PencilPusher

Well, we are still expected to lose the next 3 under the S&P model though the projected margin of victory has dropped in all of our games and the win probabilities have improved. Guess all of the haters will get their day in the sun if this plays out. While I think the S&P model has its flaws, I am curious as to why we are about to embark on a 3 game losing bender. So lets look at performance through the lens of efficiency and explosiveness vs our remaining opponents. Our offensive efficiency rates (ability to stay on schedule) rank close to the top quartile. (Success rate-43; Marginal Efficiency-34). Explosiveness however is close to the bottom quartile (Iso Points per Play-91, Marginal Explosiveness -97). No surprise to anyone watching our games. We can consistently move the sticks, but do not generate that many "explosives" in the game. Wonder why Herman is so concerned with offensive speed? However, to gauge success against the remaining spate of games, we need to evaluate what other defenses prevent. Our achilles heel would be a team that defensively looks like Texas in that it is hard to sustain drives against, but gives up the big play. Is there a team like that remaining on our schedule? Lets see Ok State - Defense success rate - 46; Marginal Efficiency -57; ISO PPP-83; Marginal Explosiveness-80. Possible problem spot. They are about middle of the road on efficiency and below average on explosives given up. Ok State's big problem is that they are in the bottom quartile of turnover margin, which doesn't help their defense's cause (not to mention penalties-118 in the country on penalty yards ). We will have to play better than against Baylor for sure. West Virginia - Defense success rate - 68; Marginal efficiency - 77; ISO PPP- 52; Marginal Explosiveness - 32. We are not a good matchup for WVa because their defense has shown the ability to allow teams to sustain long drives which suits our gameplan. Couple that with lots of penalty yards (104th) and turnovers, we should be set up for success in this game Tech - Defense success rate - 71; Marginal efficiency - 100; ISO PPP - 114; ISO Explosiveness - 102. A defense that is exactly what we would want to see to have success against. These numbers are actually worse than Baylor's were coming into the game last week. They are also bad at penalties (110th), though favorable at turnovers so far this year. Iowa State - Defense success rate - 35; Marginal efficiency - 65; ISO PPP - 55; Marginal Explosivieness - 36. By metrics, this would be the toughest remaining defense on the schedule which shouldn't surprise anyone who has been paying attention this year. They also rank close to the top quartile in fewest penalties. Best bet for a 21-17 type game down the stretch of the season. I won't bother with Kansas at this point since we are still expected to win that one by double digits. So, there isn't a defense that should completely scare us down the stretch, but it looks like OSU and Iowa State may be the defenses we have the hardest time with. My $ is on Iowa State defending us the best down the stretch. Will look at the inverse (our defense against remaining offenses) later.

I have been accused of wrong-doing. But these false accusations will not deter us. We WILL annex Poland by the Spring, at any cost! AND… our stock will rise HIGH!

Good news for us then....we don't see a team outside the Top 50 until KU at the end of the season.

Yep.....the SEC quarterbacking group (outside of Tua) as a whole has been much worse than expected. Still think the ags have 3 more losses in them somewhere.

