Minnesota game preview

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

46 minutes ago, japantiger said:

The teams we beat not named UAT had an avg of 6-6....not sure that's makes the point you wanted to make.  We paid $50m to play against Avg Joe's Gym in another nothing bowl game; that history says we likely won't do well against.

Well considering we have the clear talent advantage and a few of Minnesota's better players are choosing to sit out, I'm running to my bookie right now to lay the 7 points before the line goes up.  Again I would like to remind y'all, over the last 5 years, Minnesota has averaged recruiting about 20-25 spots lower than Mississippi State.  We should overwhelm them and that's exactly what I expect to see.

[ShocksMyBrain 9,364]

17 minutes ago, Brad_ATX said:

Well considering we have the clear talent advantage and a few of Minnesota's better players are choosing to sit out, I'm running to my bookie right now to lay the 7 points before the line goes up.  Again I would like to remind y'all, over the last 5 years, Minnesota has averaged recruiting about 20-25 spots lower than Mississippi State.  We should overwhelm them and that's exactly what I expect to see.

You’re really fighting a winless battle at this point. 

[McLoofus 35,182]

7 hours ago, Brad_ATX said:

Well considering we have the clear talent advantage and a few of Minnesota's better players are choosing to sit out, I'm running to my bookie right now to lay the 7 points before the line goes up.  Again I would like to remind y'all, over the last 5 years, Minnesota has averaged recruiting about 20-25 spots lower than Mississippi State.  We should overwhelm them and that's exactly what I expect to see.

And with everyone playing, we now know that the team is taking this seriously. Gonna be a bloodbath. Congrats on getting in on that low spread.

I'd love to see the Venn diagram of folks saying that the talent differential doesn't matter and those who love to say that saban isn't a good coach and only wins because of all the talent the REC bought. 

[MaitlandTiger 325]

On 12/9/2019 at 1:15 AM, AUght2win said:

UCF had speed. You can play with anybody if you have speed. I doubt Minnesota has anything akin to that UCF team. Probably a better version of last season's Purdue. 

With the exception of a couple of drives for both sides, UCF won the battle of the trenches.   Some 1-2 star absolutely embarrassed Braden Smith for 50 of the 60 minutes.  They were actually a superior football team. 

[japantiger 4,051]

11 minutes ago, MaitlandTiger said:

With the exception of a couple of drives for both sides, UCF won the battle of the trenches.   Some 1-2 star absolutely embarrassed Braden Smith for 50 of the 60 minutes.  They were actually a superior football team. 

Sorry dude...facts and history don't apply here.  You need to interject some serious Gus-Bus emotion into this response.  Something like, "they're a good football team; we're having a good week of preparation, no doubt,  we're gonna whip the Gopher-crap out of these, uuhmmm, well, Gophers" .  

[japantiger 4,051]

7 hours ago, Brad_ATX said:

Well considering we have the clear talent advantage and a few of Minnesota's better players are choosing to sit out, I'm running to my bookie right now to lay the 7 points before the line goes up.  Again I would like to remind y'all, over the last 5 years, Minnesota has averaged recruiting about 20-25 spots lower than Mississippi State.  We should overwhelm them and that's exactly what I expect to see.

Go get em Brad...you do realize though, that exactly the same number of people are betting, with equal zeal, on the other side of that 7 point line that has you so excited.   

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

Just now, japantiger said:

Go get em Brad...you do realize though, that exactly the same number of people are betting, with equal zeal, on the other side of that 7 point line that has you so excited.   

Not how that works.  Half the money is coming in on one side.  Not necessarily half the people.  To be half the people, everyone would need to make the same sized bet.  Not uncommon for 70%+ of bettors to take one side.

And I'm still not on the bus at all.  But all indicators point to this being one sided.  I've been wrong before, but I feel exactly like I did before the Mississippi State game this year when we were -10.

[japantiger 4,051]

24 minutes ago, Brad_ATX said:

Not how that works.  Half the money is coming in on one side.  Not necessarily half the people.  To be half the people, everyone would need to make the same sized bet.  Not uncommon for 70%+ of bettors to take one side.

And I'm still not on the bus at all.  But all indicators point to this being one sided.  I've been wrong before, but I feel exactly like I did before the Mississippi State game this year when we were -10.

