Beautiful Day for Football

Football Bowl Association and Other Bowling Thoughts

Ken Braun — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 05:24:13 GMT

My thoughts on the whole bowls vs. playoffs debate is a greyish area. The BCS is foolish, and stupid, and unfair; but we're also not going to get a 16-team playoff, and there's issues of complication with all points in between.

What I am sure of is that I don't need to be convinced how terrific college football is while I'm watching the waning days of same and pondering months of cold and darkness without it. Nonetheless, this is what the Football Bowl Association has been throwing at me for more than a week (see video on right of the FBA page, if you haven't seen it already.)

The FBA adverts show spectacular and exciting plays, and then assert how wonderful bowls are. I'm supposed to come to the conclusion that one cannot happen without the other. This alchemy is much like the ethanol industry showing me pictures of cars moving as evidence that mixing corn and (lots) of tax dollars is something other than a tremendous waste of resources.

This reminds me a lot of last season, when the cable companies and the Big Ten Network were feuding, and my cable provider (Comcast) kept running commercials all season to inform me of their side of the story. Instead of sympathy, these adds were providing a ceaseless reminder that if I dumped whiney Comcast and switched to a dish, then my monthly TV bill would finally produce more of the single most important reason to have a TV in the first place -- college football.

The Football Bowl Association is its own worst enemy.

In other bowling news...

Missouri lined up in the neutral zone at least twice (and perhaps three) times in a row during the Alamo Bowl against Northwestern. I lost count. Exactly how does this happen with any regularity whatsoever for any player above the age of 14?

There's a ball and there's a down marker. Look at them. If you have to look backward to see either one, or if the ball looks like it's ahead of the down marker, then you sir are standing in a bad place. If you've had all spring, all season, and then a couple of weeks of bowl practice to work on this concept (to say nothing of however many years before that), then this shouldn't be a problem.

In any case, do not hire Mizzou grads as civil engineers.

Elsewhere in the Big 12, Oklahoma State QB Zac Robinson playing in the Holiday Bowl got demolished on every other down by the Oregon defense and somehow kept getting up and moving his team downfield -- often by running the ball himself. He's surely not yet 40, and after watching this I'm not even sure he's really just a man, either. More like something made of big rubber bands and steel in the labs of Cyberdyne Systems.

Eventually, in the fourth quarter, the hits finally caught up, he started to hobble a little bit and his throws started missing. Oregon finally won this very entertaining game.

But hey, Robinson is a junior. He'll be back.

Finally, to go along with Mike Gundy's "kid who does everything right" rant, watching the Emerald Bowl and the aftermath of its drama regarding the suspended Miami QB, I decided that Randy Shannon's attitude toward his job is making me forget why I used to hate the Hurricanes.

Capital One Bowl: Similar Teams, Different Dreams

Ken Braun — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 05:19:08 GMT

Michigan State's Javon Ringer and Georgia's Knowshon Moreno are both finalists for the Doak Walker "best college running back" award. So, with some excitement about two of the game's biggest running threats set to play one another in the Capital One Bowl on Jan. 1st., what is the big statistic that tells you the most about this game?

How about this: Georgia's rushing offense is ranked just 54th in the nation and Michigan State's is 66th. Both players are the main ball carriers on teams that -- statistically speaking -- have rather mediocre running attacks. Appearances and statistics, it seems, are deceiving.

The real big difference between these teams is trajectory. Georgia is coming off of a very strong 2007, a BCS bowl win, returned 17 starters from last year, and was ranked the pre-season No. 1 in both major polls. The debated expectations for Georgia at the start of the season centered on whether Florida had a chance to upend their chase to the SEC title, not whether in-state rival Georgia Tech (pre-season No. 50 in the Coaches poll) would be the team to hand them their third loss on the regular season's final weekend.

By contrast, Michigan State owns three losses that every sane person would have predicted, a couple of wins that are more than pleasant surprises, and not a single unexpected loss. A reasonable regular season for Michigan State, given last year's graduations and a tougher schedule, would have been another 7-5 mark followed by another mediocre pre-January bowl appearance. Even adjusting for the (entirely expected) season-ending blowout by Penn State, nine wins is evidence of a team playing well above expectations.

The Spartans lost big to their conference powerhouses (Penn State and Ohio State) and Georgia lost big to theirs (Florida and Alabama.) Both teams played and lost to one decent out-of-conference opponent (Georgia Tech for Georgia and Cal for MSU.) Each finished finished as the third best team in their conference.

