Point Blank – September 12
What a “Bettor Better Know” – NCAA #2…This time we put a Hail Mary in its proper place…Stanford has a lot of class, but so far the players have not had to go to one…
The second week of the NCAA season may have lacked the high profile showdowns of the opener but the matchups may have brought better games, and the renewal of those BYU/Utah and Penn State/Pittsburgh rivalries brought the kind of intensity levels that most conference games do not reach. It also means plenty to sort through, so time to get to work…
Since it will be the usual long Monday read the Classic Jukebox gets plugged in to accompany you along the way. If breaking down a Hail Mary play becomes a prime task, needing to file those points and yards where they properly belong, then we do need to know just where is “Mary’s Place”, a song that Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band often stretched out to 15-20 minutes back on The Rising tour, and had fun bringing back around in Hershey PA two years ago, when some rain drops helped to set the stage -
Item: They weren’t supposed to count the Central Michigan Hail May; the Handicapper does not have to
The fact that the powers that be won’t step in to over-rule the Central Michigan/Oklahoma State outcome is a sign of weakness by those powers – one team clearly won the game via the rules of football, and should that Hail Mary pass be waved off I doubt that the CMU folks would complain. Rules are rules, and mistakes are mistakes, and if the latter can be corrected they should be (of course had Mike Gundy understood a basic rule a little better, and ordered Mason Rudolph to roll outside the tackle box before throwing the ball away, none of it would have happened anyway, which Gundy properly mea culpa’d afterwards).
We are allowed to play judge and jury, of course, and do it repeatedly in game post-mortems, largely because we have to. What you want to be chart from game flows are the most pertinent pieces of data you can get, in terms of how the teams will play in the future. Hence a play like the one that pushed the Chippewas over the Cowboys on Saturday is of no statistical value.
First, note that some of the stat services did not get it correct anyway, like this one, which only accounted for the post-lateral part of the play in charting the scoring(though their box score counting was proper).
4th Quarter - 0:00 |
Central Michigan |
TD |
Oklahoma State 27 - Central Michigan 30 Corey Willis 9 yd. pass from Cooper Rush (kick failed)
|
But do you really want to credit CMU for a 51-yard TD completion, and Oklahoma State for having given one up? Was there anything useful from that play that tells us about the quality of the Chippewas offense or the Cowboys defense? No, it was just a fluke that doesn’t bring a scintilla of predictive value going forward, especially given how the play carries so much weight this early in a season. You can easily figure out 3 points and 25.5 yards per game for each unit, but let’s look at the rate stats as well, Yards Per Pass and Passer Rarting -
YPP In Out PR In Out
Central Michigan Offense 10.1 9.5 154.7 144.3
Oklahoma State Defense 10.1 9.2 150.8 137.9
It isn’t a matter of whether the play should have counted or not; it is that the play is not beneficial to your databases, as are the case with most Hail Mary heaves. I throw them out and so should you.
What does indeed matter is the mindset of the teams afterwards. Instead of this being a deflating loss for State, might there instead be a chip on the shoulder produced? And in this case not just the losing team, but perhaps the winner as well? Let’s proceed a bit here…
Item: It may not just be the Cowboys venting frustrations (might even the Chippewas have a chip on their shoulder?)
It is easy to understand Okie State coming out with an “us against the world” mentality this week, and there have already been several players quoted on that front.
But might this also be an issue on the other side of the equation? The CMU players are going to have to deal with a lot of this - Central Michigan should give the game back, but it won’t happen - in the days ahead, and at some point there may be some frustration building from their end. The story will not go away for them, with the eight-man officiating crew from the MAC being suspended for two games, and the Big 12 replay crew for a pair as well.
Watch this one closely because the impact of that bizarre ending could flip-flop – had there been no controversy the Chippewas might have been flat off of that upset, with UNLV not providing much motivation this Saturday. Instead follow along to see if perhaps a little frustration might set in through the negative attention, which might have them playing with a literal chip on their shoulders this week.
Item: About those Virginia Tech fumbles
Last Tuesday there was a take on the difficulty of statistical interpretation when turnovers come into play, and this season has already thrown us one of the tougher challenges to open a campaign that I can recall – Virginia Tech has already lost nine fumbles, while not recovering any from the opposition. This comes after the Hokies only lost seven fumbles in 13 games last year, and have only lost more than nine fumbles three times over the last 11 seasons.
