing, etc.

A desire to explain my theory about the Munchausen Wolverines precluded a timely and elaborate post-game analysis. But also, there just wasn’t much to say. They did EXACTLY what I thought they should on the road against Northwestern.

I expected a shootout to the final gun and instead got a calm and quietly commanding performance by Michigan State. They showed themselves as ready for Ohio State as anyone had any reason to expect.

I have been thinking 7-5 or 8-4 as the final regular season mark since the beginning of this weekly look. So far, I’ve not been surprised by the winner of each game. This week, there’s the chance to change everything.

Ohio State: 45 percent chance of W (originally 30 percent)

Last week, I said a 40 percent chance of Michigan State winning. As noted above, I started the season thinking 30 percent. Instead, Penn State has become the team that I thought Ohio State would be. Make no mistake, the Buckeyes are still very good, and I expect the Spartans to lose.

But the earth is shifting under the Big Ten.

If they improve as much between Northwestern and this game as they did between Iowa and Northwestern, then Michigan State can certainly win this game. If Ohio State plays as mediocre as they did against Purdue, USC, and Ohio, then they can just as certainly lose.

Terrelle Pryor is very good, but very raw. That will probably cost his team a game yet this year, and I think it’s possible that Michigan State’s defense can force him to make mistakes.

This is a no-lose situation for the Spartans. Few expect them to win, but the situation sets up that they could. Doing so would alter everybody’s assumptions about how far this program has come. An otherwise pleasant season would take a turn toward the truly special.

This is a huge test.

@ Michigan: 55 percent chance of W (originally toss-up)

What’s left to be said here?

This has gone from “rivalry game” to “trap game.”

The only reason this doesn’t go to 70 percent or higher is because I’m worried that a pumped-up Spartan team will be looking past the Wolverines and toward the bigger games left on their schedule.

If there were a “Western” or a “Central” in front of the word “Michigan,” then I’d call this a toss-up.

Wisconsin: 55 percent chance of W (originally 45 percent)

I’ve been creeping this prediction up all year. Wisconsin is another team that has not lived up to expectations. A lot still depends upon whether I’m correct about the two preceding games, but I’m stunned to say that I now believe Michigan State could be the third-best team in the conference and is probably just slightly better than Wisconsin.

Purdue: 70 percent chance of W (originally 65 percent)

In the first installment of this weekly prediction, I pronounced my disdain for the quality of Purdue and their supposed Heisman-worthy QB, Curtis Painter. Nothing has changed, except the occasional benching of Sir Heisman so his backup can provide “spark.”

Michigan State soundly beat a better Purdue in West Lafayette last year. The Spartans are better, Purdue is worse, and this is the final home game for Hoyer, Ringer, and a host of other great guys who are so far providing one of my favorite all-time MSU seasons.

They’ve never had a serious letdown while being coached by Dantonio, and I don’t expect one here.

@ Penn State: 30 percent chance of W (originally same)

I just noticed today that Michigan State gets a bye week before this game. That provides a faint ray of hope through the dark gloom that I expect this game to be.

The Munchausen Wolverines: Michigan's Battle to Beat an Invented Illness

Ken Braun — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 04:47:34 -0400

Toledo 13
Michigan 10

In many corners of Michigan fandom, the radical decision to jettison four decades of a winning leadership formula and hire Rich Rodriguez was hailed as essential medicine.

The current struggles are still being defended as necessary to purge the football body of malignancies and bring about a glorious future.

There’s even a cheeky and very popular blog dedicated to the “revolution” called the Wolverine Liberation Army. True believers in the wisdom of the move, the WLA even doubled down on their bet that a clean break with the past was essential, regardless of how ugly it got, saying after the Notre Dame disaster that the program had been “hanging on to the past too long” and was in need of “re-building and cutting ties with an underachieving past.”

According to the psychiatrists (or at least those who pretend to be psychiatrists on Wikipedia), Munchausen Syndrome occurs when a subject “exaggerates or creates symptoms of illnesses in themselves in order to gain investigation, treatment, attention, sympathy, and comfort from medical personnel.”

More to the point of this discussion, some of these pathetic souls are so good at this that they “are able to produce symptoms that result in multiple unnecessary operations.”

This is what has become of the Michigan Wolverines. The program has subjected itself to radical chemotherapy, despite not having cancer.

24 months ago, Michigan was in the middle of an 11-game win streak to open the season. Then they played Ohio State, in a battle of No. 1 vs. No. 2, and missed a perfect regular season by a field goal—on the road.

Last year, they won nine games.

For the previous decade, they’ve won or shared the Big-10 title four times in a conference with 10 other teams chasing the same goal, been to four BCS games and nine New Year’s Day games. And just the year before the previous decade started, they shared a national championship with Nebraska.

This is the underachieving past?

Here’s a partial list of the teams that haven’t been to nine New Year's Day (or later) bowls over the last 10 seasons: Southern Cal, Ohio State, Louisiana State, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Florida State, and Miami.

Again, this is a partial list. I think there's about 110 more.

In college football, the real stars of the game don’t make tackles, catch passes, or throw touchdown bombs. They stand on the sideline with a headset and a clipboard, and they spend a bazillion hours a year flying all over the country constantly searching for the ideas and players necessary to get to the top and stay there. And they have help. Lots of help.

Michigan football hasn’t been to all of those fancy bowl games recently because of the winged helmets, or the tradition, or the perpetually disgruntled fans. It got there because they had a coaching staff that knew how to create a consistent winner that played at a high level nearly every season and that knew how to pour that culture into everybody who worked with them.

This is what got cast aside when Lloyd Carr retired and the University of Michigan decided it was time to cut ties with its “underachieving past” and not only go outside of their homegrown talent pool, but to grab a coach whose coaching philosophy cut against all of their tradition and the experience of the players on their team.

When experienced players started following the coaches out the door, many defenders of the revolution all but declared them lazy blobs or heretics that the softness of Carr and Co. had inflicted on the program. Good riddance to them!

What sort of hypochondria is necessary to look at that situation as it was and determine that it was best to purge not just the generals, but their system and the players who were loyal to it?

Who was winning all of those games in those past seasons? The water boy?

Through these self-inflicted dark times, the modified goal is that happy days will return when Rich Rodriguez gets his kind of players on the team. And that’s probably right. He’s a proven coaching talent, and once he’s had time to build his kind of system the results should happen on the field. A new winning culture may finally grow upon the salted earth of the old one.

Probably.

But here’s the deal: There’s no reason to expect the new guys to be better than the group they replaced. Less than a dozen coaches have won or shared a national title since Lloyd Carr last did it. There’s about that many or more every season with a decent shot at it.

Rich Rodriguez will certainly be cheered if and when he gets Michigan back to regularly competing for conference titles and in the national title conversation again.

But that’s where they were when he found them.

Having the patient celebrate after a full recovery from a needless operation is an odd and risky way to practice medicine.

Spartan Seasons 2008: Practice Closed for Week Seven

Ken Braun — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:36:59 -0400

Last Saturday, Michigan State’s offense convincingly demonstrated beyond all doubt that when playing at home against Iowa, they can hang on to win by a field goal. The nailbiter of a win sends Iowa to 3-3 on the season and effectively destroys any possibility of the Hawkeyes playing for the national championship.

By Sunday, virtually every reputable college football poll in the nation was so amazed by this performance that they elevated the Spartans to top-25 status.

This week, in advance of a game against Northwestern, Mark Dantonio shut the media out of Michigan State practices, a tactic he normally only deploys before the most intense games on the schedule, such as Notre Dame, Michigan and Ohio State.

The media speculation for this move ranges from the coach’s desire to hide some super-secret plans to keeping clues about certain injuries out of the newspapers.

All well and good reasons, but they apply to nearly every game at this stage. For example, why not close practice last week before playing Iowa’s rather physical defense? Maybe absent the prying eyes of reporters, some of the MSU receivers might have made peace with their rebellious hands.

My own theory is that after the football writers called his guys the No. 23 best team in the nation, Dantonio would rather not have them around to remind his players of that deed. That would get in the way of them remembering that a very mediocre Northwestern team beat them in Spartan Stadium last year. And that the Wildcats were missing their star running back that day and still hung over 600 yards of offense on MSU.

And that the star running back, Tyrell Sutton, is feeling just fine now and playing for a decidedly better than mediocre and unbeaten Northwestern team. And that this is an always dangerous Big Ten road game.

That’s a more likely reason for the blackout. It’s fully in keeping with Dantonio's no-B.S. style, and just one more rock to add to the mountain of growing evidence that this guy is one damn terrific person to have steering this ship.

And where is this ship headed?

My weekly look at where I think they’re going is as follows. So far, I’ve called every single game perfectly (including the loss at Cal):

@Northwestern -- 60% chance of W (originally 60%)

Last week, I had this up to 65 percent, on the basis of not respecting the opposition that Northwestern was racking up wins against. However, because of Northwestern taking a bye week, both of the teams going into this game have Iowa as their most recent common opponent. Northwestern went down to Iowa two weeks ago and beat the Hawkeyes 22-17, while the Spartans eked out a 16-13 victory playing in East Lansing.

This does not inspire great confidence in Sparty’s prospects. I would have closed practice as well.

The game will unfortunately be very exciting. I still think MSU will win because they are the better team overall and have revenge to motivate them, but Northwestern is better than I originally thought.

How well can the defense contain the Wildcats’ explosive offense? Have they learned anything since chasing Indiana’s spread offense all over the field?

The answer to those questions will go a long way toward determining my guesses on the rest of this list.

Ohio State -- 40% chance of W (originally 30%)

The return of Beanie Wells, the take down of Wisconsin while playing on the road, and the rise of Terrelle Pryor all argue for putting this game back to a more modest 30 percent chance of victory for Michigan State.

But Pryor is still a true freshman, and I see him mix youngster mistakes along with his fantastic talent. He isn’t Vince Young quite yet, and even Vince Young wasn’t Vince Young at this stage of his life. In between racking up some fine highlight reel material, I think this guy has a strong chance of costing his team one game that they otherwise wouldn’t normally lose. Can that be Michigan State?

This remains one of the most likely defeats remaining on the Spartans’ schedule. But getting the Buckeyes at home, and given an MSU defense that has shown some big moments this year, they have a fighting chance.

@Michigan -- toss up (originally toss-up)

The renovations to Michigan Stadium are being done so that the Wolverines can take advantage of the state government’s recently enacted film tax credits.

At first, we thought this studio only did comedy, after the laugh-out-loud funny productions of Utah and Notre Dame. But then they changed up and gave us the compelling thriller, Wisconsin, and then went back to the belly laughs with Illinois.

So versatile! Hollywood has nothing on these guys.

I refuse to guess which script Michigan State will see.

Wisconsin -- toss-up (originally 45%)

It’s at home and I’m really starting to like how the Spartan offense lines up with Wisconsin’s defense. Wisconsin’s probably the better team, but not by as much as I originally thought.

Purdue -- 70% chance of W (originally 65%)

Even the comedy version of Michigan might be able to beat these guys with a stunning fourth quarter rally.

Michigan State will face them in Javon Ringer’s final game at Spartan Stadium. I think he'll be ready.

@Penn State -- 30% chance of W (originally same)

I am not looking forward to being the only thing standing in the way of Penn State getting an unbeaten season. I am somewhat seriously thinking of making contingency plans for the second half of this game so that I have a plausible reason for averting my eyes from the carnage.

Halloween, the College Football Holiday

Ken Braun — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:50:41 -0400

Making full and appropriate use of holidays is just one of college football’s many virtues.

The ADD-inducing New Year’s Day marathon requires no elaboration.

Thanksgiving is also brilliant. Just as Turkey Day itself is strictly reserved for a nation that needs to get its fix of laughing at the Detroit Lions, the Friday that follows is a special college football holiday of its own, meant for the bitter Big XII feuds of Texas-Texas A&M and Nebraska-Colorado.

What? You go shopping on that day?

Puhleeze! There’s more than one way to spell a word that is pronounced the same as “maul,” but the meaning is identical in both cases.

Likewise, there is Halloween, which lands almost perfectly at the midpoint between Labor Day and the BCS title game. Many programs, like the lame party guest that doesn’t put much imagination into his disguise, traditionally celebrate by shedding clumsy costumes that poorly reveal their true nature (See also: Michigan State, among others.)

Yet the best tricks and treats are the teams that put on artful disguises that will carry them all the way into the New Year before being removed. Sometimes this is a good treat, and sometimes not (we’re looking at YOU, Buckeyes.)

A pleasant surprise for most of us was the "untested Boise State" look, on full display ten days before Halloween, 2006, when the Broncos were just a failed two point conversion away from a 28-28 fourth quarter tie on the road against Idaho, a weak WAC rival. What a great costume! Bob Stoops was so surprised when they decided to take it off just before playing in the Fiesta Bowl.

And so, as we head toward the sorcery weeks of this college football season, I am already seeing some evidence of things that are not as they appear, or are at least not as they should be.

Michigan State cracking the top-25

This is just idiotic. I’m a huge fan and very optimistic about the direction of the team, but the No. 19 and No. 23 badges hung on them by the USA Today and Associated Press polls this week are so absurdly premature that it disgusts me.

They lost a close one to Cal, the only demonstrably good team that they’ve played thus far. And yet the Bears are ranked below the Spartans in the USA Today poll and not at all by the AP (which put Cal two spots below Tulsa on the list of teams also getting votes.)

Michigan Fans Booing

The generally well-heeled crowds at Michigan Stadium have taken to regularly booing the unemployed teenage boys that are doing an insufficient job of making them happy on Saturdays.

This season, Michigan football is hardly unusual in this regard. The majority of teams will get booing fans when they lose regularly. That doesn’t make it right: Booing college players is a cheap and awful thing to do to the team that you’ve decided to show up and “support,” no matter how bad the record is.

What makes Michigan fans special is that they used to boo players and coaches even when the team was winning the vast majority of its games. There were many published and anecdotal examples. The most famous of which was the case of former Michigan QB John Navarre, who was maligned so badly that one year even the crowd showing up for the spring practice game booed him.

His reputation with the fans did not improve with time.

Navarre, it should be noted, was so awful that he took Michigan to three straight New Year’s Day bowl games. He also beat Ohio State, the last Michigan QB to do it, and he's No. 2 on Michigan's list for career passing yards.

This booing wasn’t isolated to Navarre or his years with the team. Lloyd Carr was a familiar target, as were other players.

Having become so dyspeptic that anything short of absolute perfection was viewed as a failure worthy of ostracism, Michigan fans have finally gotten a season worthy of the costume that they’ve been trying on for years.

Happy Halloween, Big Brother!

Michigan's Defense

Everybody, including me, thought the Michigan defense was going to be the savior of a team that would have heavy growing pains on the other side of the ball. Whoa, has that mask been ripped off!

They now rank No. 59 nationally for total defense, behind most of the other Big Ten teams. With the meat of the conference schedule still in front of them, it’s hard to imagine that improving significantly.

Last year’s costume is still looking pretty good. Michigan's defensive coordinator last season, Ron English, wasn’t given the head coaching job and wasn’t retained by Rich Rodriguez. So, he took a job trying to help Louisville, the French Army of Big East defenses last year.

Result?

Louisville is No. 9 nationally for total defense as of this week, allowing just 252 yards per game. This is very much improved from the group that gave up 400 yards per game in Big East play last year.

Boise State’s BCS prospects

Now sitting at No.15 in the AP poll, Boise State is only the third-highest rated BCS buster candidate right now. Why is this when the Broncos are undefeated and have the best win so far of all the ranked mid-major contenders?

Boise State went on the road and beat Oregon, which was ranked at the time and is still a 4-2 football team.

Utah is ranked one spot higher, at No. 14, and none of its wins compares to beating Oregon. The Utes' best work was done in defeating Oregon State and Michigan, neither of which was ranked at the time and both of which now have losing records.

At No. 9, BYU’s “big wins” are even less impressive, narrowly defeating hapless Washington and blowing out what is now a sub-.500 UCLA.

Boise State has lost just ten games over the last six seasons, better than both BYU and Utah, and also has a bigger win on a bigger stage. The program has more than earned the benefit of doubt when it comes to polls, particularly after the Fiesta Bowl win over Oklahoma, which dwarfed Utah’s 2004 defeat of a mediocre Pitt in that same game.

Regardless of what happens to BYU and Utah, an unbeaten Boise State would deserve and should get a return trip to a BCS game. If that means letting two mid-majors in the BCS gate, so be it.

Michigan State-Iowa: Spartans' 16-13 Win Could Have Been Easier

Ken Braun — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 15:36:46 -0400

This game is what Stringer Bell would call a “40-degree day.”

Stringer is the very shrewd businessman-gangster from the HBO series The Wire. In one defining scene, he is dressing down his hapless musclemen after they boast of a job well done, despite taking out just one of the two targets he has sent them after and getting one of their own killed in the process.

Attempting to convey his displeasure with their mediocrity, he uses a weather analogy. He says that people complain of the cold when it’s 30 degrees outside, start feeling better when it’s 50, and get downright giddy at anything above 60. But of 40 degrees, Stringer thunders that nobody ever remembers 40 and “nobody gives a F-- about FORTY!”

The entire delightful, profane and intelligent scene has been YouTubed right here. [Obviously, NSFW in many places due to language.] To watch it is to understand the appropriate response to the Michigan State offense’s performance against Iowa.

As with last week, the “Extra-Strength Excedrin Key to the Game” was the dropped balls by the Spartans’ best receivers. I counted at least four costly drops (two in the end zone on the same drive.) Third-receiver Blair White, a former walk-on if I recall correctly, and TE Charlie Gantt seemed again to be the surest hands on the field.

If this 40-degree crap doesn’t stop, then it will lose a game that we should otherwise win. Maybe even the next one against Northwestern.

Michigan State hung three field goals on Iowa, but at least one (and probably two) of those should have been touchdowns. Change just one of those, and the Spartans have a reasonable cushion at halftime and remain firmly in control until the final gun.

As it was, they never surrendered the lead once they got it, but an inferior-looking opponent was allowed to stay in the game until almost the very end because the Spartan receivers couldn’t get out of their own way.

While the defense gave up 157 yards to Shonn Greene on 30 carries, I’m willing to concede this as an anomaly caused by the inordinate amount of time Greene was left on the field and still allowed to be a factor in the game.

The defense gave the Spartan offense three turnovers to Iowa’s one. Yet the time of possession was almost even. Good and timely turnovers were squandered.

If the upshot of those turnovers is something more than the 16 points that the “all-thumbs team” on the Spartan offense produced, then the Hawkeyes have the ball a lot less, are down by a lot more, and thus have less opportunity to use Greene and less inclination to do so because they need to pass more.

Forcing three turnovers on the Iowa offense and allowing it to score just one touchdown is what Stringer would call a sunny and 70-degree day by the Spartan defense. Considering some of their lapses last week, this was a great development to see.

Also, in all this kvetching about the blizzard of field goals being inflicted by a too-often clumsy passing attack, I have been remiss in not properly praising the “always money” field goal kicking of Brett Swenson and also the solid and reliable kickoff work by Todd Boleski.

Spartan fans should recall the placekicking horrors of the 2005 season and give thanks. There is NO WAY they win today with the kicking game from that season. Good kicking could be the difference between Michigan State’s actual 5-1 start and what could have been 3-3.

Javon Ringer got “just” 91 yards, breaking the streak of 100-yard games. It was bound to happen. Iowa clearly wanted to shut him down and did a decent job, though often at the cost of giving up nice passing opportunities.

Again, if half the balls that got dropped didn’t get dropped, then there is a safer lead much sooner, more reason to play field-position football, to burn clock, and to give Ringer more chances to hit home runs.

Again, like the defense giving up yards to Greene, I wouldn’t necessarily assume anything negative about the Spartan rushing game as a result of this. The pass blocking was terrific for nearly the whole game, allowing just one sack and giving Hoyer lots of time to put balls where his receivers could get them.

He threw only one pick, tossed the team’s only touchdown and completed well over half of his passes despite the drops. Iowa was willing to gamble that the Spartan passing game couldn’t beat them, and if Hoyer’s balls were being caught, then he would have made them pay dearly for that bet.

Another positive was the scant number of penalties. Except for the Cal game, this has been a clean season in that regard.

I dwell on the dropped passes because it isn’t a new problem. The guilty parties are capable of cleaning up their act, and the problem seems to be getting worse. But overall, now that I’ve got this rant out of my system, it surprises me how well most other things are developing.

This week, I suspect they will crack the top-25, but they shouldn’t. This hasn’t been a season of 40-degree days, but it hasn’t yet been much more than 50, either.

Michigan State Spartan Seasons 2008: VI

Ken Braun — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 10:52:59 -0400

"No battle plan survives contact with the enemy."

Those wise words (supposedly spoken by Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder) were my own unspoken battle plan when I began this weekly look at my evolving expectations for the Michigan State football season.

The idea was that I'd project every game out for the entire season, assigning a percentage chance of victory for the Spartans against each opponent, and then update those projections after each week.

Because no season ever plays out completely as expected, I anticipated this would be a neat way to chronicle how my thinking was changing each week as new information poured in about MSU and its future opponents.

In other words, this was supposed to work because I was supposed to be frequently wrong.

I started out thinking seven or eight wins, with losses to Cal, Ohio State, Penn State, and Wisconsin, but that was all supposed to deviate wildly as the year went along. This is college football. The unexpected is everywhere. That's why it's fun.

Alas, von Moltke's dictum is also a paradox: A battle plan that relies on failure is doomed to succeed! Just about every major expectation that I've had for the Spartans and their opponents have thus far been spot-on. Starting with the accurate prediction of a 4-1 start after a narrow loss at Cal, nothing to date has significantly moved my thinking.

Does chaos theory come back to the Spartan universe after I brag about being an accidental prophet, or does just saying that constitute a plan to get all fouled up? (Surely, if I'd planned to win actual money on this prognostication, then a blowout win against Cal would have been followed by four straight crushing defeats.)

Anyway, at some point soon I expect to be told to return to my seat and fasten my belt. But here's how I see the future.

Iowa: 70 percent chance of W (originally 60 percent)

This win expectation is five points higher than last week. Iowa gets downgraded after losing to a very mediocre Pitt and then letting Northwestern come back and beat them. I am starting to think this could be one of the Big Ten's worst teams.

This game should be a very controlled win for Michigan State, along the lines of the last three. Not necessarily a blowout, but hardly a nailbiter either.

@ Northwestern: 65 percent chance of W (originally 60 percent)

I called them a very weak 4-0 team last week and said this was a 75 percent chance of win. The Wildcats' win over Iowa and Michigan State's troubles with Indiana's running QB led me to think better of the opponent in this game. However, putting up a zillion yards against Michigan State last season, Northwestern still barely won the game.

I don't expect a repeat performance as the Spartans should finally have both of their starting safeties on the field and healthy.

Ohio State: 40 percent chance of W (originally 30 percent)

The Beanie Wells injury moved this one up from the dismal 30 percent projection to something slightly more hopeful. Now Beanie's back and MSU probably will have fits with Pryor running all over the place. I should probably move it back to 30 percent, but I smell an upset brewing in Wisconsin this weekend.

@ Michigan: toss-up (originally toss-up)

I keep moving this one all over the place. I had it up to 60 percent win last week, and now back to a toss-up.

The most unpredictable and dangerous team in the Big Ten is the Michigan Wolverines. They could yet lose five games and then beat Ohio State to end the season and go bowling.

So much depends upon how soon, how much, and IF their offense gets its act together. Michigan is always one hit away from disaster at QB (or the offensive line) and one huge play away from their defense stealing a win that shouldn't otherwise happen.

Michigan State SHOULD win this game. But it's in Ann Arbor, and (much like 2005 and last year) the Spartans are probably going to run into the Wolverines when Michigan desperately needs a win (which is pretty much EVERY week this season.)

Wisconsin: toss-up (originally 45 percent)

The home field puts MSU in this game. The meltdown against Michigan tells me they're not quite the team that I thought they were—particularly on offense. I am really starting to like how Michigan State matches up in this game.

Wisconsin is a flawed but good football team that will still finish the year with a nice ranking. I think they will beat Ohio State while at home this weekend but will also continue to play somewhat like mortals while on the road. This could be the Spartans' biggest win of the season (even assuming that they can beat Michigan.)

Purdue: 70 percent chance of W (originally 65 percent)

If Notre Dame moved the ball on Purdue's defense, then anybody can. Michigan State did a fine job of containing Purdue's passing game while playing at Purdue last year, and this season Purdue doesn't have the same veteran crew of receivers.

I originally thought these guys might be the surprise cellar dwellers in the conference. I backed away from that, but now I'm returning to it.

@ Penn State: 30 percent chance of W (originally same)

I'm beginning to think that this game is what stands between Penn State having a perfect regular season and playing for the crystal trophy. I've never liked MSU's chances playing here, and it just looks worse and worse every week. This is the only game on the schedule where I cannot imagine any likely scenario that gets MSU the win.

This is probably the game where a Dantonio-coached Spartan team loses by more than a touchdown.

The Lake Woebegone Conference: What If Alabama Is Just Above Average?

Ken Braun — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 17:39:43 -0400

With the last two conference champions going on to win the national title, and projections of a legendary "speed" advantage that will continue to pay dividends to conference members for generations to come, the conventional wisdom has at least one SEC team playing for a crystal trophy in January.

But just as the nation's financial markets are working their way through turbulence caused by overvalued real estate, there are reasons to wonder whether the football properties in the SEC are experiencing a serious asset bubble of their own.

Not even halfway through the season, eight of the 12 SEC teams have already made an appearance in the Associated Press' top 25. Only Mississippi, Mississippi St., Arkansas, and Kentucky have yet to be ranked.