Other numbers show the trend of two teams arriving in the same place from different directions. Georgia finishes the regular season ranked 21st in the nation for total offense and 28th for total defense, while the Spartans are respectively 66th and 62nd. The component parts that make up those big numbers tell the same story. One team doesn't look good on paper but manages to win games it should not. The other looks like it should be world beaters, yet found ways to lose a game or two that it should have won.

Georgia is not a threat like Penn State, nor Ohio State. More like Iowa earlier this year, another team with a very good running back, this sets up as a game where Michigan State has a chance to beat what is probably a better group of players because they perform better as a team than the other guys do.

The Spartans are thrilled to be in Orlando on New Year's Day. Getting there shows that they can attain their goals and that they still have yet one more chance to exceed expectations. For Georgia, Orlando is evidence that they failed to capitalize on nearly all of their preseason goals. However much the Bulldogs may say to the contrary, winning the Capital One Bowl will not mean nearly as much to them as it does to the guys on the other side of the field. Leaving aside the stats, this is probably what decides the game.

2008 Spartans By the Numbers

Ken Braun — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 05:49:11 GMT

The big numbers tell the Michigan State football story as the regular season comes to a close. Last year's group was a 7-6 team. Those that returned played a slightly tougher schedule in 2008 and have come out with (so far) a 9-3 record. That alone appears as big progress, but in Big Ten conference games, the changes are more dramatic: a 3-5 record became 6-2 against exactly the same slate of teams.

Iowa and Northwestern illustrate this last point. Each was a 6-6 team a year ago with no bowl prospects, yet both defeated Michigan State. This year, both had markedly improved records (17-7 combined) and will go to bowl games. Yet this time both were beaten by the Spartans. Soundly beaten, in the case of 9-3 Northwestern.

But some interesting nuance creeps up in the smaller statistics, particularly when you focus on just the eight Big Ten conference games over each season. It bodes well for next season.

Last year, Michigan State had the best scoring offense in the conference while winning those three conference games. This year, they'd fallen to 6th best. Likewise, scoring defense last year was a dismal 9th, but improved to only 7th this year.

On and on this trend goes for every meaningful statistic. Total offense and defense last year were 1st and 7th, respectively; both fell to 8th this year. Red zone offense was 1st, but now 3rd; red zone defense was 7th, and is now 10th.

Last year's +2 turnover margin became this year's -1. For perspective, Ohio State finished first at +12.

For all of the deserved praise about Javon Ringer's running, he was just one man carrying the entire workload for a run-based offensive attack. The result was a 10th place finish out of eleven teams for rushing yards. Last year, with the very able Jehuu Caulcrick sharing the load, the Spartans' rush offense was 3rd. The difference was more than 80 yards per Big Ten game.

How do those mediocre-to-awful conference stats in nearly every major category, with many of them showing declines from last year's team that won just three conference games, translate into twice that many wins this year?

Unlike every other top team, 3rd place Michigan State played all of the other toughest Big Ten teams this year: 5th place Iowa and co-champ Ohio State didn't meet; neither did 4th place Northwestern and co-champ Penn State. Every other team that played at least four of the top five finished with far fewer wins.

The stats are thus deceptive. The Spartans came within one game of navigating one of the toughest schedules in the conference to a share of the title. Throw out the horrible numbers from the blowout defeats against the co-champs and the picture improves dramatically.

What does this mean moving forward?

In Mark Dantonio's first season, inheriting mostly somebody else's players, just 12 of 22 starters came back and the team won seven games. This year, 13 of 22 starters returned and they won (so far) nine games. Next season, it appears that 14 of 22 starters will return with two solid years of experience playing under this coach.

By contrast, Penn State returned 18 of 22 starters this year from a team that won nine games and Ohio State returned 19 of 22 from a team that won eleven games. Both of the programs sharing the title this year have stable leadership, have won nine or more games each of the previous three seasons and were in no way having a "rebuilding" period remotely comparable to what Michigan State has been going through. They were supposed to dominate games this year. The only real surprise is those games where they failed to do so.

But going forward, the Buckeyes could lose as many as ten starters next year; the Nittany Lions twelve. Both will likely still be good, but neither is likely to replicate what happened this season. The 2009 Big Ten race is wide open.

Next year, while Michigan State obviously loses a starting quarterback and tailback, they return the starting fullback, the tight end and three of five offensive linemen. At receiver, only one backup -- Deon Curry with just five receptions playing in seven games -- will graduate. Every other starting receiver and backup receiver will return.

