Predictions

Herbstreit on “must win” nature of Notre Dame vs. Clemson

Kirk Herbstreit shared his thoughts Tuesday about if Saturday’s showdown with Clemson is an absolute “must win” for Notre Dame’s CFP chances

It pretty much goes without saying but if Notre Dame is to win on Saturday then their path to the College Football Playoff for the second time in program history becomes much more manageable.

A loss however and there will be a lot of work to be done.

Is it a “must win” in terms of their College Football Playoff chances?

Kirk Herbstreit wasn’t ready to use those exact words on Tuesday night, but was clear in stating what Notre Dame must do in order to keep their playoff chances alive, even if they don’t win.

“I don’t want to say it doesn’t matter to Clemson, but I think all eyes are on Notre Dame. When’s the last time Notre Dame won a game of this magnitude? I mean, think about it. I think that perception is real. Right now, they’re on this big of a stage, and they’ve got to take advantage of this opportunity.”

“It’s not an elimination game if Notre Dame competes and wins, or if Notre Dame plays like it did in Athens last year. If they lose, and they get blown out, it’s an elimination game for me. They’re gone. That’s my opinion, and I guess I’m assuming if they get blown out that they won’t go to Charlotte beat Clemson there.

“How Notre Dame looks on this big of a stage is a big deal to their perception because if they get blown out, they’re going to get behind a lot of teams. They’re going to be fighting to get into that No. 4 spot.”

-Kirk Herbstreit on ESPN’s College Football Preview Show this past Tuesday.

The logic makes plenty of sense as it’s hard to imagine Notre Dame coming back and beating Clemson with Trevor Lawrence in the ACC Championship Game if they can’t get by the Tigers sans Lawrence in South Bend this Saturday.

That said, if Notre Dame were to win out and shock the world by knocking off Lawrence in Charlotte, I have real trouble believing the Irish wouldn’t be one of the last four standing, regardless of what happens elsewhere and that’s partly because of the limited games for both the Big Ten and Pac-12 who will have to do some convincing to some in order to earn a playoff spot.

Notre Dame/Georgia Tech: FIW Staff Predictions

Will Notre Dame keep their unbeaten season alive as they travel to Georgia Tech this weekend? Find predictions for game six here.

For the first time in 14 years Notre Dame will travel to Georgia Tech as the Irish take on the Yellow Jackets on Saturday.

Notre Dame enters ranked fourth nationally and 5-0 while under second year head coach has Georgia Tech off to a 2-4 start.

Will Notre Dame avoid the look-ahead threat as they have No. 1 Clemson coming to South Bend next week?

And can Georgia Tech make things interesting against one of the nations top teams?

Here is what the Fighting Irish Wire staff sees happening on Saturday afternoon in A-Town, starting with Geoffrey Clark…

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Preview and predictions: Michigan football vs. Michigan State Spartans

The WolverinesWire staff previews and predicts what will happen in the Big Ten Week 2 matchup between the Michigan Wolverines vs. MSU Spartans.

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A week after Michigan football took its show on the road and eviscerated No. 21 Minnesota in Minneapolis, the Wolverines get to come home and take on in-state rival MSU.

The Spartans — in case you somehow missed it — enter the contest 0-1, after inexplicably losing the season opener to lowly Rutgers. The question remains: did MSU get that much worse in Mel Tucker’s first year, or did Rutgers get that much better?

It’s hard to win a game after turning the ball over seven times as Michigan State did, but new starting QB Rocky Lombardi did throw for 319 yards and 3 TD in the opening foray. His primary target was WR Jayden Reed, the redshirt sophomore transfer from Western Michigan. Reed reeled in 11 catches for 128 yards and 2 TD — including a long reception for 50 yards. Promising wideout Jalen Nailor added 6 catches for 84 yards and a TD. Michigan’s new CB duo in Vincent Gray and Gemon Green did a solid job on Rashod Bateman and Chris Autman-Bell, but they’ll have their work cut out for them in Big Ten Week 2.

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MSU‘s run game was — nonexistent. It managed to accumulate just 50 yards a week ago, with freshman Jordon Simmons leading the charge with 43 yards. Not great, Bob — if you’re a State fan. The Spartans are a mess up front. Former Cass Tech star Jordan Reid opted out of the season, as did Justin Stevens. Devontae Dobbs didn’t dress, nor did fellow OL Mustafa Khaleefah and Luke Campbell. If the status quo holds, Michigan has an opportunity to live in the MSU backfield, as well as stop any potential run game — rendering the Spartans one-dimensional.

