Preview Review '07: Projected Dregs

Every year I take a look back at the things I said about various Big Ten teams in their team previews. Last year's efforts:

• Projected Dregs
• Nougaty Middle I
• Nougaty Middle II
• The Very, Very Wrong

Only six months later than last year! Next year's preview review is scheduled for January of 2010.

Minnesota

I was one of many calling for the complete implosion of Glen Mason's program after a charmed year saw the Gophers finish first nationally in turnover margin despite having no defense:

Minnesota, a team virtually without a defense, managed a whopping 32 takeaways last year and lost an incredibly low three fumbles. Luck was a lady to the Gophers last year and they were still fortunate to finish 6-7. Now the Gophers are installing a spread offense, deploying a quarterback with no experience whatsoever, and continuing to deploy a defense that will not be good at football. This stat will collapse, and with it Minnesota's fortunes.

The season forecast was grim indeed:

They were not. They were outgained by their opponents by 50 yards a game, and the true Lovecraftian depths their defense descended to were masked by an outpouring of opponent generosity that will not repeat. The three best player's on last year's offense are gone. There are no suitable replacements at quarterback, and the run game that has long been the rock Minnesota planted its flag upon has been discarded. ...

There is one conclusion here: disaster.

...and this was what projected as "disaster":

Minnesota blows one of its non-conference games, scrapes a win in conference, and ends up 4-7.

Oops. I meant "Minnesota blows all of everything, loses to a transitional I-AA team, scrapes a win, and Brewster still manages to call it a bowl-worthy season."

This was pretty much dead-on, if not quite apocalyptic enough, but other parts of the preview were wrong. The entire opening section was devoted to mocking Minnesota's decision to dump their most successful coach since that bizarre string of national titles in the Pleistoscene era. A complete evisceration of the program featured:

The gift of gab is the key to Brewster's ascension. He's scandalously light on actual coaching accomplishments but has a reputation as a "monster recruiter." Assuming that he will raise the level of talent Minnesota brings in is a dubious proposition based on fine work he did under Mack Brown's tutelage. Recruiting Vince Young to Texas is an entirely different matter than recruiting him to Minnesota. The Gophers have made a serious misstep by bringing in a neophyte with a rep as a recruiter instead of someone who can spin straw into gold. Because Minnesota, recruiter or no, is going to see lots of straw.

As the Dude said, how are you gonna keep them on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus? Minnesota may have more natural disadvantages than any other BCS program. The Gophers must compete with the Wild, Twins, Vikings, and Timberwolves in Minneapolis. Hockey-mad Minnesota provides scanty harvests of recruits and a forbidding, polar bear laden climate that hampers out of state efforts. (Minnesota is the only school with a I-A football program that plays second fiddle to hockey.) Since the Earth's poles reversed in the 60s and robbed Minnesota of whatever crazy leyline mojo (@ right) they were working when they were a national power, Gopher football has been one long string of unrelenting failure. Their last Big Ten title was 40 years ago, the longest drought in the conference.* And though they're finally getting their own stadium, for now they are stuck in the antiseptic Metrodome. Even the new place will feel minuscule compared to most other Big Ten stadia at only 50k, and "TCF Bank Stadium" does not exactly scream tradition. There will be a brief burst of interest when the place opens; if (when?) Minnesota's fortunes fail to improve attention will scatter to the multitudinous other options. In the 29 years between that last Big Ten title and the Mason era, the Gophers high water mark is seven wins, accomplished all of thrice and not since 1985. They should take the crappy bowl bids and occasional flicker of excitement provided by Mason and be happy. History indicates that this is as good as it gets for the Gophers.

A bonus prediction was thrown in after the forecast of onfield doom:

Bonus prediction: their recruiting class is no better than a typical Mason effort and Brewster is bounced after four years of Wacker ball. But, hey, at least they'll get two shots at eviscerating a youthful Michigan hockey team this year.

This was doubly wrong: Brewster recruited extraordinarily well by Minnesota standards and the Gopher hockey team sucked. The jury remains very much out on whether the maniacally optimistic tight end expert can do anything other than recruit, but Minnesota's class actually had four-star players in it, some of them from places like Texas and Indiana. At the very least, Minnesota will be interesting in four years instead of dire.

Michigan State

MGoBlog's favorite schtick is taking the previous year's Michigan State preview introduction, slightly changing the details based on Michigan State's season, and predicting a mediocre season that finishes within one game of .500. Check. Michigan State did manage to squeak into a bowl game by beating Penn State in the Big Ten's fiercest rivalry, but a loss to Boston College saw them end up 7-6.

The preview was basically accurate when it came to the offense: Hoyer a "competent game manager in the mold of John Stocco" and "a good bet to be average", Ringer "one of the most talent backs in the conference." The offense in summary: "adequacy is probable." Michigan State was 42nd in total offense, which is pretty adequate. Only a couple things were off. I dismissed Jehuu Caulcrick as a third-and-short specialist with no other useful applications, which sold him short, and there was only a brief mention of JUCO transfer "Devon" Thomas, who would be a first round pick. All in all, though, it was a good effort.

Some things were way off, though:

Delightfully wrong. The firing of immensely entertaining John L Smith came as a blow to pundits and fans across the midwest, especially when a burned Michigan State athletic department tapped a man who seemed to be the eccentric Smith's polar opposite:

Unsurprisingly but much to the chagrin of everyone except Michigan State fans, John L is gone. Into his cowboy boots steps Mark Dantonio, formerly of Cincinnati and Ohio State. He is the antithesis of JLS: a defensive coordinator from a traditional power who is as exciting as toast. JLS spent his offseasons climbing Kilimanjaro or jumping out of planes; Dantonio's summer was highlighted by an appearance in Faith Magazine, which is unfortunately not a Georgie Michael fanzine but rather a bonafide religious magazine my mother gets. According to Faith, Dantonio has is priorities straight:

Faith is more important than winning to Michigan State University's head coach

If he turns out to be something less than Nick Saban, that's probably a good philosophy to take into the job.