Defensively, two of the four starting linemen and two of the four defensive backs depart. All three starting linebackers return, and two of whom -- Greg Jones and Eric Gordon -- are sophomores that finished ranked No. 1 and No. 11 in the conference for tackles. Ohio State's two-time All-American senior James Laurinaitis, soon likely to be a high NFL draft choice, finished 2nd behind Jones.

Note that the running game actually performed better with more than one back carrying the load. That will be the case next year. Despite losing Javon Ringer, it is possible that the rushing attack will get stronger. The key is likely finding two or three Jehuu Caulcricks on the team, and not necessarily finding another gem like Javon Ringer.

Likewise, the new quarterback -- either Kirk Cousins or Keith Nichol -- will have a full set of experienced receivers to throw to. Each quarterback also has playing experience, though Nichol's was at Oklahoma, where he failed to beat out Sam Bradford for a starting job (no shame in that.)

There is, in short, a lot of promise that a good team can get a whole lot better very soon.

And, saving the best for last, the Big Ten schedules rotate, and the change is very generous. The Spartans will take a two-year break from Ohio State and Indiana and face Illinois and Minnesota instead.

In the non-conference, the tough season opener on the road versus Cal becomes a home opener against Montana State, with also -- in likely order of difficulty -- Central Michigan, Western Michigan and Notre Dame. No disrespect to those 1-AA teams, as we know how they love coming to Michigan, nor to two of the MAC's very best programs right now, but nobody on that list is likely to compare to what Cal was this season. (Notre Dame, I will flatly predict right now, is going to rival this year's mediocrity unless there is a leadership change.)

Taking a break from the Ohio State juggernaut is obviously huge. If the 2008 Spartans had instead played the teams on the 2009 schedule during this season, it's not implausible that they would be 11-1 right now, having lost only to Penn State at the very end. That might have been good enough for a BCS game.

This spring, I looked at the season and saw eight wins and a fourth place finish. I got nine wins and 3rd place, guessing only one game wrong in that early estimate (Wisconsin.) Again looking forward at this very early date, even better things for 2009 -- including a conference title -- is not out of the question.

The future is bright. The State of the Spartans is strong.

Michigan State v. Penn State: Underwhelmed With Excitement

Ken Braun — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 03:58:29 GMT

So it comes to this. The night before what could be Michigan State's biggest win in ... a long time. I've had two weeks to prepare for it, two weeks to write something about it, two weeks to get really jacked up about it.

And yet, I have tried and I have nothing.

Rather than eagerly anticipate the possibility of sharing the first Big Ten title in 18 years, and getting that first game of the season insomnia the night before, I am instead pre-resolved to losing this game and moving on to finish with a nice bowl game.

The first problem is that I hate -- HATE -- road games. Yelling at a television just doesn't get it done for me. I'd be fired up and ready for a game against Florida International if I had my tickets and a tailgate lined up.

But mostly, I have thus far this season not yet been wrong on a Friday night before a game. When I think they'll win, they win. When I know they'll lose, they lose. Nothing psychic about this: guessing based on the pre-game point spreads would have gotten anyone the same result.

If you go back to May, in one of my very first posts, you'll see the whole season predicted thus far to within one game of actual results. The only one I got wrong was Wisconsin, and I had moved that one over the the "win" side of the ledger weeks before the game started. Otherwise, there was no reason to alter my May prediction during any other game this season. And, as noted, by the night before I was already guessing the outcome correctly in all cases.

In May, I expected to lose to Penn State. Badly. Tonight... I still do.

Again, there's nothing special about my predictive powers. I blame Mark Dantonio for turning this into a delightfully boring team that gives 110 percent every game. They are predictably good, but not (yet) predictably great, so their 110 percent isn't going to measure up against some others: Cal, Ohio State... and Penn State.

I am thus a victim of trusting my own realistic expectations. I think that I've already seen the end of this game.

Michigan State doesn't have what it takes to win a share of the Big Ten title this year. But what might keep me awake tonight is thinking that they could very well be the favorite to take it outright next year. A clear majority of the starters will return from a team that (If am joyously wrong) could yet win 11 games this season.

In 21 years as the biggest of Spartan fans, I've never been as ill-prepared for an earthshaking upset as I am right now. And paradoxically, I've never been so hopeful about their future.

What a great season this has been. I can't believe it's not over yet.

