Point Blank – October 10
What a “Bettor Better Know” – NCAA #6
Now that many teams around the nation have reached the midway point of their regular season schedules, there are some key numbers beginning to take shape as they develop characteristics that not all in the marketplace will recognize. But some of the numbers are also gibberish, and some of the teams may be far more spent physically and mentally than they should be at the halfway point. That means a lot of sort through today, so let’s get to it.
Monday long reads call for the jukebox being plugged in, and if sorting through the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew’s impact on your college databases comes front-and-center, Neil Young becomes the ideal connection. If you decide to take 13 minutes out of your day to completely plug in to this one (someone put some work into the editing), live from Italy earlier this summer, you might miss a half point move here or there, but most of the board will still be where it was, and you’ll end up being a better person -
Item: The Gospel after Matthew; not all that happens brings predictive value
There have been on-going debates since my first day of logging football box scores more than three decades ago about the relative merits of each game. Everything that happens has value, in that even the most obscure results bring us some element of food for thought. But many times those elements are just a few crumbs, and that was the case with the quartet of games played in the state of North Carolina on Saturday. Heavy rain and wind brought entirely different flows than would have been projected, and while there is still something to be learned from each game, there was almost nothing of predictive value going forward from those box scores.
We start with the fact that the sports books got beat badly on the Totals, Under bettors cashing from the first movement to the last –
Open Close Scoreboard
Notre Dame/NC State 68 56 13
Virginia Tech/UNC 62 49.5 37
Army/Duke 48.5 43 19
Syracuse/Wake Forest 57.5 53.5 37
The obvious notion is to grab an early lead in the marketplace when there is the prospect of bad weather coming in, but the majority of you will not get a crack at it – there are big-money groups that do that as a matter of routine, and they will lead the way. The difficulty is in knowing how big the impact of the weather is going to be, and as noted in a few of last week’s threads, that is mostly reduced to guesswork. It is wind that matters most, and it was wind that had the biggest impact on Saturday. But projecting wind in advance is not an easy thing to do.
So how do you use those Saturday box scores in terms of 2016? I won’t use them at all in terms of the team databases. In a sport in which there are only 12 regular season games played per team it may be frustrating to give one of those data points away, but the stats do not belong. At the same time be awre that for most of the Sports Mediaverse they get filed away as though it was sunny and 70 degrees with no wind. That means that someone out there can easily stumble into how the “Notre Dame defensive numbers have sure improved with Greg Hudson and Brian Kelly in charge” narrative, and you sure as hell don’t want to fall for that.
Where you can have some fun speculating is what might happen if that Fighting Irish defense had to play in the Big 12 every week…
Item: Charlie Strong volunteered for the worst job in America* (* - that’s not me, Gary Patterson said it)
Sub-Item: Texas A&M still looked like a Big 12 Defense
Last Monday one of the focus points here was on Charlie Strong taking over the play calling duties for the Texas defense. All the Longhorns did on Saturday was allow Oklahoma to roll for 45 points, 30 first downs and 672 yards, the third straight game in which a defense with a coach with a good pedigree, and some highly rated recruits on the field, has allowed at least 45 points and 507 yards. This is not just a particular issue as to what is going on in Austin, but it is all across the Big 12, and other parts of the nation as well. And even with about 35 years of box score charting under my belt it is a problem for me.
As noted several times in discussion threads this season, my methods have been built up to do well for 24-20, 28-24 and even 31-28 games. Defense is a foundational item in the models, and as long as that foundation is there I can build out something that will work. At 42-38 those foundations are in sand; hence why I will continue to rarely be involved when there are competitively priced games in which the Totals are in the 70’s or higher. There are still some models that I have which work for one-sided affairs with high totals, but a pick’em game with a 75 Total, something that markets are calling to finish 38-37 for one of the teams, can become too much of an exercise in randomness.
Which of course takes us to a great deal of the Big 12 board this season. The issue is one of a particular tempo of football that has spread, literally, across those programs, and note that in 2015 four of the top eight teams in the nation in terms of offensive pace, and six of the top 15, came from the conference. This season is bringing more of the same – there were four league games on Saturday, and in three of them the losing team had 31 points or more.
As such, to isolate Strong would be unfair. He has a pair of National Championship rings that were earned as a DC, and may genuinely be among the brighter minds out there on that side of the ball. But coaching not only against the pace of the Big 12, but the kind of talent the offenses possess, may be beyond even some of the best minds. You don’t have to take my word for it; the coaches themselves are saying it, and a terrific piece from Jim Vertuno of the AP delved into those matters last week.
