There will obviously be plenty more said about Mizzou football in 2007, but I figured I should finish off this spring preview series with a quick Mizzou summary.
2006
In 2006, Chase Daniel replaced Brad Smith as Mizzou QB, and for a little while, it felt like everything had changed. Mizzou didn’t slip up against a mid-major team in the non-conference season. Mizzou destroyed a good conference team (Texas Tech) on the road. Heading into an October 26 home matchup with Oklahoma, Mizzou was 7-1 and looking to make a major statement. And then, over the last five games of the year, Mizzou would win once. The more things change...? Sort of.
Despite returning most major offensive and defensive weapons in 2006, and despite finishing 2005 on an emotionally high note—coming back from 21 down to win the Independence Bowl—it was hard for Missouri to find respect in the preseason. They were picked by just about everybody to finish closer to the bottom of the weak Big XII North than the top. Among other publications, the Sporting News picked Mizzou to lose at home to an Ole Miss team that had gone 3-8 the season before (granted, TSN is historically wretched at predictions—they picked Colorado #1 in ’97...and the Buffs finished 5-6—but still...). Say you have a player like Brad Smith, and say most of the country can’t name another player on your team...when that player departs, it’s pretty easy to predict that the bottom of the program will drop out. However, Bill Simmons hasn’t popularized the Ewing Theory for nothing. It turned out that the players who, for four years, deferred to Brad Smith on every major play (for better or worse), could make some plays themselves. In 2006, Mizzou averaged significantly more yards per play (6.0) than in any season of the Brad Smith era (5.3 in ’05, 4.9 in ’04, 5.7 in ’03, 5.3 in ’02).
The Chase Daniel era started with a bang—destroying Mississippi, 34-7, in a statement game, then going on the road to pick off New Mexico, 27-17. Missouri started to get some attention after travelling to Lubbock and nailing the Red Raiders, 38-21. The most impressive part of the Tech game, however, was how good the defense looked. Forcing turnovers, coming up with big sacks...this team appeared to have it all—even a consistent place-kicker! However, the next week Mizzou fumbled three times in the first half against Texas A&M, ran the worst fake field goal ever, and lost, 25-19. They appeared to bounce back the next week, thumping K-State, 41-21, in Columbia; however, that game represented something of a tipping point in the season. Brian Smith broke his hip while David Overstreet was returning a fumble for a TD—the flukiest of fluky plays—and the defense would suffer greatly in his absence.
Teams were able to run on Missouri, and though part of this could be explained by the fact that Mizzou’s opponents were simply better rushing teams, Smith’s absense really hurt. The swagger was gone. OU beat Mizzou pretty easily (26-10), and a couple of deflected interceptions threw the Tigers into a giant hole in Lincoln the next week. Mizzou threatened to come back in the second half, but they eventually fell to the Huskers, 34-20. Mizzou was now 7-3, but losses to ATM, OU, and Nebraska are nothing to sniff at. The first significant setback came in a road loss to a very poor Iowa State team playing their last game for Dan McCarney. I could write a 5,000-word piece about how putrid the officiating was in this game (including 2,000 words about the single worst call ever), but the fact was, Mizzou lost, 21-16 after being up 10-0 after two possessions. They were free-falling, and Kansas—winners of three straight over Missouri—was coming to town. The bandwagon was emptying in a hurry, but Mizzou responded with an encouraging 42-17 destruction of the Jayhawks.
And all I’ll say about the Sun Bowl is, the offense was amazing, the defense made some plays but faltered late, Adam Crossett did not touch the on-side kick, Oregon State got away with a fumble at the Mizzou 1, and a 39-38 loss did nothing to sway my ever-eternal optimism for the next season. Yup, that just about covers it.
Key Returnees
The offense returns almost every single major weapon from 2006, leading to insanely high offensive expectations for 2007. You have to love Chase Daniel’s “If they want to put expectations on us, then bring it on” statement in the B&G post-game, but Mizzou fans who lived through the disappointment of 2004 will likely be taking a wait-and-see attitude. Nevertheless, any team that returns Chase Daniel, Tony Temple, Chase Coffman, Martin Rucker, Will Franklin, Jared Perry, Danario Alexander, and four starting O-linemen will likely put up some ridiculous numbers.
On defense, there are obviously plenty of question marks. However, let’s start with the good news—the Tigers will have easily their best unit of defensive tackles since at least 2004. A healthy Ziggy Hood and Lorenzo Williams should hold up the interior of opposing O-lines, and strong play for them will make life easier for a set of fast but inexperienced LB’s (Brock Christopher is the only returning starter in the LB corps). The biggest question mark on the team will probably be at the DE position—same as pretty much everybody else in the conference. Along with Brian Smith, the Tigers will have to replace Xzavie Jackson, a possible second-day pick in the NFL draft. Likely starters Stryker Sulak and Tommy Chavis still need to distinguish themselves.
If the pass rush is at least competent, the pass defense as whole really could be pretty solid. Darnell Terrell was injured on the sidelines while the defense was getting lit up in the B&G Game, but he will be a pretty strong #1 CB in the fall. Domonique Johnson’s departure left a void at the other starting CB position, likely to be filled by either Hardy Ricks or Castine Bridges. The safety position should be pretty strong, as William Moore, Pig Brown, and Justin Garrett (among others) appear capable of replacing David Overstreet and Brandon Massey. Missouri only gave up 6.0 yards per pass attempt in ’06—best in the conference—and though there has been turnover from ’06 to ’07, let’s just say that I’m much more worried about the pass rush than the play of the secondary.
There is strong continuity in the special teams unit, as kicker Jeff Wolfert, punter Adam Crossett, leading kick returner Earl Goldsmith, and leading punt returner Tommy Saunders all return, though there should be challenges for the latter three positions into the fall.
Spring Developments
Everything you need to know about the Spring is in either Merlin’s B&G Game observations or the links at the bottom of the Merlin post.
Fun With Numbers
By the numbers, here are the five biggest keys to success for MU in 2006:
1. Rushing Attempts
2. Time of Possession
3. Opponents’ 3rd Down Conversions
4. 3rd Down Conversion Ratio
5. First Down Ratio
The offense had some ups and downs last year, and I’m sure there will be at least a few of those in 2007, but looking at this list, it’s pretty obvious how Mizzou games went down—when Mizzou was getting some defensive stops, they were winning. And when they were winning, they were running the ball more. Ball control will be the major issue in 2007. The defense will give up yards, but if they can force opponents to punt occasionally and prevent them from running the ball and eating the clock (in other words, the bend-but-don’t-break defense Mizzou patented in 1998), the offense should more than come through.
I’ll go much further in depth in the predictions department later on, but for now I’ll just say that the schedule is tricky but manageable in 2007. The season starts with a couple of landmines in Illinois (neutral site) and Ole Miss (on the road), but if Mizzou is as good as they’re supposed to be, they’ll be 4-0 when Nebraska comes to town to start the Big XII season. After that, who knows? Getting Nebraska, Tech, and ATM at home (and moving the Kansas game from Lawrence to Kansas City) could be huge. If Gary Pinkel’s team really does have a North title in them, the schedule won’t get in their way.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Mizzou Spring Football Preview
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Texas Tech Spring Football Preview
2006
With Mike Leach’s offensive scheme, Texas Tech would probably lead the league in passing if yours truly were their #2 receiver. Granted, my YAC average would be lower than Byron Hanspard’s GPA, but you get the point. But as the differences between 2005 and 2006 proved, continuity is still important in Lubbock. For the first time in seemingly ever, Leach handed the reins to somebody who wasn’t a fifth-year senior—sophomore Graham Harrell—in 2006, and the Red Raiders took a step backwards. That, or 2005 was above standard, and Tech just regressed to the mean. Either way, Tech managed to look a bit shaky while throwing for 369 yards per game last year...definitely not an easy feat. But if “regression” equals 8 wins, that shows how far Tech has come under Leach.
Coming off a 9-3 2005 season which saw them qualify for the Cotton Bowl—their biggest bowl game since, well, the 1995 Cotton Bowl—Tech took a step backwards in ’06. Playing someone harder than 2005’s non-conference slate of Florida International, Sam Houston State, and, I think, Lee’s Summit North High School, Tech barely escaped El Paso with a win on 9/9 (defeating UTEP, 38-35, in OT), then got tripped up by TCU the next week, scoring only 3 points in the process, their lowest total since scoring 3 against Nebraska in 2000. The Red Raiders rebounded by winning in College Station and moving to 4-1, but back to back losses to Missouri (38-21) and Colorado (30-6, the first time in Leach’s tenure that they’d been held to single digits twice in the same season) sent them reeling. A win in Ames got the Red Raiders back on the right path and moved them to 5-3 when horrid Big XII officiating struck hard against Texas; a couple of horribly questionable (to my eyes, anyway) calls—one of them being the right call being overturned in the replay booth and the wrong call standing—led the Longhorns to a 35-31 victory. Tech recovered well, however. They defeated Baylor and Oklahoma State and went to the Insight Bowl an overwhelming favorite over sinking Minnesota.
Either an inspired effort by Minnesota or a sleepwalk by Texas Tech led the Golden Gophers to a 38-7 lead halfway through the 3rd quarter of the Insight Bowl. However, Minnesota then learned what every Big XII team already knew—you must continue stepping on Tech’s throat, otherwise you might lose. Two TD passes and two TD runs later, it was 38-35 when Alex Trlica’s 52-yard bomb as time expired sent the game to OT. You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out who was going to win at that point. A 3-yard Shannon Woods run in the first OT gave Tech a 41-38 victory and the biggest comeback win in bowl history. The game signified the entire 2006 season for Tech—their defense was (as always) shaky and their offensive execution was inconsistent, but you can never, ever count them out.
Key Returnees
Continuity could be the major issue for Tech once again this season. Graham Harrell returns (though he got a strong battle from RS Freshman Taylor Potts in the spring), as does junior RB Shannon Woods. However, replacements are needed for Harrell’s top two targets—Joel Filani and Robert Johnson, who combined for 180 catches, 2,171 yards, and 24 TD’s in ’06. You know the system will produce new stars, but still...that is some hellacious production to replace. Danny Amendola returns, and guys like L.A. Reed, Michael Crabtree, Grant and Todd Walker, and Edward Britton will be fighting to become Harrell’s new top target.
