M-Borg vs. THE Flavortown U Thread, Orig. by Buckeye Paul, absconded w/by talent.

[klondike]

ND's second half playcalling was awful. Unless they just don't have much talent to do anything besides what they did. Which is conceivable.

What a God awful qb ND has. A corpse would have an avg. game vs. the Buckeye defense usually.

[iam416]

I don’t mind the analysis, Buchanan, but McCarthy is not better than Stroud, and there’s almost no point to adding in McCord (and you undervalue him A LOT).

[iam416]

What a God awful qb ND has. A corpse would have an avg. game vs. the Buckeye defense usually.

Notre Dame is no Colorado State on offense, but I was happy.

But, yeah, any team with a corpse gets 28. M should hit 63. Easy.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I don’t mind the analysis, Buchanan, but McCarthy is not better than Stroud, and there’s almost no point to adding in McCord (and you undervalue him A LOT).

Fair ...... there's still a lot of subjectivity in what I did. PFF has it's analytical flaws and in the past I've relied too much on ESPN's FPI in trying to predict game outcomes. But the analytics are there to be used. RIght now, it's too early to reliably use FPI unless you temper those rakings with efficiency. Even then if you want to compare osu's and M's finishes in the Big or game outcomes this early, esp. trying to predict spreads or score outcomes, predictions are going to be IMO pretty unreliable. Yet you and AA seem to value the data in betting real money. Not for me.

[CGVT]

Buchanon can crunch all of those fancy stats that he wants.

Stroud is a special player and a difference maker.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Buchanon can crunch all of those fancy stats that he wants.

Stroud is a special player and a difference maker.

First, get it right, twatwaffle. Its BUCHANAN! Quit the o - n shit to end my clan's name. Our Laird would be pissed.

Stroud IS a special player that has "it." At present because he's been under fire more than McCaffrey has, he's got an edge in the "it" department. But McCarthy, as far as I can tell, has a high ceiling when it comes to "it." Equal to Stroud's this season? I don't know yet. We'll see.

Second, I'm reluctant to get into heavy analytics for reasons I've already stated. I did it this time to entertain talent. What was interesting is that when I did the analytics (including with my own personal biases) it proved a point that I was trying to not make: osu's offense is, on paper, better than M's. TBF, the facts don't lie.

[THE_WIZARD_]

STFU

[iam416]

For reason, I actually read some of the Mgo previews for opponents by position. I stopped after DL when OSU was ranked #3 and Michael Hall wasn't even listed in the 2-deep.

[Hannibal]

Iowa’s DL is legitimately great though. I don’t take that #3 ranking to be a slight. I can’t remember who was #2

Any word on JSN’s injury? I hate to say it — but it wouldn’t exactly break my heart if we didn’t have to face that guy in November.

I think that we have about a 20% chance of beating OSU this fall. The defense looked good against ND, but I’m not sure how much of that translates to UM. It has to be encouraging to OSU fans that Ryan Day showed that he can win a Rock Fight. That was OSU’s ugliest win in recent memory.

OSU obviously has way more talent — especially at QB and WR. Defense has way more talent overall too. Our OL might be better. The only area where I think we are clearly better is TE (IMHO we have the best in the country, hands down). As long as OSU has decent coaching, we need to play way above our heads to win. That will be especially true when the pigeons come home to roost from this year’s recruiting class (shaping up to be a really bad one for us).

[iam416]

I haven't heard anything on JSN other than it's not serious. In pure guessing terms, I'd say he sits vs Arky State and is back for Toledo to prepare for Wisconsin the following week.

M has a much better offense than ND. ND did not have WRs that scared anyone. That said, they ran a ton of RPO and ran the QB a lot, too. Those things shredded last season's shitshow defense. Like I seriously think ND is as good on offense as Oregon was last year (the Oregon team that Utah hamblasted and held to 17 points in 2 games). The jump from complete fucking shitshow to seemingly competent and possibly even good is stunning. Now, I'm still reserving judgment until they play Wisconsin. But, it's encouraging.

Since I don't have to predict or otherwise analyze OSU/M for another two months or so, I'll wait on that. I'd like to see more from OSU's defense and I'd like to see M play an actual football team. I'll see the former way sooner than the latter.

[Hannibal]

ND's OC sucked dick in the OSU game. Oregon had Joe Moorehead. That's a pretty big difference. ND was doing Al Borges stuff like telegraphing running plays by covering up the slot receiver. Their playcalling was way too predictable and overconservative when they had a 10-7 lead. It was as if they were trying to sit on that lead and win 10-7. Dumb.

[iam416]

Oh, also -- Mgo had Sparty ahead of OSU. To be fair, they did say OSU had the highest ceiling. But it's hard to judge OSU because their best players are true sophomores.

Anyway, I think they're pretty good up front this year. And the LBs, you know, seemed to be doing LB stuff like finding the ball and generally being in position.

I honestly don't think you can overstate how badly coached they were last year.

[iam416]

Finally, JSN apparently has a minor hamstring injury and should be back in a "couple of weeks."

[Hannibal]

position.

I honestly don't think you can overstate how badly coached they were last year.

Welcome to my world.

[iam416]

Ohio State opens up at -43 against Arkansas State. Unfortunately, Arky State played Grambling, a horrible FCS team, to start the season so it's hard to get a read on them. They were extremely bad on defense, especially against the run, last year. I rather doubt Butch Jones has entirely solved that problem. Offensively, their strength, I guess is passing mostly because they can't run that well. But, well, they ran for like 300 against Grambling -- again, that's worthless.

I'd be nice to see Ohio State get in rhythm with the passing game and continue playing competent defense. I don't have a real good feel on Arky State -- if they're still roughly what they were last year, then I'd give the points. If they are better then it's probably a coin flip. I tend to think they're still really bad on defense, so I tend to lean toward giving the points. 43 is probably toward the lower end of my range of possible outcomes.