It's the smell...I feel...saturated by it

College Football: Get Saturated!

I was on a run yesterday, which is strong language suggesting that I was doing more than ambling with intent, which I was not. But none the less, I was moving at a gait between "walk" and "run" specifically reserved for those who are not built like runners, and should probably stick to more motorized forms of transportation. It's painful, and I should probably not be observed doing it too often, which is why I tend towards the more deserted part of the park by which I live. It was here, unexpectedly, that I got my first taste that college football was about to start. You see - I live in New England, where pro sports dominate, and college football gets about as much airtime as Jai-Lai. It's been hard to get fired up about this season. But yesterday, on my little deserted part of the path, I got the jolt I needed. There was another runner, moving significantly faster than I, coming at me. She had on Ohio State gear - from her headband to her shorts - she was Scarlet and Gray. I was wearing a Michigan Tee. We didn't stop, we didn't exchange words, but we glared at each other long and hard as our paths crossed. I think I even detected a bit of a buckstache on her.

The point here isn't to bore you with insignificant ramblings on my own personal life, but rather to see what it takes to get you ready for the season. For me, this season, it took a rival fan and a mutual acknowledgment of disdain to get me going. But man - can you feel it? Only one week until the season; only one week until the beginning of the Carnival.

Leave a comment: when do you start getting fired up about the season?

Let's NOT forget that keeping wildlife um...an amphibious rodent, for...um, you know domestic...within the city...that ain't legal either.

Every once in a great while, a message board will yield something remarkably similar to fruit, as long as you're counting good concepts and interesting questions as fruit. Otherwise, it's mostly dick jokes and fans with the distinct smell of dumbass on their breath (on both sides, I'm sure). But sometimes, there's a man, and I won't say hero because, what's a hero? But sometimes there's a man...

Whoa

Lost my train of thought.

Aw, hell, I done introduced it enough.

I was trolling around on an Ohio State message board when this came to my attention: a thread entitled "alarming fact that OSU is getting the screw." It was perfectly set up - and fit right in with the Buckeye disrespect mantra. Ohhhhh - of course! Ohio State has been getting screwed all these years! That's why they've only appeared in 3 National Titles games in the past 6 years, and have dominated the Big Ten, beaten Michigan to a bloody pulp, and have a recruiting class lined up that will make the '92 dream team look like FUCKING AMATEURS (football...basketball...whatever).

Then I actually read it.

The crux of the argument is this: For the past three seasons, Ohio State's opponents have been the least penalized on a yards/game basis than any team in the country. In 2007, Ohio State benefited from 37.2 yards per game from opposing team's penalties, 119th in the country. It's the same story from 2006, and 2005 - 29 and 35 yards/game respectively, both dead last in the NCAA. Them's the facts - inscrutable as ever. However, there must be another reason besides "OMG tOSU is getting SCREWED" right?

Right.

Theory: Big Ten Officials Don't Call Penalties

Conference ref's are all different. They're different in what they'll let teams get away with, what they'll call automatically, and the frequency with which they'll call it. Football is an odd sport in that there is probably a penalty on every play. The Big Ten's best player last year, Jake Long, admitted to "holding" as one of his favorite strategies, illuminating what has become the popular mantra amongst those playing the sport at a high level: it's a penalty if you get caught, an advantage otherwise.

The Big Ten seems particularly adept at playing by those rules - mostly because the ref's allow it. Of the 119 teams in NCAA, the vast majority of the Big Ten falls in the bottom 30 for penalties against - the notable outliers being Northwestern and Indiana who rank 51 and 21 respectively (important for later). Since the majority of games are played in conference using the same set of Big Ten officials, it stands to reason that Ohio State has the fewest penalty yards against at least partly because of the conference they play in. 4 of the 11 Big Ten teams fall in the bottom 10 of the rankings. To put it in perspective, the other teams in the bottom ten break down as follows: 2 MAC, 1 SEC, 1 Big 12, 1 Mountain West, 2 ACC. But this can't be the sole reason why Ohio State is ranked dead last over the past 3 years - if it were simply a conference bias, then there would be just as much chance that any other Big Ten team would be ranked at the bottom of the pile. There is something else going on here, and it's a bit...fishy.

Theory: Underdogs Get The Calls

In order to take on this theory, we need to establish something of a baseline understanding of how penalties work. The assumption is that teams do not consciously foul certain teams more than others. As I mentioned before, penalties occur on nearly every play - what matters is how/when they're called. For purposes of this discussion, I will assume that teams don't have specific agendas on penalties, and that they occur randomly throughout any game, regardless of opponent.

