FB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[The_Bishop]

Time to talk some Bishops.  I kind of think OWU, with two weeks to get ready, probably should not have been sweating out a late 4th quarter drive against Kenyon.  That's Kenyon who got beat by Earlham, by the way.  So what's up?  What's up is that OWU throws A LOT but they don't score nearly enough.  I took the top 50 D3 quarterbacks in passing yards per game and ranked them by touchdown rates...both by TDs per attempt and TDs per completion.  Espinosa is throwing a touchdown on 2.1 percent of his attempts and 3.3 percent of his completions.  What's that mean?  That ranks 49th out of these 50 quarterbacks in both categories.  The averages for this group are 7.1% and 11.2%.  So the stats are telling us that despite the enormous usage rate, Espinosa is not particularly efficient...and is in fact less efficient than last year when his touchdown rates were 4.1% and 6.3%.  This is ultimately what doomed the Bishops in their make it or break it game against Wabash last year and it's going to be the thing that dooms them this year; you've got to score touchdowns to beat Witt and Wabash.  With as much as they throw and as wide open and fast as that offense goes, they should be hanging 40-burgers (at least) on Bluffton and Kenyon.  I'm starting to cool a little bit on my belief that OWU is playoff ready...so far these Bishops don't look like they've gone forward from last year.  I'll be keeping a close eye on their game with Denison Saturday night....might be tighter than we would have thought a few weeks ago.

Interesting stats - I'd be curious to know that for those QB's that are statistically at the top of this list, what the rushing attack for these teams looked like.  (I'm guessing they averaged at least 100 yards per game).  OWU's rushing game was while not altogether invisible it was still pretty weak, and although I think they made a step forward this year may not loosen defenses up enough to alleviate the pressure against the pass.  Just a hunch, but teams with a strong ground game are going to be more efficient passing.

I really hadn't thought about OWU's offense as a concern as much as I think their defense took a step back after watching last week's Kenyon game.  Too many big plays, 3rd down conversions and just an overall push in general.  Goes to show what a graduating senior like Huddleston can do to a team's identity, and the Bishops D needs to find theirs soon.

[Pat Coleman]

2012

I was going to say ... damn, I need to brush up on my 1912 Allegheny-Wabash game!

[formerd3db]

2012

I was going to say ... damn, I need to brush up on my 1912 Allegheny-Wabash game!

Geez, Pat.  I thought you were up on all that historical "stuff"! .  I didn't know that either.  You (and I, too) can be excused though, in view of the fact that someone wrote in to Sports Illustrated this week in the "Mail Box" (i.e. formerly known as the Letters to the Editor) correcting their article the week before that erroneously said Georgia Tech's blow-out over Elon this year was the largest winning margin for an ACC school, when it was actually the largest margin for a current ACC member before the school joined the conference (the latter margin being the infamous 1916 game of Georgia Tech beating Cumberland College (which still plays football) 220-0! So much for college football historical trivia, right?   Just kidding, course!

[gobash83]

While Allegheny apparently didn't make the Little Giants schedule in 1912, the typo was a good excuse to recall a 5-2 season when some noteworthy games were played:

vs. Moore's Hill  W 101-0
at DePauw W 62-0
vs. Butler W 47-0
at Notre Dame L 6-41
vs. Rose Poly W 39-0
vs. Earlham W 7-0
at Michigan Aggies L 0-24

It was Jesse Harper's last season at Wabash before becoming Athletic Director and Head Football Coach at Notre Dame.  The Little Giants set the school record for the largest margin of victory against Moore's Hill and had a solid season, with losses only to Notre Dame and the predecessor to Michigan State University, Michigan Agricultural College.  Oh, and Wabash beat DePauw 62-0.

[smedindy]

Wait--what?

Just saying that Linfield's abject dismantling of Cal Lutheran was just as impressive as UMHB over Wesley (and without a big-to-do). I was jabbing at Mt. Union's ho-hum annual roll up of the Muskies...

[formerd3db]

While Allegheny apparently didn't make the Little Giants schedule in 1912, the typo was a good excuse to recall a 5-2 season when some noteworthy games were played:

vs. Moore's Hill  W 101-0
at DePauw W 62-0
vs. Butler W 47-0
at Notre Dame L 6-41
vs. Rose Poly W 39-0
vs. Earlham W 7-0
at Michigan Aggies L 0-24

It was Jesse Harper's last season at Wabash before becoming Athletic Director and Head Football Coach at Notre Dame.  The Little Giants set the school record for the largest margin of victory against Moore's Hill and had a solid season, with losses only to Notre Dame and the predecessor to Michigan State University, Michigan Agricultural College.  Oh, and Wabash beat DePauw 62-0.

