Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Mid-Week Round Up - PSU Coming Around the Corner

Can you please increase your font size?

Sure!   Here you go!  Back up to 12 point Arial.  I know a lot of you read on your phones.  Hope this helps.

What Did You Want From A 2-Minute Drill?

Okay – I got a text that more or less dinged me for screaming about wanting a 2-Minute Drill right before the half.  A 2-Minute Drill assumes you can actually throw the ball and move it effectively downfield.  But, to counter that argument, Michigan had good field position and should have been able to at least move it into Quin Nordin’s range which is like, what, 70 friggin’ yards?  Play to win and don’t play not to lose is all I’m saying.  I would have been happy putting 3 on the board and sending Indiana into the half with a little more air out of the balloon…

Isn’t it time for Peters?

O’Korn is only averaging a little over 2.8 YPA on passes as a starter.  Can Peters do better?  Valid question.  I’m pretty sure any one of a number of you reading this could suit up and do better.  And I’m sure there’ll be a little practice competition this week as Michigan gets ready for Un-Happy Valley.  I didn’t mention the god-awful read and then throw into double coverage that O’Korn made on Saturday when he tried to force a pass to Crawford and Gentry was standing like a scarecrow in a field all alone.  O’Korn has a vision problem (during the game) and Peters has to be better than that.

Funny thing is, Speight was having the same types of vision problems.  It’s like they’re being told to zone in on the first option and ignore the other receivers.  For two QB’s to have the same type of reading errors is concerning (Especially with Harbaugh) – or are plays getting seen by opposing coaches and defenses know where O’Korn is trying to throw.  Why aren’t they checking down?   I’d love to sit in the QB meeting room reviewing film this week.  Gotta’ do a better job with that…Brian’s Monday Summary at mgoblog is pretty good and worth the read if you haven’t seen it yet.  He’s given up on O’Korn and decided that Peters is the guy that’s here next year – go with him.



That is the question of the week, isn’t it?  I was looking at stats and the teams PSU has faced have a combined record of 19-18.  And only one (Iowa) has a Power 5 winning record.  See where I’m going here?  Yes, PSU has looked impressive, but against middling (at best) competitionAnd they should have lost to Iowa.  They blasted Indiana pretty bad at home (that Michigan just struggled with), but, frankly I’m starting to see a way (SIDE NOTE:  Barkley had his worst performance – 2.5 YPA - against Indiana where Michigan just reeled off close to 6 yards per rushing attempt!).  Wait till Friday gets here and I’ll be taking the MONEYLINE (currently at $320!!)

Can Michigan’s Offense Do Anything Against PSU?

404 File Not Found…All right, wait.  Let’s take a stab at this…  I do think Michigan will be able to rush the ball.  Perhaps quite efficiently, but we’ll have to see.  And the Game Plan will probably be based on slowing the game down as much as possible.  If O’Korn (or Peters) can come out and at least be serviceable, maybe good things can happen in Un-Happy Valley.  Nordin may have a big dayThere’s no shame in winning with Figgies.

Things Are Getting Ugly In Maryland

I forgot to mention that Durk’s Terps lost to the Purple Kitties on Saturday.  But things are even stranger in what appears to be an ugly transition at AD.

Current AD Anderson hasn’t been showing up for home games (missed all 3). It appears some type of buyout, job transition or exit plan has been in the works for weeks, as Anderson and president Wallace Loh have been at odds.  When questioned about Anderson, two different Maryland athletic spokesmen declined comment on Saturday, pointing to a tweet that stated Anderson is the Maryland AD.  They also pointed the reporter to a university spokesperson that responded by text: “Kevin Anderson is our AD.”
As a hilarious bonus, the internal candidate most likely to replace Anderson will likely bring up another public-relations headache. Senior associate athletic director Damon Evans “arrived instead of Anderson at Durkin’s postgame press conference” on Saturday, according to The Washington Post. Evans got fired as the athletic director at Georgia in 2010 after being pulled over for a DUI and found with a “red pair of lady’s panties between [his] legs.” They belonged to a woman in the passenger seat who was not his wife. Evans later told the officer, “I’m not trying to bribe you, but I am the athletic director at Georgia.”
With all of the PC Correctness flying around regarding how we can speak about stuff?  This is gonna’ get good!!!

For The Last Time…

If you recall, when UNC first got “caught” in African American Studies gate in 2010, many believed that this was a potential “Death Penalty”, or at the minimum a forfeiture of games and National Titles.  (The MMQ was on record that UNC was in deep doo-doo).  UNC was immediately put on Academic probation in 2011 and as of today is still on Academic Probation with the Southern Association of Colleges as they haven’t totally cleaned up their act, which, frankly, I figured was the smoking gun and UNC was going to be punished heavily for cheating.