Here are some key quotes from it. I’ll start with Patterson, who built TCU on a foundation of defense, but is now winning with playmakers on the other side of the ball - "The worst job maybe in America right now is the defensive coordinator, especially in the Big 12. Basically you're going to make about 70 calls in 20 seconds and you're going to be evaluated every seven days, and by the next day whether you did a very good job or not."
And Oklahoma DC Mike Stoops - "It's beyond ridiculous. The way (offenses) run to the line of scrimmage and the referee has to run out of there to snap the football. To me, that's not football. What they're doing to football is tough, it's difficult. I don't even know what to call it anymore; I really don't."
What is the answer for the handicapper? I am still in search of a good one, and because that search is so important going forward it is one being done in earnest. Finding a model that works well at the faster paced games will open up more of the betting board. The problem is that matching up to spread offenses means getting smaller and quicker players on defense, but while those players can better run with opposing receivers, they do not tackle well, and are also naturally subject to wearing down more than bigger and stronger options. That is why it is important to note that one of the failures from the Saturday portfolio came down to something related to this issue.
In playing Tennessee/Texas A&M Under part of the handicap stemmed from the way that Kevin Sumlin had talked about transforming his program, focusing on the opposite transition of going from the Big 12 to the SEC, and wanting his players on defense to get physically stronger. And while there will be the unfortunate memory of Travis Knight breaking that 62-yard TD run with 3:22 remaining (if he is tackled anywhere on the field after making the first down the game almost assuredly ends 28-21), there is also the reality that while the Aggie defense is greatly improved, and does rush the passer as well as any, the issue of tackling remains. That was brought to the fore-front from the guys at Pro Football Focus who are also delving more into the NCAA ranks -
Stats of the Week
The Texas A&M defense missed 31 tackles yesterday against Tennessee. Alabama has missed 24 tackles all season.
Welcome to the not-so-brave new world that is an essential part of the handicapping processes on the college gridirons. Of course there might be something more challenging than being a Big 12 DC, how about coaching Rutgers…
Item: Rutgers still has a half of a season to play
The Scarlet Knights don’t fit into the Big 10 either geographically or in terms of football philosophy and it was an odd marriage from the start – somehow the folks behind the conference, and their burgeoning television network, wanted to get into the New York marketplace despite the fact that the city does not relate to the University at all. Through the first two league campaigns Rutgers lost six games by 33 points or more, but Chris Ash wanted to be a HC badly enough that he took the job. Now Ash may be facing one of the toughest challenges of any coach in the land, keeping his team spiritually connected over the second half of the season after losing back-to-back games vs. Ohio State and Michigan by a combined 136-0.
Some of the numbers are silly. There was a warning about the Rutgers passing game noted in a Monday take a month ago, and in those two defeats it was a simply hideous 5-34 through the air, for only 38 yards. The Scarlet Knights went 0-17 on 3rd down plays vs. Michigan, and did not get a first down until the fourth quarter. There were four different plays by the Wolverines, runs of 63, 57 and 44 yards and a pass of 45, that produced more yards than Rutgers had (39) the entire game.
A cycle like this can be devastating to a team. There are still six games to be played, but power rating for them is a major challenge because there is a genuine question as to whether the Scarlet Knights may have been thrown into a state of shock. Ash is well aware of that - "We lost a game. An ugly game. I'm not concerned about the score. I'm concerned about our kids. We've got a bunch of good kids in that locker room right now. I feel awful for them right now. They've done everything we've asked them to do. They're grinding really hard. And they kept a good attitude throughout this game and I feel really bad for them."
There is going to be a lot of reading between the lines over the next few weeks, not just with Rutgers, but with an entirely different program across the nation as well -
Item: Oregon still has a half of a season to play
Losing 70-21 to Washington, on the heels of being blown out at Washington State the previous week, may be an even bigger psychological blow to Oregon than what happened to Rutgers. The Ducks came into this season never having more than three regular-season losses since Mike Bellotti’s last season in 2008, yet are sitting at 0-3 in the Pac 12, after seriously talking about the Playoffs back in August.
There was nothing fluky about Saturday’s scoreboard; Oregon was manhandled. Washington rolled to 682 yards of total offense, including 378 on the ground, after Colorado had rolled up 593 (260 rushing) and Washington State 651 (280 rushing). The defense wasn’t just bad, and in truth injuries are a factor, but the unit simply did not compete. Imagine some of the per-play averages from Saturday if the final two Washington possessions did not chart as five running plays for minus one yard.
