BCS Fail: Alabama, not Oklahoma State, heads to the BCS National Championship Game

I thought it was pretty clear cut that the two best teams in college football this year were LSU and Oklahoma State.  That was really the case all year.  Oklahoma State consistently played top competition in the Big XII.  They beat all comers  Alabama played two of the top teams in college football in their own division.  They split.

Now, the important thing is we have a system that officially recognizes SEC champion LSU as the best team in the nation this season.  If we had stayed up all night arguing the injustice that is Alabama being ranked second overall in the nation, even though they are a clearly more qualified pick than Stanford, or Boise State, or Houston, or Oregon, we would have missed the fact that the BCS typically gets it right.  LSU is the best.  There’s no real competitor.  Having a championship game because of indecision is not necessary.  Everyone knows who no. 1 is.  They just happen to be contractually obligated to play it.

The game they got though is a particularly boring one.  LSU and Alabama play stylistically similar.  Both defenses are amongst the very best in the nation.  Alabama has one NFL starter among their skill positions, who is a true difference maker when he is in: Trent Richardson.  When he comes to the sideline, Alabama cannot move the ball.  They cannot kick the ball.  Their quarterback cannot run or throw the ball.  Alabama is a brutally efficient college team, they are not an interesting college team.  If LSU is any better, it’s because their dominance is almost artful in nature.  LSU has more talent at the receivers than in the backfield, and their offensive line is not great by SEC standards, but they choose to run it because it defines who they are as a team.  It doesn’t make LSU particularly interesting to watch, but they are an easy team to appreciate.

LSU-Oklahoma State might have been the best of all the BCS bowls.  As it is, LSU-Alabama will be the third best game of the series.  LSU should be expected to win comfortably.  They are the better team.  Furthermore, I don’t know how much Alabama can actually do to close the gap from last time, other than to run Trent Richardson on some type of Olympic distance running program so he never comes off the field.  Absent that, I think LSU wins very comfortably.

I feel like LSU would have won easily against Oklahoma State as well.  And no, I don’t think the score would have been 39-36.  I think LSU could have easily exposed Brandon Weeden in the first half, and in the second half would have dominated Oklahoma State with their depth.  I think OSU would have put up many touchdowns, but would have been chasing the whole game.  Alabama at least is unlikely to be put out to pasture int he second half.  Still, will the game be in doubt at any point?

More concerning to me is the fact that four of the top nine teams in the BCS standings will not play in BCS bowls.  What is the point of this charade?  One vs. Two?  I guess.  After doing an awful job of sorting out the top five teams, I’m not sure the BCS standings have a purpose.  Arkansas and South Carolina can’t make it by rule, which I suppose makes sense since if you are going to have automatic qualifiers, there has to be some system of making deep conferences ineligible past a point.  But the bigger issue is Boise State and Kansas State both didn’t make it.  Uh, what?  The B1G Ten and ACC both received at large berths?  REALLY?  A team that failed win the ACC is in the BCS?  I’ll go say the obvious: Virginia Tech is less qualified than Houston is to be in a BCS game this year.

The BCS failed to provide compelling or even fair match-ups in multiple games this year.  Is this specifically the fault of the BCS?  Perhaps not.  College football may be in danger of over-saturating the demand for its product in certain geographic regions of the United States.  They consistently must pander to the masses in order to defend the Bowl system.  Does that hurt the sport?  Probably.  Is that wrong? Unfortunately so.  Will any of this matter when LSU is holding the crystal ball?  The BCS executive committee is gambling that no, none of this will matter to anyone in a month.  Life will go on.  And history suggests: they are probably right.

FNQB: How well would Tom Brady Profile as a Draft Prospect Today?

This week’s Friday Night Quarterback question is one that attempts to answer the question of where Tom Brady would profile in the NFL Draft if he had come out of Michigan in 2011 instead of 2000.  You know the background story on Brady.  He was recruited to Michigan and buried on the depth chart, but emerged as the best player for the job in 1998 after Michigan won the national championship, starting the final 25 games of his NCAA career, and winning 20 of them including two major bowls.  Brady, though, played for Michigan in such a dominant era that he never received the reputation for being a good college player.