Despite Rutgers winning 38-27, the MSU defense did an adequate job — at least when it came to limiting the Scarlet Knights. Now, Rutgers had short fields all day, so it didn’t need to go crazy offensively, but the Spartans held the Knights to just 276 yards of total offense — but allowed 38 points, all of which came on offense.

Through the air, MSU surrendered just 170 yards, while on the ground, Rutgers eked out 106 yards on 41 carries — an average of 2.6 yards-per. Now, keep in mind, though RU broke in a new QB in Nebraska transfer Noah Vedral, the Knights had the nation’s No. 121 (of 130) passing offense in 2019 and the No. 101 rushing offense. So let’s not go handing MSU any medals for allowing just 276 yards of offense here. Ann Arbor native, LB Antjuan Simmons, legitimately might be the only Spartan at the moment that would see the field for the Wolverines, and he shined with 11 tackles and 3 TFL. CB Kalon Gervin could also make a case, and he managed 4 tackles. Other notable defensemen include DT Naquan Jones, who has been inconsistent in his career, as well as DE and instigator Jacub Panasiuk.

On special teams, Jayden Reed returns kicks while Jalen Nailor returns punts — and both are solid in those roles. Matt Coghlin is back at place kicker, and he drilled 2-for-2, including a 48-yarder on Saturday. Junior punter Bryce Barringer averaged 50.5 yards-per-punt, meaning: don’t expect the same short fields witnessed in Minneapolis.

State is a mess, personnel-wise, so much will be riding on its ability to rise up for this game. But, are the Spartans anywhere near as talented as Minnesota? No, but weirder things have happened. MSU has no business being in this game come Saturday, however, it has its back against the wall, already down 0-1, and, as we know, this game is its Super Bowl on a yearly basis. It will be supremely outmatched, but if Michigan comes in riding its laurels from Week 1 success and MSU manages to take what Michigan gives it, it stands a chance.

A very, very small one, but a chance, nonetheless.

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For WolverinesWire, Brandon Knapp, Ted Rydquist, Trent Knoop and Isaiah Hole are breaking down what Michigan needs to do to win, what would amount to a certain loss in Big Ten Week 2, one bold prediction — or hill we’re dying on — and the final score.

Texas vs. Oklahoma State: Who are the experts predicting to win?

One of the most important Big 12 matchups this season will take place in Stillwater on Saturday.

Texas faces a must-win game in Stillwater on Saturday against Oklahoma State. Continue reading “Texas vs. Oklahoma State: Who are the experts predicting to win?”

NFL Week 8 EPA Power Rankings: Cowboys plummet, dissecting throws behind LOS

Cowboys continue to slide in the power rankings. Also, which QBs are benefitting from the short pass the most?

The top of the NFL, for the most part, stayed put this week in our EPA power rankings. No team moved into or fell out of the top-5. But just outside of that, there was quite a bit of chaos and movement with these teams, headlined by the resurgence of a powerhouse NFC team of last season. The Cowboys, on the other hand, continue to slip. As always, these rankings are based on expected points added (EPA), adjusted for strength of opponent.

Expected Points, the foundation of many analytical arguments, uses data from previous NFL seasons to determine how many points a team is likely to come away with on a given play based on down, distance, time remaining, and field position. The difference in expected points at the start of a play and expected points at the end is referred to as expected points added, or EPA.

Dallas slid two more spots this week after dropping eight spots last time. They’re now third in the division by this measure and entering into the realm of a New York team, though mercifully still nowhere near as bad as the Jets. Still, Dallas is going to have to get a pretty miraculous performance from Ben DiNucci (or whichever quarterback is starting next week) to avoid dropping to the worst adjusted EPA differential in the East.

The Bucs remain atop the list after a dominant win over a Raiders team that, despite having a statement win over the Chiefs just a week ago, has never really been more than average in terms of their EPA differential.

Then we get some real movement in our rankings, with our biggest risers in two California teams. The Chargers are suddenly in the top-10 as Justin Herbert continues to shine, and the 49ers appear to be back to their 2019 selves after handing Bill Belichick the worst home loss of his Patriots career.