Dantonio didn't slap himself in public, but he did prove to be more weirdly entertaining than Faith made him out to be. Over the course of the year, Dantonio

• installed a clock that counts down to the Michigan game,
• asked how long Michigan State would 'bow down' to Michigan, giving M fans a new catchphrase to stand the test of time, and
• made fun of Mike Hart's height three days after his team had spectacularly imploded and lost.

As theorized in the final link above:

But seriously folks, the one thing the Michigan State program needed was a monomaniacal focus on Michigan. It needed a coach who would install a countdown clock to their eighth straight loss in the series. It needed a man who would stand up and say "you know what, guys? All those other games we play are stupid and we shouldn't try very hard in them." It needed a guy who would teach his resilient troops to follow his example by bitching to the assembled media a full two days after his team blew it again. It needed a man who could forge them into a cohesive unit capable of picking up critical personal fouls at the very worst time possible. See, the problem with Michigan State is that occasionally they enter the fourth quarter of games leading. And Michigan State needs a man who can blow that lead, preferably in really, really painful fashion.

Friends, Mark Dantonio is that man.

Not delightfully wrong. Michigan State's defensive line wasn't great but I gave them a "1", citing their awful defensive tackles and shallow defensive ends. This on the man who would become known as the (hur) "sackmaster" is particularly off:

On the other side, juniors Brandon Long and Jonal Saint-Dic will attempt to hold off JUCO transfer Michael Jordan. Long and Saint-Dic's sell-by dates have expired. Both were mediocre recruits -- Long picked MSU over a selection of MAC schools, Saint-Dic was a lightly-regarded JUCO -- who couldn't bust into a crappy defensive line in two years of trying. Long retains a bit more upside as a true junior, but he'll be a vastly undersized defensive end if he starts. Either projects to be bad.

St. Dic had ten sacks, though I should point out he was overrated by the Musbergers of the world: six of his sacks came against the wretched passing offenses of Bowling Green, Pitt, and Notre Dame and he only had four sacks in conference play. He had only three TFLs outside those sacks. He didn't warrant a nickname.

But Michigan State did finish 14th in sacks and 30th in rushing defense thanks in large part to its front seven. I gave both the DL and the linebackers ratings of "1". Oops. How could I not, though?

Everything you need to know about the Spartan linebackers in three handy sentences:

Every college football team has one - a 200-pound starting linebacker with a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, clinically diagnosed hyperactivity, classical piano skills and absolutely no interest in sports. On second thought, Jon Misch has to be the first. ... Misch was the surprise of spring ball, and he enters fall camp solidly entrenched as the starter at strong-side linebacker.

Every indicator indicates that Jon "Samurai" Misch is going to suck and suck hard. He was a two star recruit out of metro Detroit power Orchard Lake St Mary -- no reason he'd be overlooked like a guy from Houghton or Guatemala or something -- who was credited with a 4.7 40 at 195 pounds. That 40 has not improved:

The 6-foot-2 Misch - who gleefully weighed in Tuesday at an all-time high of 207 - runs the 40-yard dash in 4.89 seconds.

He had one other offer: Eastern Michigan. Now he's a starting linebacker at 200 pounds as a redshirt freshman. Not only that, a starting strongside linebacker! If he's not awful I'll eat my hat. Hidden upside: slight but real chance he flips out and gets a bunch of personal fouls for ninja kicking various people in the head.

Misch got booted out of his starting spot by promising freshman Greg Jones; on the weakside redshirt freshman Eric Gordon supplanted the disappointing SirDarean Adams. There were no indications from the coaches or the reporters covering the team that either could or would happen.

One of the persistent annoyances with doing these previews is the emergence of stars that no one even mentioned in the preseason. Most previews take the relentlessly positive fluff put out by coaches (remember this from Lloyd Carr...

Johnny Sears has had an outstanding fall. ... He made some great plays on the kickoff. He's a guy that plays without any fear. He's a very tough, hard-nosed player, and I think he's really matured at the corner.

?) and regurgitate it without providing any critical evaluation, so it's impossible to tell when a player is actually likely to break out and when he's just getting a preseason confidence boost before he gets burnt. And how are you supposed to predict when a Saint-Dic or a Greg Jones or a Devin Thomas comes along without any actual information? I don't know. That's why I use big sweeping heuristics, I guess.

So, yeah, I broke my own iron-clad rule and said MSU would go 4-8, though I was "tempted to consider Michigan State's inherent Michigan State-ness and predict one massive upset that gets them within a game of .500." That is my bad, as they say.

Indiana and Iowa

...were not previewed due to time constraints, as they had rotated off Michigan's schedule.

Northwestern

...was also not previewed, which was no doubt a major reason the Wildcats were this close to an
upset before a late avalanche of turnovers did them in.

Preview Review: The Very, Very Wrong

Last in a series exploring MGoBlog's season previews. Previously: Dregs / Soft Nougaty Middle I / Soft Nougaty Middle II. Full Michigan postmortem coming over the next couple weeks, starting with a midweek Rose Bowl UFR not recommended for children and the elderly.

Iowa

No headliners remain on the Iowa defense after two years in which graduation has taken Matt Roth, Jonathan Babineaux, Abdul Hodge, and Chad Greenway to the NFL, but the Hawkeyes have star power on the other side of the ball in Drew Tate (the flingingest quarterback this side of the Pecos), Albert Young, and Albert Young's cadaverous ACL. The offensive line is either experienced or OMG shirtless. The defensive line looks poised to resume the terror of the Roth-Babineaux days. The defensive back seven? Well, you can't have everything. There are indeed ominous holes at corner and linebacker.

