Dr. Green and White Sports Authority

While on my flight back to the USA this week, I decided to re-watch Avengers: Infinity War on the entertainment system of the flight. Perhaps the most talked about scene in that film is when Dr. Strange inexplicably gives up the Time Stone to Thanos in exchange for Ironman / Tony Stark’s life. As his explanation, Dr. Strange simply comments, “We’re in the Endgame now.” The word Endgame typically refers to chess and not necessarily either College Football or a quest to defeat a mad Titan. In chess, it is the stage of the game where major pieces start getting sacrificed in order to pave the way for final victory… or defeat. In other words, in when crap starts to get real. Both in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and in this year’s college football season, we have enjoyed years / weeks of anywhere from mediocre (Thor: The Dark World) to great (MSU vs. Penn State and Purdue) entertainment.  But looking at both MSU’s schedule and the schedule for the whole week, I think that the 2018 se...

In my preview of Week 9, I asked the question "what on the MSU ship is still good?" Well, as it turns out, a lot of things are still good.  First of all, MSU still has a defense, and damn it (Janet) they are still pretty darn good.  Second, despite the injuries, we still have a group of guys that can catch the ball, and (get this) some of them are tight ends!  Third, while we await Brian Lewerke's shoulder to heal a bit more, we found that we have a back-up QB with a blond mane and a strong arm who just demonstrated that he has the power to stop an on-coming, runaway train. Oh, Rocky. He's now the toast of the town.  As you might have seen live (perhaps after enjoying a Frankfurter), watched on TV, streamed on an iPad in a Japanese hotel room, or read about in newspaper, Purdue came into the game as the hottest team in the Big Ten. But, MSU turned back the Riff Raff and sent them home for failing their mission.  Was Rocky perfect? Certainly not. But, he got ...

One of my favorite movies of all time is Apollo 13.  There are a lot of great quotes in that great film, but one exchange in particular has been running through my head this week. Just after the accident that almost cost three astronauts their lives, the team at mission control was trying to figure out what happened, and flight director Gene Kranz says, "Let's look at this thing from a standpoint of status... What do we got on the spacecraft that's good?" [pause] "I'll get back to you, Gene." MSU's season is starting to feel a little like Apollo 13.  It once held a lot of promise of adventure and triumph, and now it is on the brink of disaster.  MSU coaches, on the offense in particular, are trying to figure out what on the ship is still good, and if the mission can even be salvaged at all.  Houston, we have a problem. In retrospect, two weeks ago if I would have told you that MSU was going to split the series with Penn State and Michigan, ...

Sibling rivalries are sometimes the worst. When the kids are young, the older brother will often pick on the younger brother mercilessly.  Sometime the older brother will just refuse to play with the younger brother at all, or if he does agree to play, he makes up rules or changes them to make sure he always comes out on top. As the younger brother get older and smarter, he figures out how to outwit his somewhat oafish older brother from time to time, but that just makes him angry. But, at some point the two brothers both become adults and are more or less in the same league.  In some families this marks the end of the sibling rivalry.  But, at other times, it just makes things worse. This can also be exacerbated if the younger brother also happens to be smarter, better looking, more charming, more athletic, with better hygiene, etc.  It can cause a seething jealousy by the older brother that can explode anytime the younger brother has a run of success.  Ev...

I took some time this afternoon to crunch some numbers regarding MSU and UofM's pass and run efficiency per attempt as well as those statistics for all of their opponents.  Here are some of my take-aways 1) Overall, Michigan's stats are not so dissimilar from Penn State's or, oddly, Utah State's.  Michigan's pass yards per attempt are actually the highest of any team than we have faced yet (8.28 yd/att), but that is just slightly higher than Penn State (8.21) and Utah State (8.12).  Michigan's run offense is ranked #20 at 5.35 yd/att, which is not as good as either Penn State (#9, 6.07 yd/att) or Utah State (#16, 5.49 yd/att).  MSU has faced comparable offenses (statistically...) already this year and done well. That said, Michigan's defense is statistically the best that we have faced (#3 pass D per attempt, #13 rush D per attempt, and overall #2 D in yards per play).  But, Penn Sate and Utah State's defenses are also both ranked in the Top...