These two teams have something else in common too, aside from a good move up in the power ranks. They both feature offenses that throw the ball at or behind the line of scrimmage on over a quarter of their dropbacks. EPA/play is a stable and relatively predictive measure of quarterback success, but it doesn’t take into account how many screen passes or jet sweep toss plays different teams run. For example, here’s a Jimmy Garoppolo “throw” that went for +1.3 EPA, despite Garoppolo targeting Deebo Samuel 5 yards behind the line of scrimmage:

Now, it’s not fair to punish quarterbacks for this by say, using the air EPA on the play of -1.2, but if we’re trying to evaluate quarterback talent it’s not necessarily fair to include these either. There’s also no easy way to define which throws came on plays like this and which were checkdowns or throwaways. But we can get a decent approximation with simple air yards, the distance the pass is thrown relative to the line of scrimmage. By separating throws at or behind the line of scrimmage from throws beyond it, we can add more even more context to each quarterback’s play through this year.

Herbert and Garoppolo trail only Russell Wilson in EPA/play on passes at or behind the line of scrimmage, but they also run these plays nearly twice as often as Wilson (~26% for Herbert/Garoppolo, 15% for Wilson). So while Herbert and Garoppolo rank 11th and 8th, respectively, in fumble adjusted EPA/play (per rbsdm.com), they look much more average when asked to throw beyond the line of scrimmage. Herbert only drops to 13th, but Garoppolo goes all the way down to 17th in the NFL in EPA/play when just looking at plays with positive air yards.

Aaron Rodgers is far ahead of the pack in EPA/play on passes beyond the line of scrimmage, but he’s also asked to do it less often than anyone else. Rodgers currently throws a pass at or behind the LOS on nearly 31% of his dropbacks, the only QB above 30% in the NFL. It’s actually quite scary to think what might happen if he keeps up this EPA/play and the Packers decide to air it out a bit more often.

Meanwhile in Dallas, there’s a pretty clear distinction between the offense with Dak Prescott and the offense with Andy Dalton. Dalton is second to Rodgers in the rate of passes behind the LOS (27.1%) while Dak ranked 14th (22.6%). There’s also the, well, more obvious difference in their EPA/play. Dalton has had the least success on short passes and the third-least success on longer passes. He hasn’t played two full games yet, so be cautious making complete judgements here, but these signs almost point to the idea that DiNucci can’t really be much worse, right? That’s my shot at hope.

The optimism isn’t lasting long this time, however, after looking at the adjusted EPA predictions for Week 8. These predictions like Dallas a bit more than the Vegas spread of 7.5, but I’m guessing the further we get from Dak the more in line these predictions will be with the rest of the crowd. Last week we went 10-4 with the adjusted EPA predictions, let’s see how we do this time.

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USA TODAY Sports’ bowl predictions have Gators playing for peaches

There is still a ways to go but after Week 7 of college football USA TODAY Sports projects the Florida Gators to play in the Peach Bowl.

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Editors note: This article was originally published by USA TODAY Sports and has been republished in its entirety below.

The College Football Playoff outlook changed Saturday night. Yes, Alabama beat Georgia. That wasn’t unexpected. However, the potential for the Bulldogs winning the rematch in the SEC championship game became less clear. The Crimson Tide’s offense was too much for them.

Georgia can still run the table in its remaining games – the only ranked opponent left is No. 8 Florida on Nov. 7. But without a conference title, it’s hard to see a compelling argument for them in the playoff unless at least two of the Power Five conference champions are clearly inferior.

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The biggest beneficiary of Saturday night is Oregon. The Ducks will only play six conference games and a Pac-12 championship game — if they make it that far. None of their scheduled opponents is currently ranked. How would a 7-0 Oregon stack up against a 9-2 Georgia with its only losses to Alabama? That’s sure to be an interesting debate if we reach that point.

There’s also the American Athletic to consider. Cincinnati and SMU are the league’s only unbeatens. They play Saturday with the winner taking a big step forward in the playoff race. It’s conceivable either could make the field with an 11-0 record given the overall strength of the league this year being comparable to the Pac-12 and Big 12.

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For now, the projected spot in the playoff behind Clemson, Alabama and Ohio State goes to Oregon. The Ducks don’t start until Nov. 7, so it will still be some time before they can be assessed.

The rest of the postseason has been cleared up with the NCAA waiving any win requirement for bowl eligibility. No replacement teams should be needed as conferences are expected to fulfill their bowl allotments.

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NFL Week 7 EPA Power Rankings: A new top dog as Cowboys fish for the floor

Cowboys plummet while a new team emerges as the top dog in the NFL

One game sample sizes are not enough to make sweeping judgements. That being said…the Dallas Cowboys can absolutely not afford to lose Dak Prescott to another team at any point in the near future.

Dallas looked utterly lost with backup Andy Dalton in the game on Monday night, in front of 25,000 fans and a national TV audience no less. But believe it or not, Dallas didn’t actually manage the steepest fall in this week’s EPA power rankings.