Despite that, viewers should be prepared for a faceful of Tate this year.

I am thinking of starting up a new service to monetize the blog: each year I accept donations from fans of the three or four Big Ten teams that are getting a medium amount of top-25/Citrus-type hype. Whichever teams coughs up the least dough is treated to the full-on MGoBlog Inexplicable Mancrush season preview treatment and thus a disappointing season that ends somewhere around .500. We're two for two now. In 2005, I predicted that we'd all be eating oatmeal under pictures of our new Dear Leader Joe Tiller as Brandon Kirsch rocked our world and his OSU-M-free schedule en route to the Rose Bowl. Instead, Purdue went to the No Bowl. This year, I decided that Iowa was going to win the Big Ten (close! they were 2-6) and placed them #2 in my preseason Blogpoll.

In conclusion, I suck and am awful.

Betrayed! Drew Tate is the primary reason I was led astray. I was sold by his 2005 vivisection of Michigan -- a game the Hawkeyes somehow managed to lose despite Tate playing out of his mind -- and got caught up in, you know, the copious evidence that Tate was a killer QB:

Drew Tate is one of the best quarterbacks in the country no matter your preferred metric. He has the numbers: two straight years with around 2800 yards passing, a completion percentage hovering around 62 percent, and 22 touchdowns to only 7 interceptions last year. He has the accolades: two years on the All Big Ten teams. And for those who like talking in vague generalities, he is the very avatar of "heart" or "moxie" or whatever you people call it.

Tate must have gotten intensive offseason coaching from Courtney Sims, because he regressed badly as a senior. His interceptions shot up to 13; his touchdowns, completions, and yardage dipped despite having the exact same number of attempts his junior and senior years. Too often he would flash his essential Tate-ness only to throw a hideous Favre-ian interception or wildly overthrow or underthrow his receiver. I plead "inexplicable" here.

Right Idea, Wrong Guy. I closed my eyes and pointed at a melanin-deficient wide receiver to take up Ed Hinkel's mantel, but hit the wrong target:

Redshirt freshman Trey Stross is distinctly Caucasian and thus is guaranteed to be Iowa's annual Inexplicably Great White Receiver at some point in his career. It also helps that Stross displayed velvet hands and great leaping ability in high school.

There was no IGWR for Iowa this year -- no doubt part of their malaise, it's like Michigan without an Immobile Water Buffalo at QB -- until the Alamo Bowl, when Andy Brodell caught a couple short passes and shocked the distinctly melanin-blessed Texas secondary by running his pale ass into the endzone like he was Ted Ginn.

I think this was almost right-ish. I praised the Iowa offensive line's returning starters but worried about a true sophomore stepping into the most critical job on the line:

So those guys have a ton of experience if a fairly uncertain notion of where, exactly, they're supposed to line up before each play. Jones is the most talented, having burst into the starting lineup as a true freshman. He finds himself a preseason All Big Ten pick by The Sporting News (TSN, understandably confused, named him the fifth best guard in the country), Lindy's, and Blue Ribbon. Yanda and Elgin are both somewhere between competent to good. But there is the niggling issue of center and, oh, left tackle. ... True sophomore Dace Richardson is projected to start at left tackle. .... A large portion of the Hawkeye's success this year relies upon how effective last year's crash course as a collegiate lineman was.

Injury and the shuffling it forced opened holes all over Iowa's OL, but when healthy they were the portion of the team least likely to be a major issue.

Half understandable, half stupid. I liked Iowa defensive ends Brian Mattison and Ken Iwebema:

Junior defensive ends Ken Iwebema and Bryan Mattison were both disruptive forces as sophomores, combining for 19.5 TFL and 11 sacks. Iwebema found his way on the the media's selections for first team All Big Ten. While that may say more about the media than Iwebema in a year that featured Tamba Hali, Lamarr Woodley, and Mike Kudla, it does indicate his impressive talent.

IIRC, Iwebema suffered through some academic or disciplinary suspensions or demotions early in the season. Later, a shoulder injury sidelined him for a few games. The result was a disappointing three sacks in limited time. Mattison was excellent against Ohio State and Michigan but his 6.5 sacks were not enough to make up for the disappointing back seven. I gave the unit as a whole a 4:

A repeat of last year's performance will not be enough for the defensive line, however. Minus Hodge and Greenway and with shaky cornerbacks the line will have get more pressure on the quarterback against tough opponents than the did a year ago, when Iowa had one three yard sack against OSU and none against Michigan. If that happens again this year games against good opponents will dissolve into shootouts that Iowa would like to avoid.

You can replace "good opponents" in that last sentence with just "opponents." I thought the DL would be good enough to cover for the rest of the defense. It wasn't.

Just wrong.

The linebackers won't be a liability.

Wrong. They were. Iowa ended up 57th in rushing defense. Though Mike Klinkenborg had an awesome name and a lot of tackles, he and his compatriots made precious few actual plays: two sacks and around 20 TFLs for the entire unit. Many of their tackles were of the variety five to eight yards downfield. Many were missed. They weren't good.

But not quite as un-good as these guys!

Adam Shada... well... is from Nebraska, if you know what I mean. He would have to buck an awful lot of history for a guy from Nebraska to become a standout corner on the collegiate level, especially as an unheralded recruit. Many cite his three interceptions from a year ago as reason to believe in his ability, but interceptions are usually fluky events and should not be relied upon for projection. Meanwhile, Godfrey was bouncing to and from safety as recently as last year and seems to have moved to corner because Iowa has no alternatives. It is always, always, always a bad sign when a player goes from backup safety to starting corner over the course of one offseason. Mediocrity here would be great.