Few comments on some of the above: Not sure why you would get neg for this. He is a good guy. Which means he isn't long for Baylor. Unlike Teaff and CAB, he's not a local guy so the first good opportunity he gets, he gone. Only reason he ended up at Rape U was they could pay more than Temple. Remember he flirted with the Colts last year. How would you explain Jett Duffey then. He is not the prototypical Tech QB and it was quite apparent in the TCU game that they couldn't do the same things they would do with Alan Bowman at QB (just ask a Tech fan). In fact, Coach Bro started McLane Carter in the 2nd half but quickly reverted because that wasn't working either. Tech won that game because TCU couldn't hold onto the ball at critical junctures. It is hard to draw many concrete conclusions from the Baylor game due to Sam's injury. Defensively, we played reasonably well holding them to 17 points, though we had our moments. I do think the Buchele interception gave Baylor life because we were handling them pretty well up to that point. Giving up the TD was bad sudden change defense on our part and that needs to improve. We still can't generate pass rush from just 5 consistently. On the flip side, Baylor only had 2 first half drives of any consistency and the first drive was aided by 9 missed tackles, which screams hangover from the OU game. Special teams was a mixed bag, though it was on Dicker the kicker this time whose 34 yard miss was the big issue. Have to be consistent from 40 in (i.e 95+%) and we aren't there yet. Hitting that one makes the last defensive stand moot. However, it was Buj's best effort of the year and delivered a big punt to push Baylor back inside the 5 to start their last drive, which turned out to be critical. Going forward, if we have to have Shane in place for OSU, strategy changes have to ensue. I liked the WR screen game when Baylor tried to stuff the box in the 4th quarter and we should have worked that more on the final drive and that suits Shane's game better. We also have to drive the ball down the field more. Shane is capable of that, but it was clear his accuracy was off due to lack of reps and it repeatedly stunted drives and caused the one turnover (and almost another). In 2015, we were able to run out of standard sets because of the ability to hit shots down the field. Shane has to be able to make those plays otherwise we will see stacked boxes without a QB run threat. Screen game to the backs needs to be part of it as well. We did have a nice screen set up to Ingram, but the ball was late and off target which allowed the Baylor defender to clean up on the play. I agree on the need to have gotten more reps for Shane before, but we haven't really had any games that have been a laugher in the 4th quarter yet and in addition, I wonder how much the new redshirting rules are affecting these types of decisions. Nevertheless, during this week we need to have Shane getting lots of first team reps even if Sam heals up enough to start the OSU game. Bye week turned out to be timely this year.

Cool idea. Here's Bill Connelly's google docs on S&P if you want a starting spot https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQ2e9xV7-ClihFVJ3kla0ZDxzFCQ7-WXvQRur-nK6gOzo333PqSetw52kEGgbXKb6viGZSbYuJugvRR/pubhtml#

Yep....one of the biggest hypocrites of them all.....sure some of the old timers can probably add some color here.

Between this clash of titans and Eagles/Jints there was a lot of shitty football on display last night, other than the Eagles offensive first half and Saquon Barkley. Couple thoughts on this one. Mentioned in an earlier post this week that I thought Tech and ISU wouldn't win the conference but would shape the race. Tech just shaped the race by eliminating TCU. TCU's defense is very good, but Shawn Robinson is horrible as a QB right now. Should be interesting to see if Justin Rogers gets some playing time in the last 3 games. That Qb competition in the spring will be one to watch. I am now more convinced then ever that OU will win out to the WVa game. In the giddiness of the win last week, there seemed to be a bunch of folks thinking that OU might trip up on the road at either TCU or Tech, but nothing last night convinced me of that. OU comes to Ft Worth next week off of a bye. Will it get Oklahoma trailer park woman ugly?

Agreed, with the "results" of the NCAA investigation used as the hammer.

Welcome to college football 2018. There's Alabama and everyone else. I don't think any conference has more than 1 or 2 "very good teams" so the odds of a team facing multiple very good teams this season is low. Go through the conferences to see who the very good teams are. ACC - Clemson and ??????. Clemson has looked OK this season and they've been fortunate they have not faced another similar "very good" team this season while they transition to the Trevor Lawrence era. The rest of the ACC is hammered dogshit. B1G- Ohio State for sure, though their defense is shaky (though not as bad as OU). Penn State is a carbon copy of OSU with worse coaching apparently (elite offense, avg to below average defense) and Michigan has navigated the easy part of their schedule since ND. Is either PSU or Michigan a very good team? Probably, though one might end up with 3+ losses before the season is done which means they were probably just a good team. SEC- Beyond Alabama (who hasn't played anyone yet-their season really starts after Thanksgiving), there is Georgia (who hasn't played a very good team yet) and........Barn? Nope, they've already lost 2. LSU? Better than expected, but if they lose to GA this week, they aren't better than 9-3 this season. SEC has actually been worse than is perceived.....this was a year that QB play was supposed to elevate the league, but has been disappointing beyond Tagavoila. (Say, what happened to that Lock fellow everyone was talking up last December?) Maybe the SEC needs to import more Hawaiians/Polynesians. Pac 12 After Dark - Probably should have most of their games after dark since the only difference between the Pac 12 and ACC this year is the ACC has Clemson. Washington may be the best of a sad bunch but no very good teams here. I think TX is a Top 15 team, but probably not a Top 5 team, even if we were to magically win out and get to the playoff somehow. We aren't elite at anything, but instead have relied on developed talent executing at a reasonably high level to succeed this season. I say reasonably because we do have Maryland, Tulsa, and K State data points to suggest that we haven't been at a high level all season. But against USC, TCU, and OU we have played at times at an elite level, though not for 4 quarters. Assuming we win this week, I think 9 wins becomes the floor (absent a rash of injuries). Sam may not be VY or Colt, but he's playing at a high enough level (coupled with an improved o-line) to get us to competing for the conference championship this year, which was a big goal this year and the right trend marker.