Brady’s scouting report, which is unsourced primarily because it is eleven years old, reads as follows:

Notes: Baseball catcher and football quarterback in high school who was drafted by the Montreal Expos in the 18th round of the June 1995 baseball draft. Opted for football and redshirted at Michigan in ’95. Saw limited action in ’96 and ’97 and started the past two years. Completed 3 of 5 passes for 26 yards, no touchdowns and one interception in ’96, 12-15-103-0-0 in ’97, 214-350-2,636-15-12 in ’98 and 180-295-2,216-16-6 in ’99, when he often shared time with super sophomore Drew Henson. Went all the way against Alabama in the Orange Bowl and completed 34-46-369-4. Unlike many Michigan quarterbacks, Brady is a pocket-type passer who plays best in a dropback-type system.

Tom Brady Positives: Good height to see the field. Very poised and composed. Smart and alert. Can read coverages. Good accuracy and touch. Produces in big spots and in big games. Has some Brian Griese in him and is a gamer. Generally plays within himself. Team leader.

Negatives: Poor build. Very skinny and narrow. Ended the ’99 season weighing 195 pounds and still looks like a rail at 211. Looks a little frail and lacks great physical stature and strength. Can get pushed down more easily than you’d like. Lacks mobility and ability to avoid the rush. Lacks a really strong arm. Can’t drive the ball down the field and does not throw a really tight spiral. System-type player who can get exposed if he must ad-lib and do things on his own.

Summary: Is not what you’re looking for in terms of physical stature, strength, arm strength and mobility, but he has the intangibles and production and showed great Griese-like improvement as a senior. Could make it in the right system but will not be for everyone.

 We know these there are three variables that translate directly from the college game to the pro game.  First: college completion percentage.  Second: college sack rate; at the major college football level (the proliferation of the spread offense at lower levels of college football has rendered this measure useless for lower-division QBs, though the skill is still important).  Third: the adult height of the quarterback.  We know that all other college stats are system/situation dependent enough to not have any predictive value between a college quarterback and that same players in the pros.  But we also know that a player’s stats are largely useless in a limited sample which is why three and four year college starters are so much more valuable in the draft today than one or two year starters.

And that’s the big thing with Tom Brady.  He was a great statistical quarterback at Michigan, but because his career lasted only 25 starts, it was easy to write his production off as a function of his team’s dominance, and his physical skill set as alluded to in his scouting report, only served to reinforce the idea that any player could have accomplished what Brady did at Michigan over his timeframe.  It wasn’t a certainty that he was going to get drafted in 2000, though it was pretty likely.

What sticks out about the Brady scouting report was that he was labeled as a system quarterback by the scout, a label that has pretty much held up as true in the pros.  Brady has become a system quarterback, the first elite spread quarterback in the NFL in the way that Joe Montana became the first elite west coast quarterback in the NFL.  Guys who are viewed as system passers, such as Colt McCoy or Kevin Kolb, almost universally do not get picked in the first round.  I needed more context on this, so I looked up the scouting report of a guy who has had a very similar career to Brady in the same NFL era, but didn’t fall to the sixth round.

Drew Brees
By: Dave-Te’ Thomas

#15-DREW BREES Purdue University Boilermakers 5:11.7-221

ANALYSIS
Positives… Touch passer with the ability to read and diagnose defensive coverages…Confident leader who knows how to take command in the huddle…Very tough and mobile moving around in the pocket…Has a quick setup and is very effective throwing on the move…Throws across his body with great consistency…Hits receivers in stride and improvises his throws in order to make a completion…Puts good zip behind the short and mid-range passes…Shows good judgement and keen field vision…Has a take-charge attitude and is very cool under pressure…Hits receivers in motion with impressive velocity…Has superb pocket presence and uses all of his offensive weapons in order to move the chains…Has solid body mechanics and quickness moving away from center… Elusive scrambler with the body control to avoid the rush.

Negatives… Plays in the spread offense, taking the bulk of his snaps from the shotgun… Tends to side-arm his passes going deep…Lacks accuracy and touch on his long throws… Seems more comfortable in the short/intermediate passing attack…Does not possess the ideal height you look for in a pro passer, though his ability to scan the field helps him compensate in this area…Will improvise and run when the passing lanes are clogged, but tends to run through defenders rather than trying to avoid them to prevent unnecessary punishment.

CAREER NOTES
The unquestioned leader of the Boilermakers’ offense and one of the school’s most decorated athletes…The three-year starter shattered virtually every school passing record and also made his marks on the Big Ten Conference and NCAA Division 1-A record charts…Ranks fourth in NCAA annals with 1525 pass attempts, 942 completions and 11,815 yards in total offense (NCAA does not recognize bowl stats)…Including post-season action, he holds the Boilermaker and conference career-records with 1026 pass completions of 1678 passes for 11,792 yards, 90 touchdown tosses and 12,692 yards in total offense…His pass completion percentage of .611 set another Purdue all-time record… Only player in Big Ten Conference history to throw for over 500 yards in a game twice in a career…Threw for over 400 yards seven times, over 300 yards sixteen times and over 200 yards twenty-seven times during his career…Tied Wisconsin tailback Ron Dayne’s (1996-99) Big Ten Conference record by earning Player of the Week honors eight times during his career.

