Dr. Green and White Sports Authority

In my previous post reviewing the results of last week, I used the analogy that MSU is currently on a plane circling the airport. The problem is that no one is sure where MSU is going to land. As I think about the week to come, I think I know where MSU is landing this week.   I call it: “Now or Never” Land. If MSU is going to salvage this season, it needs to start now, or it is never going to happen.   Lose this week, and it will be hard to consider the season any level of success.   Sure, beating Michigan and finishing 7-5 would feel better than losing and finishing (at best) 6-6, but the turn-around needs to start NOW.  Otherwise, we are in danger of this becoming one of those Forgotten Years. MSU and Illinois are definitely teams that are moving in opposite directions.   MSU has taken three ugly and painful losses over 5 weeks and somehow found a way to lose both bye weeks as well.   The team is both physically and emotionally beaten down. ...

It is safe to say that this was a fairly slow weekend for college football.  Many of the big boys had the week off, and most of the ones that didn't were not in compelling match-ups.  There were not that many upsets, and the ones that did occur were pretty minor.  Not a whole lot changed in the big picture. Basically, it felt like being stuck in a holding pattern. Air traffic control has told us to circle for a week.  But, don't worry, because the plane's entertainment system is jammed packed with movie classics such as Slow Times at Ridgemont High, all eight of the movies in The Slow and the Mild-Mannered franchise, and the Keanu Reeves flick "Slow" where he and Sandra Bullock try to jump start a bus. Classic. As for MSU fans, each one feels like a different passenger on that very plane.  For all of them, this flight has pretty much sucked this year, with quite a bit of turbulence in the later stages.  But, that phase is over and the next one is almost...

As October comes to a close and November begins, all in calm in the state of Michigan.  In some areas Thursday night, snow started to fall, which was a weird contrast to the gaggles of children wearing Halloween costumes. In East Lansing, it is also calm (except for the Bachie news) as the team and coaching staff settle in for their 2nd week off in the past three. For the 2019 season, this week offers the last chance to rest up, heal up, and scheme up in order to try to make the best of what is left of a once promising season. It is the calm before the storm. While the devil on the should of many MSU fans is whispering, "MSU is not strong enough to withstand the storm," you can bet that MSU's coaching are challenging MSU's player to "be the storm". Which is going to wind up being correct? We will all have to wait another week to find out. Around the county, it is a pretty calm week as well, so I am going to be a bit more brief.  Over 25% of the country...

I am honestly not sure what to say about Saturday's game.  I am almost lost for words (though, not really). It just completely sucked. I was honestly hoping and expecting a sharp performance from the Spartans after a bye week. Nope. What did we get instead? Well, we got busted overages, ill-timed penalties, poor execution, a fumbled punt, a blocked FG, interceptions, and a crazy new rash of injuries. Oh, and several thousands of us sat in a steady drizzle to witness it... at least for a while.  Then, just when you thought that maybe Notre Dame would do the same thing to Michigan in the rain that Penn State did to MSU and you could at least sleep well from a tiny dose of rivalry schadenfreude... Nope. And of course Josh Langford is out until (at least) January, and of course Kyle Arhens sprained his ankle, and of course the Hauser waiver was denied, and of course Illinois now looks like a legit threat. Of course... Because sometimes when it rains, it pours. ...

Last week I was on an international business trip when suddenly, I had a problem.  I opened up my laptop to a simple black screen.  As any technically savvy person would do in this situation, I proceeded to either tap and then jam down the power button for various lengths of time in rapid succession, hoping to find the magic combination that would cause my computer to come back to life.  I was not looking forward to having to conduct two full days of business meetings in a foreign country using a combination of pictionary and interpretative dance.  Plus, I had no idea how I was going to complete my Week 8 preview blog post.  It was a serious situation. Fortunately, after several failed attempts to reboot the machine, at least two blue screens of death, two calls to the IT helpdesk, a couple of boots into safe mode, and some googling how to restore to previous save points, I was able to restore the machine to proper operating order. The business trip (and last ...

The Butterfly Effect is not just a bad Ashton Kutcher movie (rotten tomatoes critics score = 33%). It is also not just part of a pseudo-intellectual sequence of Jurassic Park (rotten tomatoes critics score = 91%).  The Butterfly Effect is concept in the field of chaos theory, most associated with American mathematician and meteorologist Edward Lorenz (rotten tomatoes: no opinion).  Lorenz used the analogy of how a butterfly flapping its wings in the southern hemisphere may affect the path of a tornado in the Midwest. The underlying concept being that in very complex and dynamic systems, small changes in one place can have a very dramatic effect somewhere else. In many ways, the methods that I use to model college football are quite similar. One lesson that I have learned over the years is that, in general, we just don't have enough data to work with. I think that I can make some predictions with a known level of mathematical probability, but the variance is really high. Furt...