Dr. Green and White Sports Authority

I have always been fascinated by the intersection of math and sports. Over the past several years, I have developed and refined a set of mathematical tools that I use to help me better understand the worlds of college football and basketball. With the 2025 college football looming, it is time to open up the analytical toolbox and see what we can learn. Before we dive into the upcoming season for the Michigan State Spartans and beyond, it will be helpful to review the results of the past season. General Lessons from the Past During the summer college football fans and sports analysts have limited information. However, there is no shortage of various predictions about rankings, win totals, conference champions, and playoff participants. But how accurate are these predictions, historically? After studying this data for several years, the simple answer is that on average, the experts do a good job, but there is also a significant amount of variance. More quantitatively, I have deve...

Football is a game that is often won or lost in the trenches. Skill players such as quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers are often the ones who make the highlight reels. But substandard blocking from the offensive line in front of them can undercut the ability of the offense to shine and can hamper the ability of a team to win games. In 2024, the Michigan State Spartans' offensive line struggled with both injuries and inconsistency. As a result, the ground attack racked up just 90 yards per game and 2.9 yards per carry, making it the least potent rushing attack in modern Spartan history. Head Coach Jonathan Smith wants to assemble a team built on toughness that thrives in part due to a strong run games. In their second campaign in East Lansing, Smith and Spartan offensive line coach Jim Michalczik look for improved play and depth along the front line in the fall of 2025. Here is a breakdown are where things currently stand with the Michigan State offensive line for the up...

The analysis of sports statistics can take many forms, from individual player performance to full season results. In the world of college basketball one of the most useful categories of metrics are tempo free efficiency stats.  These stats measure things such as offensive and defensive performance on a points-per-possession basis. Combining offensive and defensive values yields an effective efficiency margin which can be used to rank teams. For NCAA Tournament selection and seeding, this class of metrics are referred to as predictive metrics as they can be used to estimate victory margins for any arbitrary matchups. There are several different systems out there that measure and track college basketball efficiency. Two of the most notable system are the ones created by Ken Pomeroy ("Kenpom") and that created by Bart Torvik. Both systems are attempting to do the same things, but they use slightly different methods and get slightly different results. Calculating raw efficiency i...

The 2024-25 college basketball season ended just over a month ago, but fans are already looking ahead to next year. Currently, most of the focus is on the transfer portal as teams at all levels and in all parts of the country attempt to (re)build their rosters. But there was another recent announcement that will have an impact of the 2025-26 Big Ten season. The conference provided the first look at the conference schedule for each team. This includes the seven opponents that Michigan State will face only at home, the seven opponents the Spartans will only face on the road, and the three opponents Michigan State will face twice. The 2025-26 season will mark just the second year of the 18-team, 20-game Big Ten conference schedule. Based on my research, this is the eighth different scheduling pattern used by Big Ten basketball since 1950. Over the years, one of my fascinations in the realm of sports is study of strength of schedule. I strive to understand the impact that the schedule has ...

There is a harsh truth about that NCAA Tournament and the post season of virtually all organized sports. Of the 68 teams that celebrated their presence in the bracket on Selection Sunday, 67 of those team are going to lose before the tournament reaches its end.  That mean that there will be 67 frustrated fan bases, 67 disappointed coaching staffs, and 67 tear-filled locker rooms. ”Somebody's gonna go home sad,” said Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo on Sunday night. “Today, it's the Spartans. Next Saturday it'll be two more teams. Next Monday, it will be one more team.” The 2024-25 Spartan season began with lower than normal expectations in East Lansing. Michigan State was unranked in November, and was picked to finish fifth in the Big Ten. In the first month of the season, the Spartans took a loss to Memphis in Maui and a loss to Kansas, ironically in the the same bullring in Atlanta where the season ultimately came to an end. On Sunday night, Izzo admitted that after the...

This is not Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo's first rodeo. It is in fact, his 27th rodeo in his 30th season at the helm in East Lansing. He has been in this position before, and it takes a little more than just a win in the Sweet 16, his 11th, to get him excited. "Elite Eights are great, but we don't put up any banners for Great Eights," Izzo said when asked about the magnitude of Michigan State's 73-70 win over Mississippi in Friday night's NCAA Tournament contest in the South Region Semifinals. "We put up banners for championships, and Final Fours, and national championships." In other words, Izzo is not done yet this year. On some level, he is just getting started. As a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, Michigan State was basically expected the reach the Regional Final. That mission has been accomplished. When it comes to performance against seed expectation, Izzo is the best of all time.  But Izzo and the Spartans want more, and it's the ...