Good Sign/Bad Sign

Pac 10-California Golden Bears [3-1] (beat Colorado State [2-2] 42-7)

Good Sign: The Bears, coming back from an ugly loss to Maryland, won big, beating Colorado State 42-7. More importantly, the win demonstrated a depth of scoring threats at Coach Jeff Tedford’s disposal. The special teams scored two touchdowns, the defense a third, two different quarterbacks threw for touchdowns, and two running backs producing on the ground. Colorado State had more yards in the game, but that is an illusion from Cal missing three offensive possessions.

Bad Sign: Cal has no offensive leadership, again. Riley and Longshore continue to battle for the QB job and Cal’s new superstar, RB Jahvid Best, suffered an ugly knee injury that will slow him down if it doesn’t sideline the speedster. Cal’s offense is not sturdy enough to consistently win in the Pac 10 and looks like it will crumble if they are ever hit hard in the mouth early.

Big 10-Michigan State Spartans [4-1] (beat Indiana [2-2] 42-29)

Good Sign: Indiana stacked the line on defense in an effort to stop RB Jevon Ringer. Ringer still ran for almost 200 yards on just less than 5 yards per carry and QB Hoyer threw for 261 yards on just 14 completions.

Bad Sign: Much like the Notre Dame game, Michigan State showed an inability to put a struggling opponent away. Brian Hoyer is completing less than 50% of his passes. When you need to protect and extend a lead, coaches need more completions in the passing game to move the chains and keep the clock running. As Michigan showed against Wisconsin this weekend, against teams with the personnel to stack it up against the run game, you need to have a consistent passing game to soften up the safeties and linebackers. Michigan State doesn’t have that.

Independent-Navy Midshipmen [3-2] (beat Wake Forest [3-1] 24-17)

Good Sign: Given the chance, they beat a team that was then the top dog in the ACC. The Midshipmen rushed out to a 17-0 lead and then were able to hold while rushing for almost 300 yards against a stiff defense.

Bad Sign: Wake Forest had 6 turnovers. Beating Wake when they turn the ball over 6 times is like beating Florida without Tim Tebow or beating Nebraska in the 21^st century.

Big East-South Florida Bulls [5-0] (beat NC State [2-3] 41-10)

Good Sign: USF finally dominated an opponent not named Tennessee-Martin. Grothe was 20 for 29 and the Bulls rushed for 245 yards.

Bad Sign: NC State is really that bad. South Florida is going to need to develop a real running back and consistently dominate opponents through the rest of the season to garner much respect.

Bowl Picks 1

For complete bowl picks, find "Bowl Picks" under "Predictions" in the right hand menu.

Poinsettia Bowl. Utah vs. Navy

Utah's tough pass defense kept Max Hall in check and almost helped Utah pull off the upset against BYU in Provo, but that tough pass defense won't be much help against Navy. From the option. Navy leads the nation in rushing yards per game and is 120th (dead last) in D1A in passing yards. Paul Johnson's departure could leave the Midshipmen a little flat, but Niumatalolo will have the offense clicking as always - and I am jittery with anticipation to see what Johnson will be able to do at Georgia Tech. Utah, for their part, is as good as any team in the MWC right now. This may be the most interesting game left in 2007 - Navy is always fun. Expect Navy to score 30 to 40 points and Utah to score a field goal and a touchdown more.

The Matrix - Utah by 8.1, 48.2% against the spread

New Orleans Bowl. Memphis vs. Florida Atlantic

I've heard this called the least interesting bowl game of the bowl season. They are coming out of weak conferences with 5 losses a piece, and that does not get me excited. On the other hand, both teams can throw the ball, and Florida Atlantic has only held three opponents under 30 all season so it could be fun in that respect. I have seen Florida Atlantic twice all season - putting up a fight against Florida (until halftime) and beating Troy, a mid-major that has earned some respect this season. With Schnellenberger at the helm, my money is on FAU.