Drew Brees is kind of sort of a system quarterback, though in a far different way than Brady.  Brees’ accuracy numbers are all about the precision on his passes and fitting the ball into tight spaces.  Brady’s accuracy numbers are about being ahead of the defense from a mental standpoint and quicker than the defense with his arm.  The reason that Brees was selected in the second round was that he did a ton of passing in his four years of college.  As you read above, his size and durability were a concern, and like Brady, scouts weren’t convinced he could be an effective vertical passer coming out of college.  The difference between Brees and Brady was that college senior Drew Brees threw the football in the intermediate zone and to the sideline in a way that made scouts very confident that he could translate to the pro game given a top rushing attack (which he had in SD), by making the difficult out throws that NFL quarterbacks need to.  I feel that Brady’s combine performance may have given some credence to the thought that he could not make those throws to the edge of the football field.  Otherwise though, these were eerily similar prospects coming out who have enjoyed very similar careers, except that Tom Brady got overlooked on Draft day, and Brees was the second quarterback in 2001 taken after Michael Vick.

A first round pick in today’s game must be perceived as durable coming out of college.  Joe Flacco was perceived as durable.  Sam Bradford, despite a shoulder injury, was perceived as durable.  Blaine Gabbert: durable.  Matt Ryan: durable.  JaMarcus Russell: durable.  Brady Quinn: durable.  Even Matthew Stafford was perceived to be durable coming out of Georgia.  Neither Brady nor Brees seemed like they would hold up to the NFL rush, and Brady’s frame was of particular concern.  Of course, Michael Vick went first overall in 2001 as an anomaly because no one could have possibly felt he was durable.  If we expand the scope past quarterbacks, Reggie Bush may have lost out on being the first overall pick because of durability concerns at the next level.

So we can conclude that as a system QB project who had durability and arm strength concerns, Brady would not have gone in the first round in any year.  There were too many questions about him as a prospect.  The second round is possible.  Brady had a lot of Drew Brees’ qualities, and a lot of Kevin Kolb’s qualities as well.

Strengths:
Kolb has good size and build for a NFL quarterback and excels at throwing short to mid-range passes. He can throw the ball on the move and is a threat to run with the ball if necessary. Kolb is a great leader and has started for four years at Houston. He would be an ideal West Coast quarterback once he learned the system.

Weaknesses:
Kolb did not play in a pro style offense at Houston and would have to learn the NFL style of progression and reads. He is unlikely to become an elite vertical passer. He must work on improving his mechanics, as he has a tendency to wind up too much. Kolb has as tendency to go to a three quarters delivery that causes the ball to get batted down at the line of scrimmage.

Overall:
Kolb was productive at Houston, but that was in a shotgun based, short throwing offense. He would have to take the time to learn the pro style offense, and his lack of arm strength will limit his ceiling. The question on Kolb will be if his success was due to the system or if he can mature into a solid NFL starter.

System concerns.  Vertical passing concerns.  No height concerns and no durability concerns listed for Kolb, who was definitely not as well regarded as Brees coming out (for Brees the spread system was perceived as more of a fact, re: learning curve; for Kolb, it meant he was off a lot of teams boards).  Kolb was more highly regarded than Tom Brady coming out of Houston in 2007 (which ended up being a weak QB class), and I think the reasoning for that is sound.  Brady, all these years later, would not go at the top of the second round either.

A good comparable for Brady in terms of historical significance is Joe Montana, and he was drafted 82nd overall in 1979, which was pretty high for a quarterback.  The scouts in that draft loved Jack Thompson and Phil Simms, which made 79 a really strong draft for quarterbacks at the time even before you consider Montana.  In today’s game, Montana wouldn’t have fallen past where Jimmy Clausen was drafted by the Panthers out of the same school in 2010.  But then again, Montana was an accomplished college player who simply had arm-strength/system limitation.  In hindsight, Brady had the same deal: accuracy over arm, but was overshadowed at his college program where Montana achieved legend status.  Brady was more like Wisconsin’ Scott Tolzien should Tolzien have enjoyed a more competitive performance against TCU in the Rose Bowl, which probably cost him the right to be drafted.