Shada, despite his essential Nebraska-ness, was Iowa's best corner. Charles Godfrey picked up Grant Mason disease and finished third on the team in tackles, a sure sign that you're excellent at giving up eight yards on third and six. He was awful. And though Shada was better, it was he who was fluttering at the edge of the frame when highlights of James Hardy's million-touchdown day were broadcast to a shocked Official MGoBlog Residence. The "2" bestowed was correct, though underrated when attempting to assess the team as a whole.

Worst what? Yeah, Iowa was three games worse than the "Worst Case" scenario presented:

Maybe the run defense disintegrates without Greenway and Hodge, but I doubt it. If it does then some wonky corners could make the Iowa defense eminently perforable again. Throw in a lot of drops from the wide receivers, the complete implosion of Richardson, and a lot of bad luck... and Iowa's still very good with a favorable schedule. 9-3.

Yeeeesh. But you know what's even more embarassing? This:

The only downers are a trip to Michigan and the shame that the national championship game is in Arizona instead of New Orleans, which prevents what would have been a beautiful joke about Tates and beads.
...
Iowa gets OSU in the most favorable spot possible and catches the Buckeyes early in the season when their defense still figures to be breast-feeding. Iowa wins that game, loses to either Michigan or one of the "probable wins" category, and coasts to the Rose Bowl at 11-1.

Coasts to the Rose Bowl! Never listen to anything I say again.

Ohio State

Best Title Ever:

Ohio State: National Chumpions! ZING!

If you ignore the actual content of this preview and pretend that the entirety of my preseason OSU prediction was "national chumpions," then it's the most accurate preview of OSU anywhere. Unfortunately, I kept going.

So I guess it's somewhat logical that when Texas loses that Vince Young guy and OSU returns that Troy Smith guy you put OSU #1 to start the season, but, uh... nine defensive starters, one reliable kicker, and two first round draft picks on offense depart and that doesn't bother anyone? Ohio State -- Ohio freakin' State -- is starting a senior walk-on who has never played a down on defense at cornerback and this raises not an eyebrow? Okay then. I have a hunch that assumptions were made: the secondary will reload. The pass rush will continue. The linebackers will be equally fierce. Ted Ginn can be a primary threat as a receiver.

But I digress. If the media was replaced with a parallel-universe version of itself that senselessly overrated the defensive side of the ball and placed great emphasis on special teams and place OSU 15th or something this intro section would be all "but wait: Marcus Freeman, a mess of five defensive ends from which someone good will emerge, and a longstanding tradition of excellence on D." The Buckeyes have many alluring qualities that nearly offset that walkon-at-corner thing.

But not quite.

This looked way worse before the MNC game.

No doubt horrible bias. One of the assertions that haunted me through the season was this assessment of Antonio Pittman:

Right: not impressed by Antonio Pittman, much to the amusement of Ohio State fans. It's hard to judge his '05 season because there wasn't much data to be had against good run defenses. It appeared to me that he was good at running through big holes and falling down when contacted but struggled to make extra yards. He's not terrible, but I don't think he's anything that, say, Jason Teague wasn't. Ohio State fans fresh off the Mo Hall era may be confusing competence for superstardom.

Pittman was and is better than that, otherwise he wouldn't be off to the NFL. He definitively showed his speed a few times this year -- and let's not talk about that -- but more impressive was his patience setting up his blockers and understanding of how plays were going to develop. I underrated him at the beginning of the year.

Recycling the goat quote. Doug Datish has a career in broadcasting waiting for him if there's a God. Again IIRC, he was the Buckeye who let loose with some hilarious smack about Notre Dame late in the year -- sadly, I can't turn it up on Google... help appreciated. In the preseason he dropped this about Quinn Pitcock:

Datish describes Pitcock with the best quote I've seen in a long time:

"I've hated blocking Quinn since I got here," Datish said. "He's like a goat. I think his legs should be reversed because he’s got that weird leverage thing to them. I don't know if there’s anybody better in the country."

He's not much of a penetrator but he occupies blockers with the best of them. Patterson's numbers -- 7.5 TFLs and 4 sacks -- look good for a DT, but he played end last year. Three of those sacks came in the Michigan State game, when Stephon Wheeler went out and the Red Sea caved in on Drew Stanton. (On the fourth he bowled over Jake Long to sack Henne.) His move inside makes sense since he was oversized -- 285 pounds -- and not a threat to come around the edge at end. Inside he can use his push and technique to get into the backfield as others take the edge. He's sort of a poor man's Alan Branch.

While Patterson as a poor man's Alan Branch seems a highly adept analogy, describing Pitcock as "not much of a penetrator" but a guy who "occupies blockers with the best of them" is just wrong. I did pan the ineffective Jay Richardson and pump up Gholston:

The pass rush will have to come from elsewhere, probably Cass Tech alum Vernon Gholston. In '04 Gholston was a sleeper recruit described as incredibly athletic (I've seen this picture way too often -- some creepy guy at BuckeyePlanet used it as his sig) but equally raw. Two years later he's apparently progressed better than Alain Kashama did and fought his way into the starting lineup ahead of a couple highly touted recruits. OSU's proven that they can mold defensive linemen; with Gholston's evident natural ability he'll probably be good sooner or later.

So bully for me. This unit came in as a "4," and that was a fair reflection of their talent, IMO.

Animal, etc. Your opinion of my opinion in this section will closely track with your opinion of my opinion about James Laurinaitis (totally overrated):

There's going to be a dropoff here or I'm taking my blog and going home. Freeman should be at least good, though he may be playing out of position due to shortcomings in the other two linebackers. Dispatch blogger Heath Schneider theorizes that the LB switch means Kerr is doomed and true freshman Ross Homan will end up starting once his hamstring injury is healed. Buckeye fans are salivating over Homan but the gurus were pretty meh about him and as a true freshman recovering from an injury if he starts it's a bad sign for this year.

