Dr. Green and White Sports Authority

Three weeks ago, as MSU prepared to play Minnesota, my spreadsheet suggested that the Gophers were the 3 rd best team remaining on MSU’s schedule. A week later, it seemed apparent that Indiana was likely a little better than the Gophers, and the game play bore that out. (For those of you that cannot remember what happened last week, MSU won 17-9 after trailing 9-3 late in the 4 th quarter. Your brain likely blocked out the entire 3.5 hours for self-preservation. Don’t bother to try to find the replay on BTN. Your brain has suffered enough.) Now that Week 9 has arrived and we find ourselves lined up to face a rapidly improving Northwestern team, it once again appears that this week’s opponent is likely better than Indiana, and it will take a sharp effort from MSU to earn a victory.  It seems as though every MSU-Northwestern game in recent memory has been an interesting one, especially the games in Evanston. One only has to think back to the record-setting comeback that John L’s t...

As I reflect back on MSU’s 17-9 win over Indiana this weekend, a number of adjectives and metaphors come to mind: a grind, a defensive struggle, a nail-biter, I’ve have dental procedures that were less painful, etc. But really, it was just plain old U-G-L-Y, and it frankly did not have an alibi. The weather was good, it wasn’t a night game, last week’s game was a tough test, but it should not have emptied the tank. Like many out there, I was expecting a bit of a break-through performance, especially from the QB position.  But, through about 55 minutes, it was just a messy slog of a performance in which MSU’s D kept the game close, and MSU’s O seemed to be stuck in neutral. At some point in the 4 th quarter, I tuned to my friends sitting next to me in Spartan Stadium and said, “well, Brian Lewerke has never led MSU to a 4 th quarter come-back win, so maybe today is his chance.” I honestly wasn’t that serious, but low-and-behold, he did just that. Somehow, some way, he shook off t...

As MSU crosses into the second half of 2017, a day has finally come that I am sure many of us have been waiting for.  The Spartans and us, their fans, suffered many crushing defeats last season, and one of the most heart-breaking was the slow, week-by-week pillaging of MSU’s trophy case. Of the four trophies that MSU plays for, I can say with virtual certainty that the trophy on the line once again this week is solidly in the Top 3. I am of course referring to the one, the only: Old Brass Spittoon. Now, because I care, I did a little research on the Old Brass Spittoon this week on this charming little website called “Google,” and what I found there was truly surprising. First of all, when you type “Old Brass” into “Google” it literally populated “Spittoon” for me, suggesting that it is, in fact, the most famous old brass item in the world, second, apparently, to “Old Brass Knuckles for Sale” (true story). Second, I found out that the history of the “OBS” is far, um, less interesti...

So, sometimes football is weird. On the night that MSU went to Ann Arbor as a 12-point dog, I felt pretty good about our chances. But, this past weekend when MSU went on the road as a 3-point favorite in Minneapolis, I just had a bad feeling about it. I don’t know if it was the weather, or the timing, or the fact that the Gophers badly needed a win, but I was just plain nervous. The beginning of the game was a bit dicey, then MSU really seemed to dominate for a large stretch of time. But, much like in Ann Arbor the week before, a few opportunities were squandered, and all of a sudden MSU was staring down the barrel of another potential on-side kick / Hail Mary nightmare. Fortunately, MSU’s cushion and their hands team was just good enough to carry the day. By the time Lewerke took that final knee, MSU got the “W,” but they could not have felt that good about it. Honestly, this might be exactly what this young Spartan team needed. They learned a very important lesson over the past two ...

If the season ended today… well that would be super weird, because most teams have only played half of their schedule (I have always hated that phrase). But, my spreadsheet now has enough data that I can start to use it to forecast forward a bit, using predicted point spreads, to start to take educated guesses as to how each conference will shake out. Since we are almost at the mid-point of the season, today seems like a good day to peak into the crystal ball. ACC Leading contenders: Clemson: based on projected spreads they will be favored in all remaining games. So, they are favored to win 12 regular season games.  Also, based on the chance of victory in each game (extracted from the spread) I calculate a 71% chance that the Tiger will run the table.  So, from here on out, I will use the following short hand: Clemson: 12 wins, 71% to run the table (12-0). Toughest game left: @ NC State (+15.8, projected) Also Miami: 12 wins, 37% to run the table (12-0)....

OK, now I am not going to dwell on this subject long, but I do work in Ann Arbor and I just wanted to say that have just had a fantastic start to my work week.  It pretty much feels like this: Meanwhile, from the Maize and Bruised crowd, it has been more like this: It’s been glorious. The thing that Wolverine Nation doesn’t really understand is that beyond the pure joy of beating our most despised rival, one of the main advantages of winning so much over the past decade is the glorious silence. Because, Wolverine Nation **News Flash** we actually don’t care about you that much, it is just that you can’t stop talking about yourself. As a community, you are basically like a group of spoiled, narcissistic children that are starved for attention. It is not at all that MSU is obsessed with UofM. Actually, it is quite the opposite. After winning 8 of the last 10, we pretty much expect to beat you every time now, just like in basketball. The problem is that you are so obsessed...