What indicators?  The betting line says it's a touchdown game.

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

52 minutes ago, japantiger said:

What indicators?  The betting line says it's a touchdown game.

The ones I've already spoken about.  Talent advantage being the primary, as it's not too dissimilar from last year's bowl game when you look at five year recruiting trends.  Our guys (DB & MD) playing vs a few of theirs not playing either due to injury or draft prep is also important.  Scoring differential matters too (look at some of Minnesota's early season scores against bad competition).

One other big factor for me is that Minnesota rushes the ball on 61% of their plays.  I firmly believe that the defense will shut that down and force the Gophers into more passing situations than they are used to.  The 39% pass play percentage is 6th lowest in all of the FBS.  On those pass plays, Minnesota gives up a ton of sacks, ranking 101st in the nation for sacks allowed per pass play.

A betting line is meant to attract even money on each side.  It is not an indicator not what is likely to happen.  However, if you're looking for trends, AU was pretty good against the spread this year (9-3).  Minnesota was 7-5 ATS, but their two losses were both games where they didn't cover.

 

[everybody knows my name 11]

10 hours ago, Brad_ATX said:

Well considering we have the clear talent advantage and a few of Minnesota's better players are choosing to sit out, I'm running to my bookie right now to lay the 7 points before the line goes up.  Again I would like to remind y'all, over the last 5 years, Minnesota has averaged recruiting about 20-25 spots lower than Mississippi State.  We should overwhelm them and that's exactly what I expect to see.

PSU, ranked 4th in the country at the time, should have overwhelmed them too.

I think you make a mistake when you rely too highly on high school recruiting rankings to determine the talent of 20-22 year old players.  You need to look forward, not backwards.  A better indication of talent at this point is NFL draft projections.

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

21 minutes ago, everybody knows my name said:

PSU, ranked 4th in the country at the time, should have overwhelmed them too.

I think you make a mistake when you rely too highly on high school recruiting rankings to determine the talent of 20-22 year old players.  You need to look forward, not backwards.  A better indication of talent at this point is NFL draft projections.

And Purdue beat #2 Ohio State last year.  Same argument people made before the Music City and why we should be wary of the Boilers.  How'd that turn out?

[McLoofus 35,182]

27 minutes ago, everybody knows my name said:

I think you make a mistake when you rely too highly on high school recruiting rankings to determine the talent of 20-22 year old players. 

Take the full list of playoff and BCS bowl participants since those systems' inceptions and compare it against the top 25 teams in recruiting the 4 years prior to the year each team participated in their respective bowl or playoff game.

Now look at the most NFL players by school.

You'll quickly see that talent is what wins games, and that recruiting rankings are a pretty good predictor. 

 

[Schnauzer 15]

12 hours ago, Brad_ATX said:

Well considering we have the clear talent advantage and a few of Minnesota's better players are choosing to sit out, I'm running to my bookie right now to lay the 7 points before the line goes up.  Again I would like to remind y'all, over the last 5 years, Minnesota has averaged recruiting about 20-25 spots lower than Mississippi State.  We should overwhelm them and that's exactly what I expect to see.

How does Auburn average compared to Penn State, out of curiosity?

[AUght2win 6,833]

5 hours ago, MaitlandTiger said:

With the exception of a couple of drives for both sides, UCF won the battle of the trenches.   Some 1-2 star absolutely embarrassed Braden Smith for 50 of the 60 minutes.  They were actually a superior football team. 

I wouldn't go that far.

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

48 minutes ago, Schnauzer said:

How does Auburn average compared to Penn State, out of curiosity?

Mixed bag.  Even in 2019.  They out recruited us in 2018, but our upper-classmen are rated about 10 spots higher as a class than PSUs from 2015-2017.

[JWShewmake 78]

I watched a little of their game with Wisconsin.  They played with them for about a quarter and a half and were actually leading early in the game.  Their defense is no where near SEC levels.  Their defensive line is big but they don't appear to be very quick with the exception of one defensive end who put a little pressure on Wisconsin's QB until their offensive line got their blocking assignments squared away.  Their linebackers did not appear very active or effective and their DB's do not seem to play very tight man coverage.  I think our offense will eat them up.  I know our defense will eat up their offense.  Their receivers have average speed.