I hadn't heard that. If so, is that pending the NCAA investigation?

Hey, you're not talking that Michigan deposit bottle scam again, are you?

I read the article and the comments (love the one baylor/ag/sooner troll's quixotic quest to try to defend Baylor and throw shade at Texas at the same time. The spirit of #CAB lives!). Quite frankly, I think there is a better solution to evicting Baylor, especially in light of the fact that in about 5 years the realignment wheel may spin college football in a completely different direction. Rather than evict them, take their money. If the NCAA comes back with anything from their "investigation", use it as pretense to cut their distribution of Tier 1 and 2 revenues, bowl pooling, etc. in half for the remainder of the current contract and distribute that money to the other 9 teams in the conference. The other 9 schools will vote for that and if Baylor objects, they can voluntarily leave the conference. Baylor won't obviously do that. Yeah yeah, I know that maybe there is a provision in the contract that would prevent that, but if I am the Big 12 I am looking into this while the NCAA does their "investigation". It may be far more punitive to take half their distribution than boot them out of the conference, putting Baylor significantly behind financially as the realignment wheel starts spinning again. The rest might just then take care of itself.

UC Davis also has probably the top Viticulture & Enology program (winemaking) in the country. So they got that going for them, which is nice.

Not sure if already posted/discussed, but this is how S&P predicts our final games: Upcoming Games Week Date Opponent Opp. S&P+ Rk Proj. W/L Proj. Margin Win Prob. Cumulative Proj. Wins 6 Win Total Odds (regular season only) Conference Win Total Odds 6 7 10/13/18 Baylor 64 W 9.6 71% 5.7 5 5 1% 3 1% 5 8 4 6 6% 4 6% 4 9 10/27/18 at Oklahoma State 21 L -7.5 33% 6.0 3 7 20% 5 20% 3 10 11/3/18 West Virginia 11 L -6.6 35% 6.4 2 8 34% 6 34% 2 11 11/10/18 at Texas Tech 28 L -4.1 41% 6.8 1 9 28% 7 28% 1 12 11/17/18 Iowa State 45 W 4.7 61% 7.4 0 10 11% 8 11% 0 13 11/23/18 at Kansas 104 W 14.8 80% 8.2 -1 11 2% 9 2% Oklahoma State is considered the 3rd best team in our conference using S&P and it would also be our biggest loss. Tell me if that makes any sense. While it is possible a loss can occur from one of those 3 games, i don't think it will be all 3. Will check this again after this weeks results, my guess is it will predict us either beating Ok State or Tech.

Perfect opponent to come off of the Red River Rivalry (other than OU's opponent - BYE) Baylor does offense, but digging into the stats suggest they can be a lot of noise and fury, but not signify much. They rank reasonably high on efficiency, but not explosiveness, which is the complete opposite of OU. Get them behind the chains and their offense trends to below average. They are a surprisingly poor red zone team and of course give up lots of sack opportunities. Baylor is also -2 on turnover margin but actually picks up 2 pts on turnover luck per game because they should have given up more which means opportunities exist Baylor's defense is bad and they only thing they actually statistically do well is red zone defense. Of course, the number of explosive plays given up sort of negates that. Forced 3 of their 5 total turnovers received in last weeks game which means they don't force turnovers and won't against a team that is good at taking care of the ball. Baylor is significantly better at punting, but that isn't saying much. Unfortunately we have given up points due to our punting in every game this year so expect that to continue this week. Their place kicker is about average for CFB which means that the placekicking game doesn't give them a big advantage. Nothing else special about their special teams which are in the bottom quartile (other than net punting). Texas should win handily unless we go -4 or worse on turnovers or have 150+ penalty yards (or both).

