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Re: Michigan State schedule - Spartandawg - 12-16-2013

(12-16-2013, 09:17 AM)FarmBoy link Wrote:
Quote:I'm surprised how incorrect the Sagarin rankings are.  Almost to the point of being offensive.

Please explain how they are "incorrect"? Which of those B1G teams should be ranked higher than they are? And to WIM's point, those rankings are not far from other computer rankings. Is it a collusion of 1's and 0's against the B1G?

It's a collusion of 1s and 0s against reality.  Maybe those numbers are valid if you're trying to persuade a blind man (or gal), but those who have eyeballs and follow college football find the Sagarin rankings not only absurd, but also insulting to the human race.

Alabama is clearly the best team in the country.  Are they #1 in the Sagarin rankings?  Wisconsin is clearly #2 in the Big Ten.  Do the computers reflect his?  MSU easily beats Ohio State 7 out of 10 times, yet they were ranked lower than OSU prior to the championship game.  Like I said, ridiculous to the point of being offensive.
 

Re: Michigan State schedule - yvonne - 12-16-2013

What are you basing those assertions on?

Re: Michigan State schedule - stupac2 - 12-16-2013

(12-16-2013, 12:59 PM)Yvonne link Wrote:What are you basing those assertions on?

The stuff that stays behind in the pasture after the herd moves on.

Re: Michigan State schedule - FarmBoy - 12-16-2013

Quote:but those who have eyeballs and follow college football find the Sagarin rankings not only absurd, but also insulting to the human race.

I have eyeballs. I follow college football. I have not problem with the Sagarin rankings being used as one set of evaluation.

Quote:Wisconsin is clearly #2 in the Big Ten.  Do the computers reflect his?

Yes, they do. Wisconsin is ranked #10 according to the Sagarin. That doesn't help MSU's SOS though, since they did not play them!

Re: Michigan State schedule - tRhinoceros - 12-16-2013

As a Spartan fan and soon to be student, I follow Michigan State football very closely.  Our SOS is not strong this year.  Last year we played a bad Wisconsin team and beat them away and lost by a screw up on Offense and a referee that called a dead ball on an obvious fumble that was returned for a TD.  This year, we still played a good Ohio State team, an average UM team, an above average Hawkeye squad, a meh Nebraska team, and a yucky Northwestern team.  Our SOS is NOT good.  But look at the games, Michigan State won every big ten competition by 10 or more points and pitched a shutout while also not allowing a touchdown in four big ten games.  Keep in mind, UM did not score a touchdown on MSU and was stopped to -48 rushing yards, the LOWEST ever in Michigan football history.  You might say, wow, Ohio State, Indiana, and Nebraska really killed MSU on defense.  Ohio State has arguably the best DUAL quarterback in all of College Football who really creates on broken plays.  Nebraska was a different story, the QB could run, but it's more of the option plays they ran.  The option plays are what carves up the MSU defense.  Abdullah and Hyde were able to get a lot of their yards from them because they have QBs capable of burning defenses with their feet.  The Indiana game on the other hand was a lack of discipline, missed tackles, a 70 yard untouched run up the middle, and great quarterback play.  I think the problem Stanford is going to face is setting up the Play Action.  Kurtis Drummond is great at stopping the run, but he's average in the pass.  He has great athleticism and a brobdingnagian hitter.  If Stanford wants to pass effectively, they're going to need to use the Tight End a lot more, because they are not going to be passing on Trae and Darqueze with out multiple turnovers.

Re: Michigan State schedule - card_alum_11 - 12-16-2013

(12-15-2013, 08:45 PM)stupac2 link Wrote:[quote author=Spiny_Norman link=topic=9160.msg78388#msg78388 date=1387165043]CornFed, in the upper right of Terry's message, you will see a number (+4 as I type this) which represents the net respect points that the message has received from others.  Next to the number are two icons, an up arrow and a down arrow.  Click the up arrow to "like" or "respect" the post.