Michigan State Refuses to Lose

Ken Braun — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 22:21:10 GMT

Every Big Ten game is important, particularly with a conference title still out there, but you could make a strong case that Michigan State needed this 21-7 victory a lot less than any other game this season. Instead, they turned the situation into yet another of many "statement" games to tell themselves and the world that the culture of this program is like nothing that went before it.

They gave up a 4-1 turnover advantage to Purdue, a team that desperately needed this win so as to avoid sending Joe Tiller into retirement with a very disappointing losing season. With an 8-2 record and a comfortable bowl game already secured, Michigan State theoretically had fewer motivations to overcome those mistakes. The Spartans were also a tired and sore football team, having played a game every single Saturday of the season thus far, the only team ranked in the top-25 with ten straight football games already in their rear-view mirror.

You're supposed to lose -- and very badly -- when you're tired and give up that many chances to a hungry opponent. Instead, the Spartan defense decided to crank their game into a gear nobody yet knew they had.

Shannon Shelton of the Detroit Free Press notes that no team, during all of the dozen years of Joe Tiller's spread offense revolution at Purdue, had held the Boilermakers to under 200 yards of total offense until Michigan State did it yesterday. This includes the very stingy defense that propelled Ohio State to the 2002 BCS Championship, and various others.

Yet, for the first three quarters and through part of the fourth, the Boilermakers were held under 100 yards. Down 21-0 in the fourth quarter, almost half of their total yardage for the day came on their only scoring drive, a 98-yard touchdown march that ended with just 42 ticks remaining on the clock. There seems little doubt that if Michigan State's defense had needed to stop that drive to preserve the win, or just wanted a 21-0 shutout a little bit more, even many of these yards might not have happened.

The old saying goes that the game is played by "Jimmys and Joes" not "X's and O's." I noted last week that Michigan State is statistically a very mediocre team producing extraordinary results. A legion of recruiting nerds will doubtlessly tell you that they are ranked 8th in the conference for total offense and 5th for total defense because they just didn't bring in as many 4-star players as the teams ranked ahead of them. And they'll say with knowing looks that this matters a lot.

Go tell Charlie Weis and Phil Fulmer.

On paper, most teams look "better" than Michigan State, but numbers cannot measure the culture. The best teams believe that they have a hundred ways to win every game, no matter the circumstances, while lesser teams have fewer answers. There's no statistic to measure precisely where any given group is at relative to the others, but it is the most important factor in the game: Do their coaches have them prepared to play and thinking like winners?

With the turnovers and fatigue and what not, there were a lot of ways for Michigan State to lose to Purdue and just as many reasons why they should have when the ball started bouncing away. But win they did, and not just to get it done and escape. Instead, they put up a dominating performance, virtually announcing for the entire afternoon that this is the kind of game that they expect to go on winning, one way or another, for a good long time.

The New Same Old Spartans

Ken Braun — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 04:06:37 GMT

"The team will play better when the coach gets players that understand his way of doing things."

This now famous refrain of the Michigan football fan since last December has morphed from the "objective hope" of wanting Christmas Day to come into the "anxious hope" that comes with wanting and praying for the end of April 15th (or Friday the 13th?) But more remarkable than the spectacular ruination of this optimism for fans of the Wolverines is that the most appropriate application of this hope was never Michigan football to begin with. Since before that December day that the Wolverines hired Rich Rodriguez, and even more so right now, it is a better description of Michigan State and Mark Dantonio.

Two years ago next month, the Spartans were on their way to being a demoralized 4-8 football team with a fired head coach and an uncertain future that likely didn't include a post-season anytime soon. But one year later -- one year ago -- they had become a 7-5 team headed to a bowl game and had lost no game by more than a touchdown. Using whatever new recruits were willing to take a chance on a reclamation project, and motivating what remained of the guys that had won just four times the year before, Mark Dantonio and his staff had whipped somebody else's players, used to somebody else's system, into his team -- winners -- in just 12 months. And best of all, they were getting noticeably better as time went on, with their comeback win as underdogs against Penn State to end the regular season arguably being their most impressive performance of the year.

At this point, Spartan fans were justified in upgrading their expectations. It was reasonable to conclude that the 2008 season could step up a notch from there. With full confidence that Michigan State had a real winner of a coach, my version of boundless optimism this spring was to predict an 8-4 season with a fourth place finish in the Big Ten, noting that a "better team than last year is playing a much tougher schedule."

In that prediction linked above, I expected the four defeats to be against Cal, Ohio State, Wisconsin and Penn State. But halfway through those projected failures, and for the second season in a row, I am again forced to set aside more reasonable pessimism and mutter in amazement that the "team will play better when the coach gets players that understand his way of doing things."