Although Oregon does not play this week I bring the topic up because much as is the case with Rutgers, there will be a lot of reading between the lines this week. There were some rumblings by the players in Saturday’s aftermath, including Senior OL Cameron Hunt stating that not all of the players have “bought in” to the coaching staff, and that makes this a most delicate time for Mark Helfrich. He knows it –
“I think that’s kind of a byproduct of just the situation (Saturday) night, the frustration. Obviously those guys are competitive guys that are very frustrated. Any behavior by somebody else that doesn’t match theirs, or isn’t totally with everything we’re trying to do, is going to be read through that lens. Certainly there are guys at this point in the season that aren’t doing necessarily everything that we want them to do, and that’s the case if your record is flipped or you’re undefeated. In this situation it’s just that much more frustrating.”
His bye week is about far more than just tweaking X’s and O’s - “First and foremost, just getting everybody on the same page. Improving our mental and psychological health, as much as our physical health, is job one. And removing any doubt or lack of confidence in anything, and we’ve got plenty of that right now.”
The Ducks are capable of going 6-0 the rest of the way, and because of their disastrous showings could be under-valued in the marketplace. But might the psyche of this team already be too far gone?
Item: Arkansas State won outright with a -5; or Georgia Southern lost outright with a +5
One team badly in need of a win that got one last week was Arkansas State, and it was the way that the Red Wolves got it that mattered. Or perhaps just as much the way that Georgia Southern lost it. The Eagles were a 7-point favorite with a +5 TO advantage that lost the game outright, which happens about as often as Haley’s Comet soars across the skies. The question now becomes how much to upgrade the underdog for winning, or downgrade the favorite for losing.
The Red Wolves could have lost their fight late in the fourth quarter. Having entered the night at 0-4, when a fourth-down pass came up a yard short at the Georgia Southern 29-yard line with 3:06 remaining, it could have been game over. For most bad teams it would have been, and at 3-1 it was time for the Eagles to close the game out and improve their bowl resume. But Arkansas State somehow still had some resolve. On the ensuing possession Georgia Southern lost five yards in three plays, and by using all of their timeouts the Red Wolves got the ball back with 2:41 to play, though still 70 yards away from the end zone.
The final offensive salvo started the way it would figure to for a team heading to 0-5; the first three plays lost six yards. But on fouth-and-16 QB Justice Hansen could not find a receiver open, and scrambled his way to an 18-yard run and a first down. You could almost sense at that point that the game had turned. That bail-out play ignited the offense, which then went the remaining 58 yards to win the game.
I did more upgrading Arkansas State than downgrading Georgia Southern because of what that kind of rally can mean to a winless team – at 1-0 in the Sun Bet there is a renwed sense of purpose now. And my mind cannot help but focus on how hard the defense fought down the stretch. After a Hansen interception, the final of the five turnovers, gave the Eagles the ball with a 26-17 lead and 11:46 remaining, it was a time when the defense could easily have lost heart. Instead they found the energy to hold Georgia Southern to a startling minus 15 yards on 10 snaps the rest of the way. You have to tip your cap to HC Blake Anderson and DC Joe Cauthen for getting their kids to play hard when they easily could have quit.
Item: Yes, UTSA/Southern Miss really happened
Another of those delicate Good/Bad reads comes out of UTSA’s stunning wire-to-wire control of Southern Miss, a 55-32 win that beat the market expectations by 40 points. A mediocre Roadrunner offense had more points than plays, scoring those 55 on only 47 offensive snaps, which produced a sizzling 11.3 yards per play.
How the hell does that happen? Since UTSA was coming off of a bye week, the post-mortem focus went towards delving into whether there might have been some scheme changes, or something that caught the Golden Eagles by surprise. That may have been the case. One of the things I note often is that the first bye week under a new coaching staff can be a key period, the coaches getting a chance to do some tweaking now that they know their personnel a little better. This was the opportunity for Frank Wilson and his staff to not just work on their long-terms plans, but also to specifically game plan for the Southern Miss defense, and that may have indeed set the stage. From Wilson –
"I attribute it to our staff. I felt like offensively, defensively, special teams, the game plan was on point. I thought we did a great job of inspiring our players to be prepared for the task at hand, and hat's off, man. I could not be more proud of our staff nor the players for their efforts, but more importantly the preparation that they put in for us to have a victory today.