JWShewmake 

[DAG 33,980]

1 hour ago, JWShewmake said:

I watched a little of their game with Wisconsin.  They played with them for about a quarter and a half and were actually leading early in the game.  Their defense is no where near SEC levels.  Their defensive line is big but they don't appear to be very quick with the exception of one defensive end who put a little pressure on Wisconsin's QB until their offensive line got their blocking assignments squared away.  Their linebackers did not appear very active or effective and their DB's do not seem to play very tight man coverage.  I think our offense will eat them up.  I know our defense will eat up their offense.  Their receivers have average speed.

JWShewmake 

Their offensive line, although big, seems suspect based on the stats. This will be their undoing. 

[everybody knows my name 11]

On 12/18/2019 at 12:06 PM, McLoofus said:

Take the full list of playoff and BCS bowl participants since those systems' inceptions and compare it against the top 25 teams in recruiting the 4 years prior to the year each team participated in their respective bowl or playoff game.

Now look at the most NFL players by school.

You'll quickly see that talent is what wins games, and that recruiting rankings are a pretty good predictor. 

 

The trouble with that is, recruiting rankings are a pretty good predictor of what kind of players they're going to be.  If you want to know what kind of player they've turned out to be, then reflecting back on who they were several years ago in high school is not your best indicator.

So again, draft projections, all-conference selections, and postseason awards suggest that Minnesota has better personnel than you give them credit for.

[auburnphan 6,050]

On 12/18/2019 at 8:58 AM, japantiger said:

What indicators?  The betting line says it's a touchdown game.

Play calling is the reason for the 7 pats, lol

[McLoofus 35,182]

1 hour ago, everybody knows my name said:

recruiting rankings are a pretty good predictor of what kind of players they're going to be. 

Yep, exactly. So when you have two teams with roughly 85 scholarship players acquired over 4-5 years, and one of them has consistently finished far, far higher than the other, then you've been gifted a pretty good indication that the talent levels are severely unequal.

Quote

If you want to know what kind of player they've turned out to be, then reflecting back on who they were several years ago in high school is not your best indicator.

For any one player, I totally agree. But we're discussing two entire football teams.

Quote

So again, draft projections, all-conference selections, and postseason awards suggest that Minnesota has better personnel than you give them credit for.

What those projections suggest is that Minnesota has done a good job of coaching up what relatively few great players they've been able to acquire. I have no problem believing that. But that doesn't speak to their depth or to them consistently having blue chip talent at almost every position. It means they have some good players. Almost any P5 team can say that in any given year. 

Put another way, their best guy might very well be better than our best guy. Oh wait, we have Derrick Brown. But let's pretend we don't. Their best guy might be better than our best guy. But as you go down the list, the talent level diverges further and further until you're looking at two very different groups. 

[Gowebb11 9,314]

3 hours ago, everybody knows my name said:

The trouble with that is, recruiting rankings are a pretty good predictor of what kind of players they're going to be.  If you want to know what kind of player they've turned out to be, then reflecting back on who they were several years ago in high school is not your best indicator.

So again, draft projections, all-conference selections, and postseason awards suggest that Minnesota has better personnel than you give them credit for.

I respect their starting 22. But our defensive talent and special teams is light years ahead of them, and their best LB is sitting out. Once you get into our second team vs theirs, I like our odds there as well. As good as their WRs are touted to be, they can’t show us anything that we haven’t seen from LSU and UAT. Of course, this was also true of UCF so we better prepare with intensity. 

[creed 1,635]

As coach Morris said “you either have speed or you’re chasing it”.  After the kickoff Minnesota will be chasing it. 😀

[aucanucktiger 1,791]

Watching rainy Gasparilla Bowl being played at Raymond James Stadium where we tee it up against Minnesota in about a week. 

Field's a mess!

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

39 minutes ago, aucanucktiger said:

Watching rainy Gasparilla Bowl being played at Raymond James Stadium where we tee it up against Minnesota in about a week. 

Field's a mess!

Yep I watched a little. Hope it gets back in shape for our game. Not sure who a messy field would help.

[beaumak 174]

7 hours ago, Proud Tiger said:

Yep I watched a little. Hope it gets back in shape for our game. Not sure who a messy field would help.

no one. and more rain in the forecast from now until today(for now).