Halfway through, the Big 12 to me breaks out as follows: True Contenders Texas, OU and WVa. OU and WVa aren't surprises, though Texas is and may end up being better than the other 2. OU will probably go on their post Texas loss run as they did in 2006, 2008, 2013, etc. WVa has been pretty sloppy with the ball so far this season with 10 total turnovers lost and if that trend continues, they will lose to both OU and Texas, as both of those teams do a much better job of taking care of the football. Will Grier needs to do a better job of taking care of the football as he is responsible for 8 of the 10 turnovers. Best bet is Red River Shootout 2, Offensive Boogaloo, at the Death Star in December for Big XII-II championship. The First Alternate TCU is the one team that could crash the above party and we will know the next 2 weeks as they face Tech and OU at home. Win both of those and they move into a good position with a November date in Morgantown looming. The rest of their schedule is against the bottom of the conference and they should pick up 4 wins against the State of Kansas, Baylor, and OSU. Spoilers Tech and ISU - Neither will likely win the conference but can certainly shape the race. ISU already has 2 conference losses and face WVa this weekend which might ruin WVa's season to date if ISU gets a win. Tech is Tech and has already shown they can be up or down, but get both TX and OU in Lubbock and can certainly throw a scare their direction. Both are also capable of losing to Kansas State. That's just who they are. WTF? Team Oklahoma State - Beat Boise convincingly at home, but get drilled by both Tech and ISU at home? Can't figure this team out, but did note at the beginning of the season I thought this team might be due for a rebuilding year which appears to be playing out. Will struggle for bowl eligibility as they still have yet to see Texas, OU, TCU, and WVa. Shades of 2014 pre Mason Rudolph. Home for the Holidays The State of Kansas and Baylor. KU needs no explanation, though they at times have been a little spunkier. KState is reaching the sad end of the Bill Snyder era. Baylor may have won their last game of the season on Saturday (congrats on the Kansas state championship) with games still to face against everybody above them except OU.

My mother...was taken from my house by the Communists in the middle of the night when I was ten years old. She was sent to a slave labor camp, where she labored for twelve years. Finally, they released her and she was on a boat to America to re-unite with us...but she was served some bad fish, and she died...on the high seas.

I thought the line of OU -7.5 was a gross overreaction to last Saturday's games and meant to entice $ to come in on the Texas side. The line should be OU -4.5, which is in line with the winning margin of the last 3 games. OU's schedule has been markedly easier to date. Best win is probably 1-3 Iowa State? Their 3 Power 5 wins are against 0-4 UCLA who is terrible, Iowa State, and Baylor. They haven't seen team speed and athleticism to what they will see from Texas on Saturday. I'd set the O/U on points by the winning team at 28 and the only way it gets significantly above that number is if there are a rash of turnovers to one side. Speaking of turnovers, the team that does +2 or better will win the game. Here's the thing though. Neither team has created many (TX has the advantage here 7 to 5) nor have they given many up (OU has been better - 3 vs TX 5). Both are at +2 for the season which means that turnovers have not been a big part of the story. (Best in the country KU at +12...and they still suck). I would not expect turnovers to be a big part of the story on Saturday either. Special teams may be the decider. OU's has been about average, while TX has had a much higher beta. Punting may be the big story here. OU is average at about 40 net, but TX is near the bottom at 33 net. 7 yards of field position could be big in this game and the punting game has cost Texas points from field position in every game. Forget Kyler Murray. If Texas doesn't do better at this part of the game, it may end up being the biggest factor. The Texas staff should spend extra time this week on it because this is a big issue. Be helpful if Dicker the kicker doesnt shank a kick or 2 either. Can't lose 3 to 6 points from this. Getting off the field on 3rd down will be key as well. OU's defense is 99th in this metric at 42.4%, Texas is better at 34.6%.On the flip side, OU converts at almost 55%, which is 7th in the country, while Texas is near the NCAA average at 41.3%, right there with the Domers and LS-Youuuuuuuuu. Sustaining drives will be key for Texas and OU's defense isn't particularly adept at stopping 3rd downs. I expect a tight one score game if the teams play to what I expect. 50/50 on this one as to who wins.

1990 will always be my favorite. Got 50 yard line seats about 30 rows up via the student draw. Right before the Lashar kick the whole place is going nuts. When he pushed it wide, you could see the whole Sooner side deflate while the good guys were going nuts. We were about 3 seats over from the divide so it was incredible. Somehow got onto the field after the game and were waving our Texas flag at midfield chanting OU sucks with at least 50 other students. Woke up the next morning and found our picture in the Dallas Morning news as well. Still have that page laminated somewhere in one of my memorabilia boxes.