System guys like Michigan-era Brady get drafted if they play in enough big games in their college careers, which Brady did.  Strangely, that’s probably not what got him drafted in 2000.  Brady’s intelligence made him a perfect candidate for the system that Bill Belichick was trying to install in New England.  But because of the success of that system and the proliferation of Belichick’s assistants throughout the league, players with Brady’s skills are more valued today.  Brady’s draft profile would have been more valuable than, to throw a name out there, either Colt McCoy or Mike Kafka in 2010.

We now have a range where Michigan’s Tom Brady would have been drafted in the 2011 draft.  He would have gone higher than Joe Montana went in 1979, because players who were more maligned by NFL draftniks and front offices alike slipped further than that.

I went back to the list of statistical comparables, and I see names like John Beck, Jimmy Clausen, Drew Stanton nearby in completion percentage.  This year, the closest comparables were Andy Dalton, Christian Ponder, and TJ Yates unadjusted for era, and Tolzien and Greg McElroy when compared to the time-weighted average.  Brady would have been one of the more sought after system quarterbacks this year, though he probably wouldn’t have caused the Dalton-mania symptoms the Bengals exhibited on draft day.  I think he would have gone higher than the average year in 2011, but speaking about 2011 more abstractly, I think Brady would have been the fourth QB drafted in 2009, I think he would have been the third or fourth QB taken in 2010, and he probably wouldn’t have been in the first five taken in 2011, though that would have been the one year Brady might actually have gone in the first round.

Tom Brady, a decade later, would likely not have been a sixth round pick.  Brady likely would have been perceived similar to this years former Michigan QB, Arkansas’ Ryan Mallett.   Brady may not have been seen as the player with the most upside, but he wouldn’t have fallen due to character concerns.  If Tom Brady had not been drafted in 2000, but had been drafted in 2011 or 2012 instead, front offices would have rated the Michigan product as a mid second round pick to an early third round pick, and a system quarterback prospect who could thrive in a system that takes advantage of his limited skill set.

Like, for example, the New England Patriots.

The MSU Spartans Are the Most Surprising 5-0 College Football Team

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I have a complete list of DI-FBS Football Teams who have yet to fall this season: Alabama, Oregon, Boise State, TCU, Auburn, Arizona, Oklahoma, LSU, Ohio State, Nebraska, Oklahoma State, Utah, Missouri, Nevada, Northwestern, Michigan, and Michigan State.

That’s 17 teams out of 119 teams at the beginning of the season.  One more of those will fall for sure this week when Michigan and Michigan State meet, though it’s pretty unlikely that 16 unbeatens will get out of this week without a loss.

We can, however, look at this list and find who looks out of place.  Northwestern, Nevada, Nebraska, Oklahoma State, Utah, Missouri, and Michigan haven’t played anyone who is currently ranked.  Ohio State, LSU, Oklahoma, TCU, Arizona, Alabama, Oregon, and Auburn all have quality wins over teams that are ranked or could finish ranked, but those are your power programs on the list and it’s hardly a surprise that any of them are undefeated in the first week of October.  Boise State has thrashed everyone they played since narrowly escaping over Virginia Tech.  They last lost in 2008, so their undefeated record isn’t a surprise.

On the other hand, one of the 17 teams weren’t even expected to have a winning record at this point, necessarily, and logged an upset over a conference opponent last week to reach this point.  The Michigan State Spartans are 5-0, and they’ve done it on the strength of wins over Notre Dame and Wisconsin at home.  What makes the Spartans a surprise 5-0 team is that this team wasn’t even supposed to be ready to compete at this point.  They’ve improved on both offense and defense when it would appear that they were set for a decline.

Problem with Michigan State’s early season is that they’ve played four home games, and one “neutral” site game in Detroit against…Florida Atlantic?  Sounds like a home game to me.  Michigan State now must play four of it’s final seven games on the road inside the Big Ten conference.  Of course, going to Ann Arbor to play Michigan isn’t too different than a neutral site game.  The crowd will be partisan, though by home game standards at the Big House, not really up to that partisan standard.

Still, this is a barrier that the Spartans must conquer in order to chase a Rose Bowl title.  Ohio State and Michigan State don’t play this year, so we could have a situation where both teams run the table this year.  Both teams have Michigan and Iowa as their best remaining opponents.

It’s an unlikely scenario that would result in Michigan State running the table to tie an Ohio State team that also went 12-0, but I think they have an advantage against a Michigan team this week that is really struggling on defense at the current moment.  That’s not an advantage that Ohio State will have over Michigan later in the year.  The Wolverines were worse defensively last week than in any of the prior weeks, and Denard Robinson is banged up enough right now to the point where he is going to have to start relying on his arm a bit more than in past weeks.

Robinson will be able to throw on the Michigan State defense, but probably not enough to outpace the work done by the balanced Spartan offense, and I think Michigan State wins this game over Michigan comfortably, by 9-13 points or so.  If this prediction proves correct, it’s going to be tough to stop the Spartans the rest of the year.  The Spartans have proven to be a team with many small weaknesses on both sides of the football, but no fatal flaws that will keep them out of games against better opponents.

And because of the notably soft big ten schedule, a lot more people than just me could be seeing a 12-0 Spartans season after this week.  It’s certainly not unreasonable.  It was only unthinkable prior to the season because nobody really thought Michigan State could possibly be good enough to run through the early part of their schedule at 5-0.  If Notre Dame wasn’t going to get them, then Wisconsin would.  I thought exactly the same thing.  Michigan State proved that assumption wrong, so here we are now, a 5-0 team needing to keep the other Michigan college football team from getting to 6-0 themselves.

Unlike Michigan, this game wouldn’t just mean another win for Sparty, it would validate the first five games of the year.  Michigan can’t get caught looking ahead, nor can they be satisfied with a near-disaster victory in this game.  They’re in a tough spot, and I think they’re going to be in trouble when Michigan State drops them to 5-1 this week and then yes, Rich Rodriguez is going to be pushed back into the “show me” line of fire with the Michigan faithful.  This week and this game can (and will) change the way people are looking at the Big Ten.

The Unwritten Narrative of the Michigan-Notre Dame Game: Clausen, Tate’s Departures Cost Irish

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There has been plenty written about the lone college football game of this past week that lived up to the hype, a 28-24 thriller between the Michigan Wolverines and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.  This game was hardly any different in outcome from last year’s game: Michigan builds a sizable lead early in the third quarter, Notre Dame comes all the way back to take the lead, and Michigan holds for the last drive, a very successful TD drive.

Much has been written about Michigan’s Denard Robinson, who personally accounted for more than 500 yards of total offense in this game.  Much more will be written about him, because he won this game with his arm and his legs.  Michigan simply didn’t have many other valuable players and the valuable players they did have all play on their offensive line.  Non-Robinson skill positions at Michigan are simply of bad players.  When Robinson gets help from some blue chippers in future seasons, just think how dynamic he will be.

Robinson won the game, but faced a much improved Notre Dame defense in the process.  Michigan scored four TDs, but one of those was set up by turnovers, one was a long play from Robinson, and then there was the last drive.  In between, Notre Dame had the Michigan offense under wraps.  Those 500 yards can be deceiving: they came in chunks against a defense that was up to the task of stopping spread offenses.

This game wasn’t lost on defense for the Irish.  Rather, it was lost at the point when Jimmy Clausen and Golden Tate decided to fore go their senior seasons to enter the NFL draft.  Because the story in this game is that the Irish weren’t deep enough offensively to compete with Michigan.

Quarterback Dayne Crist got hurt after the teams first drive — a touchdown drive.  He did not return for the rest of the half.  True freshman Tommy Rees (Lake Forest, IL) and Junior Nate Montana (So. California) led the offense for a quarter and a half, and didn’t do particularly well.  But had Clausen still been the starting quarterback, or had Tate still been in the mix at receiver, there would have been a game-long offensive advantage for the Irish, instead of just two and a half quarters of one.

Even accounting for injury to the starting quarterback (in this case, Clausen), Notre Dame would have been prepared to beat the weak Michigan secondary with some depth at the position, or more options at wide receiver to get wide open for a green passer such as Rees.  But by losing both, the Irish went on a -21 point differential streak from the time Crist left the game, almost entirely (but not completely) due to offensive inefficiencies.

And so while we give Denard Robinson all the credit he deserves for winning this game on the road in South Bend, keep in mind that the Irish are a top heavy offense this season, and need to fill in the holes with Brian Kelly recruiting classes before they have the offensive depth to pull their quarterback due to a concussion, and play players way down on the depth chart instead.  If Charlie Weis is still coach, who knows?  Maybe Clausen and Tate stay another year, and then Notre Dame completely overpowers Michigan in a game which Robinson’s awesomeness is merely an afterthought in the coffin of Rich Rodriguez.