Continuity problems might also strike on the O-line, where four starters must be replaced. Replacements like Ofa Mohetau were pretty highly-recruited, but a) there is always a breaking-in period with new linemen, and b) the number of scholarship players on the O-line is in the single digits. In other words...little experience and no depth. It’s hard to know whether to expect improvement or regression for the Tech offense in ’07—they have a returning starter at QB for the first time in eons, but the WR corps and O-line are quite raw.
In Texas Tech’s 2007 Spring Prospectus (pdf), here’s the first sentence regarding Tech’s D-Line: “At what might be the thinnest area of the depth chart, the Red Raiders enter spring practice with just seven scholarship players up front on defense.” OUCH. When former Mizzou commit Richard Jones went out for the spring due to shoulder surgery, Tech was down to two DT’s. Coach Leach, you might want to recruit more than just WR’s...just so you know. I mean, I realize you’ve always just looked to outscore teams in shootouts—and you’re pretty good at doing just that—but jeez...
There is at least better news in the LB corps. The group there is relatively unheralded, but they’re experienced. Seniors Kellen Tillman, Chad Hill, and Paul Williams might not make a lot of big plays, but they’ll at least bring to the table a stabilizing influence. With a porous D-line, though, they’ll be forced to make a lot of plays.
The one unit which could actually consitute good news is the secondary, where both safeties (Darcel McBath and Joe Garcia) and CB Chris Parker return. Tech’s pass defense was actually quite decent in 2006. They gave up only 5.7 yards per pass and 10.4 yards per catch, while allowing only a 55.0% completion rate. The problem here is, they will be quite overworked if the front seven can’t stop anybody.
Bowl hero Alex Trlica and strong kick returner Danny Amendola anchor a pretty decent special teams corps.
Spring Developments
The major developments were already mentioned above. Taylor Potts outplayed Graham Harrell on more than one occasion and threatened to turn Harrell into the first QB to throw for 4,500 yards one year and lose his starting gig the next since...ever? Meanwhile, injuries on the interior threatened to turn two thin units (O-line and D-line) into anorexic ones.
Fun With Numbers
By the numbers, here are the five biggest keys to success for Tech in 2006:
1. First Down Ratio
2. Rushing Yards
3. Yards Per Carry
4. Yards Per Pass Attempt
5. Third Down Ratio
This was relatively similar in 2004 and 2005, too. This is the Texas Tech blueprint, and I don’t see the results changing too much—for better or worse—as long as Mike Leach is there. The extraordinary turnover on the lines could cause some out-of-the-ordinary numbers this year, though.
Just like I don’t know what to think about Tech in 2007, I don’t know what to think about their schedule, either. Their three major non-conference games are at SMU, UTEP at home, and at Rice. All three of those teams are, to some degree, capable of knocking off a BCS-level team on the right day. Rice was in a bowl last season, UTEP’s been pretty strong for a few years, and SMU damn near qualified for a bowl themselves (I also don’t know what to think about the SMU taking place at 3pm on a Monday...how strange is that?? I realize it’s Labor Day and all, but...weird nonetheless). It really wouldn’t surprise me if Tech’s non-con record was just 3-1. As for the conference schedule...road games against OSU, Missouri, Texas, and Baylor lead to a 2-2 record at best, I would think. They get ATM and OU at home (along with Colorado—revenge game!—and Iowa State)...so 2-2 or 3-1 is likely there.
In other words, even with almost nonexistant line play, Tech’s probably looking at the same 7-5 or 8-4 season they experience just about every season. But even though their records are relatively predictable from year to year, I have to admit...nobody in the country goes on (or gives up) 20+ point runs like Tech. They’re always exciting.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Texas Spring Football Preview
2006
If it’s possible for Texas to fly under the radar much of the season, that’s what happened. The whole world was watching on September 9, when the #2 Longhorns lost at home to #1 Ohio State, 24-7. After that, 2006 was written off somewhat as a rebuilding year for the ‘Horns. However, they quietly proceeded to break off eight straight wins (including another domination of OU and tight road wins in Lincoln and Lubbock) and were starting to position themselves for a run at the BCS title. But when people started paying attention again, Colt McCoy got banged up in Manhattan, and they lost to both K-State and ATM, falling all the way from National Title Game to Alamo Bowl, where they crawled past a mediocre Iowa team, 26-24, and finished the season at a quiet 10-3.
Since I’m rarely right (and since I didn’t have a blog at this point last year), I will now brag that I predicted that Texas to lose three games while breaking in a freshman quarterback. That was about 2 more losses than most publications were predicting. Go me. I, however, predicted losses to Ohio State, Oklahoma, and Texas Tech...not so much Kansas State and Texas A&M. When they got past Oklahoma, Tech, and Nebraska in October, I started to honestly think the preseason hype was justified, that their talent was just so much better than anybody else’s that they could afford to break in a new player at the most important position on the field. Naturally, when I began to think that was about the time they collapsed. But at least they avoided a major letdown in the Alamo Bowl. That would have been just an unforgiveable slip-up.
The good news for teams starting a freshman QB is, you’ll then have an experienced starter for the next three years. Assuming Colt McCoy stays healthy, the ‘Horns will be quite steady at the QB position for years to come.
Key Returnees
As always, Texas loses plenty of big names and returns plenty of big names. Junior Jamaal Charles joins Colt McCoy in the backfield. In his first two seasons (while splitting carries with the likes of Selvin Young and Vince Young), Charles has managed 1,750 yards and 19 TD’s on just 275 carries. Not surprisingly, Charles’ averages went down last season without Vince Young in the backfield, but with Selvin Young out of the picture, Charles could be ready to put up some huge numbers. Meanwhile, somehow both Limas Sweed and Billy Pittman still have eligibility remaining. Seems like they’ve been at Texas forever. Texas will never hurt for talent at RB and WR, but the amount of experience they have this year is impressive...and can only help in McCoy’s attempt to avoid a sophomore slump. Also helping McCoy will be emergence of sophomore TE Jermichael Finley, who caught 31 passes for 3 TD’s last year.
On the O-line, we’ll get to see just how good Texas’ recruiting has been the last couple of years. Gone are the likes of Kasey Studdard and Jason Blalock and Lyle Sendlein, but Texas just reloads when big-timers leave. Guys like Cedrick Dockery and Tony Hills and Adam Ulatoski are still around, so the line should be just fine.
As for the defense...DE’s Brian Robison and Tim Crowder are finally gone (Whaaat? A Big XII team losing their DE’s??), but a) their replacements (probably Aaron Lewis and Brian Orakpo) are very good, and b) the DT’s (led by Frank Okam) should be fantastic. At LB, junior Rashad Bobino and seniors Scott Derry and Robert Killebrew have been steady but not spectacular, and they’ll continue to have to fend off guys like sophomore Sergio Kindle. It’s probably the secondary that has to be the biggest concern for new Defensive Coordinator Duane Akina. With a steady group of seniors like Aaron Ross and Michael Griffin last year, the Longhorn secondary gave up an average of 7.5 yards per pass (9th in the conference), 12.9 yards per completion (10th), and 236 yards per game (99th in the country). Now they have to find a bunch of new starters. Early returns have been unimpressive, as you’ll see in the next section.
Spring Developments
The major spring storylines for Texas were probably the following: 1) Who wins the backup QB job? 2) Who wins jobs in the secondary? 3) Can the secondary achieve the improvement that is needed?
Well, my guess for (1) is Sherrod Harris. My guess for (3) is a resounding no...which means my guess for (2) is irrelevant since there likely be a few shakeups to come. Read this from the Austin American-Statesman:The coaching staff is actually thinking about going with two groups in the secondary. The veteran group would have cornerbacks Ryan Palmer and Brandon Foster and safeties Marcus Griffin and Drew Kelson or Erick Jackson.
Granted, I’m sure all of those guys were big-time recruits, but...let’s just say I’m skeptical, especially with the way the secondary (just about everybody listed above) got rocked by the offense at the spring game.
If Kelson continues his improvement through the summer after spending the last season-plus at linebacker, look for Akina to start him at free safety, with Marcus Griffin starting at his customary strong safety spot.
The second group is where Akina will earn his money. His Young Lions freshman group from a year ago — Deon Beasley, Chykie Brown and Robert Joseph — will have to contribute right away, because injuries can lead to a dropoff in production if a team doesn't have quality depth.
Fun With Numbers
Statistically, here were the five biggest keys to success for UT in 2006:
1. Yards Per Pass Attempt
2. Pass Completion %
3. Turnover Ratio
4. Yards Per Pass Completion
5. Opponents’ Turnovers
Another team that thrived on (or was tripped up by) big plays. When they were completing the long passes or forcing turnovers, they were winning no matter how much the secondary struggled. But do you remember what I discovered last week about teams that rely on big pass plays? They rarely get those big plays the next season. This team will test that theory, though, as they return just about everybody who caught those big passes (Sweed in particular) last season.
The 2007 schedule sees no Ohio State’s on the non-conference grid (TCU is by far the toughest team on the schedule...and that’s a matchup I really like to see), which will be nice since the ‘Horns will be breaking in whoever they choose to play in the secondary. The only problem for Texas is, it’s an odd-numbered year...meaning the OU game in Dallas counts as a home game for the ‘Horns, and they only get three conference games in Austin. Of course, that didn’t really seem to bother them in 2005, did it?
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Texas A&M Spring Football Preview
(I know Texas is next alphabetically, but I just didn't feel like writing about the Longhorns yet. So we're doing ATM.)
2006
Lucky or good? While Missouri was 0-3 and OSU was 1-4 in games decided by less than a touchdown in 2006, Texas A&M won a whopping five of those games. That’s pretty crazy. What’s even crazier is, they lost another three more! They played in EIGHT tight games in 2006. But when you think about their style of play, it makes sense. Led by 600-pound Jorvorski Lane and super fast Michael Goodson, ATM was content to grind the ball and wear down opposing defenses. They were good enough at this that it kept a lot of games close; however, they weren’t good enough to destroy people with it. Missouri fans like to talk about how ATM “ran all over us”, but they really didn’t. They controlled the clock and ran 51 times...but they only managed 180 yards (an unimpressive 3.5 yards per carry). That was pretty typical of ATM’s 2006 season. ATM’s 540 rushing attempts were third in the conference (behind only OU and Nebraska), but they only ran for more than 250 yards in a game twice. They were definitely consistent, and they finished the year with the most rushing yards in the conference (and the best time of possession), but they weren’t all that dangerous. If you were able to avoid wearing down by keeping your own offense on the field for a while and piling up first downs, you definitely had the opportunity to compete against ATM. Just ask Army. And, chances are, if you lost to ATM, you were pretty pissed about it. Just ask Missouri.
