{"id":167,"date":"2016-10-31T20:53:22","date_gmt":"2016-10-31T20:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bigtenelimination.com\/?p=167"},"modified":"2017-11-28T20:56:30","modified_gmt":"2017-11-28T20:56:30","slug":"10-31-16-a-tale-of-two-theories-or-the-big-ten-sucks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigtenelimination.com\/index.php\/2016\/10\/31\/10-31-16-a-tale-of-two-theories-or-the-big-ten-sucks\/","title":{"rendered":"10\/31\/16 – A tale of two theories or… The Big Ten Sucks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alright, the fans (there were two of them so I can use plural here) have asked for it.\u00a0 At least one more week of brilliant analysis for you to ignore.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Well I have two theories… Let’s start out with the depressing one:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Big<\/span>\u00a0Ten<\/span>\u00a0is bad at football this year.\u00a0 Two weeks ago it looked like there were 3 near elite teams.\u00a0 Wisconsin looked strong with a win against LSU and close losses to Ohio State and Michigan.\u00a0 Ohio State had a win against (thought to be good) Oklahoma.\u00a0 Michigan beat (thought to be good) Wisconsin and burried everyone else including (still thought to be decent) Colorado.\u00a0 But then… Ohio state loses to bad Penn State and struggles with Northwestern… They’re looking more like a good team that’s played average opponents than a great team with one fluke game…\u00a0 This makes Wisconsin’s close loss less impressive…\u00a0 Plus they struggled with Nebraska this week which I think is probably one of the weakest top 10 teams in recent memory.\u00a0 I mean, yeah you have to rank 7-0 Nebraska at number 8 in the country, but come on, was their schedule really any more difficult than undefeated Western Michigan? \u00a0(The answer is no, because Oregon sucks) \u00a0Wisconsin’s other close loss (to Michigan) also looks less impressive… which brings me to Michigan.\u00a0 The offense this week looked excellent.\u00a0 Speight made two bad passes (his typical bad first pass of the game where he overthrew Drake Harris by 5 yards, and the interception in the 3rd that probably prevented a blowout).\u00a0 Other than that the offense really couldn’t be stopped.\u00a0 They didn’t have to punt until the 4th quarter.\u00a0 And yes Michigan only scored 3 points in the second half, but almost every play they ran worked until the before mentioned interception.\u00a0 After that the offense pretty much played “we’re up 3 scores in the fourth, don’t lose the game.” \u00a0The defense, on the other hand, looked bad.\u00a0 Lots of missed tackles.\u00a0 The previously absent MSU offensive line looked dominant, especially early.\u00a0 MSU opened the game with a 7 minute TD drive because Michigan couldn’t stop the run. \u00a0(Also, thanks a lot for that because an early 7 minute drive means that for the rest of the game that jackass with the red hat comes out for a commercial break every time there’s a break to move the chains… This game took 18 hours.\u00a0 The defense picked it up after that a bit… They made some key stops especially in the red zone but were by no means lights out.\u00a0 Michigan Slappies were saying that MSU was getting away with egregious holding in the second half.\u00a0 I only saw the game from the stands so can’t comment on that statement.\u00a0 Bad news guys… Alabama is going to destroy whatever poor\u00a0Big<\/span>\u00a0Ten<\/span>\u00a0team makes it to the playoffs.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Or…<\/div>\n
Maybe there are four very good teams in the\u00a0Big<\/span>\u00a0Ten<\/span>.\u00a0 Maybe Nebraska plays down to their competition but can hang with the elite teams.\u00a0 Maybe Wisconsin is really really good but lost to 2 elite teams… They did beat LSU who is ranked with 2 losses despite firing their head coach mid year…\u00a0 Maybe Penn State isn’t terrible and OSU just had an off day on the road at night in Happy Valley.\u00a0 And maybe Northwestern is a solid team that just had a rough start (I mean… Western is ranked and undefeated shh… don’t think about Illinois State).\u00a0 Indiana and Maryland are decent teams with the ability to catch good teams off guard (that explains 3 of MSU’s losses)…. Maybe Michigan State held everything back in the first 7 weeks.\u00a0 Maybe they came out with a brand new playbook including blocking schemes and formations for 3 different quarterbacks. \u00a0(Seriously guys.. I know you hate Michigan but come on… bring out half of the stuff you did Saturday and you probably win most of those last 4 games) \u00a0Maybe Michigan is elite and is just the first team to face the real MSU.\u00a0 Rutgers and Purdue are still terrible… But maybe there is hope for the\u00a0Big<\/span>\u00a0Ten<\/span>.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Post note: I’ve heard lots of people (MSU fans at the game, U-M people online etc.) ripping apart Dantonio “giving up” and attempting that field goal.\u00a0 It was 4th and goal from the 15 with 10 min left in the game.\u00a0 Score is 30-10 MI.\u00a0 Now while I probably would go for a touchdown down 20 points in the 4th, I don’t think its the worst call in the world. \u00a04th and 15 is a long way to go for an offense that had already been stuffed repeatedly in the red zone.\u00a0 The field goal should have been a chip shot (there ya go Champion Peters) for Geiger.\u00a0 MSU scored a touchdown on their next possession.\u00a0 Had Geiger made the FG, MSU would only be down 10 points with 7:30 left in the game.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Also the call to go for 2 with 1 second left in the game to… hurt our pride? could literally only hurt MSU… Maybe that’s Dantonio’s vote for Heisman?<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alright, the fans (there were two of them so I can use plural here) have asked for it.\u00a0 At least one more week of brilliant analysis for you to ignore. Well I have two theories… Let’s start out with the depressing one:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigtenelimination.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigtenelimination.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigtenelimination.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigtenelimination.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigtenelimination.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bigtenelimination.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":168,"href":"https:\/\/bigtenelimination.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions\/168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigtenelimination.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigtenelimination.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigtenelimination.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}