But the transitional aspect of this game has been wildly overlooked.  Notre Dame is a BCS team if their 5-star recruit laden offense were to remain perfectly healthy throughout the season, but they are in trouble if Dayne Crist, or Kyle Rudolph, or Michael Floyd, or Armando Allen misses any time.  Crist missed just a quarter and a half, but ND’s offensive efficiency numbers may take weeks to recover.  What ultimately puts Notre Dame 12 months away from contention is that they can’t ever count on all these players being healthy at once.

If they can’t get their seniors to stay, it’s going to be hard for the Irish to line up the pieces for a run under Brian Kelly in the near term future.  But this year’s comeback in a losing effort to Michigan suggests that they can beat anyone, when that health falls into line for Brian Kelly and his forward-thinking spread offense attack.

Big Ten Preview: A Somewhat Disappointing Ohio State Team Wins Again

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No conference has softened more over the last ten years than the Big Ten, which has watched Michigan, Purdue, and Michigan State fall badly from fringe title contenders in the mix for the Big Ten every year, to really fringe programs.  It’s watched Penn State have some BCS bowl bids, only to fall hard in those games (exception an overtime squeaker in the 2006 Orange Bowl over equally dying Florida State).  Wisconsin and Iowa have been among the better programs in the Big Ten, but were also-rans for most of the decade.  Iowa for a while might not have been the best team in it’s own state (though Iowa State has now decisively fallen to among the worst programs in FBS competition).

Only one program, Ohio State, survived the overall decline of the Big Ten to remain an elite program.  Ohio State returns as the prohibitive favorite, but the conference as a whole figures to be much stronger this year than in any of the past three.  Michigan isn’t going to win the title (or beat Ohio State), but they are good enough to win eight games.  Wisconsin, Iowa, and Penn State all could win the conference, and they all should win at least seven games, and potentially as many as nine.  But once again, the only program that is bound to put up double digit wins this season is Ohio State — and they may just barely hit that threshold, given the inevitability of a bowl appearance.

One thing that went really well last year for the Big Ten, perhaps the only thing, was that they did very well in bowls across the board.  They went 4-3, but Northwestern, Michigan State, and Minnesota had the three losses, and two of the three opponents (Auburn, Texas Tech) are expected to return stronger this year.  Minnesota may only have received a bowl bid because Notre Dame declined one and because Michigan came up a game short of eligibility.  The conference’s 4-3 record included a 2-0 mark in BCS bowl record, with Ohio State winning the Rose Bowl, and Iowa taking home the Orange Bowl.  PSU beat LSU, so that was hardly a cupcake walk.  Wisconsin’s win over Miami may have been even more impressive.

Michigan is the focal point of the regular season in the Big Ten, where every game for Rich Rodriguez is the biggest game of his career.  They still schedule quite well: Michigan dipped into the ranks of the FCS to play UMass this year, but they aren’t a cupcake opponent (Delaware State, on the other hand…).  Michigan should have the edge over Penn State when they go to Happy Valley in the middle of the season, but that game only has relevance in the Big Ten Championship picture if Michigan can protect the Big House against either Iowa or Wisconsin.  Putting away in-state rival Michigan State shouldn’t be much of an issue, but it’s something they have now failed to do in consecutive years (though Chad Henne’s impressive comeback in 2007 still stings Sparty as much as ever).  The key to Michigan’s season may be avoiding an 0-2 start against UConn and Notre Dame.  Few college football teams open up that difficult, that is to say, there are plenty of scheduled two game non-conference schedules tougher than two borderline-unranked teams, but most teams have a cupcake at the beginning of the season as not to begin oh and two.  Michigan had the right idea in 2007 when they scheduled Utah in the second week, and then to make sure they started at least 1-1, they brought in, uh, Appalachian State.  Well, at least they won’t be caught off guard this time.

Penn State is notorious for scheduling softly non-conference, so they did about as well as they could this year for a team that still pays Youngstown State to come in and get beat: they play at Alabama.  Temple is about as strong as any team in the MAC this year, save CMU, so the Penn State/Temple game might be more than just an in-state game that must be played this year.  Still, a 3-1 start for the Nittany Lions would be expected.  Then, at Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium, where Penn State tries to break a two game losing streak to the Hawkeyes, clearly the game of the year on their schedule.  The toughest stretch here involves a three game stretch with Michigan, Northwestern, and then at Ohio State.  If Penn State can overcome Iowa, they can possibly see a very successful 6-2 conference record, probably coming up a bit short of the conference title, but 9-3 would be a good finish given the improved schedule.