In all, though, whether it was due to talent or luck, the Aggies won 9 games, a 4-win improvement over 2005. They beat four cupcakes (The Citadel, UL-Lafayette, Army, Louisiana Tech) in non-conference play—though they barely held off Army, 28-24—and started Big XII play on a down note, losing at the last second to Texas Tech. They then moved to 7-1 on the season by beating Kansas (last-second TD), Missouri (+3 in turnovers), and Oklahoma State (blocked PAT in OT) by a combined 10 points; by contrast, their 10-point win over Baylor was utter domination.
Lady Luck, however, got tired of bailing the Aggies out after a while, and ATM lost to Oklahoma and Nebraska by a combined 2 points. The 8-3 Aggies then shocked the entire conference by taking down Texas in Austin (cheap-shotting Colt McCoy eleventeen times in the process) and preventing Texas from winning the Big XII South.
And then in the Holiday Bowl, ATM got run off the field by a California team that looked about 4000% faster than them.
In all, it was a strange season for ATM. They returned (at least marginally) to prominence and saved Dennis Franchione’s job (for now), but they didn’t really look all that good in the process. They return a lot of players from 2006’s squad, but does that mean they’ll improve, or is Lady Luck waiting to smack them down again? No matter what, their games will be close ones, I guess.
Key Returnees
On offense, most of the players you’ve heard of return. QB Stephen McGee, RB Michael Goodson, RB Jorvorskie Lane, WR Kerry Franks, TE Martellus “Overrated” Bennett*. McGee is a hard-nosed, competitive guy. He’s the perfect QB for the physical offense that ATM presented last year. The demand on his arm isn’t high in this system—only Oklahoma State and Colorado threw fewer passes last year than ATM—but he’s shown the ability to make clutch plays and avoid mistakes (only 2 INT’s in 2006).
Lane and Goodson made for a nice “thunder and lightning” combination, especially as the season progressed and Goodson gained confidence. As I’ll mention in the ‘Spring Developments’ section, they are receiving challenges for playing time, so they (Goodson in particular) will have to stay on their game. That can’t be a bad thing. In the WR/TE corps, Franks and Bennett return, along with Earvin Taylor and Pierre Brown. This was a decent collection of receivers last year, but there isn’t a deep threat in the bunch (though they did manage to complete two bombs against Mizzou).
No matter how good the backfield was last year, they’d have been nothing without a solid O-line. They do lose OG Grant Dickey, but the rest of the line—led by OG Kirk Elder—returns intact.
On defense, there are many seniors scattered amongst the front seven. DT Red Bryant returns for his 17th season in maroon and white, as does DE Jarrett Jack. Neither are spectacular, but they’ve both made quite a few big plays in their career. The Aggies also must replace LB Justin Warren, who was by far their steadiest presence on D last season. The secondary, much maligned in 2006, does return quite a few contributors, most notably CB Danny Gorrer and FS Devin Gregg, but they lack the athleticism that you need to compile a truly strong secondary in this conference.
Spring Developments
The main goals of the spring for ATM were developing better defensive consistency and integrating at least some semblance of a vertical passing game. However, it’s hard to show progress in both areas since they have to go against each other in practice, isn’t it?
The major development of the spring appears to be the emergence of freshman RB Cornell Tarrant. The Ags have plenty of RB’s already, but he worked his way into the equation with a Demarco Murray-like spring. Goodson’s a good runner, but he was a bit inconsistent last year, so if Tarrant has a good August, you could expect Goodson to lose a few carries a game.
Fun With Numbers
By the numbers, here are the five biggest keys to success for ATM in 2006:
1. First Down Ratio
2. Opponents’ Total First Downs
3. Pass Completion %
4. Opponents’ 3rd Down Attempts
5. Opponents’ Yards Per Rush
ATM played a game of Russian Roulette in 2006. They were content to get first downs, eat the clock and wear down opponents. However, if the other team were able to string together some first downs, ATM was in for a battle. Unless ATM is able to create (and take advantage of) some more big play opportunities, the defense will need to improve significantly to avoid the same situation this year. Luck evens out in the end (unless you’re Mizzou, ahem), and if ATM was 2 games over .500 in tight games last year, there’s a decent chance that they go 2 games under .500 this year.
That, or I’m still bitter that Mizzou lost to ATM the way they did. Or both.
ATM has road games at Miami-FL, Missouri, Texas Tech, Nebraska, and Oklahoma in 2007, but that might not be a bad thing. Somehow (despite the vaunted “12th Man”) the Ags went 1-3 at home in conference last season...and 4-0 on the road. However, if ATM goes 1-3 at home again this year, that means they either lost to Kansas or Baylor in College Station. Possible, but unlikely. In all, I don’t see ATM improving much this season in the record category, but I don’t see too far a regression either. In the end, I’m pencilling them in for about an 8-4 mark.
* I don’t actually have anything against Martellus Bennett. He’s a decent TE. But he’s consistently named on Best TE’s lists on par with (or ahead of) Martin Rucker and Chase Coffman simply because he was a big-time recruit out of high school. In two seasons, he has 56 catches and 6 TD’s. Not bad for a TE. However, in two seasons Chase Coffman has AVERAGED 53 catches and 6.5 TD’s. They are not equals, and I’m really tired of their names being mentioned as if they were.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Oklahoma State Spring Football Preview
2006
In 2005, Oklahoma State lacked consistency on the offensive end. For the year, they averaged <4 yards per rush and <6 yards per pass. That’s bad. In 2006? Not so much. The ‘Pokes threw a stud WR (UNC transfer Adarius Bowman), a couple fast RB’s (Dantrell Savage, Keith Toston) and a more confident QB (Bobby Reid) into the mix, and the 2006 offense was as explosive as anybody’s in the conference. They averaged 5.18 yards per carry and 8.17 yards per pass, and went from 20 points per game to 35, a ridiculous one-year improvement. Not surprisingly, the win total increased as well, from 4 to 7. The improvement might have been more considerable had the defense not given up an average of 30 PPG in conference play. Granted, that was an improvement over the 40 PPG conference average in 2005, but the defense still left plenty to be desired. Their performance (and luck) in close games did as well, as they went 1-4 in games decided by a touchdown or less.
The road to bowl eligibility was a shaky one for the Cowboys in ’06. A 3-0 start (against the likes of SMS, Arkansas State, and Florida Atlantic) quickly turned to 4-3 after losses to Houston, Kansas State (31-27 in the final minute), and Texas A&M (34-33 a last-second ATM touchdown in regulation and a blocked PAT in OT). A 41-29 win over Nebraska (shades of Missouri’s 2003 victory over NU, where a tight game turned into a laugher in the 4th quarter), and a whipping in Austin (a 36-10 loss) followed, and OSU was 5-4 heading into a game against Baylor. In ’05 Baylor jumped out to a 30+ point lead in the first half. In ’06, it was OSU’s turn. They coasted to a 66-24 win and qualified for bowl eligibility. Good thing they did, too, as they proceeded to lose their last two games to Texas Tech (30-24) and Oklahoma (27-21). Their first tight win came in the Independence Bowl against a head coachless Alabama team. They threatened to blow the game wide open, blew a lead, then rebounded for a 34-31 win.
Strange coaching decisions in the OU game aside, 2006 was, without a doubt, a large success for OSU and 2nd-year head coach Mike Gundy. The offense was ridiculously fun to watch (only OSU and Boise State averaged both 200 yards rushing and passing in ’06), and the defense improved, though not enough to warrant serious contention in the Big XII South.
Key Returnees
All of OSU’s offensive weapons return, sans D’Shaun Woods. Gundy has been successful in recruiting quite a few athletes in his first couple of recruiting classes, and if somebody—possibly sophomore Atrell Woods (no relation), sophomore Jeremy Broadway or incoming freshman William Cole—emerges to replace Woods, the Cowboy offense could be the best in the conference. Junior QB Bobby Reid made unbelievable strides in ’06, though that had a lot to do with the emergence of Adarius Bowman and his ability to stretch the field. I honestly thought Bowman would declare for the NFL Draft after his ’06 season, but his return will do great things for OSU. The Cowboys also return both Savage (a senior, the offensive MVP of the Independence Bowl) and Toston at RB, along with converted fullback Julius Crosslin for short-yardage situations. The O-line returns three starters and probably won’t see much of a dropoff in performance.
On defense, the good news is, almost 100% of the LB’s and DB’s who contributed in 2006 return. They are led by potential playmakers LB Chris Collins, LB Jeremy Nethon safety Andre Sexton, and LB/safety Donovan Woods (the last of the Woods brothers). Where there aren’t proven playmakers among the back 7, there is at least experience. Guys like LB Rodrick Johnson and CB’s Jacob Lacey and Martel Van Zant have been around a while, and if they continue to show at least slight improvement, this defense probably will too. Also, Ricky Price has moved from WR to CB and has enjoyed a tremendous spring so far. That can’t hurt.
The bad news, however, is that the D-Line has to be almost complete reconfigured. Gone are Ryan McBean, Victor DeGrate, and Larry Brown. In their place are some experienced players (DE’s Marque Fountain, Nathan Peterson), but they have not been consistent enough to earn a continuous starting position over the last couple of years. How the D-line holds up will determine how much success OSU will have in 2007. However, the Pokes will benefit from returning all of their major special teams contributors, including stud punter Matt Fodge and scary return man Perrish Cox.
Spring Developments
Honestly, the key contribution might not come from any of the players listed above—it might come from new defensive coordinator Tim Beckman. Beckman was Jim Tressel’s cornerbacks coach at Ohio State in 2005 and 2006 after spending six years as Bowling Green’s defensive coordinator. He will be mixing in a lot of different schemes and unpredictability, and his defensive adjustments have been the major storyline in the spring. Among other things, he has turned Donovan Woods into a hybrid at safety/LB. Expect Donovan to line up in many, many different spots in the formation.
The other storyline has probably been the emergence of WR Artrell Woods. He didn’t do too much as a freshman last season, but he’s shown significant big-play potential so far this spring. Of course, he’s making these big plays against the OSU secondary, so you don’t really know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but Woods’ play possibly fills in two holes—the need for a big play guy to lineup across from Adarius Bowman, and the need for a stud WR named Woods. Seriously, they’ve had a Woods at WR since about 1998.
