The 2016 Bobcat/Griz seasons explained by 10 facts
Four weeks into the college football season and we already have some interesting trends emerging and facts that have popped up. This week we take a look at a few of the facts that jumped out at us and discuss what they mean for the games this weekend (Griz at Cal Poly and Cats hosting North Dakota).
FACT 1: EWU put up 34 points on Northern Iowa… without Cooper Kupp!
Hot Take Nate (Cats fan): Eastern Washington’s offense had no problem moving the ball on UNI and they were without their best player. Does that make you worry about the Griz offense?
Z-Train (Griz fan): No, not necessarily. EWU got them at home, while the Griz had to travel. They scored just two more TDs and gave up a lot more.
Bear Tycoon (Griz fan): All that matters are those Ws.
Hot Take Nate (Cats fan): It’s just crazy what Eastern can do with their QB rotation. Coach Baldwin is a QB whisperer.
FACT 2: After their win against then #13 Iowa, NDSU got votes in the AP Poll. The FBS AP poll. They’re tied for #27 in the country in all of college football.
Bear Tycoon (Griz fan): I legit did not know this was possible. Their win over Iowa was a great moment for the FCS. Unlike when Appalachian State knocked off Michigan a few years back, NDSU didn’t win on a fluke. Iowa was ranked #13 in the country, and NDSU outplayed them! They dominated time of possession (36:40 to 23:20) and outrushed Iowa 239 yards to 34 yards.
Hot Take Nate (Cats fan): The ruling that you could vote for an FCS team in the FBS AP Poll actually came about because of Appalachian State knocking off Michigan. It’s the “Appy State Rule.”
FACT 3: The Bobcats ended the 2015 season with the #3 offense in all of the FCS. They are now tied for #83.
Jasper Moonshot (Griz fan): Their offense is terrible. It shouldn’t be surprising MSU’s offense isn’t able to replace Dakota Prukop at QB.
What I saw last week was MSU coming out flat and getting embarrassed in the first quarter against a Div-II team. Their only points – a FG – came after a blocked punt put them on the 4 yard line…and they still couldn’t score a touchdown!
Coach (Cats fan): Murray came in and changed the game for the Cats. His energy, speed, and change of pace is what they needed. He’s going to be starter before the end of this year. We already miss the Lulay, McGhee, and Prukop years.
FACT 4: The Bobcats ended the 2015 season with the #115 defense. They are now #30.
Z-Train (Griz fan): I want to see the Cats defense in Big Sky play before I care. Big Sky has some scary offenses.
Coach (Cats fan): We will give up points, especially against explosive Big Sky teams, but I think the unit is improved and I have confidence they can get off the field when they need to. The question is will our offense help them out? We’ve seen the offense struggle at times in each of the last three games.
Hot Take Nate (Cats fan): Here are a couple other Bobcat Defensive stats: (1) last week, Western Oregon did not even get into the redzone against the Cats, and (2) the Cats have played 6 halves and only allowed points in 3 halves.
Jasper Moonshot (Griz fan): 6 halves and only allowed points in 3 halves… that’s a dumb statistic. 66% of their shutout halves came against Div-II Western Oregon. Using that game to determine how good the MSU defense is, is like measuring your dong in a fun house mirror. It’s distorted and weird!
Hot Take Nate (Cats fan): It’s obviously a stupid statistic. But if we’re being honest, let’s pretend the Cats opened up with three games against the Frontier Conference last year only gave up points on an average of 1 out of every 2 possessions we would have been happy. This D is different.
FACT 5: The Griz ended the 2015 season with the #28 offense. They are now #54
Coach (Cats fan): Is the Bobcat offense more or less exciting than the Griz offense, which has SIGNIFICANTLY underwhelmed this year. Weren’t they supposed to be the college version of the greatest show on turf?
Jasper Moonshot (Griz fan): I would say they’ve been equally disappointing.
Z-Train (Griz fan): But the Griz are winning! The offense has a lot of folks worried though, and rightfully so. Just doing enough to hold on for three quarters of three and outs isn’t a long term strategy I am comfortable with.