The Matrix - FAU by 7.1, 64.6% against the spread

PapaJohns.com Bowl. Southern Miss vs. Cincinnati

Maybe its just me, but I think this is a terrible match-up. Cincinnati is a real football team. In their last 4 games, they've beaten then #18 South Florida and #13 UConn, gave West Virginia a scare and beat down Syracuse. Southern Miss, on the other hand, lost 5 games against the 103rd toughest schedule in the country and finished 4th in their division. Their Division! This "bowl" game is nothing more than a really early preseason game as Cincinnati gets ready for next season - but Southern Miss has been as unpredictable as any team this year and just might keep the final margin in single digits.

The Matrix - Cincinnati by 17, 59.6% against the spread

Las Vegas Bowl. BYU vs. UCLA

Passing Yards: BYU 391, UCLA 126. First Downs: BYU 23, UCLA 15. Total Yards: BYU 435, UCLA 236. And BYU lost by 10. Expect the better team to win this time around. A big win here could start BYU's campaign next season for a BCS berth.

The Matrix - BYU by 3.5, 44.9% against the spread

New Mexico Bowl. New Mexico vs. Nevada
I here it is surprisingly inexpensive (relatively speaking of course) to sponsor a bowl, but this is ridiculous. Nevada has been the epitome of the balanced offense that commentators love to talk about, averaging about 250 yards running and passing a game. Their pass efficiency is among the best in the country and their rush efficiency is in the top quintile. They have lost 6 games, but most of these were against tough teams. New Mexico has also been decently tough this season and is essentially playing a home game.

The Matrix - New Mexico by 3, 50% against the spread

Week 10 Recap and the Field Goal Calculator

With one game left this weekend, I thought it was about time to report on the initial results from the Matrix's first weekend. All in all, things have gone well. The Matrix correctly picked the winner in 38 of 53 games and was 27-21 against the line.

And it could have been better. If you look back at the picks (table) from last week, you might notice that Oregon is listed as the road team against Arizona State. Unless Arizona State has decided to start playing its home games thousands of miles from home, this is a typo. The Matrix gives teams a bonus if they are playing at home, and, in this case, gave Oregon's "at-home" credit to Arizona State. This mistake shifted the prediction, in this case, by about nine points. In other words, if the Matrix would have been fed accurate data, it would have been correct.

Then there is Rice and Texas. After ragging on these two teams last week, they put up a combined 52 points in the 4th quarter to win and cover the spread. Cincinnati put up 31 in the 1st quarter to do the same. And then the Demon Deacons felt the Cavalier curse and missed what would have been the winning field goal in the last seconds.

But I found a more worrying issue when I looked more closely at the results from the Matrix. Against the line, the Matrix was 0-2 when it gave one team an 80% chance or greater of covering. One, which I mentioned before, was Rice and their 20 point comeback. The other was Iowa State, who seems to actually be a much better team these days. The Matrix was most accurate when it gave one team only a small advantage.

The game of the week, in my opinion, lived up to its billing (that I gave it). Navy wins in triple overtime on a failed two point conversion attempt. Historic. I'm a bit biased towards the midshipmen - I love to watch their offense - but how could anyone that isn't a Catholic not jump on the Navy bandwagon after that game.

The Field Goal Calculator

The field goal calculator is my initial attempt to create an adjustable system that can estimate the number of points that a team will get on average if they kick a field goal or go for it on 4th down. The calculations come from an earlier blog and are not, by any means, perfect, but I think it is a good starting point.

Here, I have provided an excel spreadsheet so users can play with it themselves. The spreadsheet has 4 entries and a graph. You can adjust it for the leg strength of the kicker (average = 0), the accuracy of the kicker (average = 0), the average yards per play for that team, and the number of yards the team needs to get a first down. The graph shows how many points that team could expect to get if they went for it or if they kicked the field goal from various points on the field.

Download Field Goal Calculator.xls