Wondering how many more pleasant surprises are in store for a Spartan team that is punching above its weight is turning into a regular holiday tradition. You could almost start referring to it as the "Same Old Spartans."

With perhaps only one exception -- Northwestern last season -- these new "Same Old Spartans" have won every game that they should have been expected to win. Last year, against Wisconsin, Michigan, and maybe on the road at Iowa, they found ways to lose winnable games against teams that were their equal or better. This year, they have evolved another step, finding ways to beat teams that outplay them -- even potentially better teams -- such as Iowa and now Wisconsin.

Two games remain and a New Years Day bowl game may have already been locked up. It's November, and they still control their own destiny for the Big Ten title and a trip to Pasadena. Even if they don't win another game, they've already passed all the tests put in their path at the beginning of the year.

To get an idea of how outsized this group is playing, get a look at the BCS rankings, which say that they are the No. 18 ranked team in the land. Then compare this to their rankings for everything else:

66th for total offense -- 8th in the Big Ten.

60th for total defense -- 7th in the Big Ten.

50th for scoring offense -- 4th in the Big Ten.

37th for scoring defense -- 6th in the Big Ten.

Etc... On just about every statistical category, they are not a top-25 team, and often not a top-50 team. Except one: They find a way to get wins, even against teams that are statistically superior.

Brian Hoyer, foolishly maligned by some ignorant media and fans earlier this year, is one reason why. He has thrown just four interceptions all season -- roughly on par with where he was last year. His oft-cited low completion percentage has been mostly a combination of avoiding those interceptions and having many good throws mishandled by his receivers (a problem still much in evidence during the Wisconsin game.)

The Spartans win because they have a smart quarterback who minimizes their mistakes and keeps them in the game. This is to his credit as a player, but it is also great coaching.

Remember last season, when Devin Thomas, who had been virtually ignored under the previous offensive system, came out of nowhere and became Michigan State's most dangerous weapon at receiver? This season, that role has been taken over by former walk-on Blair White. I'm not sure which evolution is the most impressive -- and we still have another season to watch White get even better -- but in either case there's a coaching staff that gets to share credit with some hard working players.

Of course, you cannot leave out the contribution of Javon Ringer. But even with him, the Spartan rush offense is ranked just 60th in the nation and 8th in the Big Ten. When Ringer is gone and no longer carrying the load all on himself, it's possible that those who remain and those yet to arrive could step it up a notch and even make things better.

Iowa, behind the bruising running of Shonn Greene, now has the nation's 26th best rush offense. Greene, a junior, is Iowa's version of Devin Thomas or Blair White. No season with more than 200 yards before this one, and suddenly he is into November with more than 1200 yards, ranked third in the nation, and running people over every time you watch him.

For Michigan State, similar stories exist at other positions, such as the defensive secondary, but in every case what is going on is still a work in progress. Most of the college experience for most of Michigan State's team is under a different set of coaches. It's too bad this year's seniors can't hang around and make up that lost time, because the Same Old Spartans will probably be playing much better after the coach gets players that understand his way of doing things...

Apocalypse Rod: Michigan's Colonel Kurtz Mission

Ken Braun — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 05:53:58 GMT

I began this season thinking Michigan would have a very rough time of it, but eventually start coming around. My theory was that the defense, which was expected to be very good, would carry the offense, which wasn't, and that by the end of the season Michigan would get back to being Michigan again.

Somewhere on my homepage blog, following the Utah game, I noted that I wouldn't be surprised if a rapidly improving Michigan was 5-6 going into the Ohio State game and yet good enough to pull the upset. That, after all, is the kind of thing Michigan does: Win when their back is absolutely against the wall.

It's what makes them Michigan.

I don't believe any of it anymore.

I think what is happening right now IS the new Michigan. While they'll obviously not be this bad for long, there's mounting evidence that the Wolverines have inked a contract with mediocrity.

Back on May 12, I was predicting a serious adjustment period by Michigan standards, but hardly extreme for the rest of the college football world. Still, I was going further than most by picking them to go 6-6 and finish 6th in the conference:

"6. MICHIGAN (6-6 and 4-4)
In addition to conference defeats against Mich St, OH ST, Penn St and Wisc, they may also get beat by Toledo and Utah -- two potential champs in their respective conferences -- or maybe Notre Dame (hey, if App St could do it...) Perhaps the weakest Michigan team in 20 years plays a deceptively tough schedule..."