That being said, it is interesting to look at the rankings of each conference in terms of which teams gain the most yards on penalties. The top three in some of the major conferences with their final record in parenthesis:

ACC
2007
Duke (1-11)
Florida State (8-5)
Boston College (9-3)

2006
Duke (0-12)
Georgia Tech (9-5)
NC State (3-9)

2005
Clemson(8-4)
North Carolina (5-6)
Georgia Tech (7-6)

Big XII
2007
Kansas State (5-7)
Texas Tech (9-4)
Baylor (3-9)

2006
Baylor (4-8)
Texas (10-3)
Iowa State (4-8)

2005
Kansas (7-5)
Texas Tech (9-3)
Missouri (7-5)

Big Ten
2007
Indiana (7-6)
Northwestern (6-6)
Purdue (8-5)

2006
Indiana (5-7)
Northwestern (4-8)
Iowa (6-7)

2005
Wisconsin (10-3)
Penn State (11-1)
Northwestern (7-5)

There you have it - out of three conferences (only 3 because I don't have time to do the rest, and frankly, I see nothing that would suggest a different outcome) the teams that benefitted the most by officiating are by and large the underdogs of the conference. There are notable exceptions in the 2005 Big Ten season and Texas - the only teams on the list to crack 10 wins. Excepting those, this collection of teams is pretty "meh" and was probably an underdog in the majority of their conference games. Duke and Indiana led the ACC and Big Ten in opponent penalties for 2 years running with a combined record of 13-36. They were underdogs who got the calls.

The aggregate record of the teams above over a 3 year span is 172-161. If you throw out just 2 wins per team that came against the presumably lack-luster OOC games, you get 118-161. I could have made that 3 weak OOC games/team but given the subjectivity, I wanted to low-ball.

The upshot? The above teams, with some exception, sucked hard. And yet - somehow - they got all the calls. Meanwhile, teams like Ohio State (conference champs), Wake Forest (Division champs, conference champs), and Oklahoma (generally awesome) are somehow not getting the calls (they are all either at, or near the bottom of the ranks in every year profiled). It would stand to reason that a weaker team would need the benefit of penalties more than a stronger team would need to commit them, but no. Instead, we see teams that spend most of their time as underdogs getting the most yardage out of penalties.

I cannot, and will not speculate that refs are consciously pushing an underdog agenda, nor will I say Vegas is running things, Ref's are trying to control the spread, etc. For Big Ten fans, we need to remember the first theory - Big Ten refs generally don't call as many penalties as refs from other conferences, but we can also point to empirical evidence that suggests that the favored team in a matchup, for whatever reason, is most likely going to be penalized more than the underdog. So next time you're playing Iowa, Mr. Ohio State fan, and you start screaming "over the line" and bitching about the refs...and I hate to concede this...

you may be right.

Compare/Contrast

To wrap up part 2 of the BTB's preseason awards, I thought I'd do some compare/contrast ramblings with what turned out to be the tabulated results.

Here is what the BTB voted.

Offense

QB - Curtis Painter, Purdue
RB - Beanie Wells, Ohio State
RB - Javon Ringer, Michigan State
WR - Brian Robiskie, Ohio State
WR - Arrelious Benn, Illinois
WR - Greg Orton, Purdue
TE/SB - Travis Beckum, Wisconsin
OT - Alex Boone, Ohio State
OG - Steve Rehring, Ohio State
C - AQ Shipley, Penn State
OG - Kraig Urbik, Wisconsin
OT - Eric Vanden Heuvel, Wisconsin

For those not paying attention, here is what I voted:

QB: C.J. Bacher NW
RB: Chris Wells OSU
RB: Javon Ringer MSU
WR: Arrelious Benn IL
WR: Brian Robiskie OSU
WR: Brian Hartline OSU
TE: Travis Beckem WI
OT: Alex Boone OSU
OT: Gerald Cadogan PSU
OG: Jon Skinner OSU
OG: Steve Schilling UM
C: Ryan McDonald IL

Apparently, I was one of two who voted for C.J. Bacher - with the other being LTP themselves. I am genuinely surprised by this, as I genuinely doubt the playmaking ability of Curtis Painter. He was best described as "middling" last season, and I don't see Purdue getting any better as a team this season.