Laurinatis obviously shows a lot of potential to start in front of highly touted JUCO recruit Larry Grant, but he's not AJ Hawk. If he is I'll cry. Kerr... who knows? I have my doubts about him. I think Grant's recruitment -- JUCOs are unusual at OSU -- speaks to question marks about the depth, especially outside, and there's a fair chance that this unit ends up disappointing. Freeman and the rep Tressel and OSU have earned keep this at a three, but it's not all roses and reloading here.

Kerr was indeed a weak spot, often kept off the field by nickel packages, Grant, and Homan. Freeman did not live up to the hype I and recruiting gurus provided; Laurinaitis exceeded it, though not to the extent Brent Musberger and silly awards committees would have you believe. All told there was a major dropoff, though soft competition and boatload of turnovers disguised that somewhat. Still: Mike Hart finally got loose. PSU, Texas, and Iowa (to an extent) all ran effectively against the Buckeyes. Tim Tebow, when not getting stomped on, was bulling his way forward. This was not the Hawk crew. And thank God for that.

Not so good. The Buckeye secondary was projected as dire; it was not. Malcolm Jenkins, dismissed in the preview...

True sophomore Malcolm Jenkins "wants to be in contention for the Thorpe Award this year because it means he will be helping the Buckeyes win," which is nice but fanciful. He was a meh recruit two years ago thrust into action as the Buckeyes nickelback due to a severe lack of depth in the defensive backfield. ... He was invisible during the games I saw. That's to be expected for a middling recruit pressed into service as a freshman but it also indicates that Jenkins has a way to go to replace the services of Youbouty. He'll improve, but to improve enough to be an impact corner would be a major leap forward.

...emerged as one of the Big Ten's better corners (though he's clearly a notch or two behind Justin King and Jack Ikegwuonu amongst those returning next year) and took that "major leap forward." Projected disaster and former walk-on Antonio Smith, his partner, was all right, though torched against Michigan.

Overall... Summary section:

Given the schedule the offense probably will be statistically explosive. Only four teams figure to have defenses that can even think of running with Ginn, Smith, et al. Given Tressel's tendency to play Lloydball in tight spots, though, the Bucks might not get all they might out of said really fast guys until the need to score is clear.

The defense is going to drop off significantly. This should not be a controversial statement when one of the most dominant Ds in recent college football memory loses nine starters and figures to start a secondary with almost no experience whatsoever. If Gholston does not produce, OSU is going to find itself exposing that secondary by blitzing or allowing itself to get picked apart. I find myself torn: it seems improbable that the OSU defense is going to be mediocre, but it seems equally improbable that patchwork secondary is going to be anything but.

And I said they'd go 10-2. This was obviously a couple games short, though within the bounds of Best Case/Worst case. I do think the D dropped off immensely, but a weak schedule and a ridiculous spate of forced turnovers at opportune times served to conceal the weaknesses therein until OSU's final two games of the season. I vacillate between these two scenarios for next year's OSU team:

• All of OSU's returning starters will improve and they'll regain their badass D of '05.
• Laurinaitis' strengths are wiped out because OSU hasn't recruited anyone capable of replacing their two defensive tackles. The turnovers dry up. The secondary is still pretty good, but a critical weakness in the middle of the field forces safeties up to help with the run and it's average.

Dunno which of these I think yet.

Preview Review: Nougaty Middle II

Penn State

General Tenor: What the hell was that? That can't happen again, right?

It's reasonable to declare Penn State's repeat hope dead (Jim), but there's life in '05's corpse yet with Derrick Williams, Levi Brown, and the three-headed Cerberus at linebacker. If Anthony Morelli has a Flowers-for-Algernon leap forward, if the offensive line is stunningly competent, and if any sort of pass rush materializes Penn State could do it again.

You will note none of these things happened even a little bit aside from the pass rush, which happened in spades (Penn State finished 8th in the country in sacks).

Morelli. If memory serves, the thing I got bashed most heavily for across nine previews was my outlook on Anthony Morelli:

Taken together, Facts About Anthony Morelli bode unwell for Penn State's chances for a repeat. He's a raw recruit with no experience coached by the most widely reviled son this side of Jeff Bowden being handed the starting job in an offense that has to change drastically to accommodate his talents.

Er... good luck with that.

In short:

HE GON' SUCK!

This he did, completing under 54% of his passes and compiling a 10-8 TD-INT ratio en route to finishing 85th in passer rating. The defining image of Morelli (other than being buried by Alan Branch) was a ball floated into triple coverage against OSU that turned into the easiest pick-six Brandon Mitchell's ever going to see.

Alas. I did a few players wrong before the season, but none more so than poor Tony Hunt:

Starter Tony Hunt is a trier who can run over the unprepared linebacker but is a long way from a gamebreaker. He's thoroughly average; even PSU's official site says he possesses a "hard-running, straight-ahead" style, though they claim a "big play burst" that has never materialized in front of my eyes unless you'd like to count a terrible angle by freshman Brandon Harrison a year ago. Penn State partisans will no doubt point to his 6.0 yards per carry as evidence of his explosiveness, but let's review: Cincinnati's, Central Michigan, Northwestern, &c. This is a case in which the stats are being very naughty and fibbing with elan. Hunt is okay and no more.

Not true. Hunt's still not a star, but he carried the Penn State offense on his shoulders, often accompanied by two bewildered linebackers. Saddled with an erratic quarterback, no deep threat at wide receiver, and a vaporware offensive line, Hunt could have been excused if he muddled his way to an 800-yard season. Instead, he ended up averaging over 100 yards per game and driving Penn State to victories over Minnesota, Purdue, and Michigan State. The Nittany Lions are playing on New Year's Day mostly because of him.

NSFMF at wide receiver.

[Derrick] Williams is on a stardom vector that only more unfortunate injuries can derail.

...not so much. It's hard to tell whether Williams' uninspiring numbers -- 37 catches for 413 yards and one touchdown, worse than perpetually maligned Steve Breaston's 51-555-1 -- were more his fault or that of Morelli and the line. Survey says "both". While no receiver would have had a banner year when any pattern longer than six yards was a probable sack, the bloom has fallen off the Williams rose as he struggles to transition from Guy Who Was Faster Than Everyone Guy to an actual receiver. At this point in his career, Breaston is an apt and frightening comparison for Penn State fans.

Yadda Yadda: general line abdication, though I gave them a generous 3 on the strength of Levi Brown and a couple promising newbies. That was closer to a 1. Slam-dunk on the linebackers as a 5, said the secondary would be okay, King would struggle transitioning from WR but end up a star eventually -- he got there about a half-season earlier than I thought.

Cobbled together. Penn State's aforementioned sack parade was an anomalous one: they got almost no help from every defense's designated sack demon, the defensive end -- unless you want to count erstwhile linebacker Tim Shaw, who was moved to an odd standup DE position midway through the year. They got most of their pressure from blitzing linebackers and defensive tackles. This was forecast:

The PSU defense will still be good, but great (again) is asking too much. When you can choke out the opponent's run game consistently you are going to be one of the better defenses in the country, but I would be surprised if Penn State got much of anything from their defensive ends this year. Penn State will have to generate much of their pass rush via the blitz, which will leave them open to exploitation and drive that pass efficiency defense down, especially with a raw secondary that will spend the first half of the season finding its legs.

This poses considerable concern going into next year if Dan Connor leaves for the NFL. All the players PSU returns are either named Sean Lee or have been bad to date.

Final Verdict on the Final Verdict:

Hope exists in the form of Morelli's recruiting rankings, Levi Brown, and Derrick Williams, but recent evidence indicates that the only time in the last five or so years Penn State has been able to cobble together a semblance of offense has been with veterans everywhere and a pounding ground game. This offense figures to have neither.

A step back is coming, though it won't be as disastrous as the '03-'04 seasons. A large portion of the blame for those years falls squarely on the shoulders of noodle-armed Zach Mills and Robinson, who were so inept that passing was not an option for two solid years. I do think Morelli will disappoint, but he would have to implode to send the PSU offense all the way back to the bad old days.
...
Adding it up yields 8-4.

The most accurate prediction proferred in this space, and something I beg you keep in mind when we get to -- gulp -- Iowa.

Purdue

General Tenor: Won't be good or anything, but it probably won't matter.

If Purdue is to return to the hallowed ground of the Music City or Sun or whatever their equally anonymous replacements are after the offseason bowl shuffle it'll be on the backs of their offensive line, which returns four starters from a good '05 unit, and the wide receivers, deeper than at any point in Tiller's tenure. Add in Kory Sheets and new quarterback Curtis Painter has a lot of ammunition at his disposal. He'll need it, as the defense is in chaos.

And how! I do my previews heuristically, based on a set of assumptions:

• Ignore anything a coach says unless it's negative.
• Turnovers are close to random.
  
• Recruiting rankings mean something, but not everything.
• Seniors who have never played are likely to be bad unless they have an excellent excuse.
• When a guy switches positions and is immediately a starter at his new position, project that group of players to be a disaster.
• Etc.
  

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Aaron Lane, the one-man case for the common-sense college football preview:

We do know that junior Aaron Lane is penciled in as the starter opposite King. Relevant facts on Lane:

• He's 5'8".
• He transferred from the University of Saint Francis to walk-on at Purdue.
• USF is an NAIA school.
• Lane was a little-used running back at USF.

O RLY? If Lane isn't completely overwhelmed they should make a movie about him starring a hobbit. And someone has to be the nickel and dime backs.

Anyone who didn't see Purdue's defensive implosion coming wasn't trying very hard. Purdue's one bright spot, DE Anthony Spencer...

Edwards and Rob Ninkovich are gone and unlike Void were good enough to draw NFL attention (both were mid-round picks). Gone with them is underrated defensive tackle Brandon Villarreal -- third on the team in tackles -- and running mate Brent Grover, leaving almost nothing in the way of proven talent. Senior defensive end Anthony Spencer is it. He was the a nominal starter going into last year, but Ninkovich wrested the job away from him. He managed 3 sacks and 7.5 TFL in limited time. In '04 he was the full time starter and a good one. He'll be fine.

...was more than "fine," leading the nation in TFL despite being the only half-decent player the Boilers had.

Offensively, I was not on the Curtis Painter bandwagon:

What does '06 hold for the now-sophomore Painter? Probably additional pain. Painter's iffy stats were gained against a who's-who of D-I's worst pass defenses (MSU, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois) and Penn State, who killed Painter to the tune of 6-17 for 60 yards. His last statistical reference point, high school, doesn't imply he'll make a great leap forward: as a senior he only completed 51% of his passes. The implication is that Painter's probably unsuited to Purdue's dink-and-dunk passing game, as he either failed at in in high school or was asked to bomb it deep instead. Either way it bodes unwell. Purdue should be happy if he makes gradual progress this year with an eye towards proficiency in '07.

This he did. Painter was a mediocre 43rd in passer efficiency, completing a meh 59% of his passes and throwing a whopping 18 interceptions despite missing the Michigan and Ohio State defenses. With Purdue's schedule difficulty taking a sharp uptick and much of Painter's offensive line gone, he'll have to run to stand still in 2007.

I did get the date of Painter's benching wrong:

Since the only things Joe Tiller likes more than yanking his starter are Quaker Oats and life insurance, you should get familiar with Boiler backup Joey Elliot so you can impress friends and relatives by detailing strengths (isn't the starting quarterback), and weaknesses (when inserted into the game he becomes the starting quarterback) during his inevitable relief appearance and two midseason starts before he finds his butt stapled to the bench again.

Miraculously, Painter made it through the entire season.

Oops. Total references to Dustin Keller:

There is a tight end: Dustin Keller had 13 catches a year ago.

With Kyle Ingraham suffering through an academic suspension, Keller was Purdue's second leading receiver with 55 catches and 751 yards. Even with Dorien Bryant graduating, Purdue's receiving corps is in very good hands with Ingraham, Keller, Selwyn Lymon, and Greg Orton. If Painter can get better and Purdue can find some dudes to block, yow.

Final Verdict on the Final Verdict. Again, please remember this later:

Predicting Purdue's season is, in essence, predicting Painter's. The defense might improve a bit over last year but the secondary looks amazingly bleak and this year there's no Edwards/Ninkovich duo on the edges. The offense, which was quietly all right a year ago despite the whole business with the quarterbacks, will have to score to keep up. With a veteran offensive line and a surplus of talent at the skill positions, it'll come down to Painter's ability to run the offense. Survey says "meh." Purdue figures to return to a bowl, but not a good one.

...

Predicting 8-5 can't be too far off, can it?

This was also much, much more accurate than 2005's Purdue preview, which was the most humiliating thing I've ever written except for, yes, the Iowa preview. Which is... next!

Preview Review 2006: Nougaty Middle I

Michigan State

General Tenor: Ha, ha, you're Michigan State.

If you were looking for a brief summary of the last thirty years of Spartan football, 2005 was your lucky year. It had everything you could want: a humiliating 35-point loss to Northwestern, heartbreak at the hands of Michigan, an incredible -- in the "this is too strange to possibly believe" sense -- special teams meltdown against an OSU team they should have beat, an unexpected victory over a quality opponent (Notre Dame), and a final collapse that prevented Michigan State from going to a bowl game -- one that involved a loss to Purdue and a 41-18 waxing at the hands of Minnesota. It had just the right mix of burgeoning hope with soul-mangling incompetence, the right mix of surprising success with surprising failure, the right mix of Duffy Daughterty with Bobby Williams. Michigan State's porridge is never too hot, never too cold, always just mediocre. On a micro level MSU is completely unpredictable week-to-week. On a macro level it's always Same Old Spartans.

This was followed by an excerpt from the previous year's preview, which was nearly identical save the niggling details of the season and this assertion:

I may never have to write a new Michigan State intro for as long as I live. Rotate in Rutgers, Lousiana Tech, Hawaii, or Central Michigan in the "humiliating loss" slot, occasionally move Michigan into the "unexpected victory" slot, find the most hilarious available collapse, lather, rinse, and repeat. In the rare event Michigan State finishes more than a couple games away from .500, simply blow it off as random chance and project a reversion to the mean the next year. Voila: preview.

Voila: review.

Next year's dilemma: which hilarious collapse? Michigan State managed to blow a million-point lead and the last shreds of Mike Valenti's sanity versus Notre Dame, but they also lost to Illinois.

We do have a slam-dunk for the unexpected victory: Michigan State's NCAA-record comeback versus Northwestern, which provided one of the year's most surprisingly poignant moments. When the final seconds ticked off the clock and the Spartans spilled onto the field, the uncomprehending joy on the faces of JLS and his (soon to be ex-) charges was pure.

Quarterback Misstep #1: Drew Stanton came in for a tongue-bathing.

Last year Drew Stanton (AKA "The Jesus") made a remarkable transformation from a crazy-legged scrambler who happened to occasionally throw with great accuracy to a great quarterback, period. He is accurate in the pocket or on the run, in total command of the Spartan offense, and still capable of taking off when the situation demands it. The numbers show it: Stanton finished 10th nationally in passer efficiency. The win-loss... eh, not so much, but one can only do so much when you are playing opposite a defense as offensive as Michigan State's.

What happened here? State's offense collapsed after the Notre Dame game -- during the Notre Dame game -- and hardly emerged for the rest of the season. Injuries to Matt Trannon, Javon Ringer, and several offensive linemen didn't help but Stanton, like the other QB named Drew in the conference, looked like a shadow of his former self. He morphed from an object of terror to one of pity.

Ah-ha! Potential source of offensive ineptititude:

The offensive line is the potential achilles' heel of the 2006 Spartans and its performance is the greatest variable in their upcoming season. Unfortunately for MSU, the early returns are not encouraging.

MSU finished 82nd in sacks allowed and couldn't run effectively on anyone except Notre Dame once Ringer went down.

Like predicting that there will be embarassing pictures of Britney Spears.I projected the Spartan defense to be bad at football. Defensive line:

In sum: one experienced, decent player in Ryan, and then a vast wasteland of guys who haven't ever seen a meaningful snap and were panned by recruiting gurus. Sure, they could be better.

Linebackers were adjudged "meh" and I didn't get off any rippin' one liners. Secondary:

Q: How do you know when your defensive backfield is in bad shape?

A: When a guy with a name "Cole Corey" is kicked off the team and this causes concern.

I also reiterated this slam-dunk in the "Final Verdict" section:

Without a miracle from several players on the defensive side of the ball they're just going to suck. Where does the pass rush come from? You can excuse Long for not showing up a year ago as a 230 pound true freshman, but Kershaw is much bigger, had a year of experience, and got four garbage-time tackles despite the complete lack of production from the starters. MGoBlog has a cardinal rule of player projection: if you're not a true freshman and you're stuck behind a terrible player on a terrible defense, there is a 90% chance you are a terrible player. The coaches have nothing to lose by trying a kid out in that situation -- is the defense really going to get worse? -- so if you find yourself watching the carnage, you are in no position to correct it. There will be no pass rush; the secondary is going to remain impotent.

104th in sacks, 110th in pass efficiency defense, 88th in total defense, 99th in scoring defense. (Note decency in rush D: 55th, though that could be an artifact of the pass defense.)

Final Verdict on the Final Verdict. My actual prediction, 7-5, turned out to be excessively optimistic. But I do want to point out this worst case scenario:

The spring practice was more indicative of the offensive line's ability than the defensive line's. Stanton scrambles for his life, Ringer's production drops, and the offense is average. The defense is just as brutal as expected, and a further series of hilarious Spartan mistakes loses a game or two. JLS goes 4-8 and gets some lovely parting gifts.

So I didn't foresee a loss to Illinois or Michigan State getting its collapse to the finish in ASAP this year, but come on... not bad, eh?

Wisconsin

General Tenor: I dunno.

So what will happen? I abdicate. I've spent hours combing stories, previews, player profiles, statistics, tarot cards, &c and have come up with nothing definitive. The OL could be great! It could be awful. The WRs could be great! They could be awful. The defense should rebound! Or maybe not. You'll get nothing definitive out of me on this team ready for mocking at season's end. Wisconsin will either be good or bad. If they are not, they will be average. Bold!

You could argue that we still don't know all that much about Wisconsin. The Badgers' best win is over Penn State. They played one ranked team, Michigan, and lost that game by two touchdowns.

I should have considered the Fat Wisconsin RB Factor. PJ Hill was the Big Ten's breakout star, but though I projected him as the starter I also dismissed him out of hand:

More disturbing than the tolerance shown for Stanley's behavior was that shown his totally inept running -- please don't pay attention to his approximately five yards a carry last year, as almost all of his carries were against the BGSUs and Hawaiis of the schedule -- as it indicates that his plodding, fall-over-at-slight-contact style was the best option left the Badgers when the ball didn't go to Calhoun. You can probably write off junior Jamil Walker and senior Dywon Rowan as a result. That leaves redshirt freshman PJ Hill as your projected starter. Hill seems to have Stanley's temper -- in February he was arrested for wielding a bat outside of a Wisconsin dorm -- and size at 235 pounds, but Wisconsin has to hope that he has something other than his talent-like substance. I have my doubts despite the puff-job coming from the coaches and media, as Bielema is talking about having four or five guys who are in competition for the job. Running backs are sort of like quarterbacks with greater amplitude: if you say you have five, you don't really have any.

This might have been wrong. It also might have been Wisconsin's typically crooshing offensive line paving vast lanes against the overmatched front sevens of the Big Ten. Against Michigan, Hill was swallowed alive, though he's far from alone there. In any case he warranted better than the "2" he got.

Er. And you were again? Travis Beckum didn't even get mentioned. No tight end did.

About that fat guy thing. On the OL:

Chalk it up to excessive Badger-related optimism, but this line seems like it'll transition smoothly enough to a new generation of impossibly huge guys paving the way for oft-overrated running backs. It will be rough at the start -- it has to, especially with the Thomas injury -- and thus the "3" rating, but I would look at it more as a 2-progressing-to-4 by year's end.

This was exactly right. The Wisconsin offensive line was largely responsible for UW's ugly offensive output against a selection of nonconference tomato cans and the Badgers' total inability to go forward against Michigan, but after the Michigan game Thomas, et al., figured things out and started battering opponents into goo.

Why? My personal hero, Wisconsin offensive line coach Bob Palcic:

Besides, how can you go wrong when you've got this guy...

Bob Dole. Bob Dole! BOB DOLE! ... is apparently UW's new offensive line coach. In yet another article about recruiting and text messaging, this passage made my day:

[Text messaging is] bad news for coaches like Bob Palcic, the newest hire on Bielema's first staff. Palcic, who was hired Monday to coach the Badgers' offensive line, said he barely knows how to use a cell phone, much less text messaging.

"If they do eliminate text messaging, that will be a positive for Bob Palcic," he said, "because I'm still just a guy who likes to talk to people on the telephone."

Bob Palcic's teaching the offensive linemen. Bob Palcic's going to the store. Bob Palcic's trying to mash the tiny buttons on a cell phone to tell some punk kid to have a good time tonight. Bob Palcic fought in 'Nam! Bob Palcic has a purple heart... Bob Palcic doesn't need this bullshit!

...as your offensive line coach? Bob Palcic fought in 'Nam!

Yes, that is three levels of blockquote nesting. But it's worth it.

Another omission. Virtually, anyway. Jack Ikegwuonu was mentioned here:

Cornerback Brett Bell graduates, leaving the position in the hands of two true sophomores, Allen Langford and Jack Ikegwuonu, who struggled a year ago.

That was all the mention a guy who ended the year on the extremely prestigious MGoBlog first team All Big Ten list. There were two main reasons Wisconsin finished the year #1 in pass efficiency defense:

• Incompetent opponent quarterbacks.
• Ikegwuonu.

A remarkable turnaround. Bret Bielema may be a bit of a meathead, but everywhere he's ever been has had a kickass defense save Wisconsin's 2005 unit, which struggled through a ton of injuries and finished an ugly 92nd. This year? #2. Schedule blah blah, sure, but that's a huge improvement and another notch on Bielema's belt.

Final Verdict on the Final Verdict. I projected 9-3 because of a weak schedule but didn't fully comprehend exactly how weak it would be. I think Wisconsin is about the team I thought they'd be save for a much better secondary than I gave them credit for and plus Travis Beckum. This...

The pain of losing Calhoun will be immense

... wasn't the best assertion, though. Middling to good. Bob Palcic fought in Nam!