Dr. Green and White Sports Authority

While I love college football, I must admit that a bye week for the team that I follow is pretty nice. The first four weekends of the year have already included some tense and dramatic moments for the Michigan State Spartans. But this weekend was oh so quiet. It was oh so still.  I am sure that some of Spartan coaching staff, players, and fans enjoyed some alone time. I would imagine that it was quite peaceful. It is relaxing just to think about it. Shhhh! As the Michigan State community enjoyed the week off, the college football season continued to march along. In many ways, it was a quiet week across the board. But there were a few outcomes that made fans shout and yell. Let's go ahead and take a look at details. Week Five Betting Results Let's ring the bell and break the silence regarding last week's picks from my Bad Betting Advice article, starting with the overview summary shown below in Figure 1. More information about how to read this figure can be found in the Week...

Week Five of the college football season represents approximately the one-third point of the 2025 season. For the Michigan State Spartans, Week Five is the first of two bye weeks. That means that it is time to hit the pause button. It gives the banged-up Spartans a chance to recover from jet lag, rest and relax. For the Michigan State coaching staff, it is a chance to stop, reflect, and analyze on the play of the Spartans so far this year. They will likely spend some time hitting rewind on game film in an effort to understand what has gone well and what needs to be fixed.  If we mentally fast forward to next weekend's game at Nebraska, hopefully the week of rest and reflection will result in improved play that will translate into more wins and a record that will make Spartan fans proud. In the meantime, even though the Spartans are on pause, there is still plenty of other action to talk about, stats to analyze, and predictions to record. Data never takes the week off. Big Ten Overv...

Early Sunday morning and 2,200 miles from home, the Michigan State Spartans suffered the first loss of the 2025 season. The Spartans were defeated by the USC Trojans, 45-31. I find that beyond the simple feeling of sleep deprivation, my thoughts on the game are mixed. Several aspects of this weekend's game fall squarely into the "bad" category. We knew that USC has an explosive offense, but the Spartans pride themselves on stopping the run. On Saturday night the Trojans racked up 289 yards on the ground (7.2 yards per attempt) compared to just 112 yards for Michigan State (3.5 yards per attempt). That's not good. USC only punted once in the game and that was with just 22 seconds remaining. The Trojans converted 75% of their third downs and half of their fourth downs. That's dreadful. We knew that USC had a strong pass rush, but Spartan quarterback Aidan Chiles was pressured on almost half of his drop back attempts (13 of 27). When pressured, he was sacked twice an...

After three straight game in the friendly confines of Spartan Stadium, Michigan State is off this week for the first road game and first conference game of the season. The Spartans will be traveling across the USA to sunny Los Angeles to face the USC Trojans. But the bigger opponent on this trip might be time itself. It takes a long time just to get to Southern California. A direct flight from Michigan takes over four hours. That's enough time to fit in a B movie, a cult classic, and maybe a few comedy skits on the infight entertainment system. It is also a long time for an athlete to be couped up in a small space. Once the team gets there and gets settled in L.A., the game itself does not kick off until 8 p.m. local time. That's 11 p.m. back home. That a lot of time to kill. By the time the team finishes with the game, gets cleaned up, and returns to the hotel, it will likely be close to 5 a.m. according to their body clocks. I am not as young as I used to be, but just thinkin...

The English language is amazing sometimes. Certain words exist that go far beyond simple sounds that represent concepts. Those word also somehow capture the feelings behind those concepts. Some of the better words in this category describe situations which are decidedly average, yet somehow both more and less. A classic example is the word "moist." It doesn't mean "wet" and it doesn't mean "dry." It means something in-between that (unless it is in the context of cake) is somehow worse than both. Moist. It evokes a gross feeling of mild dampness. If you say the word "moist" over and over and over again, it losses its meaning entirely and leaves the speaker feeling oddly unsettled Another word that I would place in this category perfectly describes my current feelings about Michigan State football. That word is "tepid."  The Oxford dictionary's first definition of tepid is "(especially of a liquid) only slightly warm; luk...