It's that time of year when there’s nothing left but window
dressing bowls for teams that don’t make the CFP which means it’s time for the
MMQ grades and the MMQs! But First,
The
CFP
Talk
about your INTRUIGING plot twists!!! So, at #5, Michigan is still in the
middle of the mess! Amazing, but
not so much when you really think about it.
Michigan has victories over 3 teams in the Top 10, which can’t be
ignored!! Wiscy has one victory over a
team in the top 25. PSU has one victory
over a team in the top 10 (osu). One of
them will improve to 2 victories this weekend, but not exceed Michigan’s Top 10
Win totals. If Washington or Clemson
loses, regardless of who wins the B1G Championship, the Committee is more or
less saying, “We’re NOT going to have a repeat of last season where we totally screwed up and DIDN’T put a
superior suckeyes team in the CFP (that destroyed the Domers in the Fiesta
Bowl) and instead, put in a sparty team, that won the B1G Championship, but turned
out to be a really bad team - in the end.
And they totally embarrassed themselves on national TV. In addition, we REALLY screwed up putting in an Oklahoma team (that couldn’t play a
lick of defense) over a Stanford team that DESTROYED their B1G 10 opponent
(Iowa) in the Rose Bowl. Nope – NOT GONNA’
DO THAT AGAIN. And we don’t care
who we piss off in the process.”
And you can bet that some folks in Happy Valley and Madison are
going to be PLENTY PISSED OFF about that result if the winner Saturday
doesn’t jump the team that beat them both (Michigan). But the Committee appears poised to do just
that.
And I’m not sure that’s entirely a bad thing (and I’m
speaking objectively here– HONEST!!!).
Does PSU or Wiscy want to go into the CFP ala sparty
in the 4th slot only to be demoralized by Bama? Look what happened to sparty this season
after that humiliation. Me-thinks that
the committee is looking to the past with both eyes wide open as to which team
can compete against Bama (based on coaching and overall statistics) and at
least give the audience a game instead of a 4 hour blow-out of mega
proportions. Which is probably what you’d
get with either Wiscy or PSU.
So, Clemson and Washington both have to
win. If one of them loses….CHAOS!!!!
The
Grades
Michigan
Offense: C+ I was going to give this a D based on what I
thought were pretty good reasons, but then I looked at Bill Connelly’s SP+ Rankings
after the last game. Michigan is still
in the top 30 overall offensively (28th), and the number 2 team
overall SP+. That’s pretty good, but
nowhere near A or B work, but definitely better than the D I originally planned.
If Michigan was in Indy for the B1G
Championship and a shot at the CFP, this grade would be different. (For those
of you not familiar with the SP+ rankings, Bill does a great job of adjusting
all stats for opponent level, “meaningful game time” stats vs. garbage minutes
at the end of the game, etc.) Probably
the best stat site out there.
Michigan
Defense: A+ I’m not sure what more they could have done
and what more we could have asked.
Michigan maintained it’s overall #1 rank in the SP+ on Defense which is
why Michigan has been able to hang on to the overall #2 rank for the season. This defense was plenty good enough to win a
Championship, but the offense failed them too many times…. And of course, there’s
this:
http://www.bigten.org/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/112916aad.html
The entire Defense was recognized and received all B1G 10
Honors. Each and every player. So, yeah, I guess an A+ here is warranted by
the ole MMQ!
Special
Teams: B Why the B? While JP was the real deal on returns, I’m
not sure he took advantage of each and every opportunity he was presented
with. And while his performance was
better than B work when he did make returns, I have to look at what could have
been. Also, kicking in general gave us
some grey hair early in the season, but then Allen seemed to right the
ship. Iowa definitely cost the special
teams a half grade (punt coverage team) and could have changed the outcome of
the season.
Coaching: B While the pre-season prep time was clearly
something this team needed, 4th quarter performance in games that
mattered was a major issue. And some of
that has to fall on the coaching staff and the guy calling plays. As I stated earlier, sparty last year, Iowa
and osu were all winnable games. One first
down at critical times in all of those games results in a “W”. Good coaches need to figure out how to call
those games at the end, get that first down, and win them. The B or B+ was there, just get one
first down in either of those critical games this season.
