BIG TEN SCORECARD AT THE HALFWAY POINT
Now that nearly everyone has half of their schedule behind them, this is a good time to go back and take a look at the updated scorecards for some summary statistics in our beloved conference.
Like last time, our first one will have passing, rushing and scoring offense and defense. After six games, here is how the conference shakes out:
The one thing I know most of you will zoom towards immediately are Michigan’s defensive numbers, all of which are firmly in the “green” and in each case, the best average in that category in the conference.
Looking at Michigan State, as it is that week, you can see that things aren’t what they used to be on defense in East Lansing. To see them giving up more than 100 yards on the ground on average per game is something I don’t think we’ve seen in a while. Indeed, that rushing defense is about in the middle of the conference, but then again, it isn’t Purdue or Maryland in that regard.
On offense, Michigan is what you might think right now – a bit below average in passing offense, a bit above the bar on rushing offense, and not at all surprisingly, about in the middle for scoring offense. Of course, the need to score a ton of points may not be urgent when you’re shutting down offenses, but scoring a goodly number of them is preferred all the same. Football can be funny that way.
Here are the current averages for kickoff and punt returns and coverage (again, you’re basically looking at average net here, so touchbacks do affect some of the numbers):
There is rather a lot of compression here, so it stands that, like the last time we saw these cards, this is a good punting conference. As for punt returns, the lesson is immediately apparent – DO NOT punt to Will Likely. On kickoff coverage, you can also see plenty of teams doing rather well on special teams, and then of course Michigan on kick returns, primarily thanks to one kick return in particular, is way ahead of everyone else at the moment.
Here are first and third down differentials:
Once again, aren’t you thankful that you are not Purdue or Maryland? Interestingly, they are the only teams where both differentials are in negative territory. Penn State breaks even on first downs and is slightly negative on their third down conversion differential. By contrast, there is of course Michigan, which is second in first down differential and first in third down conversion differential. When you’re forcing three and outs and controlling the ball for what seems like hours on end, it’s fairly easy to do that, I would think. Michigan State’s numbers in this respect are a bit un-MSU-like as well, so we’ll see if that holds on Saturday too.