Iowa has a difficult game this year at Arizona, a long trip to play one of the better Pac Ten teams, but if we assume that Iowa is done playing close games against vastly inferior opponents, a 3-1 (or better) start for a top ten team is practically insured.  This is the team that can take down the Buckeyes this year at home, but it means nothing if they can’t also handle the Badgers.  Combine that with a Penn State team who also comes to them looking for a measure of revenge, and Iowa has all the meaningful games on their schedule at home this year, but also has the pressure of needing to win all home games to preserve their fast track to the big ten title.  This pressure, I imagine, would make them not the favorite to do so.

I think, with the Big Ten rebounding a bit this season, Wisconsin is going to reap the benefits of a weaker non-conference schedule with a 6-0 start, and I also predict that Bret Bilema’s team will head to a BCS bowl this season.  Position for position, they aren’t the team best suited to beat the Buckeyes on the field, but this is a team that is built for the long haul.  Over the season, they should outlast the Hawkeyes, running their regular season record to 10 or 11 wins (all losses in conference is going to hurt them), and seal up an at large berth for the Orange Bowl (or potentially, the Rose) even if they aren’t technically the Big Ten Champs.

That’s because, even though the competition is at an all time high, Ohio State is still the best team in the conference.  Ohio State has the scheduling advantage of playing all four non-conference games at home.  Miami is good enough on the field to threaten them at home, and possibly beat them late (one of the few QBs in college football more dangerous than Terrelle Pryor is Miami’s Jacory Harris).  Miami’s ability to hang with (or beat) OSU will put on display some of the weaknesses of the Buckeyes as a viable title contender.  But when they get in to conference play, the Big Ten will be decided when Ohio State rattles off six straight comfortable conference wins before getting tripped up at the end of the year by Iowa, and by Michigan in “The game”, which Ohio State still wins for a seventh straight year.

It’s a conference that is a lot better, but Ohio State can help show it’s not all the way back yet by running through all other teams as the only true title-contending team in the conference.

LiveBall Sports Projected Order of Finish

1. Ohio State (7-1)
2. Wisconsin (7-1)
3. Penn State (6-2)
4. Iowa (6-2)
5. Michigan (5-3)
6. Purdue (4-4)
7. Northwestern (3-5)
8. Michigan State (3-5)
9. Indiana (2-6)
10. Illinois (1-7)
11. Minnesota (0-8)

Darelle Revis Plays in New York? You Don’t Say!

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NOT NEW YORK CITY, NY — Even with the flare of all the highly touted quarterbacks who have reached the NFL’s version of the final four with their teams (all in blowout fashion, mind you), it certainly seems like none of them have received quite the credit for there as Jets CB Darrelle Revis has.

It’s not like Revis isn’t deserving of the praise.  The Pitt product is a true shutdown player at a position where failure is widely accepted as a bump in the road, at a position where a pass interference flag, in context, is a method of defense against a worse result.  Revis can excel in technique and physicality at a position where a few bad beats means that you’re freely available talent.

Especially in a year where Packers counterpart Charles Woodson was awarded defensive player of the year, it’s hard to complain about Revis getting all this hubbub, especially when then known alternative is all-Favre, all the time.

Here’s the big issue: a lot of the credit is disingenuous.  Revis is this year’s darling of the playoff ball only because he plays his home games in the New York media market.  Can we seriously not have a player from that market who is quietly underrated for a change?

Why does Mark Teixiera have to be baseballs best switch hitter since Bernie Williams?  Why is it so hard to find any information about the first ten years of Wayne Gretsky’s career?  And can someone please tell me why Spike Lee is a larger part of the culture of NBA Basketball than, say, Flip Saunders has ever been?

Darelle Revis has a really good shot at the pro football hall of fame, if for no other reason than the fact that he’s been accepted as one of the league’s most elite players–at any position–at the age of 24.  Other shut-down type corners have had to wait, sometimes until after their best years, to get this type of recognition.  It hasn’t helped that Nnamdi Asomugha has never played on a winning team, but he wasn’t universally accepted as elite until age 27.  League types knew that Champ Bailey was a great talent as early as 2000, but he didn’t make his first all-pro team until he left a historically underachieving Washington team for Denver, who would only begin to underachieve after Bailey (age 26) arrived.  Asante Samuel was age-26 before he was elected to his first pro-bowl.  Al Harris was 33 when he was first elected to the pro bowl.

The only real comparable type of career path to Revis is, ironically, Woodson, who went to the pro bowl as a rookie and also all of his first four seasons in Oakland, a media sinkhole.  But Woodson had a New York-media tie that even Revis didn’t have in college, when he played at the nationally-syndicated University of Michigan and won the Heisman trophy as a defensive player.  Green Bay is not exactly Los Angeles or San Francisco, but with Woodson’s late career “revival” (assuming the talent ever really went anywhere), he figures to be Canton-bound, much like Revis.

