OK - sorry Spartan fans... Delayed posts by the ES here. Da ES is swamped into dissertation work, so your patience is appreciated. But, two important points.
#1 - Michigan State ended up ranked in football #14 in both the AP and USA Today polls (see below). Not too shabby - much better than what most of us anticipated at the beginning of the year.
#2 - The Spartans are ranked decently in very early power rankings for the 2011 season. Look at Rivals at #12 and at SI.com at #16 .
Sez Rivals:"Almost all of the key skill-position players will be back, and if Dantonio and his staff can remake the linebacker corps, the Spartans will be in excellent shape." Sez Andy Staples at SI: "Quarterback Kirk Cousins and tailback Edwin Baker lead a large group of returning starters that should keep the Spartans competing for the Big Ten title. After laying an egg against Alabama in the Capital One Bowl, Michigan State has a lot to prove in the first season of the new-look Big Ten."
Showing posts with label Rivals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rivals. Show all posts
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Yahoo/Rival Sports embarassed by missing stats in Michigan State-Purdue game
If you saw the game stats from Yahoo and Rivals relating to Michigan State's 40-37 victory over Purdue today, you'd be stratching your head... how did MSU win. "What's missing here?" you would think to yourself.
The answer: return yards. Michigan State DESTROYED Purdue in special teams. In return yards, MSU had 229 as compared to 55 for Purdue, including kick returns of 85-yds by Keshawn Martin and 43-yards by AJ Jimmerson (let alone the 11 yard fumble return on defense for TD by Chris Rucker to start the game). That right there is 13 points set up by LONG returns. Martin and Jimmerson had consistent 20+ yard returns ALL GAME LONG that gave Michigan State a short field, which, in the end spelled doom for Purdue.
But, you'd never know it reading the stats from Yahoo and Rivals. A glaring, embarrassing omission from a network of which you would expect better. Maybe they should be more extensive or we should just stick to the official SID results, if not ESPN?
The answer: return yards. Michigan State DESTROYED Purdue in special teams. In return yards, MSU had 229 as compared to 55 for Purdue, including kick returns of 85-yds by Keshawn Martin and 43-yards by AJ Jimmerson (let alone the 11 yard fumble return on defense for TD by Chris Rucker to start the game). That right there is 13 points set up by LONG returns. Martin and Jimmerson had consistent 20+ yard returns ALL GAME LONG that gave Michigan State a short field, which, in the end spelled doom for Purdue.
But, you'd never know it reading the stats from Yahoo and Rivals. A glaring, embarrassing omission from a network of which you would expect better. Maybe they should be more extensive or we should just stick to the official SID results, if not ESPN?
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