Thanks for the historical flash-back, gobash.  Very interesting.  Since we are taking this brief jaunt down "long ago memory lane", I would just add that Jesse Harper had come from Alma College to Wabash.  You probably know this, however, when he took over at Notre Dame (he coached Knute Rockne and Gus Dorias that year), he invited his former Alma College to play down at Notre Dame for 4 consecutive years from 1912-1915.  Those years, Alma opened their seasons with Notre Dame and Michigan State (MSU, then MSC as you already mentioned) had been a former MIAA member.  Since this discussion has involved blow-out scores, Alma lost to Notre Dame all four years by a combined score of 144-0!  When I was with Alma College and helping to research their football history, we found out that those teams in later years were referred to as the "Suicide Squads" for obvious reasons.  William C. Blaemaster was the coach at the time for Alma and he went on later to coach at one of the Big Ten teams.

The 1912 game also featured the forward pass that Notre Dame famously used against Army, although many people don't really know about that!  Anyway, Alma did finally beat Michigan State in 1916 (these were all varsity games for ND and MSU and not the J.V. squads playing the smaller Alma college), however, Notre Dame was off Alma's schedule by then.  As you know the "Rest of the story", Harper (who played for Stagg at the University of Chicago) eventually retired form ND and never coached again, as he went to help out on his parents farm in Kansas.   My apologies if I bored anyone with this; I just enjoy such college football history stories as you have shared.   Just a short diversion- now back to the present! 

[sigma one]

As you note, Harper left ND to ranch cattle in Kansas.  In 1931, when the plane carrying Rockne to the west coast to be part of a film crashed in western Kansas authories contacted Harper, who came up (about 100 miles, I think) to identify Rockne's body.  Not long after, Harper returned to ND as AD for a couple of years.
     Jess Harper is the only person in both the College Football Hall of Fame and the national Cattleman's Hall of Fame.  Wally, can you give odds on that happening to anyone again?

[ExTartanPlayer]

Wait--what?

Just saying that Linfield's abject dismantling of Cal Lutheran was just as impressive as UMHB over Wesley (and without a big-to-do). I was jabbing at Mt. Union's ho-hum annual roll up of the Muskies...

I think bashdad's post was in reply to a post that has now been removed, not yours.

[wally_wabash]

As you note, Harper left ND to ranch cattle in Kansas.  In 1931, when the plane carrying Rockne to the west coast to be part of a film crashed in western Kansas authories contacted Harper, who came up (about 100 miles, I think) to identify Rockne's body.  Not long after, Harper returned to ND as AD for a couple of years.
     Jess Harper is the only person in both the College Football Hall of Fame and the national Cattleman's Hall of Fame.  Wally, can you give odds on that happening to anyone again?

I reckon we won't see that happen again, pardner. 

[GRIZ_BACKER]

As you note, Harper left ND to ranch cattle in Kansas.  In 1931, when the plane carrying Rockne to the west coast to be part of a film crashed in western Kansas authories contacted Harper, who came up (about 100 miles, I think) to identify Rockne's body.  Not long after, Harper returned to ND as AD for a couple of years.
     Jess Harper is the only person in both the College Football Hall of Fame and the national Cattleman's Hall of Fame.  Wally, can you give odds on that happening to anyone again?

I reckon we won't see that happen again, pardner.

Charlie Weis left ND for Kansas   

[wally_wabash]

Time to talk some Bishops.  I kind of think OWU, with two weeks to get ready, probably should not have been sweating out a late 4th quarter drive against Kenyon.  That's Kenyon who got beat by Earlham, by the way.  So what's up?  What's up is that OWU throws A LOT but they don't score nearly enough.  I took the top 50 D3 quarterbacks in passing yards per game and ranked them by touchdown rates...both by TDs per attempt and TDs per completion.  Espinosa is throwing a touchdown on 2.1 percent of his attempts and 3.3 percent of his completions.  What's that mean?  That ranks 49th out of these 50 quarterbacks in both categories.  The averages for this group are 7.1% and 11.2%.  So the stats are telling us that despite the enormous usage rate, Espinosa is not particularly efficient...and is in fact less efficient than last year when his touchdown rates were 4.1% and 6.3%.  This is ultimately what doomed the Bishops in their make it or break it game against Wabash last year and it's going to be the thing that dooms them this year; you've got to score touchdowns to beat Witt and Wabash.  With as much as they throw and as wide open and fast as that offense goes, they should be hanging 40-burgers (at least) on Bluffton and Kenyon.  I'm starting to cool a little bit on my belief that OWU is playoff ready...so far these Bishops don't look like they've gone forward from last year.  I'll be keeping a close eye on their game with Denison Saturday night....might be tighter than we would have thought a few weeks ago.