It was hard to ever expect a pro football player to rise to prominence in the national spotlight faster than Eli Manning did during his career 180 in some city over 6 months starting in September of 2007.  But Revis’ ascension has happened perhaps quicker.  Revis didn’t get good overnight: he played in the pro bowl last season, he was a mid first round pick who might have taken the league by storm as a rookie in 2007 if not for a lengthy holdout and the aforementioned Manning saga.  There’s no room to dispute Revis’ greatness, just as no one would ever suggest that Favre or Peyton Manning already has their Canton-check written, and just waiting to be cashed (whether there will ever be a 5-year period in American history where Favre doesn’t play NFL football is anyone’s guess).

Seriously though, it might be time to give it a rest.  He plays in New York, the cliche-capital of Greatest City in the World.  Look at him and their foul-mouthed, well-fed, character of a coach!  Isn’t it great that this team–and city–just never goes away!  It’s the City that NEVER SLEEPS!!!1!

But for the rest of us who don’t feel any particular nationalistic pride with the people and writers of New York, Revis is just another really, really good pro football player, like a Josh Cribbs or a Jared Allen, that we’d really only like to hear about in the context of a great individual effort or next contract, and certainly nothing more.

Aftermath: Michigan-Notre Dame

flickr.com/larrysphatpage

Final score: Michigan 38-34.  So, what have we learned?

Number one, the Irish are a completely different team when they are playing with a two TD lead vs. a close game.  In the former scenario, they combine a high powered passing game with a tough inside running game and a dominant passing defense that’s more likely to create a turnover than allow a score.  But in a close game?  Yeah, you can run on this team.  Nevada ran on them when they were in the game, and because ND didn’t put UM away in the first half when they probably should have, Michigan was able to use the ground game to create offense in the second half.

There appears to be little doubt that Notre Dame has more talent than their ranking coming in suggested (No. 18), but it could be three weeks before the Irish earn their way back to this level in the polls.  The story of this game is probably that a Notre Dame team that Michigan simply didn’t have the defensive personnel to stop were not nearly aggressive enough in the first half in putting away an inferior opponent.  305 total yards in the first half.  But the Irish settled for three field goal attempts, which became 6 points.

What would have happened if Notre Dame had pushed forward and tried to convert it’s third and fourth downs in the first half?   Could those 6 points have become 14, 17, or even 21 points?  I have to think they could have been.  Notre Dame could have gone into the locker room leading by two scores at half, and instead went in by 6 points.  And coming out, they weren’t a markedly better team than the Maize and Blue were.  They let Michigan keep the ball on the ground which is their offensive strength and Notre Dame’s defensive weakness, and that takes a potential blowout game and makes it an even playing field in the Big House, which is never really an even playing field.

If anything, I’m more optimistic now that Notre Dame can win 10 games than I was at the beginning of the season.  Everything clicks for this offense, which can score points on absolutely anyone, even USC.  But I think there’s a difference between having Brady Quinn behind center and having Jimmy Clausen.  With the former, keeping the game close and trying to win it at the end is a sound strategy.  With the latter, you really have to push the physical dominance of his team over the other, and not let Michigan have a meaningful drive at the end of the game.  Clausen showed his resiliency coming from 11 points down to having a 4 point lead and a chance to run out the clock, but the guy isn’t Brady Quinn and may never be.

For Charlie Weis, it’s his first loss this year in which he probably left a win on the table.  If there’s a second one of those, he’s not the coach of Notre Dame next season.  The chances that he does not have this job next year seem to be about the same as the odds that the Irish lose to Michigan State at home.  In Weis’ first season, he lost a very winnable game to the Spartans at home in much the same manner that he just lost to the Wolverines.  If it’s a trend, well, the Irish can go 8-4 with someone else at head coach.

And for Tate Forcier, Rich Rodriguez, and the Wolverine Nation, it’s a well-earned signature win over a potential BCS team, and in this one writers opinion, I think it makes them the favorite to win the Big Ten and play in the Rose Bowl.  It breathes life into the lifeless rivalry with the Buckeyes, as the teams will likely meet again for the Big Ten title for the first time since 2006.  And it makes the Michigan Wolverines a good bet for 10 victories this year, which is more impressive than even the most optimistic of Michigan fans might have expected.  They just beat the toughest non-conference opponent on their schedule.  And they did it in a year when they play the Buckeyes at home.