You need a minimum number of posts before the arrows appear, I believe it's 10.
[/quote]

No arrows for me.  :(

Re: Michigan State schedule - washingtonismoney - 12-16-2013

Hey, we've got a "dumpster fire" of a website! (see: http://michiganstate.247sports.com/Board/93/Shocker-Stanford-fans-trashing-MSUs-schedule--24113450/1)

Hi guys!

Re: Michigan State schedule - yvonne - 12-16-2013

(12-16-2013, 06:40 PM)tRhinoceros link Wrote:As a Spartan fan and soon to be student, I follow Michigan State football very closely.  Our SOS is not strong this year.  Last year we played a bad Wisconsin team and beat them away and lost by a screw up on Offense and a referee that called a dead ball on an obvious fumble that was returned for a TD.  This year, we still played a good Ohio State team, an average UM team, an above average Hawkeye squad, a meh Nebraska team, and a yucky Northwestern team.  Our SOS is NOT good.  But look at the games, Michigan State won every big ten competition by 10 or more points and pitched a shutout while also not allowing a touchdown in four big ten games.  Keep in mind, UM did not score a touchdown on MSU and was stopped to -48 rushing yards, the LOWEST ever in Michigan football history.  You might say, wow, Ohio State, Indiana, and Nebraska really killed MSU on defense.  Ohio State has arguably the best DUAL quarterback in all of College Football who really creates on broken plays.  Nebraska was a different story, the QB could run, but it's more of the option plays they ran.  The option plays are what carves up the MSU defense.  Abdullah and Hyde were able to get a lot of their yards from them because they have QBs capable of burning defenses with their feet.  The Indiana game on the other hand was a lack of discipline, missed tackles, a 70 yard untouched run up the middle, and great quarterback play.  I think the problem Stanford is going to face is setting up the Play Action.  Kurtis Drummond is great at stopping the run, but he's average in the pass.  He has great athleticism and a brobdingnagian hitter.  If Stanford wants to pass effectively, they're going to need to use the Tight End a lot more, because they are not going to be passing on Trae and Darqueze with out multiple turnovers.

By and large, I like your argument. However, I do have to call you out on the best dual quarterback point. I think two of the quarterbacks who were in New York this weekend, Winston and Manziel, are considered dual threat guys.

Re: Michigan State schedule - stupac2 - 12-16-2013

(12-16-2013, 07:36 PM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:Hey, we've got a "dumpster fire" of a website! (see: http://michiganstate.247sports.com/Board/93/Shocker-Stanford-fans-trashing-MSUs-schedule--24113450/1)

Hi guys!

I will never cease to be amazed at how offended people get when this sort of thing is posted out. It's almost like it's a personal slight, or something. Just bizarre.

Re: Michigan State schedule - groverj3 - 12-16-2013

The SOS debate has been raging all year. The fact is, you beat who is on the schedule and that's all you can do.

It all comes down to who decides what the strength of schedule is. Teams from major conferences don't play often during the season. It's really only during bowl games that you can compare based on head to head competition of any sort. Now, when all the teams in your conference play their bowl games at least ~2000 miles from their home stadium that clearly has an effect. So, naturally the bowl record suffers at the end of the season which leads to lower preseason rankings, which are nearly impossible to climb out of during the following season. However, the Big 10's bowl record in the BCS era isn't nearly as bad as the media would have you believe. Especially when you consider that the Big 10 has had multiple teams in BCS bowls the majority of these years, bumping other teams up in the bowl pecking order and sometimes leading to wildly mismatched teams that really have no business playing each other. However, to get respect you still have to win games. The Pac 12 hasn't historically gotten as much respect from the media either, but that has changed in recent years somewhat due to consistently good showings in the bowl season.

I would argue that the biggest determining factor in a team's so-called "strength of schedule" is media perception and the previous year's bowl games. What should it be based on? I don't know. However, I take all "strength of schedule" debates with a grain of salt.

In the end it comes down to winning the games you have to win, regardless of any other factors. I'd just caution you about using ESPN's logic, because according to them we were supposed to lose about 4 or 5 games this year that were all won by double digits.

