Dr. Green and White Sports Authority

The calendar might say November, but to me it feels a bit like March.  I have always been fascinated by March madness.  The basketball is fun, of course, but for me even the structure of the tournament is beautiful.  As a kid, every year in March I would painstakingly create a hand-written bracket on Selection Sunday.  As I got older, I gained an appreciation for the subtleties of seeding like S-curve and geographic optimization while simultaneously avoiding rematches. More recently, I have been fascinated (or possibly obsessed) with mathematical analysis of the tournament, such as performance against seed expectation (PASE) and why 2-seeds get upset in the 1st round so much more often than 1-seeds.  I have a traditional of constructing my own bracket in the evening before Selection Sunday.  It is all a tremendously beautiful puzzle. So, when the college football playoffs were instituted back in 2014, it immediately piqued my interest.  More specifi...

Well, this week's game did not exactly go as planned, but at the end of the day, a win is a win, even if it might have sent Spartan Nation through a series of heart palpitations on Saturday evening.  Yes, the offense is still struggling and yes the defense is still awesome.  Neither of these things are a surprise.  Do changes need to occur on the coaching staff?  Perhaps, but in my opinion the focus should be on the run game and the offensive line and not on the passing game or the Dave Warner specifically.  But, that is just one man's opinion.  Coach D probably does need to intervene in some way to shore up the obvious issues.  But, he also knows way more than anyone else about what is really going on and how to potentially fix it.  I am confident that he will do what needs to be done to but the program in the best shape to continue to be a perennial contender. MSU finishes the 2018 regular season at 7-5.  After the loss to Northwestern on...

Well folks, it has been an interesting season of twists and turns.  It started with hope and optimism, but that quickly morphed into frustration, anger, and disappointment.  It wasn't all bad, though, as the Spartans did give us a few exciting moments.  There was the home win over Purdue, the home win over, at the time, under-rated Utah Sate, and road wins over Indiana, Maryland, and of course, Penn State. Even if we look at MSU's losses this year, it is not like the Spartans were completed overwhelmed.  Consider this: In Week 2 at Arizona State, MSU led 13-6 with 9 minutes to play In Week 6 vs. Big Ten West Champ, Northwestern, MSU led 19-14 with 1 minute left in the 3rd quarter In Week 8 vs Michigan with a skeleton crew, MSU was all tied up at 7 with 3 minutes left in the 3rd quarter In Week 10 vs Ohio State, MSU trailed only 7-6 with 1 minute left in the 3rd quarter In Week 11 at Nebraska, the game was tied 6-6 with 9 minutes to play. MSU has been in every...

Remember the good old days? For example, earlier last week? Do you remember the yarns about how MSU would need to score maybe 20 or 24 points to outscore the high-powered Nebraska offense?  Wow. Double digit points. That sure sounds nice.  Heck, it seems like a coon's age since we have even seen 10 points around these parts.  Shucks.  And, I hear in the big city there's this thing called a "touchdown" where a team actually makes it all the way down the field into that fancy painted area called the "endzone."  Wouldn't that be something to see?  I reckon it sure would be. So, the Spartans went down Nebraska and couldn't muster more than 6 points.  The defense sure looked purty again, but the offense is about as useful right now as a pocket in the your underwear or a submarine with a screen door.  I can't blame those boys too much, though, as most of the skill players are beat up real bad and it looked as cold as a witch's tights out there on...