On July 28, I was considering the possibility of a modest losing season, but still granting that Michigan would eventually get back to being Michigan again...

"My worldview does not include a Michigan team that does not win at least 50% of its games, but that is a possible outcome this season. Not probable -- I think nine wins is as likely as five -- but a losing season is weirdly thinkable..."

But all this was because I was being realistic about the challenges facing the new coaching regime. I argued a couple of weeks ago, following the Toledo game, that the current struggles didn't necessarily reflect poorly on Rich Rodriguez, noting that he is...

"...a proven coaching talent, and once he's had time to build his kind of system the results should happen on the field. A new winning culture may finally grow..."

That last part is the conventional wisdom on this situation, something I usually try very hard to avoid buying into.

I'm now ready to take it all back.

The Spartan game did it for me. I've NEVER seen a Michigan team playing at home get handed that many mistakes by ANYONE, let alone Michigan State, and not make them pay for it. The Michigan that I know doesn't let that sort of thing pass, particularly with their backs against the wall and needing a win more than at any time in the last 40-plus years.

No, this isn't the Michigan football team anymore, at least not in any way that I recognize the term.

While there's nothing to back up making foolish predictions of endless losing seasons, I think it's exactly the right time to peek at the available evidence and seriously wonder whether the new coaching staff is a second rate replacement for what came before it.

Start with defense, which everyone (including me) thought was going to be one of the very best in the conference, if not the nation. Since fur trappers began navigating the Great Lakes, the Michigan Wolverines have been about defense. Last year's group was ranked 24th in the nation for total defense, a very typical Michigan ranking.

The new coaching staff inherited a healthy seven starters from that group and generations of tradition, yet now they're 79th for total defense. If that doesn't improve, it will be their worst finish for that stat since at least 1999 (maybe longer, the NCAA website doesn't go back any further.)

And it's not getting any better. During the opening game, Utah put up 341 yards of offense on the Wolverines. This is the third worst offensive performance to date by the still unbeaten Utes. Likewise, Notre Dame's 260 yards of total offense two weeks later against Michigan was the very worst offensive outing of the season for the Irish.

For the early games, the Michigan defense wasn't great, but it was pretty good and you had reason to think it would get better.

But fast forward to Michigan State last week: The 473 yards that Ringer and Co. hung on Michigan was their second best outing of the year, eclipsed only by the 497 yards that the Spartans rammed down the throats of Indiana's defense several weeks earlier.

And only the defenses of Coastal Carolina, Temple and Syracuse gave up more yards to Penn State than the Wolverines did.

This growing and very uncharacteristic problem for Michigan on defense obviously has little to do with Rich Rodriguez trying to install a new offense. Teams are getting better at moving the ball on Michigan as the season gets older.

On offense, it's just the opposite.

For game number one, the Utah defense allowed the Wolverines just 203 yards, the Utah defense's third best such performance to date (they are currently ranked 6th for total defense.)

The ongoing problems with the Wolverine offense since then are too numerous to recite, but even here it is stunning to note that their SECOND worst yardage total of the season came in their most RECENT game against Michigan State.

And just as revealing, the 252 yards gained by the Wolverines last Saturday was the second lowest total allowed by the Spartans on the season. Only Florida Atlantic, a pass-heavy offense playing very cautiously in a monsoon, gained fewer yards against the Spartan defense.

Even after this, the Spartans are still ranked just 56th for total defense.

Gaining 203 against a good Utah and then just 252 against a medium-good MSU seven weeks later. That is not much progress at all. It is even realistic to call it regression.

Michigan is 111th in total offense. Their punter has kicked the ball more distance than the Michigan offense has moved it.

After the Toledo game, Michigan AD Bill Martin compared this disaster to Nick Saban losing to Louisiana-Monroe last season, as if Michigan would also rise from the ashes to No. 2 next year. Small difference being that at one time last year, Alabama was a 6-2 football team that had been as high as No. 16 in the polls. They were still 6-4 when the upset to La.-Monroe happened, and eventually finished 7-6 after going to and winning a bowl game over Colorado.

So, yeah, Toledo would have been exactly like La.-Monroe if Michigan were a mediocre team going through tough adjustments, rather than an awful team digging itself into deeper holes.

Most (but not all) of Rich Rodriguez's strongest resume bullet points come from the three consecutive 11-win seasons put up in his final years at West Virginia. Without that, he doesn't get the Michigan job.