"So we didn't have a lot of plays, but we're very fortunate that we had big plays. So we knew they were a defense that was very good, and their whole principle was to create confusion with movement and exotic-type stunts and slants and all of those things. And they got home sometimes against us, and they've been getting home against teams a lot this year. We thought that if we could catch them a time or two, we could maybe get a big play in. So we were very fortunate in our preparation for our coordinators, our assistant coaches and the players alike, that when we saw those things, we were able to take advantage of them."
Now, of course, the next question – was this simply getting extra time to prepare for one particular opponent, or a sign that a general uptick could take place? That is not an easy one to answer, but here is something buried deep in the game notes that may matter, and the sort of thing that is worth filing away -
The future looks extremely bright for the Roadrunners. Just consider the defense, which featured 29 different tacklers who combined for UTSA's 97 tackles and seven quarterback pressures against USM. Of that total, eight were freshmen or redshirt freshmen topped by another double-digit effort by Tauaefa. Those early contributions will only pay more dividends later in their UTSA careers.
Sub-Item: Those Cal passing stats at Oregon State were real
Had I not watched California/Oregon State on Saturday night the box score would have sent me scurrying to make corrections, believing that there was an error. If you woke up on Sunday morning to see that Cal’s Davis Webb went 24-45 passing that would look about right, but next to it comes the “124” in terms of yardage, which would not seem to compute. So what was the error – was it supposed to be 224? Actually 324 might have seemed the better fit – prior to that game Davis had been averaging 8.3 yards per pass attempt.
But that 124 was correct, a shocking 2.8 per pass. And to verify, here are the counts from the Golden Bears that caught at least one -
The takeaway is that there may be something to see in Gary Anderson’s defense. They sat back in coverage and effectively forced Webb to work underneath all night, and executed their plan well enough to win the game. The Beavers are #14 in the nation in pass efficiency defense, and there is some genuine talent in the secondary. Now much like Arkansas State they get the energy boost of having won a game (Anderson’s first Pac 12 victory), which can make it easier for the players to buy in going forward.
Just imagine if this pass defense got a chance to face UNLV…
Item: UNLV didn’t have many players to throw the ball to
One of the things noted on last week’s NCAA podcast was just how dire the straits were for the Rebels passing game – because of injuries they went to San Diego State with only three WRs on scholarship, and two of them were true freshmen. Combine that with being down to red-shirt freshman Dalton Sneed at QB, and HC Tony Sanchez referred to the situation as being “a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest”.
So if you did not stay up into the late hours of Saturday night, or the wee of Sunday morning on the East Coast, here is what you missed – the UNLV offense had a Rutgers-like passing outing, just 2-13 through the air for nine yards. In truth the 26-7 final score at San Diego State was deceivingly close, the Aztecs leading 460-122 in total offense. The only Rebel points came from their defense, on a scoop and score fumble return.
With a couple of late-night misleading scores in play in recent weeks, it means staying up rather late this coming Saturday to root one in…
In the Sights, NCAA Saturday…
In last Monday’s NCAA Review there was a take on just how well Hawaii played vs. Nevada, a game that was much more dominating than the final scoreboard showed. The way the Warriors played in the follow up of that game brought even more to the table, and ordinarily that would mean highlighting Nick Rolovich and his team as a feature again. Instead I will make it the form of a ticket, with #210 Hawaii (Midnight Eastern) in play, a chance to get into the marketplace at -6 or -6.5 this morning before -7 gets painted (-7 is still an OK value point).
To backtrack, the Warriors dominated Nevada much more than that 38-17 final, leading 38-3 into the fourth quarter before backing off. They followed that up by doing a lot of things right in controlling San Jose State 34-17 on the road Saturday, including a dynamic call by Rolovich that set the tone. In a 10-10 tie early in the second quarter he showed the confidence in his team to go for it on fourth-and-one from their own 38-yard line, and QB Dru Brown broke the play for a 62-yard TD. The Warriors controlled the rest of the flow from there, with the only points for the Spartans from that point on coming on a fumble return.
It has not been back-to-back games of solid Hawaii football across the board. A team that was in need of a transfusion of energy has found it through this staff, and there will now be a wave of electricity on the islands, where the fan base can make a difference in these home night games when things are going well. At 2-0 in the Mountain West Conference, they are going well, and that will tax the abilities of that young make-shift UNLV corps in the skill positions on offense to make plays. The Warrior pass defense has only allowed 5.8 yards per pass through those two conference wins, with three interceptions, and a road dog that will struggle through the air is one against which the back door can be locked shut.
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