The pollsters' irrational exuberance has already led both Tennessee and South Carolina to default on their top 25 mortgages. The Vols (now 1-3) got dumped in week one by UCLA (now also 1-3.) South Carolina's brief appearance in the poll came to a crashing halt when it ran into the Pit Yorkies of Vanderbilt.

And that was just the first two weeks of the season. On the momentum of beating South Carolina, Vandy has inched its way up to No. 21 in the present poll. With their last winning season coming shortly after President Reagan's first, the question of foreclosure on the Pit Yorkies is probably a matter of "when" rather than "if."

But no matter, the pollsters have more easy credit to lend. Kentucky is still unbeaten and knocking on the door. Ole Miss, at 3-2, has a fresh Gator hide hanging on the wall. In a conference where fortunes are made and lost in an eyeblink, they're both just one upset away from the spotlight.

If they pull it off, that would make them the ninth and 10th SEC teams to crack the top 25 this season.

Yet prices at the top of this market are soft. Last week, three of the top five teams were from the SEC. The two highest—No. 3 Georgia and No. 4 Florida—were severely exposed as something well short of championship-ready teams. No. 5 LSU even had some headaches in the first half against Mississippi State.

Defenders of SEC supremacy will doubtless suggest that this just proves how tough the conference really is. But Tennessee's collapse against UCLA isn't the only evidence of trouble in non-conference games.

Before beating No. 4 Florida, Ole Miss lost to Wake Forest, which lost to Navy.

Alabama, now the No. 2 team in the nation, allowed four sacks, put up just 172 yards and scored only a single offensive touchdown against Tulane during week two—a game 'Bama won 20-6. Alabama's defense, now considered world beaters, gave up 318 yards to the Tulane offense that day.

That's Alabama playing a Conference USA team that hasn't had a winning season since 2002 and who gave hapless Army one of its few wins last year.

Substitute No. 6 Penn State for No. 2 Alabama in the above paragraph, and just wait for the howls of "overrated" to bellow up from Dixie.

And what of Alabama?

Nick Saban is a terrific coach. It does not surprise me that he has Alabama looking again like a consistent winner after just two seasons. In his only other college coaching stops, he had the Michigan State and LSU ships sailing off in good directions after just a couple of seasons as well.

But ask yourself one question: Should it be happening this fast?

If Alabama really is already the second-best team in the nation and the best team in the SEC, then this shreds the argument for SEC superiority.

If one man—even one of the nation's very best coaches—can assume control of a dysfunctional (though storied) program and then smash the best that the conference has to offer after less than two years on the job, then the biggest part of this story is being missed.

The last two national champions are from the SEC. The coaches of Florida, LSU, Auburn, and South Carolina have all won national championships and/or had perfect seasons.

Saban took over a 6-7 team and has had just two recruiting classes, presumably not enough time to fill up his team with the southern talent that his conference rivals have been stockpiling for years.

And yet, here we are. Alabama has wiped the floor with Georgia, the "conventional wisdom" pick to win the conference title. Even plucky little Tulane did a better job of holding back the Tide.

So what gives?

I think the championship credit of the SEC is drying up, at least for this season. Alabama's on its way to being one of the best teams, but it isn't there yet. The shocking early success of the Crimson Tide shows that the conference is declining as much as it shows that 'Bama is on the rise.

If I'm right, then Georgia probably isn't as bad as it looked against 'Bama, the Ole Miss win over Florida may not be a fluke, Vandy probably has enough wins left in them to go bowling, and even South Carolina and Tennessee have "upsets" left to put on the board.

Florida State was 7-4 in 2005 when it upset Virginia Tech in the ACC title game and went to the Orange Bowl. Pitt won the Big East title with an 8-3 record the year before. Weird parity has infected nearly every BCS conference since then, causing the ascendance of Rutgers, Missouri, Wake Forest, Kansas, and Illinois to the top of the polls.

The SEC is overdue for such a crash, and the quick rise of Alabama may be the signal that the meltdown is upon us.

If so, then the rest of the season will be a "War of All Against All," where perhaps eight of the 12 conference teams stay in contention for the title nearly all season long, but at the cost of three or more losses on the balance sheets of all involved.

In the conference where every team is above average, the quest for a third straight BCS title appearance may be in ruins by early November.

Michigan State-Indiana Recap

Ken Braun — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 11:15:10 -0400

My black lab, Cheese, is the sweetest dog I've ever had. He came to us as a starving stray puppy at six months of age, and he appeared to have had a rough life before arriving at our door.

He must have been abused in other ways, because you could literally make him wet the floor back then just by speaking crossly to him.

Even though it is years later, and he's just shy of 100 pounds, loud and angry words, even if not directed at him, still make him scurry away to another room.

At several points during the first half of this game, Cheese was upstairs cowering behind the bed, getting as far from me as possible. (He really hates it when the Spartans play road games and I have to watch them at home.)

Even though we got the win I anticipated, this contest departed significantly from what I expected. That point of departure can be summed up with two statistics:

473 yards.

29 points.

There were really two Michigan State defenses on the field. One delivered the two interceptions, the safety, the drive-killing sack on third down in the second half and the big hit to cause the fumble.

The other one seemed to have only 9 of the 11 guys out there, and it gave up a half dozen (or more?) huge plays. This game reminded me a little of the Northwestern debacle at home last year, and that game was the only one all last season where a Dantonio team defense gave hints of the John L. Smith team defense that preceded it.

But not entirely. Even in a game where it spends some time going flat, this year's defense lit up and made big plays of its own. And it leaks early and gets stingy late, showing that the coaches can fix things at halftime (and that Cheese can eventually come back downstairs to get a drink of water.)

Still, today's defensive problems make me worry about the flashy offenses still on the schedule.

On special teams, poor Cheese's nerves were further frayed by yet another blocked punt producing points for the bad guys.

While mostly performing well and as expected, the Spartan offense had its troubles. The drive-killing drops of easy third-down passes in the first half by Mark Dell and Blair White continue an annoying trend from all the receivers.

If just one of those drives had continued and produced points, this game is probably under control by halftime, which is what I had expected going in.

Javon Ringer continues to be the personality of the offense. I kept laughing at the ESPN crew speaking as if Indiana had him bottled up because he hadn't yet busted a 60-yard run. Even though, the carries continued to pile up the yards: 80 yards, 90 yards, 135 yards, etc... Pretty soon, that starts to do some damage, ya' know?

The way you beat Ringer is to put his team in situations where they can't give him the ball anymore: Get a lead early or put the Spartans in long-yardage situations. See the Cal game for how this is done.

But if Michigan State has the luxury of giving him the ball 40 times, then he'll get his big yards, and the other offense is going to spend a lot of time on the sidelines. That's the point of smashmouth football. It's like the TV people have forgotten what it looks like.