Interesting stats - I'd be curious to know that for those QB's that are statistically at the top of this list, what the rushing attack for these teams looked like.  (I'm guessing they averaged at least 100 yards per game).  OWU's rushing game was while not altogether invisible it was still pretty weak, and although I think they made a step forward this year may not loosen defenses up enough to alleviate the pressure against the pass.  Just a hunch, but teams with a strong ground game are going to be more efficient passing.

I really hadn't thought about OWU's offense as a concern as much as I think their defense took a step back after watching last week's Kenyon game.  Too many big plays, 3rd down conversions and just an overall push in general.  Goes to show what a graduating senior like Huddleston can do to a team's identity, and the Bishops D needs to find theirs soon.

A couple of points here...100 yards per game for a team isn't really a good barometer as that's pretty poor...80% of D3 teams currently run for 100 ypg or better.  I did take that top 50, and chart their TD rates vs. team rushing and it does in fact trend upward...slightly (full disclosure- the quantitative analtyical chemist in me looks at these kinds of charts differently than, say, a social scientist would...I'm sure really important national policies have been born out of far less correlation that I'm seeing here).  Of those top 50 passers and their teams, OWU sits about 28th in team rushing...middle of the pack.  Yet OWU has the second lowest TD rate in the group.

I also wanted to factor in high usage QBs.  Obviously, the more you throw, the less frequently we should expect your passes and/or completions to lead to a score...as such it's maybe not as fair to compare Espinosa directly with somebody who is only throwing 20 passes per game.  So I took the top 50 QBs in D3 in passes per game (which coincidentally turned out to be 35 attempts per game, which is about what I thought an appropriate cutoff would have been).  Of the high-usgae QBs in D3, Espinosa's TD rates are 48th out of 50. 

Now I don't bring this up to pick on Espinosa.  That's not the point at all.  I've been beating the drum for OWU as a playoff team and a legitimate NCAC contender in 2013 largely because of the improvement that I believed we would see from the offense.  An offense that returns the active career D3 leader in pass yards, attempts, and completions as well as his top WR and an All American TE.  I never thought that OWU was going to transform into a smash mouth unit in the red zone this year...that's not who they are and that's not what they do.  We're all fooling ourselves if we think that when it's squeaky bum time for OWU in the big games this year that they aren't calling Espinosa's number.  They are.  What I'm surprised at so far this year is that they are still having big trouble getting the ball into the endzone via the pass.  That's the thing that they had to figure out and they haven't.  They've still got a few weeks before they travel to C'ville, but there is a lot more work to do there at OWU than I would have expected three weeks into this season. 

[bashbrother]

It's early,  but I like what I am seeing from the Little Giants in balance.

NCAA III Stats - (Nat. Ranking)

Defense -

(T-1st) in Redzone defense 
(3rd) in Total Defense
(1st) in Turnover Margin
(3rd) Pass Efficiency Defense
(6th) Scoring Defense  (Darn garbage time points)
(1st)  - 3rd Down Defense (8%) -  2 for 23
(2nd)  Net Punting
(6th) Scoring Defense


Offense

(2nd) Scoring Offense
(T-1st) Redzone Offense -  (14 for 14 - 10 Tds)

[BashDad]

Time to talk some Bishops.  I kind of think OWU, with two weeks to get ready, probably should not have been sweating out a late 4th quarter drive against Kenyon.  That's Kenyon who got beat by Earlham, by the way.  So what's up?  What's up is that OWU throws A LOT but they don't score nearly enough.  I took the top 50 D3 quarterbacks in passing yards per game and ranked them by touchdown rates...both by TDs per attempt and TDs per completion.  Espinosa is throwing a touchdown on 2.1 percent of his attempts and 3.3 percent of his completions.  What's that mean?  That ranks 49th out of these 50 quarterbacks in both categories.  The averages for this group are 7.1% and 11.2%.  So the stats are telling us that despite the enormous usage rate, Espinosa is not particularly efficient...and is in fact less efficient than last year when his touchdown rates were 4.1% and 6.3%.  This is ultimately what doomed the Bishops in their make it or break it game against Wabash last year and it's going to be the thing that dooms them this year; you've got to score touchdowns to beat Witt and Wabash.  With as much as they throw and as wide open and fast as that offense goes, they should be hanging 40-burgers (at least) on Bluffton and Kenyon.  I'm starting to cool a little bit on my belief that OWU is playoff ready...so far these Bishops don't look like they've gone forward from last year.  I'll be keeping a close eye on their game with Denison Saturday night....might be tighter than we would have thought a few weeks ago.

