April 29th, 2024 at 12:12 PM ^
Impressive. Most impressive.
What is impressive is that MSU scored 25 less points than Iowa. And before any of you MSU slappies say "Well we didnt score in the postseason" yeah neither did Iowa.
That was a good observation. Iowa. sigh.
10-4 Iowa with THREE SHUTOUT LOSSES, truly an unforgettable era of ineptitude
April 29th, 2024 at 12:17 PM ^
Love seeing Ohio State in 4th place -- in the conference.
April 29th, 2024 at 12:41 PM ^
I assumed it was a national list...this super conference is going to take a while to get used to.
April 29th, 2024 at 12:19 PM ^
Yes it was. Amazingly so.
April 29th, 2024 at 12:22 PM ^
The crazy part is how elite they will be this year as well....So excited for Barham and the next group in the two deep proving that it will be hard to keep them off the field.
The other crazy part is this was accomplished with the starting rotation only playing 40 minutes in half the games.
April 29th, 2024 at 12:23 PM ^
Just gotta have the team duplicate it again this coming season.
April 29th, 2024 at 12:38 PM ^
Even if the 2024 defense is better than last year it will look significantly worse statistically. The schedule is tougher and our offense will put the defense in tough spots more often.
Thanks, Debbie...
April 29th, 2024 at 12:30 PM ^
Wow. Impressive stuff.
April 29th, 2024 at 12:40 PM ^
I mean, yeah. One of the three best college football defenses in this century. Two of the top ten picks were receivers that Michigan barely noticed because Will Johnson was covering them. They were so good that once Michigan got a lead at Penn State Sherrone Moore tossed the passing portion of the playbook in the trash. They were so good that Big Ten quarterbacks spent entire games scrambling in panic.
The players were/are great. The scheme was/hopefully is great. The defensive line is the stuff that dreams are made of.
This team has been so, so much fun.
April 29th, 2024 at 12:40 PM ^
There's some amazing stuff in here:
-USC gave up more points than was scored by both teams combined during Iowa games.
-Oregon's offense...holy shit, guys, do you need a breather?
-Michigan's own offense was no slouch, only 2 points fewer than the vaunted Penix-Odunze machine.
Not to take away TOO much from Oregon but their prior conference played defense optional football for the most part. They're built to score but it might be tougher against B1G teams in November.
I think USC and Oregon's days of Heisman hopeful QBs may be numbered. They will play 3-4 legit defenses a year. Which is 3-4 more than usual. If Caleb Williams had problems with ASU and Washington St. its going to be a real challenge for them going forward.
Agreed. And - for those teams on Sundays - I believe it will be interesting to see Williams and the Bears - when Caleb is facing NFL defenses.
Notre Dame is applauding this post...
USC's defense gave up more points than not just Iowa's, but also Nebraska's combined offense/defense totals. Crazy.
I appreciate this information - but, there's one other thing to think about - which is "per game" figures - rather than cumulative totals.
Just looking at defense - yes, O$U's defense gave up fewer points on the season. However, the Buckeyes also played thirteen games - not fifteen games. So, OSU's per game scoring defense was "146 points / 13 game" - or 11.23 points / game. Michigan's per game scoring - "156/15" = 10.4 points per game.
To add to that - think of the quality of teams that were played - three of Michigan's last four opponents were - O$U, Bama, and Washington. Whereas O$U finished the season "0-2" - facing Michigan and Missouri... is that correct - Missouri?
Our defense might be even better this season!
I like how before the title game the pundits labeled Washington's offense has "high-flying" and they weren't sure if Michigan would be able to keep up. And Michigan scored 2 points fewer than Washington in total this season. High-flying Washington offense. Michigan is.. not?
Well, we did close the gap quite a bit in the last game of the year. They had a 23 point lead heading into that game.
This is just feelings-ball and not related to any actual digging into the data, but I'd assume it just felt that way because Washington had more explosive/big plays than Michigan. Not that UM didn't have any, but the preferred MO was ground game/control the clock and only bust out the passing game when necessary. UM certainly had a lot more possessions that were long, methodical drives compared to Washington's approach of trying to hit a home run on as many plays as possible.
Oh, and our 2nd and 3rd string played about 25% of all game time against most teams 1st strings. Like oh, JJ didn't even play in 4th quarter in most games and had the best running attack in all of CFB.
Wait a minute... Iowa played 14 games. If they would have made it to the NC they would have played 16 games? How did they get an extra game? I guess they figured they wouldnt need a bye if they decided not to score any points for 3 of those games.