Fun With Numbers
By the numbers, here are the five biggest keys to success for OSU in 2006:
1. Opponents’ Completion %
2. Opponents’ Yards Per Passing Attempt
3. 3rd Down Conversion Ratio
4. Rushing Yards
5. Opponents’ Turnovers
This paints a pretty telling picture. First off, looking at these indicators probably tells you that the defense was pretty bad. It also tells you that big plays (big runs, big 3rd down stops, turnovers) allowed OSU to sometimes overcome the overall crappiness of the defense.
It also reaffirms that the defense needs to improve significantly this season. Will they? Read the above paragraphs and let me know what you think. I have no idea. One thing I do know is, the schedule gets tougher. Here’s the slate of 2007 road games: Georgia, Troy (I just gave every Mizzou fan nightmares), Texas A&M, Nebraska, Baylor, Oklahoma. If OSU goes 3-3 in these games (presumably, wins over Troy and Baylor and an upset of somebody else), they are in good shape for a strong bowl, as they’ll be favored in 5 of 6 home games. I really like the potential and athleticism of this squad, but that’s a tough set of road games. With this schedule, I’d say 8-4 is the best OSU can hope for. It’s unfortunate for the Cowboys that they don’t get another shot at last year’s schedule, I guess. This is a really fun team to watch, and with a big win or two, people will start to notice.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Oklahoma Spring Football Preview
2006
What are the three lingering memories you have from OU’s 2006 campaign? 1) OU getting screwed in Eugene, 2) Adrian Peterson breaking his collarbone, and 3) OU walking into a hornet’s nest of trick plays in the Fiesta Bowl against Boise State. You’d think this was a disappointing season. It wasn’t.
Most analysts handed the conference title to Texas at the beginning of the season, and after UT whooped OU in Dallas, it seemed like a done deal. However, OU ripped off eight straight wins while nobody was looking, and UT stumbled late in the season against K-State and ATM, and suddenly it was the Sooners thumping Nebraska in the Big XII title game instead of the Longhorns. Of course, that set them up for the craziness that was the Boise State game, but oh well. No matter what, the season was a success.
What was impressive about OU’s success in 2006 was the fact that the two biggest question marks entering the season—QB and O-line play—were two of the stronger aspects of OU’s play. Senior Paul Thompson was steady and error-free most of the season and allowed OU’s weapons—namely, Adrian Peterson and Malcolm Kelly—to make plays. When Peterson went down, Allen Patrick filled in admirably. Patrick was a workhorse back, carrying the ball 30+ times in wins over Colorado, Missouri, and Texas A&M and when he went down, Chris Brown was strong too.
Coming into 2006, the defense was supposed to be one of Bob Stoops’ best, and for the first month of the season they were anything but. Against UAB, Washington, and Oregon, OU gave up almost 400 yards per game. However, something clicked around the Texas loss, and things started to turn around. They held Colorado to 113 total yards and 5 first downs, they picked off Chase Daniel 3 times, they held Baylor to 140 total yards (-48 rushing), and they gave up only 100 points in the 8 games following the Texas loss...which is enough to forgive the 43 points they gave up in the Fiesta Bowl, ahem. In the end, they finished #16 in the nation in total defense...a very impressive recovery from a horrid non-conference start.
Key Returnees
The good news is, OU only lost 10 lettermen from last year’s squad. The bad news is, that 10 included Adrian Peterson, Paul Thompson, and Rufus Alexander. And their top three DE’s. The secondary, WR corps, and O-line return almost completely intact, though, and that’s huge.
There are all-conference candidates everywhere—RB Allen Patrick, WR Malcolm Kelly, OL Jon Cooper, DT DeMarcus Granger, safeties Reggie Smith and Darien Walker, etc., and OU always brings in a strong recruiting class. There is, however, a giant, gaping hole at QB. Paul Thompson was nothing if not steady filling in for the disgraced and departed Rhett Bomar. Thompson’s replacement doesn’t have to be flashy, but he can’t lose games.
Spring Developments
It seems 90% of the attention in the spring has been paid to the QB competition. Heck, their Spring Game was on ESPN (how unfair is that??), and that’s pretty much all the announcers talked about for two hours. The two main candidates are junior Joey Halzle and RSFr Sam Bradford. Bradford looked phenomenal in the Spring Game—I know this because it was on ESPN...have I mentioned how unfair that is? Down the line, I expect him to take the job, but Sooner coaches might try to be as cautious as possible with the young Bradford. Keith Nichol, a true freshman, graduated HS early and was in for spring ball, but he appeared to be a few steps behind. I assume he’ll redshirt.
Another development of spring practices was the emergence of yet another stud running back, redshirt freshman Demarco Murray. At the very least, he appears to have taken over the main kick return duties for the fall, but with his staggering numbers (16 carries, 132 yards in the 2nd scrimmage), he butted his way into the RB picture as well. Stoops likes to break freshmen in shortly (Adrian Peterson didn’t start until a few games into his freshman season), so I would figure Patrick is still #1 to start the season. With OU breaking in a new QB, though, you figure there will be plenty of carries to go around for Patrick, Murray, and Chris Brown.
The new QB will also have some strong weapons ready to catch some passes. Everybody knows about Malcolm Kelly, but RSFr Adron Tennell emerged as a strong threat in the spring, and sophomore TE Jermaine Gresham has started to prove why he was the #1 TE recruit in the country coming out of high school. This OU offense, with a strong load of freshmen and sophomores, could be OU’s most explosive offense in quite a while, but with such young personnel, OU fans must worry a bit about inconsistency.
As for the defense, there were quite a few new faces to work into the mix on the D-line (doesn’t it seem like every school in the conference lost their DE’s??). You never worry about OU’s talent level, but the same inconsistency bug I mentioned regarding the offense could bite the D as well.
LB Ryan Reynolds was lost for the spring to a knee injury—after being lost all of last season due to a knee injury—and that was a disappointment, but JUCO transfer Mike Reed and junior Curtis Lofton emerged as big-time hitters. Overall, the offense crushed the defense in the Spring Game, and while you don’t want to read too much into that, a scenario in which the defense starts slow and improves throughout the season (a la 2006) is definitely plausible.
Fun With Numbers
By the numbers*, here are the five biggest keys to success for OU in 2006:
(* The numbers have changed slightly from this linked post as I tinker with ways to calculate correlation)
1. Opponents’ Completion %
2. Penalty Yards
3. Opponents’ Yards Per Pass Attempt
4. First Down Ratio
5. Opponents’ Rushing Yards
First of all, this does suggest that OU’s breaking in of a new QB won’t be the make-or-break issue for OU in 2007. Like everybody else in the conference, OU will be breaking in new pass-rushers, and how fast they find them (Alonzo Dotson appears to be the most likely candidate) will dictate how quickly the pieces of the defense fall into place. If the opponent’s QB is under pressure and the pass defense is solid, then OU will likely find success, new QB or no new QB.
OU was also the only team in the conference whose success was so strongly altered by their number of penalty yards. A team with this level of experience (and, one would hope, more discipline) on the O-line and in the secondary should be able to cut their overall number of penalties, and taking that out of the equation could lead to more success.
It would behoove the Sooners to not wait a month before playing defense like last season, though with this year’s slate, they might get away with it. Last year’s trip to Eugene is replaced this year with a trip to Tulsa—definitely not a gimme, but being that they’ll have half the fans in the stands, it’s definitely a better situation. Last year they hosted Washington, this year it’s Miami-FL. Sadly, Miami isn’t much of a step up from Washington, but you know they have athletes. Breaking in a new QB and playing so many freshmen and sophomores on offense, you could definitely see OU slipping up at some point, but I have to think that they still have pretty good odds of duplicating last year’s 10-2 regular season record, especially if they emerge from the non-conference slate unscathed.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Nebraska Spring Football Preview
2006
After a five-year absence, Nebraska was back in the Big XII Championship in 2006. Granted, they got walloped by OU, but ask any Nebraska fan, and this was just a sign of things to come. Whether or not it actually is, has yet to be determined.
The 2006 Husker offense best represented what was expected all along from Bill Callahan. Nebraska rushed the ball about 40 times per game, and though their rushing attack didn’t threaten to break any records, when it was clicking, it opened up the passing game and made Zac Taylor’s job pretty easy.
The “Big Red is back!” talk peaked somewhere around the 4th quarter of the Texas game on October 21. At that point, NU was 6-1 (with only a road loss to USC) and leading the Longhorns. However, Texas came back to win, 22-20, and Nebraska was simply above average from then on out. Home wins against Missouri and Colorado, a road loss to Oklahoma State, and a narrow road win against ATM set the stage for the 9-3 Huskers to face a surprising Oklahoma team in the Big XII Championship. Nebraska lost, 21-7 (it really didn’t ever seem that close), then lost in the Cotton Bowl to Auburn. The 17-14 loss was highlighted by two things a) Nebraska holding its own physically against an athletic Auburn team, and b) Bill Callahan getting horrifically outcoached. That ended a 9-5 Husker season.
In all, NU’s offense tailed off over the last four games of the season, but not enough to keep Zac Taylor from winning the conference’s Offensive Player of the Year award and Nebraska from having their most successful season since Frank Solich was fired (for, ironically, winning only nine games).
Key Returnees
Nebraska lost two key contributors on offense—QB Zac Taylor and RB Brandon Jackson. Taylor was the award-winner, but he was nothing if Jackson wasn’t running (and catching) the ball well. We’ve all heard everything we need to hear about Sam Keller, Taylor’s likely replacement, but replacing Jackson will be the major key to the Huskers’ success. Marlon “Four Heismans” Lucky injured his knee in the spring game (though it’s likely a minor injury) and spent part of the offseason in the hospital for undisclosed reasons, and backup Kenny Wilson is out for the season already. It’s also been a while since Cody Glenn was 100% healthy.
In other words, RB is a huge question mark for Nebraska.
The WR position, however, is not. Maurice Purify is underrated, and along with Terrence Nunn, Nate Swift, Frantz Hardy and Todd Peterson, Callahan finally has the receiving resources available to run the offense he’s always envisioned. The O-line has key cogs returning as well; the unit showed improvement in 2006, though I still wouldn’t label this one of the better O-lines in the conference. We’ll see what another year of experience does.