Yep......I'd like to say I am some kind of genius, but this is the obvious strategy and one would hope our defensive staff is all over this. The fact it is getting announced early in the week takes away the element of surprise to some degree and allows us to better game plan for one QB rather than 2. I am guessing the power struggle forced the hand on the announcement, rather than strategic conniving designed to force us to prepare for both., limiting reps on the QB run game, etc. Guessing Casey Thompson will be getting a lot of scout team reps this week. Offensive fast start will be key as well. I'd come out up tempo and see if I can't get some scores on the board early. We have scored on the opening possession in the last 3 games, though two of those were FG's. Need to do that again. Putting up a couple of early touchdowns might help fuel the internecine warfare that appears to exist on the K State staff because I don't think Delton will be capable of engineering big comebacks, especially with what I view the K-State game plan to be for this week.

....and it feels so good

Damn...you'd think I'd remember since I was at the 99 game. Was it David Allen that returned the punt against us for a TD? That was an incredibly stacked team, though had Applewhite not gifted them 6 turnovers, we still might have beaten them.

While I do get the tremendous respect for the Purple Wizard, context is always key when it comes to K-State. This is only the 2nd time in the Big 12 Texas rolls into Manhattan as a favorite, the other of course being 2006. The other trips there UT has ranged from small to big underdog and in almost all cases (except 2002), K-State was the better team (as has been pointed out UT did not play them during Mack Brown's 5 best seasons - 2001, 2005, 2005, 2008, 2009). In fact, Snyder has only beaten UT once as an underdog - 1999 when Texas was a slight favorite at home. That was the infamous "Apple Turnover" game and that Wildcat team was loaded with NFL talent like Darren Sproles. Point being is that Snyder's teams have largely beaten Texas when they were supposed to and lost in the last few years('13, '15, and '17) in Austin to Texas teams that they were evenly matched with or lesser than. (I still can't explain Ron Prince though). That being said, this is one of the worst K-State teams in a while and they look like they don't have very many dudes. Watching them play Miss State was painful and although I didn't see the WVa game, it sounded like it could have been 56-3 had WVa not been so sloppy with the ball. However this is college football and there is a path to victory for KState as follows: On offense, I would expect KState to roll out with Alex Delton and feature a lot of QB run game, opportunistic RPO's, and a game plan designed to get yards in small to medium sized chunks. They want to find themselves in 3rd and 4 type situations repeatedly. KState needs to possess for 36+ minutes and they want 10+ play type drives that even if they don't result in big points each time, they take precious time off the clock and keep Texas offense off the field. They want to be in the game in the 4th quarter where Texas could give up a big play that could result in a win for them. Keeping the UT offense off the field and limiting the number of plays run will force UT to be more perfect on offense, which Texas hasn't shown it can be that consistent for 4 quarters. They should want to see if Texas has earned anything since Maryland. On defense, KSU will absolutely sell out to stop the run, especially since they don't have the dudes to stop the run in standard and light formations. If they come out in standard or light box looks, Texas could roll up 250+ on the ground pretty easily and that is not a path to victory for KSU. So load the box, win on first and second down and put Texas in 3rd and long situations. UT is only 38% on the season on 3rd down conversions. KSU is giving up close to 50% on the season, but if they consistently get the offense in 3rd and 7+, they will do better than that number. We will know what kind of game this will be in the first 20 minutes. Roll out to a 14-0 lead early forces them out of their strategy and may push them back to Skyler Thompson and an offense Texas can easily defend. If Texas struggles early, strap in for a tight game into the 4th quarter. At rough glance, they should have the advantage on special teams........Texas gave back a lot against TCU that puts UT at average to below average for the season. Good news is Texas hasn't faced a team that has had exceptional special teams nor played exceptionally in the game itself. Will any of this happen? Hard to say. K-State will have to play its absolute best and hope that Texas is sluggish and makes the kind of mistakes made against Maryland. Anything short of that, Texas wins easily. Texas also played pretty well in hostile environments last year (USC, ISU, WVa) so I don't think going on the road should faze this team.

Time for Bud Light to roll these out locally because your Houston Texans have become the new Cleveland Browns.