Thoughts and stats Octagon style

Let's go back to 2009 and review some stats, shall we? 

ALL GAMES........... (5-7-0)   (5-3-0) Home    (0-4-0) away

CONFERENCE........(1-7-0)   (1-3-0)  Home   (0-4-0)  away  

NON-CONFERENCE....(4-0-0)   (4-0-0)Home   (0-0-0) away

As you can clearly see, Michigan was more comfortable playing at home and against non-conference teams..The only win in the Big 10 conference was at home last year against the Indiana Hoosiers..Inexperience and youth played a BIG part of that..Let's hope they grow tremendously with another year under their collective belts...I happen to think they will..

Here are some team stats from 2009 for both Michigan and it's opponents..

        Team Statistics         UM and Opponent

--------------------------------------------------------

SCORING....................... 354     330

Points Per Game............. 29.5      27.5

FIRST DOWNS.................235     233

Rushing..................... 120       115

Passing..................... 107   103

Penalty..................... 8      15

RUSHING YARDAGE.....2234   2063

Yards gained rushing........ 2646   2434

Yards lost rushing.......... 412      371

Rushing Attempts............ 494     474

Average Per Rush............ 4.5    4.4

Average Per Game............ 186.2   171.9

TDs Rushing................. 27      20

PASSING YARDAGE............... 2380    2657

Comp-Att-Int................ 189-329-15       219-364-11

Average Per Game............ 198.3   221.4

TDs Passing................. 15     18

TOTAL OFFENSE................. 4614     4720

Average Per Play............ 5.6    5.6

Average Per Game............ 384.5     393.3

KICK RETURNS: #Yards......... 54-1285    51-1139

PUNT RETURNS: #Yards......... 27-234      21-118

INT RETURNS: #Yards.......... 11-80      15-131

KICK RETURN AVERAGE........... 23.8    22.3

PUNT RETURN AVERAGE........... 8.7     5.6

INT RETURN AVERAGE............ 7.3      8.7

FUMBLES-LOST.................. 29-13     14-5

PENALTIES-Yards............... 58-517    69-578

Average Per Game............ 43.1    48.6

TIME OF POSSESSION/Game....... 26:25    33:35

3RD-DOWN Conversions.......... 66/166     68/183

3rd-Down Pct................ 40%       37%

4TH-DOWN Conversions.......... 7/19      5/10

4th-Down Pct................ 37%       50%

SACKS BY-Yards................ 22-178     27-179

As you can see, there are some very telling stats here..If someone were to show me those at the beginning of the year and ask my prediction for UM that year I would probably have said 8-4....One thing going there way and one thing going ours leads to the 8-4 (imo) after looking at these stats....With stats so similar, it's the turnover's  and missed tackles that killed us (imo)...

Some "key" stats to digest :

-12 in turnover's...This was the #1 problem with the 09 team...Let's hope the case of "hot potato" and in-decision are in the past..

Time of possession--We run a fast paced offense so, sometimes we are either 3 plays and 6 points or we are 3 plays and out..Don't get me wrong, we will have some clock chewing drives within the season but, I think that will be because we are up big and are trying to milk the clock.. I believe T.O.P will almost always be slanted toward the opponent due to our offense...

Total points and average points per game--Hard to believe you can lead these categories and have a 5-7 season but, the Deleware State game grossly influenced these stats...UM was in a lot of games and without the T.O's, as I have stated before, it would have lead us to 3 maybe 4 more wins..What a different off-season this would have been huh?

Sacks----I sure hope the defense starts to play on their toe's instead of their heels!!! 22 sacks, seriously? That is less than 2 per game...I don't know about you but, I know I would like to see one per quarter..Is that to much to ask this year? Let's hope the answer is no

Missed tackles--This isn't one of the stats but, I couldn't let this topic slide by without addressing it...I couldn't tell you how many missed tackles there were last year but, there were far to many...Again, I think we see improvement in this department in 2010....

4th Downs---I like the risk/reward factor here but we were only 7 of 19 on 4th down...NOT a good recipe for success if you ask me..The only change I want to see on this topic is we CONVERT more 4th downs, I love the aggression though and soon it will pay off...Or you could just convert on 1st, 2nd or 3rd down and save the drama..But, what fun would that be, right?

Did I say it's going to be a fun Spring yet? Thanks for stopping by and we hope you enjoyed the read..GO BLUE

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