As for the defense...there were losses galore. Like seemingly every other team in the conference, the Defensive End position is a question mark, as NU will have to replace both Adam Carriker and Jay Moore. The interior of the D-Line should be solid, as Ndamukong Suh looks like he could be a star. At LB, somehow Bo Ruud and Corey McKeon both have eligibility remaining. I could have sworn they were both seniors last year, but whatever. The secondary’s success will depend on JUCO transfers. Rarely is that a good thing, but you never know. It looks like Zackary Bowman will once again miss significant time due to a knee injury, and though the Huskers are expecting him to be ready to play at some point this season, how often do guys come back from multiple knee injuries to play at a super-high level?
One thing that could jump up and bite NU is special teams. Nebraska was averaging in the punting and return categories last year, but they had a steady kicker in Jordan Congdon (he didn’t have a booming leg, but he was steady within his range). Well, Congdon transferred, so this could be a mediocre unit all around.
Spring Developments
I complained last week about how some schools just don’t have much in regard to Spring Football coverage. Well...needless to say, that is not the case with Nebraska. There are plenty of good outlets for Husker football. This Journal Star article is a good, concise summary of NU’s spring goings-on. The main storyline, of course, was the QB battle. Sam Keller seemed strong throughout the spring, but he’s gotten a nice battle from Joe Ganz, whose physical non-prowess is balanced out by his strong grasp of the West Coast offense. You have to figure Keller wins the job in the fall, but Ganz is putting up a fight.
On defense, the story was the retooled D-line. Not only does NU have to replace four starters, but they also had to replace their D-line coach. Suh looks like a stud, but all the other positions are still a bit up in the air. NU seems pretty high on Ty Steinkuhler, who is roughly the 194th Steinkuhler to play for Nebraska. If the D-line can’t find consistency, the strong LB corps will be neutralized. And considering the secondary is every bit as shaky as the D-line, this might not be a wonderful season for the Black Shirts.
Fun With Numbers
As discussed previously, here were the five statistical categories that were most directly related to NU’s success/failure last year:
1. Rushing Yards
2. 3rd Down Conversion Ratio
3. Rushing Attempts
4. Pass Completion %
5. 3rd Down Conversion Rate
I’ve been tinkering with numbers a lot recently, and no matter how I look at it, the rushing offense is absolutely vital for NU’s success. Marlon Lucky needs to be a) healthy and b) every bit as good as he was supposed to be when he arrived in Lincoln if the Huskers are going to be successful. The passing offense should be strong with Keller throwing to Purify, etc., but that won’t matter if the running game isn’t a threat.
A fun schedule awaits Nebraska in 2007. A trip to Winston-Salem (where Wake Forest will look to duplicate last year’s unprecedented success...though I doubt they will) follows a tricky season opener against Nevada. After that comes (I assume) the College Gameday crew for a September 15 game against USC. Assuming NU’s 2-0, that could be a matchup of two Top Ten teams. NU will get to ease into the Big XII schedule, as three of their first four games are at home. They should find themselves 3-1 (I’m counting their road game in Columbia a loss, dammit!) heading to the back end of the schedule. They finish with three of four on the road, but only the trip to Austin is too daunting. They will probably need to avoid tripping up at Boulder or Lawrence to have a shot at the North title. In all, I’m think 8-4/5-3 is the most likely scenario for a team with this many question marks (RB, DL, DB, special teams, Callahan), but I’m admittedly biased against the Huskers (what Tiger fan isn’t?). I really don’t think Nebraska is back in elite territory, but I’ve been wrong before.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Kansas State Spring Football Preview
2006
Well, if Ron Prince’s goal was to make this ‘his’ program as quickly as humanly possible, I’d say running off pretty much everybody who wasn’t his recruit was a pretty effective way to do it. Electing to play true freshmen and JUCO transfers at what seemed like every position on the field—led by QB Josh Freeman and RB Leon Patton—KSU had plenty of ups and downs in ’06. They put up a decent fight against Louisville, then went to Waco and got drubbed by lowly Baylor. They bounced back with a nice comeback win over Oklahoma State, then got assaulted by Nebraska and Missouri. After ho-hum wins over Iowa State and Colorado, they pulled off the upset of the Big XII season, defeating Texas at home, 45-42. Granted, Colt McCoy was injured and UT made about 249 mistakes, but...a win is a win, and that was a big one.
And then KSU proceeded to lose to Kansas by 19 and Rutgers by 27.
Despite seeming disorganized every time I saw them, despite their not seeming to have a lot of standout talent (that wasn’t in the form of a true freshman, anyway), and despite the fact that they only beat one good team (and one decent one), Prince’s Wildcats made it to a bowl game and finished 7-6, a distinguishable improvement from the seasons before. Will it happen again in 2007?
Key Returnees
I guess one of the positives of playing a bunch of freshmen is you’re assured of a lot of returnees the next year. Looking at their bowl game depth chart, you see that 8 offensive starters and 8 defensive end-of-year starters return, and that really can’t be a bad thing. Ron Prince didn’t hit a total homerun with his first recruiting class, but there’s really no doubting that the incoming talent will more suited for his system than the outgoing, Bill-Snyder-recruited talent.
The big names on offense are at the skill positions. QB Josh Freeman has already been labeled a star despite a 6-15 TD-INT ratio. His skills as a true freshman were the opposite of the stereotypical true freshman. He seemed to know what he was doing, he rarely looked overwhelmed, he stood tall and confident...but it just seemed like he couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn half the time. Or, if the pass hit its intended target, it was going at the wrong speed. I’m biased by the fact that I saw him play horribly in the rain in Columbia last year, but I saw the tendency in other games as well. Another year or repetition will help him, as will the emergence of Jordy Nelson from Ron Prince’s doghouse. Nelson was one of the better WR’s I saw in the Big XII in 2005, and he disappeared for half the season...presumably (to me, at least) because he was a Bill Snyder recruit. No other returning WR had as many as 20 catches (though TE Rashaad Norwood was solid) in 2006, so Nelson will need to step up bigtime in his senior season.
Freeman will be aided by the continued development of sophomore RB Leon Patton (609 yards, 6 TD’s) and senior James Johnson (428 yards, 2 TD’s). The O-line returns three-fifths of its bowl lineup. There has been a lack of O-line continuity for KSU for a few years now, so this unit’s success will go a long way toward determining the success of KSU’s offense.
The defense returns everybody but possibly their two best players—LB’s Brandon Archer and Zach Diles. The now-experienced D-Line made some big plays but gave up 4.7 yards per carry over the last 8 games of the season. Junior DE Ian Campbell and senior DE Rob Jackson combined for an impressive 26 tackles for loss and 16 sacks in ’06. In the secondary, three bowl game starters return, along with SS Marcus Watts, who has been pretty good for a while. The experience will help a unit that gave up almost 200 passing yards a game and only came up with 10 INT’s.
In the secondary...the punter, Tim Reyer (42.1 yards/punt) returns, and that’s about it.
Spring Developments
It’s impressive how different spring practice coverage is from school to school. You get coverage of pretty much every snap at schools like Nebraska and Oklahoma and Texas (and to a slightly lesser extent, Missouri), however others (ISU, KSU) publish almost nothing. According to this press conference write-up, Ron Prince is really excited about how things are going. Wow, insightful.
You do get a couple of useful quotes from the press conference, though. It looks like James Johnson has possibly built a lead over Leon Patton for the starting RB position. I think Patton, a Darren Sproles type of back, has higher upside as a runner, but Johnson seems to have established himself as a more complete back. WR Daniel Gonzalez (15 catches in ’06...all but disappeared when Big XII play started) seems to have established himself as well. And the O-linemen are “improving their skills.” That, uhh, can’t be a bad thing.
Meanwhile, apparently Ian Campbell has moved from DE to OLB, and interesting move for a guy who’s 6’5, 235. But he's the most talented player on the K-State defense, so it makes sense that they want him in a position that allows him to make more plays.
Fun With Numbers
Here were the five statistical categories that were most directly related to KSU’s success/failure last year (I have redone the list with a different, more accurate correlation formula than the one used for this post):
1. 3rd Down Conversion RatioThird downs and turnovers. Got it. In other words, stats didn’t really matter, just key, individual plays. Which makes sense, considering that a look at the stats does not reveal what one would consider a successful 2006 campaign for K-State. They were outgained by about 500 yards...they gave up 30 more first downs than they got...their turnover margin was -4...they had over 200 more yards of penalties than their opponents...they had a poor overall Time of Possession...and yet they won 7 games. You figure it out.
2. 3rd Down Conversion Rate
3. 3rd Down Conversions
4. Turnovers
5. Turnover Differential
This list of categories also makes it pretty hard to predict what’s to come for K-State. Did they just get lucky last year? If so, does that mean they’ll be unlucky this year? Or is the fact that they found themselves in pressure situations (when your season was determined by 3rd downs and turnovers, you probably found yourself in some close games) as a young team a good omen for the future? Your guess is as good as mine.
They’ve got an interesting schedule as well. After starting the season at Auburn (power to Ron Prince for taking that game), their home opener comes against an improving San Jose State team. They also end the season, strangely, at Fresno State, meaning four of their last six games come on the road. Assuming they start 4-2 (home wins against SJSU, SMS, Kansas, and Colorado; road losses to Auburn and Texas), they’ll have a pretty good shot at their second straight bowl game, but if they slip up early, they might not recover. I really want to predict that bad luck will overtake them, but I won’t...upon first glance, I’m thinking 6-7 wins is the most likely scenario...I’ll say 6-6.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Kansas Spring Football Preview
2006
Can anybody explain to me what makes Mark Mangino a respected coach? I haven’t quite figured that one out yet. He always gets ranked in the middle of the pack in Big XII coach rankings (always significantly ahead of Gary Pinkel, it seems), and other than coming up with a great gameplan for stopping Brad Smith and leading KU to exactly one winning record, what exactly has he accomplished?
And I don’t mean this in a “Mizzou hates Kansas” kind of way. I really don’t care about Kansas in football—if I had to list out the “must win” football games in any given season, it would be 1) Nebraska, 2) Kansas State, 3) OU/Texas (whichever one we’re playing that year), and 4) Kansas. I mean...seriously, what has he accomplished to earn the extension that he got last August or the general reputation as a decent coach, especially with academic fraud on his recent resume? He’s “paid his dues” and “proven he can win”? Win what exactly? The Fort Worth Bowl?
Anyway, just asking.