Brian Hoyer's critics should be cooling off. Once again, zero interceptions and zero sacks, meaning he accomplished his primary goal of keeping Ringer as a legitimate threat on nearly every down. But to go with it, Hoyer completed 14-of-26 for 261 yards and two TDs. For extra measure, he even ran for another TD.

Final numbers: 261 passing and 236 on the ground. A very nice, balanced, power offense that made no big mistakes at all.

That makes Cheese very happy.

No Passing Panic: Michigan State Fine at QB

Ken Braun — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:27:47 -0400

Many message board posters have been dinging Spartan QB Brian Hoyer all season because the Michigan State passing game isn't what it used to be. I was ignoring this as just picky fan chatter until Wednesday, when Detroit News columnist Lynn Henning grabbed a pitchfork and joined the mob.

The otherwise reliably levelheaded Henning didn't just question Hoyer's performance—he called for him to be replaced.

"Kirk Cousins must get immediate work. He simply is a more talented passer. This conference race could go MSU's way in a hurry if the Spartans get as serious about developing a pass attack that will be as important to MSU's October-November games as Javon Ringer's rushing."

Enough!

Last season, in eight games of Big Ten play, guess who finished No. 2 in pass efficiency?

Brian Hoyer. He threw just four picks in those games and had a better than 63 percent completion rate with 11 TDs.

Yes, he had an uncharacteristically bad bowl game. That doesn't wipe out the terrific regular season, particularly the outstanding conference play, which is most at issue right now as the 2008 Big Ten season gets underway.

Need more evidence?

Best red zone offense during 2007 Big Ten games? Michigan State.

Best scoring offense? Same.

As astute observers may have noticed, 1,773 of Hoyer's 2,725 passing yards and nearly half of his 223 completions from 2007 departed for the NFL draft in the persons of TE Kellen Davis and WR Devin Thomas.

Fortunately, what may yet be the best running back in team history stuck around. Mark Dantonio has wisely decided to let his receivers mature a bit while he heavily relies on his experienced and talented running attack.

Javon Ringer is an awfully smart security blanket.

This isn't just me talking. In his postgame radio interview after Notre Dame, Hoyer specifically said that the game plan was for him to be careful with the ball, above all other considerations. This means ALWAYS putting passes where only the guys in green can get them. Thus, balls often get somewhat deliberately under- and overthrown.

The result? Just two interceptions through four games. One pick was against Cal, the toughest team on the schedule so far, when Hoyer was asked to throw 48 times (for 321 not-unimpressive yards, BTW). The other was a garbage pick in the sloppy monsoon against Florida Atlantic.

Likewise, he was told to get rid of the ball quickly and avoid sacks, even when that means throwing it out of bounds. This game plan does ugly things to a QB's stats. But keeping turnovers in check keeps Javon Ringer on the field, and not taking sacks means avoiding long-yardage situations and making more plays where Ringer can carry the ball.

The bottom line: A cautious passing game that keeps down and distance manageable means Ringer has more chances to carry the ball and hit home runs. That is smashmouth football. Ringer's running opportunities and what he has done with them speak for themselves.

The Hoyer of 2007 was no fluke. At the very end of the 2006 season, with a lame duck coach, a 4-7 record, and starter Drew Stanton out with a concussion, Hoyer was tossed in to start on the road against Penn State in the season's last game.

Penn State finished that year with the 14th-best pass efficiency defense in the nation, intercepting an average of one pass per game and holding its opponents to just 197 yards in the air. Overall, Penn State would go on to win the Alamo Bowl and grab the No. 24 AP final ranking.

It should go without saying that it's rough to play Penn State in their house, particularly if you are Michigan State.

Hoyer, then a sophomore who had never started a game, went in and threw 61 passes, completing 30 of them for 291 yards and a TD. With that blizzard of passes flying through the air—the MSU single-game record—he threw ZERO interceptions. This show nearly won the game for MSU, a 17-point underdog.

The lesson in here is that Hoyer knows how to win games with his arm when that's what he's told to do. Right now, he's been told to not screw up the chances for letting Javon Ringer win games with his feet.

Not surprisingly, Hoyer has taken to the task and is executing it well. Either way, he's still winning with his head.

There will be games when he'll be asked to do more, and the evidence is very solid that he will be able to deliver. By then, the swiftly developing Dell and Cunningham receiver duo may be more than ready to fill the big shoes left by Davis and Thomas.

But for now, Brian Hoyer is a senior QB with an accomplished record who isn't complaining about sacrificing his stats so a true superstar can carry the team. That leadership and selfless play is more impressive than his pretty numbers from last year.

I hope that Kirk Cousins has all of this in him as well. But I sure hope I don't have reason to find out until next year.

Spartan Seasons 2008: V

Ken Braun — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 13:38:12 -0400

Ho... hum... Another week, another predictable game for Michigan State. Still the same team in the large scheme of things. I move not a bit from the 8-4 regular season projection. No surprises yet, but some of the competition is changing its stripes.

@Indiana -- 75% chance of W (originally 65%)

More on this later, but last week I called the Ball State upset, saying Indiana would have trouble beating them... let alone Michigan State. What DID surprise me was the magnitude of the upset. So, the odds of beating Indiana go up significantly.

Iowa -- 65% chance of W (originally 60%)

They lost to Pitt. Pitt was a clear fraud before the season began.

@Northwestern -- 75% chance of W (originally 60%)

No really new information this week. This is a very weak 4-0 football team.

Ohio State -- 40% chance of W (originally 30%)

I didn't move this from last week because I still believe Michigan State will not beat these guys. But still, every week Ohio State does something to make you think they are not what you thought they were.

@Michigan -- 60% chance of W (originally a toss up)

They didn't play this week. I still think they'll put up a tougher fight than Notre Dame. They will be hungry for it. It's at home. It's a rivalry. I could easily move this back to "toss up" if they hang tough with Wisconsin. The only thing I am sure about with Michigan is that their offensive line is bad. The rest could improve a lot without warning. Bottom line is they are a 6 or 7 win team, but I'm not sure where those wins happen.

Wisconsin -- 45% chance of W (originally 45% chance of win)

I think Penn State is the best team in the conference, but these guys and Ohio State are a close second. Michigan State beating them would be a season altering upset and I don't expect it to happen.

Purdue -- 60% chance of W (originally 65%)

More may be known after they play Notre Dame this week. Notre Dame is not good, but if they are good enough to beat Purdue then my original projection is sound. I had originally expected Purdue to be one of the worst teams in the conference and for them to get beat by CMU. The "beat by CMU" thing almost happened, but ultimately it did not.