Hopefully that doesn't come across as whiny or argumentative, but comparing strength of schedule when teams from different conferences haven't played each other much in the current season is sort of silly.

Re: Michigan State schedule - washingtonismoney - 12-16-2013

(12-16-2013, 08:17 PM)groverj3 link Wrote:I would argue that the biggest determining factor in a team's so-called "strength of schedule" is media perception and the previous year's bowl games. What should it be based on? I don't know. However, I take all "strength of schedule" debates with a grain of salt.

Computers don't care about the media, so I'm not sure that theory really explains why so many have Stanford's schedule over MSU's. Now, if you want to compare MSU to Random SEC Team, that makes some sense... but these computer ratings we've been citing, they don't care a whit for the media's thoughts.

Re: Michigan State schedule - dabigv13 - 12-16-2013

(12-16-2013, 08:17 PM)groverj3 link Wrote:The SOS debate has been raging all year. The fact is, you beat who is on the schedule and that's all you can do.

It all comes down to who decides what the strength of schedule is. Teams from major conferences don't play often during the season. It's really only during bowl games that you can compare based on head to head competition of any sort. Now, when all the teams in your conference play their bowl games at least ~2000 miles from their home stadium that clearly has an effect. So, naturally the bowl record suffers at the end of the season which leads to lower preseason rankings, which are nearly impossible to climb out of during the following season. However, the Big 10's bowl record in the BCS era isn't nearly as bad as the media would have you believe. Especially when you consider that the Big 10 has had multiple teams in BCS bowls the majority of these years, bumping other teams up in the bowl pecking order and sometimes leading to wildly mismatched teams that really have no business playing each other. However, to get respect you still have to win games. The Pac 12 hasn't historically gotten as much respect from the media either, but that has changed in recent years somewhat due to consistently good showings in the bowl season.

I would argue that the biggest determining factor in a team's so-called "strength of schedule" is media perception and the previous year's bowl games. What should it be based on? I don't know. However, I take all "strength of schedule" debates with a grain of salt.

In the end it comes down to winning the games you have to win, regardless of any other factors. I'd just caution you about using ESPN's logic, because according to them we were supposed to lose about 4 or 5 games this year that were all won by double digits.

Hopefully that doesn't come across as whiny or argumentative, but comparing strength of schedule when teams from different conferences haven't played each other much in the current season is sort of silly.

Well, except that Sagarin's numbers have no input from any sort of perception or preseason ranking, it's all interconnected. The fact is that the Pac-12 had an outstanding out of conference record this year, and the Big-10 has not. Sure it would be nice if there were more high quality OOC games between major conference members, but there's still plenty of data to go by.

Re: Michigan State schedule - groverj3 - 12-16-2013

Computer rankings are equally pointless because they compare stats from, and margin of victory over other, teams that haven't played each other.

I'm just playing devil's advocate here, by the way.

Re: Michigan State schedule - stupac2 - 12-16-2013

(12-16-2013, 08:33 PM)groverj3 link Wrote:Computer rankings are equally pointless because they compare stats from, and margin of victory over other, teams that haven't played each other.

That's not pointless. Done right it's very possible to make meaningful statistics that compare teams that don't overlap much. Any particular method might not be the best, but then how do you explain the confluence of all of them liking Stanford this year?

I don't really get why people are so bothered by this. If it were backward, if it were MSU who the computers loved, I'd just shrug and say "we'll see on the field". MSU fans seem to actually care about this. I don't really get it.

From my perspective, the reason I care about it is that I think fans don't really think about these issues right. I've seen "but Stanford lost to UTAH so OF COURSE they suck!!!" But that's not how it works. Utah's not terrible, they played a murderer's row of a schedule and did fairly admirably against it, especially before their QB got injured. And even if they were terrible, football is a probabilistic game, sometimes upsets happen. It doesn't necessarily mean that a team is bad.