2006 was a relatively disappointing season for Kansas when you consider that Mangino did in fact get a contract extension in August despite the academic fraud. You have to figure that meant KU figured it was worth the impending punishment for the impending football success. However, instead of football success, KU found themselves carrying a 3-5 record (with losses to Toledo and Baylor) into the final month of the season. They snuck by Colorado and whooped Kansas State and Iowa State to move into the showdown with Missouri at 6-5. And with the “Mangino owns Pinkel” theory set in stone and Mizzou in a bit of a freefall, lots and lots of people picked Kansas to win. However, it turned out that Mangino only owned Brad Smith, and Pinkel moved to 2-0 against Mangino in Smith-less years (and 3-3 overall). Mizzou whooped KU, 42-17, and KU failed to secure a bowl bid.
And I should mention that, during the MU-KU game, Mangino...considered by leaps and bounds a better coach than Pinkel, completely forgot that he had the Big XII’s leading rusher on his team, giving Jon Cornish only a handful of carries even though he was averaging 8.4 per carry.
I seriously don’t get the Mangino infatuation. Doug? You want to explain to me what I’m missing here?
Key Returnees
As a whole, KU was pretty young last year. However, their best player and workhorse, Cornish, was a senior. In 2007, sophomore QB Kerry Meier loses his training wheels. He battled injury and inconsistency as a redshirt freshman; he single-handedly won and lost the Toledo game several times before eventually losing it for good in OT.
(Honestly, the player Meier most reminds me of is Kirk Farmer: flashes of brilliance, long stretches of horrible inconsistency, occasional athleticism, flowing blonde locks...)
Anyway, Meier (or Todd Reesing, who is apparently putting up a pretty good fight for the starting QB job) will have some decent receivers at his disposal. Junior Dexton Fields caught 45 passes and scored 5 TD’s a year ago, and senior TE Derek Fine had a solid 25 catches and 5 TD’s. Plus, according to ESPN, defensive backs Aqib Talib (who scored a receiving TD against Mizzou last year) and Justin Thornton are both getting in a little time at WR, a la Charles Gordon. Mangino has done a decent job in previous years of putting together a solid-but-not-spectacular receiving corps, and 2007 will be no different. However, the running game is, as Gary Pinkel would say, critically important, and losing Cornish hurts. Whoever replaces Cornish (it appears Jake Sharp is the leader at the moment) will be running behind a retooled O-line as well. Not an encouraging sign.
As for the defense...well, first of all, until I read the ESPN article linked above, I didn’t realize that KU had the worst pass defense (yardage-wise, anyway) in the country. That’s a pretty tough feat to pull when you have an all-conference cornerback in Talib, but credit Mangino’s Jayhawks for pulling it off. In all, you had to figure that KU’s defense would take a step backwards in ’06 after graduating almost every major contributor off of the stellar ’05 corps, and they most certainly took that step.
Spring Developments
Well, KUathletics.com has almost nothing in regard to Spring Practice coverage, so I’m flying mostly blind here. It appears that the main storylines of the spring have been 1) Meier versus Reesing at QB, and 2) creating a pass rush out of thin air. It’s a recurring theme as I do these previews...it seems like every team either lost their good defensive ends or needs far better production out of last year’s set.
Fun With Numbers
Here were the five statistical categories that were most directly related to KU’s success/failure last year (I have redone the list with a different, more accurate correlation formula than the one used for this post):
1. 3rd Down Conversion %These categories were a lot like those on Colorado’s list—all about ball control. If they were able to convert on 3rd down and keep the ball out of opponents’ hands, they were successful. That would explain how they had a bit more success as the season wore on (until the Mizzou game, anyway)—Cornish emerged as a threat more with each progressing game, it seemed, and that threat opened up KU’s offense to more success. Well...if they were dependent on Cornish for ball control, they might be in trouble this year. Jake Sharp is supposedly the same type of runner as Cornish, only he’s 5’11, 190—15 pounds lighter than the bruising Cornish. The defense should improve at least marginally from experience, but ball control works both ways—somebody’s going to have to step up on offense, and that’s still up in the air.
2. Opponents’ Total Plays
3. Total 3rd Down Conversions
4. Opponents’ Rushing Yards
5. Opponents’ Total First Downs
The non-conference schedule is...well, I’m not sure how tough it is or isn’t. They host both Central Michigan and Toledo, which should be wins but certainly aren’t guaranteed. Their other two games are against SE Lousiana and Florida International, so you figure they should be 3-1 at worst. The Big XII slate starts with three out of four games on the road (at Kansas State, Baylor, at Colorado, at ATM) before hosting Nebraska on 11/3. If they emerge from the NU game at 2-3 in conference, they should be able to pick off at least one of the three final games to reach 6 wins. Best case scenario for this team is 7-8 wins, but I’m thinking 5-6 is more likely.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Iowa State Spring Football Preview
2006
I am very wrong about many things, but I nailed this one. While some people were saying that 2006 would be Iowa State’s time to shine after two near misses (i.e. gags) in the North Division, I correctly predicted that things would fall apart in Ames (seriously, I pat myself on the back when I can because opportunities are usually pretty limited...for instance, I just knew there was no way that Florida would repeat as national champs in basketball, but that’s a completely different story). Somewhere in early October, it dawned on people that Dan McCarney really hadn’t put together a team with much discernible talent, and since the rest of the North Division had all begun to improve, Iowa State got left in the dust. They were a ball control team that could only average 3.0 yards per carry for the season; they were an experienced offense that only topped 350 yards in a game once during Big XII play (and only three times, total).
(Of course, none of this stopped them from beating Missouri in the finale, but hey...the refs wanted to send McCarney off as a winner...what can I say? Yes, I’m bitter. Yes, I need to learn to let these things go. And yes, the holding penalty called when Chase Daniel damn near killed himself scoring on 4th-and-goal from the 1 with 20 seconds left was just about the worst, most completely nonexistant penalty I’ve ever seen. Just horrible. But I’ll stop my rant there. This is about Iowa State.)
Because of the complete and total collapse of 2006, however, Iowa State got a new coach, and he could be a good one. Gene Chizik was the Defensive Coordinator for both Auburn’s undefeated team in 2004 and Texas’ undefeated team in 2005. He’s young and aggressive, and he thinks he can build a winner in Iowa State (that’s important because he probably could have waited another year or two and become head coach of a much bigger-name team...I guess he still could, but it’s not nearly as likely now).
Key Returnees
While the cupboard isn’t bare in Ames, it will probably take Chizik a while to build a solid base of talent. Bret Meyer, who started his career with great promise, has proven to be a decent-but-not-spectacular QB, and he has some weapons at WR—particularly Todd Blythe (who has been ISU’s #1 WR since his very first game in 2004) and R.J. Sumrall. Chizik didn’t inherit much—if anything—at RB. Returning RB’s Jason Scales and Josh Johnson combined for all of 236 yards in 77 carries last year (though in Scales’ defense, he was battling injury most of the season). Chizik quickly tried to address that in recruiting, bringing in JUCO RB Jamicah Bass. Lord knows Bass will have every opportunity to prove himself in the fall. The O-line was hit heavy by graduation—junior OG Tom Schmeling is the only returning O-lineman who has truly proven himself to any degree. Bret Meyer will be protected by two first-year starters at tackle...rarely is that a recipe for success.
If the O-line was hit hard by graduation, the D-line was demolished. Gone are both starting DE’s (including Shawn Moorehead, ISU’s all-time sack leader) and DT Brent “Big Play” Curvey. WLB Alvin Bowen, the nation’s leading per-game tackler last season (12.92/game) returns. With a D-line as porous as this one, Bowen should have ample opportunity to repeat as the nation’s tackle leader. Senior Jon Banks also returns, but junior Tyrone McKenzie doesn’t—he transferred to South Florida. In the secondary, SS Caleb Berg and CB Chris Singleton are experienced starters, and two sophomores, CB Drenard Williams and FS James Smith, have potential. This isn’t a great unit, especially if the Front Seven fails to make plays and leaves the DB’s in a precarious situation, but the secondary is probably the least of Gene Chizik’s worries. The D-line will need some work.
Special teams will be solid for ISU. Senior PK Bret Culbertson is a very good kicker against anybody other than Missouri (3 of his 9 career FG misses have come in the 4th quarter or OT against Mizzou), and sophomore punter Mike Brandtner was good as a freshman (41.2 yards per punt). Milan Moses is a pretty good kick returner, though they’ll have to find somebody to replace Ryan Baum at punt returner.
Spring Developments
Honestly, I’ve found next to no information about what’s been happening in ISU’s spring practices. ISU’s official site doesn’t have crap, and GoCyclones.com barely has more. The main focus, from what I’ve been able to tell, has been on having the Chizik mentality, meaning lots and lots of physical drills and D-line depth. Beyond that? Who knows.
Fun With Numbers
As discussed previously, here were the five statistical categories that were most directly related to ISU’s success/failure last year (aside from the refs calling holding on 4th-and-goal from the 1):
1. Third Down Ratio
2. Opponents’ Passing Attempts
3. Rushing Yards
4. 3rd Down Conversion %
5. Opponents’ Pass Completions
Now, under a new coach, these things could change pretty significantly. And I still find #2 and #5 very curious—they were the only team whose fortunes were significantly improved by their opponents passing more. I do think the only explanation for that is, when they were winning, it was because they had grabbed an early lead and the opponent had to pass more...and when they didn’t grab an early lead, they probably weren’t going to grab a late lead, if you know what I mean.
So will ISU be any better at these factors in 2007 than in 2006? Um, probably not. Unless the Chizik Mindset is immediately noticeable and significant (which, I guess, isn’t totally out of the realm of possibility), ISU really won’t have much of a pass rush to stop teams from converting 3rd downs, and their O-line is going to be inexperienced and not all that talented...making it hard to convert 3rd downs or pile up rushing yards.
Just in case you couldn’t tell, I’m not thinking ISU will make a lot of noise in the fall. I was impressed that Chizik took the job, and he really could be the real deal, but it’s still going to be his first year as a head coach at this level, and he just doesn’t have much talent to work with. Line play on both sides will be pretty poor and the offense officially has one known weapon (Todd Blythe). The ’07 schedule has four relatively winnable nonconference games—they get Iowa at home, though a trip to Toledo will probably be a problem. However, after Toledo, they have to travel to Lubbock and Lincoln before finally getting back home...for games against Texas and Oklahoma. Ggh. If they’re somehow 4-4 when they head to Columbia on October 27, then Gene Chizik has done one fantastic job. However, I’m thinking 2-6 at that point (and about 3-9 overall) is much more likely. Chizik’s got his work cut out for him, though he seems like the type to embrace the challenge.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Colorado Spring Football Preview
You can stop holding your breath, Atch...here's the long-awaited Colorado profile!