When he arrived at West Virginia in 2001, winning the Big East conference title required beating teams like Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College. By the time he actually started winning Big East titles, those heavyweights were gone to the ACC and in their place names like "Rutgers" and "South Florida" began creeping to the top of the conference standings.

With all of the Wolverines' troubles, one can't help but wonder how much better Rodriguez's first season would have gone if Penn State, Ohio State and Illinois had all left the conference upon his arrival.

Michigan State @ Michigan Recap

Ken Braun — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 16:53:27 GMT

The heart says this is a big win. The head says otherwise. They're both right.

Emotionally, this was the biggest win of the year. But for what it says about where Michigan State ranks as a Big Ten team and a college football power, it's about as important as beating Indiana. Maybe lower.

A 35-21 etching in the record book doesn't tell the whole story.

A normally very reliable Spartan placekicking unit missed three field goals, and an officiating crew with good eyes on the field watching the game in real time was overruled by some blind bats in the replay booth who can't read a rule book. Generously giving Michigan a field goal in place of the Brandon Minor "touchdown" and giving Michigan State just one of the three botched field goals, the final score goes to something like 38-17.

And that's before we get to the fumble that set up the phantom touchdown, a pile of offside penalties by the Spartan defense and other little bits of slop that should have been avoided and have been in other games. The Spartans were their own worst enemy for much of this game, and that was compounded by football gods also working against them. All the fates were cutting Michigan's way on their home field and yet they still lost by two touchdowns.

A good team overcomes these things on such days. That used to be Michigan. It's now Michigan State.

For a variety of psychological reasons, MSU needed to win this game to finally bury the "Same Old Spartans" naysayers. It wasn't their last chance to do it, but this was their very first chance under Mark Dantonio to show that they could bounce back from getting their butts kicked and still win an important game on the road.

Mission accomplished. "Same Old Spartans" no more.

Now, take off the winged helmets and the broken-down, oversized high school stadium full of weepy, spoiled fans reminding us of national championships won before their birth. What does the head say about this win?

What kind of team did Michigan State just beat?

Shocking as it is to write this, the win over Michigan shows again that the Spartans have become good enough to reliably walk over the also-rans of the Big Ten. No more. As I said earlier: It's like beating Indiana.

Given what we now know about Iowa, that win was more impressive. The same can be said for the decisive road win over Nortwestern and the home victory against Notre Dame. All three are better teams than what Michigan has devolved into.

Likewise, reversing the loss to Cal on the road and (obviously) beating Ohio State at home would both have been much bigger victories. Clearly, so would a stunning and improbable upset at Penn State to end the season.

Hail, hail... Looked at this way, the Spartans just beat the seventh most challenging team on their twelve game schedule.

The heart can't help but enjoy this. The head is just relieved that it's over and can't wait for Wisconsin.

Spartan Seasons 2008: Back to the Future

Ken Braun — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 02:34:33 GMT

From the first shots of the Korean War until the year of the Six Day War, 1950-1967, Michigan State's record against Michigan was 13-3-2. The Spartans also notched three perfect seasons, two national championships and two runner-up national title finishes during this run.

Ancient records from the era point to multiple references from disgruntled Michigan fans asserting the glories of their 1902 national championship as a means of keeping the Sparty juggernaut from getting too full of itself.

These were indeed bad years for Michigan, as they posted 4-6 records during both the 1965 and 1967 seasons. The Spartans beat them 34-0 in the 1967 game.

Needless to say, the fortunes of both teams changed in the blink of an eye. Michigan beat MSU in 1968 and hired Bo Schembechler in 1969. Michigan hasn't been seriously threatened with losing six regular season games since.

Until now.

Today, Michigan State is finally on its way to rebuilding the kind of stable football program that can regularly compete for conference titles (and maybe more?) At the same time, in what may be the most undervalued irony of the entire college football season, the Spartans are the first team to be handed the weapon that can blast Michigan "Back to the Future" and give them the sixth regular season loss that they haven't seen since 1967.

Carpe Diem, Sparty. Get it done.

Can they?

I think so. What follows is the latest update of my (so far flawless) weekly prediction for the rest of the Spartan schedule:

@Michigan - 60% chance of W (originally toss-up)

It's in Michigan's house. It's a rivalry. Their backs are against the wall. This really could be the beginning of Michigan spiraling out of control for a while.

All of that means they fight with all they've got because everything's on the line.

Some say this game means more to Michigan State. I don't agree.