Wetzel covers it here and an excerpt:


Carolina even changed its argument for the NCAA. When the school was in front of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, which accredits it as an actual university, it declared that no-show, no-professor, no-work classes were wrong.
UNC reported to its accreditor that what occurred for nearly 18 years on its campus was academic fraud,” the NCAA report stated. ” … Specifically, UNC admitted [it] demonstrated that, ‘the academic fraud was long-standing.'”

Jesus-Tap-Dancing-Christ-on-a-Cracker!

I’m still pissed from Friday’s announcement of what was clearly academic fraud at UNC for university athletes to take a two page, 3 credit “Paper Class” without a professor where the grades given out were not even on a curve and usually resulted in at least a B.  And UNC obviously had an un-fair advantage in all sports as a result
Read that last sentence again: 

AN UNFAIR ADVANTAGE AS A RESULT!

Some of you chimed in that all schools have these “Types of Classes” where student athletes or whoever could take and get a decent grade to up their GPA.  Sure, I get it. It doesn’t make it right.

If the NCAA cannot find a way to somehow enforce and punish a school for something this blatant, than it really should just get out of enforcement of any rules and go run it’s billion-dollar hoops tournament. 
Stop policing schools, let them self-police and be done with the hypocritical stances and policies that never catch and punish anyone that’s blatantly cheated
But wait – you can get busted and put on probation for over-stretching…That’s covered.

And you better not have Football Summer Camps In SEC COUNTRY, cause that creates and unfair advantage!

NCAA – Go “F” yourself…

Casual Slappy Fans Are Not Very Good At Math

I happened to get into a casual conversation with a fan that made the comment that “No one is going to beat Bama.  They will roll over everyone on their schedule.”  I started to make my standard argument as to how hard it truly is to “Win them all” and this guy was having none of it.  And the sad part is he’s a poker player that’s actually pretty good.  Meaning, I figured he could do basic math.  Never assume anything… 

Here’s a table for the mathematically impaired that will (hopefully) demonstrate why, probabilistically, it’s always a safe bet to say that nobody is going undefeated.  It’s simple to make in Excel (15 games, enter probabilities, multiply them out) and you can see for yourself.  Even the slappiest of slappies that assume their team is 95% to win most of the games on their schedule and then 80% to win the Conf. Championship and the CFP games only has less than a 25% chance to go undefeated.  As you read across the columns, you can see that a more reasonable look drives the final probabilities into the single digit and less areas.  I’ll agree that Bama has the best chance, but I’d gladly bet even money that they lose one somewhere along the way. 

(I also used Michigan’s schedule with what I thought reasonable probabilities were for Michigan to win their games.  Notice I even have the “less than 50% chance games” in there, driving the overall probability down to under, well, let’s not talk about that.) 


Notice I didn’t say that Bama wouldn’t win title.  I just think they might lose to either LSU or Auburn because the math supports it.  And they lost the most important one last season. 
Clemson lost to Pitt last year and still won the Big One.  It happens.

What’s even more amazing is when you get a college basketball team that somehow manages to go 29-30 games without losing.  That probability is incredibly low!  But it just goes to show that basketball is a little more predictable (I know, I can’t believe I typed that) when you have a dominant team. 

Hoops Pre-Season B1G Poll IS Out

For those that are into suck things….Surprise!  Sparty #1 and Michigan tied for 5th.
Preseason poll
1. Michigan State (28 – unanimous)
2. Purdue (80)
3. Minnesota (90)
4. Northwestern (115)
T-5. Maryland (155)
T-5. Michigan (155)
7. Wisconsin (168)
8. Iowa (204)
9. Indiana (270)
10. Penn State (280)
FIVE TOTALLY REAL AND IRRATIONAL MESSAGE BOARD THREADS
“How would we fare against the #1 HS team? (IMG Academy)” - phog.net (Kansas)
“The Muschamp O was better than this!” - gatorcountry.com
“I thought these players liked this coach.” - vandymania.com
“Its obvious that the Charlie Strong recruits have left the building” - cardinalsports.com
“We’re only two plays from being 5-1!” - volnation.com
Etc.
The PC Police have been out en-force this past week!!
Al Michaels goes off and compares the hapless NY Giants to Harvey Weinstein and later apologizes – But I thought it was hilarious!  No apology necessary Al!
And I thought Golden Knights tweet referencing the movie TED the talking bear was kind of funny, also, but apparently we are all 100% PC when it comes to comedy.  (With the exception that you’re free to bash the president whenever for whatever).
Another bunny from 1993 scored in the Michigan – Purdue game!
You know, I think I might actually like Urban Legend’s wife a little more…She more or less tweeted Tebow over Kapernick and had no sympathy for Gonzalez…But she also apologized.
This is Cool…And you have to watch it a couple of times as it goes through the weeks.  I’ve been watching from the beginning and losing to Sparty really sucked as all the M’s went away.  But beat PSU and there’s a huge land acquisition in the making.

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