2006
To say the least, 2006 was forgettable for the Colorado Buffaloes. Despite having won back-to-back North Division titles in 2004 and 2005, CU was seen as a program in free-fall, especially after a) Gary Barnett stopped recruiting in about 2002, b) they got outscored 112-6 in the ’04 and ’05 Big XII Title Games, and c) Barnett got fired. Dan Hawkins inherited a program that had started to lose its talent and athleticism in the last few years, and it took a while to gain traction. A 19-10 loss to D-1AA (sorry, Division 1 Championship Division) Montana State kick-started an 0-6 start that saw CU play competent defense and incompetent offense. They very nearly upset Georgia in the fourth game of the season, but after a decent showing at Mizzou (a 28-13 loss), they lost at home in 3 OT’s to Baylor (ouch). In the end, a 2-10 season only saw home wins against Texas Tech and Iowa State. They were competitive in many games and improved offensively as the season progressed (well...there was no way to go but up, but they did average 19.3 PPG over the last half of the season after not scoring more than 13 points until Week 6. Dan Hawkins is an offensive-minded coach, and you know things will improve in that regard. But how much? And how soon?
Key Returnees
For a couple years now, it seems CU has been in flux at the skill positions on offense while maintaining steadiness on the O-line (then again, the lingering effects of the utter domination those early-'00s O-lines imposed might just be clouding my memory). Now it’s the opposite. QB Bernard Jackson, RB Hugh Charles, WR’s Alvin Barnett, Patrick Williams, and Dusty Sprague, and stud sophomore TE Riar Geer all return, but the O-line must replace four starters. And to make matters worse, there has been a rash of O-line injuries in spring ball. And did I mention that CU only has about seven scholarship O-linemen?
On the defensive side, CU must replace both starting DE’s and LB Thaddeus Washington, who FINALLY completed his eligibility last year. Their secondary is nice and experienced (somehow CB Terrence Wheatley still has eligibility of his own), and they do return WLB Jordan Dizon (100+ tackles, 11 tackles for loss) and DT Brandon Hypolite (12.5 TFL). It is key that one of the new starting DE’s (Alonzo Barrett? Maurice Lucas?) steps in and gets pressure on the QB in passing situations, otherwise the secondary will be put in pretty tough situations.
As with Baylor, Colorado’s biggest loss is probably in the special teams department. Kicker Mason Crosby, CU’s biggest offensive weapon for the past three years, graduated. Senior Kevin Eberhart has done a decent job in his place, but no other kicker is capable of doing what Crosby did to the ball the last few seasons. They also have a potential weapon as a punt returner—senior Stephone Robinson—but he did next to nothing in that role last season, averaging only 5.1 yards per return.
Spring Developments
Well, the first we heard from Dan Hawkins and Colorado this spring came back on Signing Day, when Hawkins launched into a fantastic rant about pampered athletes and too many practices. Nothing else that could happen in Boulder this spring could top that.
Anyway, QB Bernard Jackson is not a Dan Hawkins-style QB (his best skills are running, running, and juking), so one of the goals of this spring was to find a role for him and still get a QB in place who is more fit for the Hawkins system. Jackson is apparently lining up wide and in the backfield while RSFr. Cody Hawkins and JUCO transfer Nick Nelson battle for prime QB duties. Looking at the numbers, it doesn’t really appear that either has seized the reins just yet. Also, CB Cha’pelle Brown appears to have moved to WR to give the Buffs a deep threat they didn’t really have last year. We’ll see if it works.
Fun With Numbers
As discussed previously, here were the five statistical categories that were most directly related to Colorado’s success/failure last year:
1. Opponents’ Rushing Attempts (0.87)
2. First Down Ratio (0.80)
3. Third Down Conversion Ratio (0.77)
4. Total Plays Ratio (0.71)
5. Opponents’ Total Plays (0.71)
The fact that Opponents’ Rushing Attempts was #1 on this list tells me that opponents were a) able to secure a lead pretty easily and b) content to run the ball, control the clock, and (in theory) pin the Buffs in bad field position because there was no reason to fear Colorado’s offense. If you’re up 14 points against Texas Tech, you know you have to stay aggressive and keep scoring. If you’re up 14 against CU, put it on cruise and make them show you something.
The highly-correlated items on CU’s list here show that ball control was the make-or-break issue for the Buffs in ’06 (and since they went 2-10, there was a lot more break than make). Will they be better at ball control in ’06?
Offensively, there are more weapons at Hawkins’ disposal—Jackson and Brown in particular—but he still has to figure out how to use them all. Hugh Charles shows flashes of unbelievable speed, but he’s every bit as likely to pick the wrong hole as the right one, and he’s been pretty inconsistent throughout his career. However, you figure he will make at least incremental improvement during his senior season, so that will help. But they need to figure out something here—last season, they were pretty much guaranteed 3 points any time they crossed the opponent’s 35. Without Crosby there to bail them out, they’ll need to mount longer drives. And they'll need a strong QB.
Defensively, if they can get some sort of pass rush, their defense should be able to hold up a little better than last year. Dizon is most definitely an All-Big XII-caliber player, and he and Hypolite could be really strong anchors for the front seven. Again, it all comes down to pass rush and pass defense on 3rd downs.
While having unknown quantities on offense might actually help CU in their opening game against CSU, it would behoove the Buffs to get their act together pretty quickly after that since a) the schedule gets tough in a hurry, and b) teams will have CU film at that point and will be better prepared for what's coming. A trip to Tempe to face Arizona State follows the CSU game, and then Florida State comes to Boulder. This team could be much improved from 2006 and still start the season 0-3 (tell me again why this kind of scheduling is a good thing?). The Buffs play their three toughest conference opponents (OU, Nebraska, Missouri) at home, but that might backfire if they can’t pick off at least two wins there. They didn’t win a road game last year, and otherwise winnable games against Baylor, K-State, Iowa State, and Texas Tech get a lot tougher on the road than at home. In all, I do think it's likely that CU shows improvement, but jeez...with this schedule, 6 wins will be difficult to compile. My first impression says somewhere in the neighborhood of 4-8 or 5-7.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Baylor Spring Football Preview
2006
2006 was a wasted opportunity for Baylor, no question about it. At the beginning of the season, Baylor fans (all 12,000 of them remaining) had to look at the schedule and think, “This is our year.” A strong returning QB in Shawn Bell, two strong RB’s in Paul Mosley and Brandon Whitaker, a deep WR corps, an experienced defense, and a schedule that included home games against TCU, Northwestern State, Army, Kansas State, Kansas, and Texas A&M, who they’d played extremely well the last two seasons. Win five of those and pick off a road win against Washington State or Colorado or Oklahoma State, and that’s six wins. Well, they lost to TCU and Wazzu, but they still had a chance as long as they beat Army. They lost in OT, 27-20. They swept the Big XII North, beating KSU and KU at home and nicking Colorado in Boulder...but it was too late. They lost their last four games of the season and finished a very normal 4-8. Now Shawn Bell’s gone, along with top RB Mosley and top WR Dominique Ziegler. Is the window of opportunity closed?
Key Returnees
Baylor enters its second season with a spread offense, and the overall level of comfort there will improve. The Bears averaged 23.6 PPG last season, their best in 10 years (ouch). They return three starting O-linemen (OT Jason Smith, OG Chad Smith, OG Dan Gay), and their success is key to sophomore QB Blake Szymanski. When Shawn Bell got hurt last season, Szymanski stepped in and looked like, well, a young QB with potential. He completed 53% of his passes with a 4-7 TD-INT ratio and entered the spring with a good shot at the #1 QB slot. Brandon Whitaker has been Paul Mosley's backup for a long time, but honestly he might be a better fit in the spread. With more carries, he could do some damage.
The defense returns seven starters, including five of their front six (they run a 4-2-5). Sophomore MLB Joe Pawelek (a freshman All-American in ’06) is a potential All Big-XII performer, and senior WLB Nick Moore has improved steadily throughout his time in Waco. They join three returning starters on the D-line, and hopefully for Baylor that means a significant improvement on the 4.97 yards per carry they allowed last season (5.90 in Big XII play). They return only two starters in the secondary, which will hurt considering the experienced secondary allowed a 58% completion rate and 7.2 yards per pass, but none of that probably matters if they can’t stop the run.
The biggest loss for Baylor possibly came in the special teams department, where punter Daniel Sepulveda finally finished up his 19 years of eligibility in 2006. Not only do they lose their All-American punter, but they also must replace a solid place-kicker in Ryan Havens. Think about how much worse Baylor could have been without Sepulveda’s 46.5 yards per punt and Havens’ automatic kicking. Yikes.
Oh, and Baylor’s breaking in five new assistant coaches as well. Ouch.
Spring Developments
The two major spring practice developments so far have been 1) two names separating themselves from the pack in the annual Baylor QB race (neither are named Szymanski), and 2) injuries and absences at WR. Senior Michael Machen and junior Ryan Roberts are the leaders in the QB race. Machen played at Kent State through 2006 (he had a 102.7 QB rating in 2005 before KSU switched to a run-oriented offense) and is at Baylor because of the “if you graduate in four years, you can transfer for your fifth year without sitting out” rule. Roberts previously played at DII before walking on at Baylor. I want to suggest that it says something about your program that QB’s from Midwestern State and Kent State can come in and quickly become the best QB’s you have...but I won’t. Who knows...maybe one of them will turn out to be fantastic.
As for the WR’s, lone returning starter Thomas White has been fighting off illness, sophomore Ernest Smith got knocked on the head, and sophomore David Gettis has been running track. There are plenty of potential weapons at WR, and you know they’ll find somebody to catch the ball in the spread offense, but...well, experience still counts for something.
Fun With Numbers
As I warned you Saturday, I jumped into last season’s box scores and looked into which statistical categories were most directly correlated with success (or failure) last year, and here were the top five for Baylor:
1. Opponents’ turnoversThis is an interesting set of numbers. First of all, it suggests that Baylor’s offensive performance had little to do with their success. Their chances for victory started and ended with defense. They gave up a 3rd down conversion rate of 42%, good for 10th in the conference, and forced only 25 turnovers, 7th in the conference. If these were the most important statistical categories for Baylor, and they finished 10th and 7th in the conference in those categories, then a 4-8 record sounds about right, eh?