FACT 6: The Griz defense has improved from #57 to #18 in the country
FACT 7: Cal Poly leads the league in rushing. THEY ARE AVERAGING 392 YARDS PER GAME!
FACT 8: Cal Poly FB Joe Protheroe has rushed for over 100 yards in all three games this year.
Hot Take Nate (Cats fan): This supposedly improved Griz defense will face a major test on the road against Cal Poly this weekend. They did handle the UNI run game pretty well, so I’m really interested to see what happens.
Jasper Moonshot (Griz fan): I’ve been looking at Cal Poly’s game against South Dakota State from last week. Against SDSU, Cal Poly rushed 59 times and passed 11. Each time they had a 1st and 10 scenario, they ran the ball. They had 5 plays on 2nd down from 3 yards or closer, all of which they passed. They also broke a lot of plays for touchdowns: 35 yd run, 21 yd run, 33 yd pass, 76 yd run, and 13 yd run. I don’t see the Griz defense breaking down like that. They play fast and their speed allows them to make plays even if they’re caught out of position.
Z-Train (Griz fan): Cal Poly runs the option, and the Griz have had years of trouble with large physical runners in an option attack. Their success at UNI was a huge relief. Cal Poly ran all over Griz last year, but they are even more pass adverse than UNI was, so I am hoping one dimensionality of the offense helps Griz improve on their strong UNI showing.
As this Missoulian article says, the option offense will always be better than you are since you are installing an option defense for a week and they’ve been running it for years. Option teams live on being the one wrinkle on each team’s schedule that they have five days to prepare for. You can have a lot of success being a unique wrinkle for every team you play.
Jasper Moonshot (Griz fan): The dominate, one-sided run attack forces teams to move extra players towards the line of scrimmage and into the box. This puts a lot of pressure on the secondary as the cornerbacks are forced into one-on-one assignments, typically with a single safety over top who covers the entire field. I think the Griz will adjust to the heavy triple-option because against UNI the Griz left their CBs in man-to-man and brought blitz pressure against Bailey. UM has a legit secondary that I trust in coverage.
FACT 9: Griz are the only Big Sky Conference team without a loss
Jasper Moonshot (Griz fan): I really think the Griz could be undefeated in the regular season. That’s a hard thing to do in the BSC, and that prediction is wrong like 90% of the time, but I still think there’s like a 50% chance it could happen. Griz could be like Trent Dilfer’s Bucs team. He was unspectacular but had that amazing defense. Dilfer was let go after winning the Super Bowl that season. That’s how I think of Gus right now.
Bear Tycoon (Griz fan): Ha! “that prediction is wrong like 90% of the time, but I still think there’s like a 50% chance it could happen.” That sounds like some Trent Dilfer analysis too.
FACT 10: North Dakota RB John Santiago has nine career games with over 100 yards rushing, leading the Big Sky Conference.
Bear Tycoon (Griz fan): Cats will have their hands full with Santiago. I remember him running all over the Griz last year, and he is averaging over 100 a game so far in 2016. He’s second in the Big Sky Conference in all-purpose yards. Plus, he’s only a sophomore.
Coach (Cats fan): Against the Cats, he went for 247 and three touchdowns last year. Killed us. The only reason we were in the game was Dakota Prukop…he had 224 through the air and 77 on the ground, with 3 TDs.
As I remember ND came out and threw on us last year, I believe they picked on Trevon Strong. Hopefully our less than stellar secondary is up to the challenge.
Hot Take Nate (Cats fan): That could be any game last year that a team picked on Strong. I’ll actually never forget the game from last year because my parents were in California and we watched it on my patio. My dad go SO mad at Strong that he stopped watching the game and went inside and started cooking dinner. At like 3:15PM. So mad.
Coach (Cats fan): This week’s game against North Dakota will hinge more on our offense than our defense. My hope is this weekend we see the offense that finally clicked against Western Oregon. But that was a D-II team and North Dakota is not. Our performance against the Fighting Hawks will go a long way in telling me where the Cats will end up in the Big Sky.
If our offense doesn’t click early and often we could be in serious trouble. Newell is back and that’ll only help our offensive consistency. I’ll be optimistic, which goes against my genetic makeup, and say the Cats start fast and hang on 38-35.
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