The 38-10 drubbing Dallas took on Monday Night Football dropped them eight spots in our power rankings. They fall behind Philadelphia, who takes over the top spot in the NFC East and might now become the favorites in the division should Andy Dalton continue to play at the same level he exhibited against the Cardinals. The Cowboys offense fell from 12th to 19th after just this one game, and the defense dropped to the third-worst adjusted EPA allowed in the NFL.

All the Yikes

All four NFC East teams are now in the bottom 7, so at this point whichever team manages the most division wins is going to be your winner and be rewarded with a home game against someone like the Los Angeles Rams.

As I mentioned earlier, the Cowboys didn’t actually feel the most precipitous drop this week. There were two teams that faired worse: The Cleveland Browns fell 9 spots after a 38-7 loss to the Steelers, and the Minnesota Vikings fell a whopping 11 spots, from the top-10 almost to the bottom-10. They had faced one of the tougher schedules in the league heading into this week, which is probably why they were still so high in these rankings last time, but getting beat by the hapless Falcons seems to have put them in a place we all intuitively agree with.

One more note on the bad teams: the Jets appear to be one of the worst teams we’ve seen recently by any measure, but after six weeks they’ve actually got a better adjusted EPA differential than the Dolphins did last season. The Dolphins, after six games in 2019, had a whopping -122.1 adjusted EPA differential. So while it’s completely true that the Jets are the worst team in the NFL this season, let’s pump the brakes on them being the worst in modern history.

That’s enough of the downers. Let’s take a look at who made moves up our board, starting with the new top team in the NFL.

But On the Bright Side

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat down the (previously top-5) Green Bay Packers on Sunday, rocketing their defense to the top of the NFL by a wide margin at the moment. Paired with a top-10 offense, they’ve now got enough to overtake the Kansas City Chiefs in the top slot.

The biggest positive mover this week is the Pittsburgh Steelers, who jumped up 14(!) spots after the big win against Cleveland. The main driver behind this was their defense moving from ranking 21st all the way to 3rd(!!) in just one week.

Why are we getting such large jumps here? It comes down to the opponent adjustments. These adjustments help to add context to each team’s performance, but they add more variance in the early goings. As we move forward, expect to see each team level out a bit as they find their real rank in the NFL.

The biggest surprise on this list is the Carolina Panthers, who are now inside the top-10 in adjusted EPA differential. Without opponent adjustments, they’ve got an almost perfectly average EPA/play on offense and defense, as illustrated beautifully at Ben Baldwin’s rbsdm.com:

Adjusting for the fact that they’ve played five teams in the top half of the league, with their only loss by more than one score coming at the hands of the now top-ranked Bucs, and you’ve got a recipe for a top-10 team.

As mentioned before, these ranks are subject to pretty significant weekly fluctuations early on in the season, and I would expect the Panthers to fall a bit before the season ends. But this seems to be evidence that they are miles better than most gave them credit for heading into the season.

On the way out, let’s take a peek at how these opponent adjustments see the Week 7 slate going. Despite the big loss on Monday, Dallas still remain favored against Washington by this method, though it’s very close. Last week’s predictions didn’t do so hot, picking just four winners. Let’s see if it does any better this time.

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No. 4 Notre Dame vs. Louisville – Staff Predictions

Will Notre Dame get tested against a disappointing Louisville team this Saturday? Find out what the FIW staff things NOW

No. 4 Notre Dame is yet to really be tested early in 2020, starting off 3-0 without being challenged as they’ve played three teams who have struggled mightily in Duke, South Florida and Florida State.

Louisville started the year as a sweetheart in some people’s eyes after turning things around so greatly last year. The Cardinals are off to just a 1-3 start however and are 0-3 in ACC play.

So what happens Saturday afternoon when the Fighting Irish and Cardinals meet for just the third time ever?

Here is what our staff things, starting with Geoffrey Clark:

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NFL Week 6 EPA Power Rankings: Cowboys juiceless even after win

Ranking all 32 NFL teams based on their total opponent-adjusted EPA

What an absolute gut punch that week was. Dak Prescott riding the injury cart, wearing his emotions on his sleeve after putting himself entirely out there on the field, is an image that won’t soon leave my mind. We wish him nothing but the best going forward.

The Dallas Cowboys still managed to come away with the win after a couple great plays from Andy Dalton and Michael Gallup, but the game as a whole wasn’t enough to bump them up in the EPA power rankings.