2. Opponents’ completion %
3. Opponents’ 3rd down conversion attempts (?)
4. Opponents’ 3rd down conversion %
5. Third Down Conversion Ratio
So the key to success in 2007 is improvement in these categories...will they actually improve here? Well, an inexperienced secondary and an average pass rush (the projected DL starters combined for all of 5.5 sacks last year) suggests that they’ll be hard pressed to match last years 25 takeaways and even harder-pressed (harder-pressed?) to stop less than 42% of 3rd downs from being converted.
In other words, things aren’t looking too good for Baylor. Have I mentioned that the schedule gets tougher? Like, much tougher? Now they have to play at TCU, ATM, KU, and KSU, and while their non-conference slate is easier (they play at Buffalo instead of at Wazzu), it does include a game against Rice, who is coming off its first bowl bid in about 150 years. If Baylor is going to reach six wins in ’07, it’s going to come against Rice, Texas State, @ Buffalo, Colorado, Oklahoma State, and...uhh...@ Kansas? Unless Michael Machen can step in and drag the Baylor offense to about 450 yards per game (which isn't impossible, I guess...just unlikely), the stagnant defense and rough schedule will lead to yet another losing season in Waco.
Monday, April 9, 2007
2007 Big XII Spring Preview
A (relatively) quick spring look at the teams.
- Baylor
- Colorado
- Iowa State
- Kansas
- Kansas State
- Missouri
- Nebraska
- Oklahoma
- Oklahoma State
- Texas
- Texas A&M
- Texas Tech
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Numbers Numbers Numbers
I almost waited to post this because I was having too much fun with the K-State basketball situation, but...I guess I’ll move on. For now.
I’ve officially embraced my stat-nerddom like never before. In preparation for the upcoming 2007 football season, I’m diving into box scores and swimming around a bit. And I plan on doing this all summer. Let’s just say that, as much as I enjoy basektball and basketball stats, football ranks much higher on my list. You’ve been warned.
Here was my first item of business: look at 2006 box scores for all Big XII teams and do a simple correlation. What would happen if I looked at a bunch of different statistical categories? Which categories would have the highest correlation to actual success and failure for each team? Would the key categories be the same for every team? Absolutely, positively not.
WARNING: For those of you (ahem, The Beef) who begins to get a headache when statistics terms are discussed, please skip over the italicized portion below.
What is a correlation? From wikipedia, which has all the answers: "In probability theory and statistics, correlation, also called correlation coefficient, indicates the strength and direction of a linear relationship between two random variables. In general statistical usage, correlation or co-relation refers to the departure of two variables from independence, although correlation does not imply causation. In this broad sense there are several coefficients, measuring the degree of correlation, adapted to the nature of data." Crystal clear? Basically it means, if one variable goes up, another variable will likely go up too. Correlation isn't equal to causation, but the higher the correlation, the stronger the relationship between the two numbers.
A correlation coefficient can only be between -1 and 1. In all of this correlation analysis, keep in mind that I’m looking at the absolute values of these correlations. Just about any category involving opponents’ success probably had a negative correlation (i.e. the fewer yards for your opponents, the higher correlation to your team’s success), but being that I was looking for the strongest overall correlation, I looked at absolute values.
Okay, now that that's out of the way...
First, here were the statistical categories with the five highest correlations to success, conference-wide:
1. First Down Ratio (your total FD’s versus your opponent’s FD’s) (correlation: 0.68)Now, your first impression as I list those five are, DUH. Of COURSE first downs and third down conversions matter. Well, everything matters to some degree. There’s no denying that. If the top category had been rushing yards or opponents’ total yards or time of possession, you’d have said ‘duh’ to that too. That was kind of my idea in looking at this. Everything matters, but what matters the most to each team?
2. Opponents’ Total First Downs (0.59)
3. Third Down Conversion Ratio (your 3rd down converion rate versus your opponent’s) (0.53)
4. Opponents’ Yards Per Passing Attempt (0.51)
5. Opponents’ Third Down % (0.48)
Well, here’s a look at each team’s top five and what it probably suggests about each team.
There were a few weird things about Missouri’s numbers. First of all, as you’ll see, these correlation numbers are much higher than other teams’. In other words, these categories were more tied to Missouri’s success/failure than other teams’ highest categories were to theirs. Also, the 0.84 correlation for Missouri’s rushing attempts was just about the highest correlation on the board. Obviously there’s some cause-effect working there—Missouri is more likely to run the ball when they’ve already got the lead. But does that also mean they should run the ball more at any time in the game?Missouri
1. Rushing Attempts (0.84)
2. Time of Possession (0.72)
3. First Down Ratio (0.71)
4. Rushing Yards (0.70)
5. Opponents' Rushing Attempts (0.70)
One other weird thing: for every other team in the conference, time of possession meant next to nothing (which was surprising in and of itself). But for Mizzou, it was just about the most important thing. Gary Pinkel spends a lot of time talking about how TOP doesn’t matter—it’s total plays that matters. Well, total plays had a relatively high correlation (in the 0.6 range), but TOP meant more. I wasn’t expecting that.
BaylorTakeaways meant more to Baylor than any other team, and by a pretty wide margin. They needed to create some extra opportunities for themselves, and when they didn’t do it, they lost.
1. Opponents’ turnovers (0.74)
2. Opponents’ completion % (0.70)
3. Opponents’ 3rd down conversion attempts (0.69)
4. Opponents’ 3rd down conversion % (0.64)
5. Third Down Conversion Ratio (0.60)
ColoradoColorado’s correlations were the only team’s stronger than Mizzou’s, and all of these categories have to do with ball control...which makes sense. Colorado didn’t have many explosive weapons on offense, and their defense was good at preventing the big plays. Whoever was able to dictate the tempo won the game.
1. Opponents’ Rushing Attempts (0.87)
2. First Down Ratio (0.80)
3. Third Down Conversion Ratio (0.77)
4. Total Plays Ratio (0.71)
5. Opponents’ Total Plays (0.71)
Iowa StateTo everyone else in the conference, opponents’ passing attempts and completions were just about the least important categories on the list. However, for Iowa State it was extremely important. To me, that suggests that Iowa State had trouble building a lead, but when they had one (and their opponents therefore had to pass a lot), they were decent at holding onto it.
1. Third Down Ratio (0.79)
2. Opponents’ Passing Attempts (0.67)
3. Rushing Yards (0.66)
4. 3rd Down Conversion % (0.66)
5. Opponents’ Pass Completions (0.64)
KansasLike Colorado, ball control meant absolutely everything to Kansas. If their opponents were running the ball well and getting first downs, Kansas was screwed. However, if KU was able to string together some first downs, they were in good shape.
1. Opponents’ First Downs (0.67)
2. 3rd Down Conversion Rate (0.67)
3. Opponents’ Yards per Carry (0.60)
4. Opponents’ Total Plays (0.57)
5. First Down Ratio (0.54)
Kansas StateSense a trend here? Me too.
1. 3rd Down Conversion Ratio (0.86)
2. 3rd Down Conversion Rate (0.75)
3. 3rd Down Conversions (0.66)
4. Team Passing Attempts (0.57...this was a negative correlation)
5. Turnovers (0.55)
NebraskaThis tells me that Zac Taylor winning Big XII Offensive Player of the Year was an even bigger joke than I thought it was. If this team was running the ball well, Nebraska was winning. If they weren’t they were losing. And if they were running the ball well, that opened up the passing game. Zac Taylor was about the 9th most important player on the offensive side of the ball.
1. Rushing Yards (0.82)
2. 3rd Down Conversion Ratio (0.75)
3. Rushing Attempts (0.75)
4. Pass Completion % (0.72)
5. 3rd Down Conversion Rate (0.71)
Okay, maybe that was a bit overboard. But my point is valid, and you know it.
OklahomaThis was a pretty unique set of categories. We knew Paul Thompson wasn’t all that important to OU’s overall success—his one job was “Don’t screw up” and he did a decent job of that—but this pretty much verifies that the entire offense was assigned the same role. That’s pretty surprising considering that OU was a pretty strong rushing team...especially when that Peterson guy was healthy. However, when you think about it, OU’s improvement coincided with their defense’s significant improvement. It was a huge disappointment the first month or so of the season, but after the Texas game, things clicked, and OU didn’t lose again the rest of the season (to a team not named Boise State, anyway).
1. Opponents’ Completion % (0.74)
2. First Down Ratio (0.65)
3. Penalty Yards (0.61)
4. 3rd Down Conversion Ratio (0.58)
5. Opponents’ Rushing Yards (0.54)
Oklahoma StateThis makes sense to me. OSU’s offense was consistently good all year. Lots of explosiveness and big plays. However, the defense...not so good. When the defense—particularly the pass defense—stepped up, success followed.
1. Opponents’ Completion % (0.72)
2. First Down Ratio (0.65)
3. Opponents’ Yards Per Passing Attempt (0.63)
4. Opponents’ Rushing Yards (0.61)
5. Rushing Attempts (0.61)
TexasBig plays = good. Giving up big plays = bad.
1. Yards Per Pass Attempt (0.75)
2. Yards Per Pass Completion (0.73)
3. First Down Ratio (0.70)
4. Opponents’ Yards Per Passing Attempt (0.64)
5. Pass Completion % (0.63)
Texas A&MI have absolutely no idea what to make of this. Seriously. Do you? Um, ball control’s important, I guess?
1. Opponents’ Total First Downs (0.67)
2. First Down Ratio (0.65)
3. Opponents’ Yards Per Rush (0.62)
4. Opponents’ 3rd Down Attempts (0.57)
5. Opponents’ Pass Completion % (0.57)
Texas TechThis one makes sense too. Just like OSU (even moreso), the offensive yards were always there. They’re always going to get first downs, but if you get more than they do, you’re probably going to win. Also, when they’re ahead, they run more...just like Missouri.
1. First Down Ratio (0.81)
2. Third Down Ratio (0.76)
3. Rushing Yards (0.68)
4. Turnover Ratio (0.67)
5. Yards Per Pass Attempt (0.66)
Over the next couple of weeks—in the lead-up to the Black & Gold Game—I’ll be taking a look at each Big XII team, and I figure...you know...since I spent all this time looking at numbers, I should probably use them in those previews too, huh?
Again, you’ve been warned.