Interesting stats - I'd be curious to know that for those QB's that are statistically at the top of this list, what the rushing attack for these teams looked like.  (I'm guessing they averaged at least 100 yards per game).  OWU's rushing game was while not altogether invisible it was still pretty weak, and although I think they made a step forward this year may not loosen defenses up enough to alleviate the pressure against the pass.  Just a hunch, but teams with a strong ground game are going to be more efficient passing.

I really hadn't thought about OWU's offense as a concern as much as I think their defense took a step back after watching last week's Kenyon game.  Too many big plays, 3rd down conversions and just an overall push in general.  Goes to show what a graduating senior like Huddleston can do to a team's identity, and the Bishops D needs to find theirs soon.

A couple of points here...100 yards per game for a team isn't really a good barometer as that's pretty poor...80% of D3 teams currently run for 100 ypg or better.  I did take that top 50, and chart their TD rates vs. team rushing and it does in fact trend upward...slightly (full disclosure- the quantitative analtyical chemist in me looks at these kinds of charts differently than, say, a social scientist would...I'm sure really important national policies have been born out of far less correlation that I'm seeing here).  Of those top 50 passers and their teams, OWU sits about 28th in team rushing...middle of the pack.  Yet OWU has the second lowest TD rate in the group.

I also wanted to factor in high usage QBs.  Obviously, the more you throw, the less frequently we should expect your passes and/or completions to lead to a score...as such it's maybe not as fair to compare Espinosa directly with somebody who is only throwing 20 passes per game.  So I took the top 50 QBs in D3 in passes per game (which coincidentally turned out to be 35 attempts per game, which is about what I thought an appropriate cutoff would have been).  Of the high-usgae QBs in D3, Espinosa's TD rates are 48th out of 50. 

Now I don't bring this up to pick on Espinosa.  That's not the point at all.  I've been beating the drum for OWU as a playoff team and a legitimate NCAC contender in 2013 largely because of the improvement that I believed we would see from the offense.  An offense that returns the active career D3 leader in pass yards, attempts, and completions as well as his top WR and an All American TE.  I never thought that OWU was going to transform into a smash mouth unit in the red zone this year...that's not who they are and that's not what they do.  We're all fooling ourselves if we think that when it's squeaky bum time for OWU in the big games this year that they aren't calling Espinosa's number.  They are.  What I'm surprised at so far this year is that they are still having big trouble getting the ball into the endzone via the pass.  That's the thing that they had to figure out and they haven't.  They've still got a few weeks before they travel to C'ville, but there is a lot more work to do there at OWU than I would have expected three weeks into this season.

This is great stuff, man. Thanks for the grunt work. Always nice to have smart things to read. You win.

[The_Bishop]

Good point on the 100 yards per game - I was thinking in terms of individual rushers not total team rushing yards, but you picked up on that.  Good follow-up.

[sigma one]

Great discussion.  It has been pointed out by far better analysts than I the obvious fact  that the closer a team gets to the goal line the more space shrinks.  The OWU MO is the short, quick pass:  flares, bubbles, 3-4 yard turn ins, etc., using those to set up intermediate and occasional long strikes.  Their passing game is in part also their running game.  Without the ability to run inside the tackles, it becomes harder in the red zone. 
     It will be interesting to see if the Bishops manage to construct a more robust running game as the season goes on.  Everyone has now seen what they do.  The teams with better athletes have a good chance of keeping their scoring down, of course.  Who are these teams though?
     Wabash and Wittenberg have those athletes; on a good day for their defenses the Bishops will have to manufacture an offense to score enough to beat them (Or themselves play great defense).   Who else?  Kenyon? That chance is gone, but the Lords gave up only 20 pts.  Allegheny?  Wooster?  Denison?  Oberlin?  Hiram?  DePauw?
     On a good day can any of their defenses come up with the stops, and their offenses score just enough?  I dont' see that happening, but I didn't see Allegheny and Oberlin stunning Wabash last year.
     Nothing that has happened so far would lead to the conclusion that the conference title is available to anyone other than the three pre-season favorites,  but I went on record weeks ago that one of those three will lose to another team than themselves.