Michigan State has it in them to win this big, but I think Michigan keeps it close and the Spartans finally escape Ann Arbor with a win.

Wisconsin - 55% chance of W (originally 45%)

Similar to Michigan in importance for the Badgers, but less rivalry pressure and Wisconsin is a better team (theoretically -- I know they lost to Michigan.) Still, Wisconsin is the biggest disappointment of the Big Ten Season.

Purdue -- 70% chance of W (originally 65%)

Some are surprised that Purdue is losing. I'm not.

@Penn State -- 30% chance of W (originally same)

I thought back in August that this game was hopeless. Nothing has changed. Michigan State is a good Big Ten team. Penn State and Ohio State are great ones.

The Munchausen Wolverines: Michigan's Invented Illness

Ken Braun — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 18:41:36 GMT

Toledo 13
Michigan 10

In many corners of Michigan fandom, the radical decision to jettison four decades of a winning leadership formula and hire Rich Rodriguez was hailed as essential medicine. The current struggles are still being defended as necessary to purge the football body of malignancies and bring about a glorious future.

There's even a cheeky and very popular blog dedicated to the "revolution" called the Wolverine Liberation Army. True believers in the wisdom of the move, the WLA even doubled down on their bet that a clean break with the past was essential, regardless of how ugly it got, saying after the Notre Dame disaster that the program had been "hanging on to the past too long" and was in need of "re-building and cutting ties with an underachieving past."

According the psychiatrists (or at least those who pretend to be psychiatrists on Wikipedia), Munchausen Syndrome occurs when a subject "exaggerates or creates symptoms of illnesses in themselves in order to gain investigation, treatment, attention, sympathy, and comfort from medical personnel." More to the point of this discussion, some of these pathetic souls are so good at this that they "are able to produce symptoms that result in multiple unnecessary operations."

This is what has become of the Michigan Wolverines. The program has subjected itself to radical chemotherapy despite not having cancer.

Twenty-four months ago, Michigan was in the middle of an 11 game win streak to open the season. Then they played Ohio State, in a battle of No.1 vs. No. 2, and missed a perfect regular season by a field goal - on the road.

Last year, they won nine games.

For the previous decade, they've won or shared the Big Ten title four times in a conference with ten other teams chasing the same goal, been to four BCS games and nine New Year's Day games. And just the year before the previous decade started, they shared a national championship with Nebraska.

This is the underachieving past?

Here's a partial list of the teams that haven't been to nine New Year's Day (or later) bowls over the last ten seasons: Southern Cal, Ohio State, Louisiana State, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Florida State and Miami.

Again, this is a partial list. I think there's about 110 more.

In college football, the real stars of the game don't make tackles, catch passes or throw touchdown bombs. They stand on the sideline with a headset and a clipboard, and they spend a bazillion hours a year flying all over the country constantly searching for the ideas and players necessary to get to the top and stay there. And they have help. Lots of help.

Michigan football hasn't been to all of those fancy bowl games recently because of the winged helmets, or the tradition, or the perpetually disgruntled fans. It got there because they had a coaching staff that knew how to create a consistent winner that played at a high level nearly every season, and that knew how to pour that culture into everybody who worked with them.

This is what got cast aside when Lloyd Carr retired and the University of Michigan decided it was time to cut ties with its "underachieving past" and not only go outside of their homegrown talent pool, but to grab a coach whose coaching philosophy cut against all of their tradition and the experience of the players on their team.

When experienced players started following the coaches out the door, many defenders of the revolution all but declared them lazy blobs or heretics that the softness of Carr and Co. had inflicted on the program. Good riddance to them!

What sort of hypochondria is necessary to look at that situation as it was and determine that it was best to purge not just the generals, but their system and the players who were loyal to it?

Who was winning all of those games in those past seasons? The water boy?

Through these self-inflicted dark times, the modified goal is that happy days will return when Rich Rodriguez gets his kind of players on the team. And that's probably right. He's a proven coaching talent, and once he's had time to build his kind of system the results should happen on the field. A new winning culture may finally grow upon the salted earth of the old one.

Probably.

But here's the deal: There's no reason to expect the new guys to be better than the group they replaced. Less than a dozen coaches have won or shared a national title since Lloyd Carr last did it. There's about that many or more every season with a decent shot at it. Rich Rodriguez will certainly be cheered when and if he gets Michigan back to regularly competing for conference titles, and in the national title conversation again.

But that's where they were when he found them.

Having the patient celebrate after a full recovery from a needless operation is an odd and risky way to practice medicine.