I still think MSU beats Purdue, but the Boilers are starting to convince me. A little bit. We'll see what happens against Notre Dame.

@Penn State -- 30% chance of W (originally same)

Nothing changes this estimate from week to week. The game clock appears to be the only thing that stops Penn State's offense. This will be a long day to end the season for MSU.

New BCS Blood: WAC/Mountain West Champion Should Have BCS Bid

Ken Braun — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:45:23 -0400

Rather than take the slow fade to professional suicide that is the ultimate fate of all who coach the Detroit Lions, Darryl Rogers elected instead to crash and burn in a memorable fireball. Embroiled in what would become a dismal 4-12 season, he committed to honesty by asking, "What's a guy got to do to get fired around here?"

Of course, the answer didn't take long.

I have begun to wonder the same thing about Notre Dame and the BCS. What must Notre Dame do to lose its special status in the BCS?

In the last half-dozen seasons (2002-2007), Notre Dame has finished in the top 25 just twice. Given the ongoing streak of landing in bowl games that they cannot win, even those rankings (No. 9 in 2005 and No. 17 in 2006) are debatable. Early evidence makes a strong case for this being another year outside the rankings tent.

Put another way: Notre Dame must finish the regular season ranked in the top eight to secure a trip to a BCS game, but in the entire history of the BCS has NEVER finished that high AFTER the bowl games are over.

Yet the Irish retain their special status at the BCS table. Like a decrepit hereditary monarchy in a world of Western democracies, it is time for their inheritance to be cut off and the wealth put where others can earn it.

At minimum, if Notre Dame belongs in the tent, then there are many others who have earned it more.

During the '02-'07 period, TCU (Mountain West) has finished four times with a top 25 ranking. Boise State (WAC) has done it three times. Brigham Young (Mountain West) and Utah (Mountain West) have done it twice each. Fresno State and Hawaii out of the WAC have done it once each.

Boise State and Utah have each gone to and won a BCS game for their respective conferences over that period. Counting the Hawaii loss last year, these two conferences are 2-1 in BCS games.

Notre Dame's record? 0-2.

Collectively, there are 18 teams in these two conferences. The best of them have done their part to earn BCS entry.

Like the other BCS conferences, at least one team from this group of 18 should get a BCS bid each year. But how do you give a single bid to two different conferences?

Here's an easy solution: Create a MWC/WAC Championship game featuring the champions from each conference playing one another at the end of every season. The winner goes to the Fiesta Bowl or, like any other BCS conference, the national title game if ranked high enough.

I don't propose a merger, as each conference would retain their full independence from one another. But for BCS purposes, these two conferences would be considered one BCS conference, with all the rules of membership, most particularly the money and the automatic BCS bowl game for the joint conference championship game winner.

What would this have looked like in those prior years?

2002

No. 18 Boise State (11-1) would have played No. 23 Colorado St. (10-3)

2003

No. 25 Utah (9-2) vs. No. 18 Boise State (12-1)

2004

No. 5 Utah (11-0) vs. No. 10 Boise State (11-0)

2005

No. 14 TCU (10-1) vs. Nevada (9-3)

2006

No. 19 BYU (10-2) vs. No. 9 Boise State (12-0)

2007

No. 19 BYU (10-2) vs. No. 10 Hawaii (12-0)

Three times, an unbeaten team would have faced a top 25 opponent. In one case, 2004, two unbeaten top 10 teams would have squared off against one another.

During half of these seasons, the winner of this game could or would have been a higher ranked BCS team than what was sent by one of the current BCS conferences.

For 2004, when two unbeaten top 10 teams would have met in the MWC/WAC showdown, the Big East sent No. 19 Pitt (8-3) to a loss in the Fiesta Bowl.

A clearly mediocre No. 22 Florida State (8-3) won the ACC in 2005 and then lost the Orange Bowl to Penn State.

Either Boise State or BYU in 2006 would likely have come out of that game more highly ranked than No. 15-ranked ACC champ Wake Forest (11-2), which got beat by Louisville in the Orange Bowl.

While individually the two Western conferences do not always fully match the quality of the other BCS members, together they nearly always produce at least one champion worthy of at least equal mention.

Often they have produced better teams than at least one of the existing BCS members, and in nearly every case they have produced a better team than Notre Dame.

Furthermore, add one last scenario: 2006 Boise State and 2004 Utah more than showed that they were equal to the BCS task by beating their BCS bowl opponents. What if they had been given one more game against solid competition before playing in their BCS game? Might that have elevated them to even higher pairings?

Had 2004 Utah been given the chance to play and beat then-unbeaten No. 10 Boise State, they might have gotten more than mediocre Pitt as their BCS opponent. Imagine pairing unbeaten Auburn against unbeaten Utah in the Sugar Bowl.

After USC destroyed Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl, the unbeaten winner of a Utah/Auburn Sugar would have had an even stronger claim on a co-championship.

Likewise, No. 9 Boise State in 2006 could have moved up a notch or two had they been given the chance to play and beat No. 19 BYU to end the regular season. Beating No. 7 Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl that year ultimately left Boise sitting at No. 5 in the final poll. Every single team above them had at least one loss—two of them had two.

With the whipping that Ohio State took against Florida in the title game, it's reasonable to wonder how much higher Boise would have gone if given the chance to demonstrate more in the regular season.

The BCS should be about giving the best teams a shot at the title each year, and this expands the opportunity to deserving competitors.

This year, BYU and Utah may clash at the end of the year as a battle of unbeatens with a BCS bid on the line. Boise State, having just defeated Oregon, may also finish the regular season undefeated with a nice resume to argue for a BCS game of its own.

Realistically, only one of the two conferences will get selected. In a just world, they'd settle it on the field.

What Does Michigan State's Win over Notre Dame Mean?

Ken Braun — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 17:13:05 -0400

With Michigan State and Notre Dame each receiving five votes in the USA Today poll last week, it's possible that the Spartans might eke out a Top-25 ranking as a result of this win. I hope not. They don't deserve it. Not yet.

Though the history that goes with beating Notre Dame always makes it emotionally satisfying to do it again, this particular win, like the one last season, tells me nothing about either team that I didn't already believe.

While losing to the Irish at home today would have surprised and worried me, beating them solidly, but not abusively, has been something I've expected for months. My heart will treasure this win until we meet them next season, but my head must treat it as what I originally thought it to be: A challenging team about as tough as Florida Atlantic that we should beat.

And did.

But please, save the rankings bump until (and if) we win our first two conference games.

The little things in this game that deserve comment...