I was dead on with running backs, which is no surprise given that Beanie Wells is a definite Heisman favorite, and Javon Ringer has been good since he first strapped 'em up for the Spartans. I would have loved to see the final results of the vote to see how close P.J. Hill was to getting that second slot. On a tangent - why did everyone fall off the "P.J. Hill is the second coming" bandwagon? Take a look at his stats:

2006

1569 Yards
15 TD's
121 YPG
5.05 YPC

2007

1212 Yards
14 TD's
111 YPG
5.20 YPC

He played in 2 less games in '07, which is why his total yards and (probably) TD's are down, but other than that, it looks like a carbon copy of his 2006 campaign that saw him earn Big Ten Freshman of the Year honors.

My wideout picks were pretty much dead on. Greg Orton could be good - but only as good as Painter. Apparently, the BTB as a group think higher of Purdue than I do. I knew that it was either going to be Hartline or Robiskie in the final tally - and I was right. My hypothetical 4th pick would have been for Greg Matthews before Orton.

The Tight End position was such a foregone conclusion that I'm not going to even say "told you so."

In hindsight, I completely missed Rehring, who should have definitely been included on my vote. Other than that, I believe the linemen I selected have just as much probability of being awesome as any of those who made the final cut.

Defense


Final Vote:

DE- Greg Middleton, Indiana
DE - Maurice Evans, Penn State
DT - Terrance Taylor, Michigan
DT - Mitch King, Iowa
LB - James Laurinaitis, Ohio State
LB - Marcus Freeman, Ohio State
LB - Anthony Heygood, Purdue
S - Anthony Scirrotto, Penn State
S - Anderson Russell, Ohio State
CB - Malcolm Jenkins, Ohio State
CB - Vontae Davis, Illinois

Beauford's vote:

CB: Morgan Trent MI
CB: Vontae Davis IL
SS: Anthony Scirrotto PSU
FS: Shane Carter WI
OLB: James Laurinitis OSU
OLB: Marcus Freeman OSU
MLB: Greg Jones MSU
DE: Maurice Evans PSU
DE: Greg Middleton IN
DT: John Gill NW
DT: Terrence Taylor MI

Ignore the formatting issues here - it's Friday.

I knew that Jenkins would get the final nod - and probably deservedly so. I still believe that Morgan Trent is going to have an outstanding year - but he is definitely a long-shot compared to Jenkins. Carter is kind of in the same vein as Trent - but he's more a complete unknown. His season last year was the kind of charmed season that DB's are sometimes presented with. 7 INT's in 13 games and, IIRC, he wasn't even a full-time starter. I think, given the year's development, the fact that he's on a Biliema defense, and his already proven nose for the ball, he could have a monster year to unseat Russell for the All Conference nod.

I am actually shocked that Greg Jones didn't make the final cut. We all knew that the two linebackers from Ohio State would make it - but Anthony Heygood beats out Greg Jones (who? Greg Jooanes)?

Stat comparison:

Total tackles

Jones - 78
Heygood - 80

Sacks

Jones - 4.5
Heygood - 1 and even this one is "iffy"

TFL's

Jones - 8.5
Heygood - 14

The only thing that Heygood has a clear advantage in is TFL's, while getting blown out in sacks. I had to really dig to find how many sacks Heygood had last year - finally landing on "one" from a Purdue website. All my usual stats pages didn't have him listed - hence the "iffy" assessment. Mark it down now - Greg Jones is going to not only be All-Conference this year - he's going to be in the running for some All-American teams.

King for Gill is the only other discrepancy - and one that I can live with.

Totals


Overall, I was 13 for 23 on total picks being "correct" if the final BTB vote is to be considered correct. It should be noted that 4 of those incorrect picks were due to my own (admitted) lack of knowledge on offensive line play. The only egregious error on my part was the omission of Steve Rehring. Otherwise, I stand by my picks in their entirety.

Feel differently? Enlighten me in the comments section.

TP: Diaper Dandy. No, Really.

"I knew I should have gone to Michigan..."

OMG recruit commit Terrelle Pryor spent his first few days as a Buckeye in diapers.

Literally.

As a part of some sort of ritualistic hazing biometric technology study, Terrelle was stripped of his clothing, and forced to wear the blue diaper thingy you see above. Now, if it were Beauford up there gettin' all that fancy testin', that diaper would have to be much, much bigger (hey-oh!).

The dots represent anatomical points that will appear on a computer used to map Terrelle's specific movements. This technology should sound familiar to video gamers; motion capture technology has been around for quite some time. Instead of using this data to graphically represent Terrelle breaking you on NCAA 2010, it will be used by Ohio State to better understand the stresses Terrelle will place on various anatomical trouble points, and will presumably aid in injury prevention.

In related news, Ohio State University has now partnered with the U.S.S.R. in a groundbreaking study of athletics and kineseology.

Whatever he hits, he destroys!

HT to Ozone for the pic.