That massive scoreboard in Bristol on Saturday night registered 45-24 for Tennessee, despite there not being much gap in size or speed visible on the field – the Volts had 16 first downs and 331 yards at 5.1 per play; for the Hokies it was 21 and 400 at 5.5. To the credit of the Tennessee offense they did reach the end zone when given opportunities, but two of their drives started inside the 10-yard line, as had a Liberty TD drive against Tech the previous week.
Here is the problem with fumbles – many of them are simply random events, with about as much predictive value as Hail Mary passes. While there is a small degree of merit that can be attached to an offense dropping the ball, or a defense forcing it to be dropped, what makes it tougher is that every study that I have seen shows that recovering fumbles is almost completely random, something that should be close to a coin flip for each team over time (at one point I wanted to believe that teams with more speed on defense would be better at getting recoveries, but there was nothing more than anecdotal evidence that ever came up). Hence re-adjusting the Tech numbers is a challenge because we have to try to assign values to something rather nebulous.
As is so often the case, however, there can be a psychological toll – might this get inside of the heads of the players. Is it dangerous to plant a seed for something that may have been as much bad luck as it has been bad football? That is an awkward position for a young coach to be in when he is new to a program, and Justin Fuente might be playing with fire by making it a focus point - “Obviously, it’s reared its head in huge ways the first two ballgames. And we have got to do a better job. I’ll have to look at it. But we’ve obviously got to do a better job of teaching or understanding or recognizing ball security, because we’re inadequate, to say the least right now.”
And I have already read his from RB Sam Rogers - “We weren’t fumbling the ball during the week. Just have had a problem with it in the games. We need to fix it. And I know that coach will do a great job making adjustments during practice and getting us right.”
It is rarely a bad thing for players to bring extra focus to what they are doing; but might it be counter-productive to bring attention to something that may not actually be a problem? Up the road in Charlottesville things aren’t going very well either, but how about a class case of the markets coming to term with the modern game…
Item: Virginia and Under both paid on Saturday night (on the efficiency of Betting Markets)
The Cavaliers gave up 44 points and 632 yards, allowing Oregon to roll for over 300 both running and passing. Yet had you bet both Virginia and Under, you would have cashed both tickets. That is the marketplace in action. You will note in many discussions with sports bettors notions of matchups, momentum, scheduling dynamics and other factors that can impact the outcome of a game. But the truth is that the oddsmakers are focusing on many of those same factors, and sometimes there is value to be found playing against some of those conventional constructs – if the line if put in the right place, either side of any game can fall into a value range. I know some sharp guys that played the Cavaliers for this very reason, and it worked out well for them.
Item: Danny Etling isn’t Bert Jones (and he wasn’t Drew Brees, Mike Phipps or Bob Griese)
Oh they take their football seriously in some parts, which is why a back-up QB throwing 14 passes in a game can have every one of those passes broken down in detail by the local media. Do you want to know how Etling fared in his first LSU outing? Try this
Yes, there was the appearance of a spark to the offense when he took the field, with starter Brandon Harris continuing to show few signs of development, but Etling was out there against out-manned Jacksonville State, and even without Leonard Fournette should have had some easy pickings. Yet in truth it was an uneven performance, and the fact that he missed on his last six pass attempts, including one of them being intercepted, is significant.
Etling will be a BMOC this week, and perhaps some of the lovely LSU co-eds might find his “Indiana accent” charming. But while on the subject of NCAA Passer Ratings today, note that in his two seasons at Purdue it was a pedestrian 110.7. In his favor is the fact that he was with the team last year, sitting out as a transfer, and has learned the offense, and he can be less mistake-prone than Harris. The question is whether he brings much upside, despite the exuberance of the fan base as the week begins.
It is a major question because the Tigers have a chance to wear down Mississippi State this week, if only they get something from the position…
Item: About those Mississippi State Second Half struggles
Much has been written in these spaces already this season about the transitions for the Bulldogs in the post-Dak Prescott era, and while there was the early burst of something positive on Saturday, Dan Mullen committing to Nick Fitzgerald at QB and Fitzgerald showing some major run skills, once the South Carolina defense settled in the Gamecocks did the same thing that South Alabama did the previous week – shut State down the in second half.