Javon Ringer is a dangerous toy. The impact of the decision to put games entirely on his shoulders is the one thing that could take this team above my expected 8-4 record.

But only IF he can keep grinding out the big yards, and IF he stays healthy. If he's the identity of the team, then losing him is as dangerous as having him in the first place.

Otis Wiley is going to steal a game. He nearly did it with Cal and he was a big part of this win as well. In one of the final eight games, Wiley will put points on the board that decide the outcome in Michigan State's favor: a punt return or an int return. He's a highlight waiting to happen on every down and this season's biggest pleasant surprise.

Other parts of the secondary played like a decent coverage group with a few holes in it, rather than a leaky group that sometimes covers somebody. And this against a good (though young) Notre Dame QB and receivers.

Even the one score allowed was despite tight coverage, a super play by Notre Dame. That's a huge improvement over many previous MSU seasons.

The front seven looked great: Three sacks, allowing 16 yards on 22 carries and simply pounding the living crap out of Clausen all day long.

Again, there were some big pass plays allowed. But on balance, the defense has made it to slightly above average.

Brian Hoyer will be picked apart by those who don't watch the games closely. The gameplan through three games has been very obvious: Run to win. Incompletions are looked at as failed runs that go for no yards and allow you to fight again, merely minor mis-executions. It is interceptions that must be avoided at all cost.

Thus, passes are thrown to spots where only Spartan receivers can get them, but sometimes to far beyond even that. He's been ordered to execute a very safe, conservative passing game, ride Ringer, and only deviate from that when it isn't enough (such as at Cal.) He's doing it very well.

Against Wisconsin, Ohio State and Penn State (three games MSU should definitely not win) Dantonio will probably need to let him take more risks and play more aggressively. And if they get behind in any other game, Hoyer will certainly also play with more abandon.

But otherwise, running Ringer and winning the turnover battle by passing carefully seems a sure gameplan. Even when the opposition knows its coming, such as Notre Dame, they have a hard time stopping it.

That's smashmouth football. No reason to let up if it works.

The penalties continue to annoy me. This is a carryover from the loss at Cal. This time, there were a couple of crucial ones that seemed on the crappy call side of the ledger, the late hit flag on Precious Jimmy in particular. But still, a trend is a trend. More discipline is needed here. They could yet lose a game they should otherwise win because of penalties.

All in all, they are as good as I thought they were. I still see three more defeats, but I'm getting more and more confident in them getting the five more wins.

Opposition Research: Notre Dame

Ken Braun — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:43:10 -0400

Notre Dame @ Michigan State -8.5

That's a good point spread. Against Michigan and a woefully awful San Diego State, Notre Dame's echoes got up for some sleepwalking but otherwise yawned and went back to bed.

Barring the early loss due to injury to an important MSU starter (Ringer, Hoyer, receivers, a veteran offensive lineman, almost anybody on defense...) Michigan State should defeat the Irish by at least a touchdown.

I presume there's no reason to dispute the relative schedule strengths between the two teams and their reactions to those games. Michigan isn't Cal. San Diego State isn't Florida Atlantic...or maybe even Eastern Michigan.

Michigan State has been a no-surprises operation thus far. Against each of its opponents, they put up the fight that was expected: A narrow loss on the road against one of the Pac-10's best, a blowout win at home vs. the MAC's lowliest, and a comfortable win at home vs. what should be the Sun Belt's best.

Notre Dame, by contrast, nearly lost at home to what is likely one of the nation's very worst football teams. That same weekend, Michigan tried to give away a game at home to one of the MAC's (at best) mediocre teams; and against Notre Dame, Michigan finally met a willing taker.

In the big picture, little that Notre Dame has done argues for a win in East Lansing.

Take the Michigan game by the numbers...

Notre Dame offense

Notre Dame put up 260 yards of offense vs. Michigan. Put together, Michigan's 79 penalty yards and 80 yards in passing by Michigan QB Nick Sheridan to two Notre Dame defenders was more than half as effective for Notre Dame as having the actual Irish offense on the field  —an offense that now ranks 90th nationally.

The Irish had just 14 total first downs: five by run, four by pass and five by penalty. And the 6-2 turnover advantage was otherworldly to Notre Dame's favor, easily worth the difference in the final score and then some.

In short, Notre Dame's best offensive play was Michigan shooting themselves in the foot.

Notre Dame defense

With Chamber of Commerce weather the previous week vs. Miami of Ohio, Michigan's offense managed just 281 yards and 15 first downs. In drizzle and then heavy rain against Notre Dame, those numbers cranked up to 388 yards and 21 first downs.

One of the previously hapless Michigan QBs, Steven Threet, found his footing in the rain against ND, going 16-for-23 for 175 with one TD and zero INTs (though 2 fumbles). The other, Nick Sheridan, was a perfect 5-for-5, but two of those were to two Irish defenders for the aforementioned 80 yards in INT returns.

In hindsight, inserting Sheridan was clearly a mistake made by Rodriguez, forced by his (then) still-doubtful QB situation. Unless something goes horribly, awfully wrong, Michigan State will not be replacing Brian Hoyer with Nick Sheridan.

The Irish will need to stop a veteran QB who threw all of seven INTs during 12 regular season games last year  —No. 2 in the Big Ten for pass efficiency last year  —and knows very well where all of his receivers are at.

There was also the boatload of yardage allowed to true freshman Sam McGuffie, a lot of which appeared to be because Notre Dame's DC had decided to blitz the Michigan QB's on more than half of the downs, often sending a capable tackler out of position and flying past the guy carrying the ball.

Do that again with Javon Ringer on the field. Please, please, try it.

Notre Dame's defense is ranked 70th nationally after playing two of the very worst offenses in all of the nation.

Jimmy Clausen

The ability of the ND offensive line to keep him upright was a refreshing change from their "Surrender Monkey" routine last season. But a lot of that was massively over-protecting with extra blockers and tossing the ball quickly out of bounds (perhaps because too many potential receivers were in blocking?)

The numbers bear this out, as Clausen was a modest (to be generous) 10-for-21 for 147 with two TDs and two INTs.

And, again, it can't be overstated that getting your opponent to turn the ball over six times in the rain (not to mention spotting you 14 points on turnovers to begin the game) does a lot to take the pressure off the QB to make big plays.

In sum...

Notre Dame's one "big win" was against an opponent still on a three-week suicide binge of trying to give away football games. Michigan State is playing at home with a team that has been tested against and done better against much more formidable opposition.

I was impressed by some of Clausen's throws and Golden Tate's ability to catch them. They will get a couple of big plays to work, but not enough to win.

MSU 38
Notre Dame 28