Overall: B A 10-2 season is nothing to be ashamed of,
but when expectations are so high and you have only defeated one of your rivals,
well, it’s a problem. I guarantee you
Coach Harbaugh knows it and will work hard to fix it in the future.
The
MMQ’s
Every year I come up with some awards for outstanding
players, coaches, teams and whatever other what-not that I feel are worthy of
an MMQ award. In no particular order
(and because I just like making stuff up as I go), here we go!
The
MMQ for Best Game of the Season:
Michigan vs. osu. I
considered a couple of others, (actually, not really) and this game by far
topped them all. 2nd place was probably the Clemson-Louisville game that went down to the final seconds, but
for sheer stakes on the table, all or nothing, leave everything on the field,
it has to be Michigan-osu.
The
MMQ Game We THOUGHT was the
Best Game of the Season: domers vs.
Texas wins over sparty vs. domers. Turns out that Labor Day game for the ages was
a bunch of shiny things wrapped up in pretty paper that had absolutely no
substance to it what so ever, in the long haul.
Ditto that sparty –domers game that was simply a battle of ineptitude,
as it turned out. Strong’s gone, Kelly’s
looking and neither team has much to hang their hat on this season.
The
MMQ Player of the Year (that won’t win the Heisman): I’m a little biased on this one, but I do
think that Jabrill Peppers is the most exciting player to watch in college
football. Defensive End Jonathan
Allen from Bama also controls games and is a handful for any team he
faces, but for sheer excitement when he touches the ball, I’m giving it to
Peppers.
The
MMQ Coach of the Year: PJ Fleck. I was torn on this one, I really was. Fleck has set records in the MAC and given
Western Michigan something to talk about for generations to come. I wanted to give it to Harbaugh (again, bias)
but losing the way Michigan has lost is somewhat on the coaching staff. Other coaches strongly considered were
McEntyre (Colorado), Franklin (PSU), Peterson (Washington) and Chrsyt
(Wiscy). Where Fleck ends up after next
Saturday will be interesting to see, and my money is on Purdue right now.
The
MMQ Dumpster Fire inside of a Tire Fire Team of the Year: This one is SO HARD. Three candidates immediately jumped to
mind: sparty, domers and Rutgers. (Also considered: Arizona, Texas, Purdue, BC, and UCLA.) Seeing
as how everyone kind of knew that Rutgers was a disaster heading into the
season and everyone is giving Chris Ash at least 5 seasons to right the ship, I
can’t put them in first place. NOBODY
saw the disasters at sparty and the domers coming, but which one is
worse? Sparty has to play in the B1G East and they also beat the Domers
rather decisively. The domers opponents
this season are barely playing 0.500 ball, meaning that the domers had a fairly
easy schedule. And while the sparty record at 3-9 is worse
than 4-8, that heads up victory has to count for something. And Anthononio isn’t actively looking for
other gigs, as far as we know, unlike Kelly, who wants to bail on the sinking
ship. WINNER:
The Domers it is.
The
MMQ Team of the Year: While
it’s easy to give this to an undefeated team and Bama seems like the logical
choice, I’m leaning a slightly different way.
Everyone kind of expected Bama, Michigan, osu, and Clemson to be pretty
good. But there’s a team in the Pac 12
that is really good and will probably give fits to the rest of the Pac 12 for
years to come. WINNER: Peterson’s Washington Huskies are a
great team and still have a shot at winning the Pac 12 and going to the
CFP. And NOBODY predicted that
pre-season.
The
MMQ for “What Could Have Been” Season: Again, it might be too early to hand this one
out as we still have a weekend of football left. (especially if Clemson or
Washington lose) But not everyone is
playing and the CFP is probably pretty set with regards to who’s in and
out. Several teams are in the running
for this one: Wiscy, PSU, osu, Colorado, USC, Okie
State and Michigan. I have a
very funny feeling that only 1 B1G team gets in and it’s not going to be the
one that everyone THINKS is going to make the CFP. Michigan’s losses (by 1 and 3 points) and osu’s
loss (by 3 to PSU) are clearly the closest losses for the teams
considered. Michigan decisively beat
Colorado, Wiscy and PSU, so they’ve been eliminated from consideration. If osu is left out of the CFP for the 1-loss
to PSU (assuming it’s Bama – Clemson – Washington – PSU/Wiscy winner) than osu
can claim the award. Otherwise, it’s
Michigan.