Note: these rankings come in before Tuesday night’s game between the Titans and Bills.

The Cowboys slid down one spot to 19th this week as the Steelers leapfrogged two spots ahead of them. By EPA, the Dallas offense hasn’t looked like the buzzsaw we expected heading into this year. They rank 12th in opponent-adjusted offensive EPA through five weeks.

This is in large part explained by their turnover differential. The Cowboys have lost the most EPA on turnovers in the NFL at 58. Interestingly, though perhaps not surprisingly, the next two teams with the most EPA lost on turnovers are also in the NFC East, with Philadelphia and the New York Giants losing 46.5 & 45.7, respectively.

Meanwhile, on the defensive side of the ball, the Dallas defense has only gained 14.7 EPA, sixth lowest in the NFL. All told, their EPA differential on turnovers is -43.3. The next worst is Denver at -30.4.

Turnovers are killer.

The Cowboys are fortunate enough to be the only team in the NFC East outside the bottom six this week. Washington actually jumped up three spots, but that’s more due to the Bengals and Jaguars getting blown out this week and falling quite a bit.

In fact, the Jaguars 16-point loss to what was at the time a winless Texans team caused them to be one of two teams to drop five spots in these ranks. The other? The reigning NFC champion San Francisco 49ers.

The Niners were already looking rough in these ranks, as they’d only beaten the bottom two teams and lost to the fourth-worst team per this list. Jimmy Garoppolo played abysmally in his return from injury, posting a league-worst -25.9 completion percentage over expected (CPOE) in his one half of work. A team that’s already been struggling will now have to face even more scrutiny in regards to their QB position as they head into one of the toughest schedules over the next seven weeks.

On the other side, we’ve got to give out some credit to the Miami Dolphins, who jumped up eight (!) spots this week all the way into the top 10 (!!). This rebuild might be going faster than anyone expected, and they haven’t even gotten to Tua yet.

The Raiders also leapt up quite a bit in these ranks after a statement win against the reigning champion Kansas City Chiefs. They’re now the proud owners of the NFL’s sixth-best offense, which looks lethal with a healthy Henry Ruggs allowing Derek Carr to look deep more often.

The Chiefs remain in the top spot however after facing a fairly difficult opening schedule. The Rams have nearly double the EPA differential of the Chiefs, but four of their five opening games coming against the NFC East really hurts them here.

We can also use adjusted EPA to give us some predictions for next week as well. Here’s how it sees the Week 6 slate breaking down. Please note that these predictions are agnostic of who is starting at quarterback for each team.

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Georgia – Tennessee: Nasty weather forecasted for 3:30 p.m. kickoff

No. 3 Georgia takes on No. 14 Tennessee on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET and the weather forecast does not look good. Details and analysis here.

No. 3 Georgia is set to meet No. 14 Tennessee at Sanford Stadium in Athens on Saturday.

The game is scheduled to kickoff at 3:30 p.m. ET and unfortunately for Bulldog fans and especially the quarterbacks, the weather forecast does not look great.

There is currently an 80% chance of rain, with most of the precipitation coming in the morning and followed by scattered thunderstorms through the afternoon, according to weather.com.

We flashback to the monsoon that was UGA versus Kentucky in 2019, one of the most ugly games in Sanford Stadium history.

It rained the entire game – I know because I stood in it – and Georgia didn’t break the scoreless tie until the third quarter.

I’m not saying the Bulldogs matchup with Tennessee on Saturday will be as horrible, but the weather will definitely play a huge factor.

Georgia has the advantage here. Even though the Bulldogs’ offensive front had to replace four starters from a year ago, they completely manhandled a stout Auburn front-seven last week.

Plus, the Bulldogs had five running backs with carries versus the Tigers, which is the kind of depth that Georgia will need if the weather forces the two teams into a one-dimensional offenses.

Tennessee’s offensive line is respectable with four former 5-star recruits up front and senior quarterback Jarret Garantano has protected the football so far this season.

However, this Georgia defense is the best in the country. The Bulldogs’ front featuring guys like Jordan Davis and Malik Herring have been unstoppable.

Plus, add the outside rush factor from Azeez Ojulari and Nolan Smith with the lockdown secondary led by preseason All-American safety Richard LeCounte and this Tennessee offense is in for a long game Saturday.

Need a quick catch up for the game? Listen to this week’s episode of our UGA Football Live podcast!

I got a chance to sit down with former Georgia great Tavarres King to talk about UGA’s receivers and his time with the Manning brothers. Listen here: