Baylor keeps the trophy

With their 52-45 overtime victory, Baylor not only secured Bowl eligibility yesterday, they retained control of the jiMpossible-sarcasMike trophy.

Trophy games have not produced much defense this season. The average score has been 49.25 - 31.25.  The Bears host Oklahoma State next week.

Looking ahead the Big-12 Bowl tie-ins look something like this: (with Jerry Palm's predictions)

Champ - Fiesta (Kansas St)
2nd - BCS at-large (Oklahoma) not a guaranteed tie-in but likely
3rd - Cotton (Texas)
4th - Alamo (TCU)
5th - Buffalo Wild Wings (Oklahoma St)
6th - Holiday (Texas Tech)
7th - Meinecke Car Care (Baylor)
8th - Pinstripe (West Virginia)
9th - Heart of Dallas (Iowa State) this is not a Big12 tie-in but a predicted filled with a bowl eligible team.

I would guess from that list that Pal is predicting an Oklahoma State victory over Baylor.

Michigan vs. OSU prediction

M hasn't won in Columbus since 2000 when Drew Henson's bootleg secured the victory and helped usher in the Jim Tressel era. That was also the last time jiMpossible and I watched the Columbus version of the M-OSU game together. Once again, jiMpossible has decided to watch the game with family instead of securing victory by watching it with me.

That combined with my picking OSU back in January, all but seals the loss. The dual QB offense isn't quite as productive against a team that isn't Iowa. Denard leads M in rushing, scores his final regular season TD (one last kneel in the opposition endzone), but it isn't enough

M 20 OSU 31

But wait, maybe since in the above referenced January prediction I still thought M would make the  boneg championship game... with Iowa going all Iowa yesterday, M cannot play in that game, even with a victory. Maybe, just maybe...

M 20 OSU 23

still not enough...

Go Blue, prove me wrong!

OSU Prediction

M 21
OSU 39

For the good of the game

In the spirit of Ohio State petitioning the Obama administration to have their bowl ban lifted, I thought maybe it was time to petition for something more. I think we need an individual responsible for protecting college sports (specifically college football) from itself.

Here's what I have so far - let me know what you think:

Division 1 college football (FBS ) has become a jumbled mess of misaligned conferences full of vagabond teams chasing the all-mighty dollar. The Big TEN has 14 teams. Texas and Texas A&M will no longer play each other. Missouri and Kansas will no longer play each other. Penn State and Pittsburgh haven’t played each other regularly in years. Nebraska and Oklahoma – perhaps one of the top 2-3 rivalries of the 1970s and 80s was devalued by the creation of the Big 12 and has disappeared completely with Nebraska’s move to the Big1T4en. 

At what point will this end? The demolition two of the most dominant basketball conferences of the past 30 years the ACC and the Big East have shown that tradition and logic are thrown out the window to get a better football television deal.

Please exercise your executive power to create a College Football/Athletics Czar.  This position should have “For the good of the game” powers similar to what Bowie Kuhn wielded in 1970s MLB. At a minimum the Czar would have the power to review and restrict the movement of schools to illogical conferences and ideally would have the power to return conferences to something like the logical geography of the early 1990s.

Trophy heads to Waco

For the first time since 1991 the Baylor Bears are holders of the jiMpossible-sarcasMike Trophy. The Bears not only dashed the MNC hopes of the Wildcats, they also took the trophy 52-24.

Baylor is 10-10 all-time in trophy games. This is their 4th time holding the trophy.  In the 1957 Sugar Bowl, they knocked off Tennessee. They opened the 1957 season with 2 victories before falling to Miami on 10/5/1957.

Their trophy drought had reached 34 years before taking the trophy from Colorado on 9/14/1991. They rattled off 3 more wins before losing to Rice. Rice subsequently lost to TCU and the Bears re-took the trophy the next week from the Horned Frogs. They won again the the next week before a late season loss to Texas Tech sent the trophy away.

They had 4 chances to win the trophy in the intervening 21 years. They lost in 1997 to Nebraska, 1998 to Texas A&M, 2008 to Oklahoma State and earlier this season to West Virginia.

The remaining schedule for Baylor is next week hosting Texas Tech and they close the season hosting Oklahoma State. Not much has made sense in the Big Twelve this season, so there is still a lot of drama to come. That remaining schedule does guarantee a bowl visit for the Trophy as Baylor's opponents are already eligible and Baylor will be if they win out.

Iowa Prediction

Michigan 38
Iowa 24

Better use of the Michigan Stadium videoboards

The MMB had a Willy Wonka halftime show this past weekend with prospective students getting the Golden Ticket and a chance to go to Michigan. The mistakes made by the kids in the book/movie are made by students who end up at other boneg schools. Charlie's little brother of course ends up at Michigan State but his complaint with Wonka and UM is the bigger screen they have at Spartan Stadium. The joke ends up being all the ads the Spartys have to include on the their bigger screen makes the bigger screen a wash. (Skip to about 7:50 for little brother.)

But Michigan doesn't actually take full advantage of their own big screen. I'm not asking for ads - I'm asking to leave it as a big video board - stop cutting a quarter of the screen off for stats.

I propose using the big screens in conjunction with the empty space on the luxury boxes/press box to provide the information cluttering up the big screen.

The important stuff - the score, time remaining AND a full video of the action/replay - are still on the big boards - but the auxiliary things, most of which we've only had since 1998, are still available just found in a different place.

M vs. Iowa prediction based on Historical Data

M is 178-49-1 in all games I have attended (data is ONLY for games I have attended unless otherwise mentioned)
M is 119-35-1 in conference games
M is 149-34-1 at Michigan Stadium
M is 128-20-1against unranked opponents
M is 151-35-1 when ranked
M is 2-1 when ranked #23
M is 10-4 vs. Iowa
M is 25-5 when facing schools with "bird" based nicknames
M is 16-5 in the 7th game of the season
M is 41-13-1 in November
M is 147-381 vs. Public Schools
M is 22-5 when it was unsure who would start at QB (admittedly there is a lot of looking back with speculation in this number)
M is 34-7 with #16 as starting QB
M is 8-1 with #12 as starting QB
M is 14-4 with a QB starting his second game/1-1 with a QB starting his 25th game
M is 103-26 on artificial turf
M is 26-9-1 in the last seen home game of the season (17-9-1 when it is actually the last home game)
M is 4-1 against Legends Division match-ups
M is 14-2 in games with Brady Hoke as their head coach (M is 15-2 when Hoke coaches either team)
              Quick rundown of all M coaches: Bo 42-8; Mo 24-7-1; Carr 86-18; RR 12-14
M is 40-12  against all schools where I have seen more M coaches then opponent coaches in head to head match-ups (BC, EMU, Iowa, OSU, PSU, Wazoo, WMU are only qualifiers)
M is 3-1 in their head coach's 17th game

It's easy when you add it all together:

M 38 Iowa 10

Northwestern prediction

Michigan 32
Northwestern 18

M vs. Northwestern prediction based on historical data

M is 177-49-1 in all games I have attended (data is for games I have attended unless otherwise mentioned)
M is 118-35-1 in conference games
M is 148-34-1 at Michigan Stadium
M is 50-29 against ranked opponents
M is 26-14 when unranked
M is 7-5 when unranked facing a ranked opponent (5 straight losses)
M is 2-2 against teams ranked #21 (1-1 against #21 Northwestern)
M is 12-3 vs. Northwestern
M is 28-5 when facing schools with "cat" based nicknames
M is 18-7-1 in the 6th game of the season
M is 40-13-1 in November
M is 30-11 vs. Private Schools
M is 21-5 when it was unsure who would start at QB (admittedly there is a lot of looking back with speculation in this number)
M is 34-7 with #16 as starting QB
M is 7-1 with #12 as starting QB
M is 14-3 against teams who are identified with a uniform stripe style (see Northwestern and UCLA)

It's easy when you add it all together...

M 31 Northwestern 17

M vs. Minnesota Prediction

Last week I broke from my January prediction and it was the first time I was wrong all season (on the outcome). I forgot to predict Denard's injury! It's time to get back on the January train.

Michigan 30
Minnesota 6