The good news for the Bulldogs was that Fitzgerald ran for 195 yards in the game, that unexpected dimension helped build a 24-0 halftime lead. The bad news is that the rest of the ground game is struggling, lead RB Brandon Holloway with only 96 yards at 3.7 per carry through those two games, and the offense has stalled badly after intermission. State has been out-scored 35-6 in the second half across those games, and the inability of the offense to make plays after intermission becomes a major issue as they hit the road for the first time, in a tough environment against what may be the most athletic defense in the nation (and one that knows that Fitzgerald runs will be a big part of the attack, something that South Carolina was not prepared for).
The question now is whether Etling can bring any kind of spark to the LSU offense as a key piece to that game puzzle.
Item: About those Nebraska end-games
In opening 2-0 SU and ATS, Nebraska has seemingly impressed some folks, hence the early -3 out there for this week’s game vs. Oregon. But take a close look at the Cornhusker game flows – they have been the opposite of Mississippi State, putting together a 50-0 run through the 4th quarter so far.
Is that a sign that Mike Riley has a deep and talented team that is wearing opponents down? That interpretation could come from a quick glance, but game study does not allow for it. Nebraska never did explode vs. lousy Fresno State, only managing 406 yards, and note that those Bulldogs were only ahead 10-3 in the 4th quarter vs. Sacramento State on Saturday before pulling away. Meanwhile it was only 24-17 against Wyoming in the fourth quarter on Saturday, and it was a precarious scoreboard advantage – the Cornhuskers needed a Pick 6 and a couple of missed Cowboy FGs to be in the lead at all.
Nebraska did go through an extreme amount of misfortune in 2015, as many difficult late-game bounces going against them in a single season as an y team I can recall, so putting an emphasis on closing games out better has indeed been a focus for Riley and his staff. But for now study those game flows closely, because the team on the field has not been as dominant as those scoreboards indicate.
With the Texas Tech defense, however, the scoreboards don’t lie…
Item: Texas Tech scored 50+ and lost again (Kalen Ballage really wasn’t that special)
It will make news that Ballage had a rather historical performance with eight touchdowns in Arizona State’s 68-55 late-night win over Texas Tech, many outlets focusing on it because they know that not all that many folks stayed up to watch the game. But in truth his performance was nothing all that much out of the ordinary except for having the ball where the goal line happened to be – Ballage carried 13 times for 137 yards, which is indeed a nifty YPR, while also catching two passes for 48 more. That was it, only 15 touches (fellow Sun Devil RB Demario Richard had 30 carries and caught three passes, but did not score a point).
Where the bells go off is the other side of the equation, and it is alarms that are sounding. For the third time in the last 11 lined games Texas Tech scored more than 50 points and still lost the game. Two of the three losses came in double figures. The Arizona State offense that rolled up 652 yards had only managed 446 the previous week vs. Northern Arizona, a 44-13 win that was only sitting on 10-6 late in the third quarter.
What is troubling is that this is Kliff Kingsbury’s fourth season in Lubbock, which means that it is mostly his own recruits playing now. He is indeed a brilliant offensive mind, but there does not appear to be a cohesive plan yet in terms of the other side of the ball. Not all great offensive coaches have the tools to run a full program; there is an attention to detail needed across the board. For now there has not nearly been enough of that attention devoted to defense.
Meanwhile across the desert there was another late-night game of interest…
Item: Arizona closed -44 vs. Grambling and was +6 in turnovers
And only won the game 31-21. I just don’t have any way to properly grade this one – for a +6 in turnovers to equate to -34 points from the market expectation defies any rational notion of the sport. The Wildcats actually trailed 21-3 at halftime, before gradually wearing down a weak opponent, but it was a night of extremely flat football.
Yes, there was no Anu Solomon at QB, but Brandon Dawkins had been neck-and-neck with him for the starting job in training camp. Dawkins did not distinguish himself with the chance to make a statement. The ugliest element came from the defense, which was on its heels throughout the first half, and the words from Rich Rodriguez describe that effort, or lack thereof, rather well - “Our tackling was horrible. We’ll work on it. The same dudes have to tackle next week. That was the one thing that was really poor. The tackling was gross.”
My Arizona power rating will be a puzzle this week, but I will read closely in terms of the team focus – they are supposed to treat the Grambling result as a loss, not a win, which could mean a hard week on the practice field.