That's why I want people to look at the totality of the schedule and ask "how much luck is required to achieve that record?" ESPN did an analysis that concluded that Stanford going 11-2 was less likely than Alabama going 11-1. I want people to realize this. Next year it might not be Stanford, it might be MSU. You should care that these kinds of things are widely known and understood (a pipe dream, I know).

Re: Michigan State schedule - terry - 12-16-2013

(12-16-2013, 07:36 PM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:Hey, we've got a "dumpster fire" of a website! (see: http://michiganstate.247sports.com/Board/93/Shocker-Stanford-fans-trashing-MSUs-schedule--24113450/1)

That's pretty funny. I didn't realize they would be so sensitive about their weak schedule. It's too bad that the responses to the strength of schedule point are so lacking in meaningful analysis. They're mostly along of the lines of "Oh yeah? Well, we're going to beat the &%$# out of them." Not much enlightenment to be gained there.

The folks on that board really are not going to like it when I post my analysis of the Michigan State offense. . . .

Re: Michigan State schedule - fullmetal - 12-16-2013

Wow, they really have chips on their shoulders about this.  (And they poke fun at the Cardboard's selective membership :p)

Re: Michigan State schedule - washingtonismoney - 12-17-2013

The other thing I love is the obsession with the losses to SC and Utah. But both games look different in context when assessed with performance:

SC, of course: fired K. And it's hard to lump a team with Marqise Lee, Nelson Agholor, Leonard Williams, etc. in with the normal "WELL IT'S AN UNRANKED TEAM" spiel. (Of course the computers love SC, so... Sagarin: 18; F/+: 12; ESPN FPI: 16; The Power Rank: 20...).

Utah: Stanford outgained Utah by 1.3 yards per play and scored a special teams TD. It's very hard to lose when you do this! But Stanford lost all fumbles, plus missed a field goal, plus botched a redzone opportunity, plus its defense was unable to adjust to Utah's spread outleveraging it on the outside.

Looking at these games, it's hard to see how MSU can take the blueprint of these losses and transfer the building over. It's not just some prefab modular, you know. Unless MSU's got two exceptional future first-rounders at WR, for example, or a willingness to switch completely over to the spread, the losses really aren't terribly relevant to the Stanford/MSU matchup.

That said, it's quite easy to envision an MSU win. They've got a good defense and Hogan tends to be erratic. MSU can absolutely win a low-scoring game. I just don't see them putting up a ton of points -- aside from Langford, I don't see a lot on offense to threaten Stanford, or that's better than what they've seen on a regular basis in the Pac-12.

Re: Michigan State schedule - MSUFAN4320 - 12-17-2013

Stanford is more battle-tested, that I do not doubt. But if you read analysts around the country, they'll tell you MSU passes the eye test.

Man, if only there was a way to settle this on the field!

:)

Re: Michigan State schedule - washingtonismoney - 12-17-2013

By the way, ESPN Insider has a regular feature with Vegas linemakers' power rankings. (http://insider.espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/10114967/college-football-insider-bowl-betting-guide)

Overall, they think MSU and Stanford are somewhat close. (Stanford #3, MSU #8; SU should be favored by 5.5 according to their scale.)

On the SOS debate, here are Stanford opponents on their power rankings: Oregon #4, ASU #13, UCLA #17, SC #20, Washington #21, N.D. #23, Oregon State #28. Arizona, though not an opponent, was also ranked at #28, reflecting the strength and depth of the conference.

MSU: Ohio State #5, N.D. #23, Iowa #26. Wisconsin, though not an opponent, ranked #10.


Re: Michigan State schedule - stupac2 - 12-17-2013

(12-17-2013, 08:58 AM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:They've got a good defense and Hogan tends to be erratic.

As far as I can tell, this is the game. If we get ASU Hogan (and receivers, don't forget that they sometimes get cases of the dropsies, how different would the USC game have looked if Montgomery had hauled in that first pass?) then I really doubt MSU can keep pace. If we get Utah Hogan, then it's gonna be a looooong day.