The
Most Poorly Officiated Game of the Year: Again, another close one, but I do have a
personal bias on this one. Candidates:
Michigan
vs. osu: reasons
have been stated and are obvious
Okie
State vs. Central: Recall
the play at the end of the game that SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ALLOWED and was
due to an officiating screw up where refs were suspended for two weeks.
While I’m still bitter about the subjective officiating
calls that were and were NOT made in the Michigan-osu game, the Central-OSU game has to be
the winner. In what could be an
easy decision to simply say the last play didn’t count, take the points off the
board, the NCAA (and Las Vegas) isn’t allowing it. Crazy.
The
MMQ for the Most Overrated Conference of the Year: Anyone else besides the SEC in this discussion is
a non-starter. Clearly a conference that
started with 8 teams in the top 25 (and 5 in the Top 10) pre-season to only
have 1 Top 10 Team in the final rankings is worthy of this award. I know all about the Big Xii, but they weren’t
supposed to be that great to begin with.
However,
The
MMQ for the Most Disappointing Conference of the Year: Can
easily go to the Big Xii. They
stink on ice and Texas and Oklahoma are leading the way with that stink. The Big Xii’s non-conference record was also
atrocious, giving them this award hands down.
Not to mention wasting all of our time with expansion that never
happened.
The
MMQ for the Worst Coaching Performance of the Year: This one is close. I’m not sure any of these coaches quit (maybe
one), but they certainly didn’t do themselves any favors with things they said
and did during the season. This award came
down to coaches that are still active.
IF you got canned somewhere along the way, I’m eliminating you from
consideration as you’re already history.
This award has to go to a coach that will be back on the same team next
season (and as of this writing, hasn’t been fired), and probably in the top 5
as far as the Hot Seat goes. In no
particular order:
Butch
Jones – Cremesicles were unanimous favorite to win SEC East, and
blew it. Not only that, but losing to a
lousy Vandy team to end the regular season has the torch and pitchfork crowd
fired up.
B.
Kelly – domers were a top 10 pre-season team with 1st
round QB
Dantonio
–
sparty was a pre-season top 15 team with plenty of returning talent
Smart –
Georgia was not a dumpster fire and the cabinet wasn’t bare. Should have been a
9 win floor for Smart…
Rich
Rod
– 5th season on the job and he goes 3-9 after being a dark-horse
pick pre-season by some observers?
Grobe
–
is he even coaching Baylor or just letting the assistants run the show? Baylor on a 5 game skid after starting 6-0. To be fair, Grobe doesn’t even have to be
fired as he told the AD he’s done after the bowl game.
Chris
Ash
– lost by a combined 228-0 to Michigan, osu, and PSU. Even for a first year, that’s not good…
And
the winner is: Kelly. I know it sounds like I’m always picking on
the guy, but he is the only coach on the list that calls his players and
assistant coaches out for not executing or playing good enough to win. My guess is that a lot of schools have seen
that as well, which is why his nosing around for another job didn’t go so well. The biggest reason for him winning the
award: I asked myself if I had to take coaches
off this list to fill vacancies, who would be the last one I picked (Grobe
excluded)? Rich Rod right before Kelly
were the last two.
The
MMQ for the Well That’s Fabulous
Moment of the Year: Again,
close. Okie State-CMU was considered,
firing the winningest head coach at a school in the SEC was also considered,
and playing a football game in a hurricane that could have been played on Sunday
was considered. A couple of those have
already received awards, so I’m giving this one to Hurricane Bowl. And the fact that the domers tried to pass
the ball like the heavy stuff wasn’t going to come down for quite awhile!!!
MMQ
for the Most Improved Team of the Year: Always tough, but without question the
coaching change that Clay Helton made at
QB for USC had a tremendous impact on that teams performance. And after watching a lot of the USC Washington game, there’s not a
coach in his right mind that would WANT to play USC right now. That’s improvement.
The MMQ
for the Most Non-Football Related Issue that Occupied Our Time: It’s close, and items considered were Baylor
sexual abuse, Targeting Rule Discussion(s), and Big Xii Expansion. Winner:
Big Xii Expansion. Tired
of listening to it and talking about it.