Item: How much do we downgrade Arkansas State, or upgrade Auburn, off of Saturday
Auburn led Arkansas State 38-7 at halftime and Gus Malzahn backed off the rest of the way, but note that it was not the creativity of the Malzahn playbook breaking it open, but rather a bludgeoning at the line of scrimmage – the Tigers ran for 467 yards on 62 carries. The question is how much of an * do we attach to the results.
It became common news during the week that a virus was taking a toll on many of the Arkansas State players and the betting markets reacted by pushing the game from -18 to -21, before it settled back to -20.5 at some key shops at kickoff.
How much of the lethargy for the Red Wolves should be attributed to that? It is a delicate call, especially since HC Blake Anderson would not allow it to be used as an excuse afterwards. I bring it up because there is some important reading between the lines that will go on this week – with a short practice week ahead, and for this program what is a rather long road trip to Logan, Utah, did Anderson basically give Saturday away, knowing that his team was not going to win anyway? Instead of a team being battered and bruised off of a limited practice week and a blowout loss, might they have come out of this better positioned to make the transition to Friday? As for Auburn, there just wasn't really much of anything to see there.
Item: Did Kalani Sitake win by losing?
On a day in which game management was rather bad across the nation, foibles from Philip Montgomery at Tulsa (the sequence at the end of the first half at Ohio State was preposterous); Bob Diaco at Connecticut (not giving his offense the chance for an extra snap in the final seconds at Navy was awful); and Bryan Harsin at Boise State (left far more time on the clock that was necessary vs. Washington State); there was something I believe ends up as being a plus – Sitake going for the win at the end of the intensely battled BYU-Utah neighborly grudge match.
The gambit failed, a run by QB Taysom Hill coming up short, and the game gets recorded as a 20-19 defeat. But there is more to it. First note a tactical aspect that will not acknowledge from those that were not watching closely – BYU had two DBs out of the game because of targeting penalties, including safety Kai Nacua, who had already intercepted two passes, and would have been short-handed in overtime. But Sitake may have gone for the win anyway, the kind of move that does help to build an energy around a program, something he is in the early stages of doing.
Here is where it brings an interesting energy into play, and I will be back on this front with Jack Del Rio tomorrow – Sitake told the offense they were going for the win before the final drive started. Does the coach showing that confidence to the players before the drive starts add an element? That is awfully difficult to judge in the vagaries of the human existence. But instead of feeling the pressure to have to produce on the drive, is there something that can be said by shifting the focus of energy just a bit? Plenty of food for thought there.
Now let’s bet something…
In the Sights…
The key in terms of early market involvement is to lock in key numbers when they can be found, and that leads to #204 Stanford (Saturday at 8:00 Eastern), with the opportunity to go out and shop for a -7 (those early -6.5’s were not going to last; sorry guys). Call this a “go” at -7 for now, so that you can spend the week shopping for one, and then on game day the ticket can still be played up to -8, and perhaps even -9. This is a setting that brings both play-on and play-against elements, those being the best kind, and I will explain why this man is smiling –
The anti-USC aspect has been written about a few times here already – the Trojans have terrific talent in the skill positions, but lack experience and depth in the defensive front. That became apparent two weeks ago as the game unfolded vs. Alabama, and there is no one worse to face in the Pac 12 than Stanford if that is your weakness. In particular, in facing the Cardinal this week.
Why does the timing matter? I could say that there is a “class difference” between these teams and in a key aspect there really is. For USC class began on August 22, so the players are already into the rigors of the student-athlete grind. Yet classes do not begin for Stanford until September 26, and that provides David Shaw with the chance to have a rather unique focus, essentially getting two fall camps. There was the traditional August preparation before meeting Kansas State, and now 15 days since that game in which his team can be completed devoted not just to football, but to specifically taking on the Trojans.
That is an advantage that the Cardinal often get in September in gearing up for Pac 12 play, and note that over their last eight conference openers it has been a 7-1 SU and ATS run, beating the market projections by a significant 84 points in the process, or 10.5 per game. I look for more of the same here, with Ryan Burns having that game under his belt now at QB, and the Stanford playbook able to put a good focus on his skills, while Christian McCaffrey can be a catalyst, finding room because of those issues in the USC defensive front.
The Point Blank 2016 NFL Team by Team Previews
The complete Point Blank Archive
@PregamePhd (a work in progress, feedback appreciated)