Big Ten Bowl Record 2000 - 2016

[MNVCGUY]

J.H. would have been bashed because he punted from his deep into his own territory with over 3 minutes left in the game. To a South Carolina offense that they he had pretty much held in check? You think Harbaugh was even considering that?

You are trying way too hard, but Happy New Year to you.

Easy to sit and say it was the wrong decision in retrospect. That South Carolina offense they were supposedly holding in check had outscored them 23-10 in the second half and had scored points (3 TD and 1 FG) on 4 of its last 5 possessions. The only time Michigan had stopped them before the missed field goal after SC had moved the ball some and been forced to punt which is the one Michigan muffed leading to the Field Goal that put SC up 7.

So yeah, with a little over 3 minutes on the clock and only one timeout left I can understand why a coach (any coach, not just Harbaugh) would consider going for it in that situation. His faith in his defense had to be pretty low at that point given that South Carolina had been moving the ball and scoring on them pretty easily in the second half.

Punting wouldn't have been a bad decision however if South Carolina manages 1 first down they could basically have iced the game given that Michigan only had 1 timeout at the time I believe. I can totally see our fans losing it on our coach had we punted in a situation like that instead of going for it.

 

[bizzle22]

You can argue every which way.

I like to suggest: what would be the W-L record if the top 3 or 4 teams in each conf played each other? Ohio St, Wisconsin, and Penn St did not get a chance to show what they could've done against Alabama, Auburn, and Georgia, this year. Transitive games analysis does not count.

There is no way to know for sure with the limited number of games. Ohio State had their chance (vs Oklahoma) and failed. Wisconsin and Penn State never took on a top team from another conference until bowl season. Auburn took their shot against Clemson and failed. Georgia took their shot (kind of) at Notre Dame and won. Bama tried to take their shot (they had every reason to believe FSU would be a top 3 team in the ACC) and won.

If you want to just look at the top 3 teams from each conference here is how they would rank in terms of record. (I'd give the tiebreaker to the B12 because their champ beat the B1G champ H2H.)

1. Big 12 (Oklahoma/TCU/Oklahoma St) 3-1 and +5 avg spread
2. Big Ten (Ohio St/Penn St/Wisconsin) 3-1 and +4.8
3. SEC (Alabama/Georgia/Auburn) 2-1 and +5.3
4. ACC (Clemson/Miami/Virginia Tech) 1-3 and -7.3
5. Pac 12 (USC/Stanford/Washington) 0-3 and -8.7

But this is such a small sample size. And they don't give out trophies for being the best conference. The best overall team can come from a conference that doesn't have other elite teams. It's not like other teams being bad makes a team from the same conference any worse, and vice versa.

 

[Iceland12]

Easy to sit and say it was the wrong decision in retrospect. That South Carolina offense they were supposedly holding in check had outscored them 23-10 in the second half and had scored points (3 TD and 1 FG) on 4 of its last 5 possessions..

Yep, and it's gotta be harder to be one of the very few who thought it was a great decision too.

The rest of your post was pretty true. Though the turnovers had a bigger effect on the score than that USC Offense, IMHO at least.

USC did look better in the 2nd Half and fans would have been very upset with the decision. Much like Michigan fans and the announcers were.

-The Gamecocks went 5 and out for 5 yards

- 3 and out for zero yards and an interception.

- 3 and out for 4 yards

- 7 plays for 77 yards and a TD

- a one play 21 yard TD after a Michigan fumble.

- 6 play, 81 yard drive ending with a 51 yard TD pass

- 4 play 37 yard drive ending in a fumble

- 4 play 9 yard drive ending with a FG

- 4 play -4 yard drive ending with a missed FG

Harbaugh may have been focusing on those 3 TDs, with two long TD drives. Oh and he may have still been fuming about the 15 penalty that helped get the Gamecocks to 9 points.

He forgot about the other drives and just thought his Defense was overmatched or he wanted to make a showboat decision. His Defense proved him wrong but it was too late.

Still his decision to go for it on 4th and 10, from his own 25, with 3:23 left on the clock would never been made if it was a Big Ten Conference game. Or if it was in the CFP.

 

[MNVCGUY]

Yep, and it's gotta be harder to be one of the very few who thought it was a great decision too.

The rest of your post was pretty true. Though the turnovers had a bigger effect on the score than that USC Offense, IMHO at least.

USC did look better in the 2nd Half and fans would have been very upset with the decision. Much like Michigan fans and the announcers were.

-The Gamecocks went 5 and out for 5 yards

- 3 and out for zero yards and an interception.

- 3 and out for 4 yards

- 7 plays for 77 yards and a TD

- a one play 21 yard TD after a Michigan fumble.

- 6 play, 81 yard drive ending with a 51 yard TD pass

- 4 play 37 yard drive ending in a fumble (this is written strange in the PBP because the fumble was the muffed punt)

- 4 play 9 yard drive ending with a FG

- 4 play -4 yard drive ending with a missed FG

Harbaugh may have been focusing on those 3 TDs, with two long TD drives. Oh and he may have still been fuming about the 15 penalty that helped get the Gamecocks to 9 points.

He forgot about the other drives and just thought his Defense was overmatched or he wanted to make a showboat decision. His Defense proved him wrong but it was too late.

Still his decision to go for it on 4th and 10, from his own 25, with 3:23 left on the clock would never been made if it was a Big Ten Conference game. Or if it was in the CFP.

The play by play is worded strange on the fumble because that was actually the muffed punt by Michigan. Still looking at that to me again shows why Harbaugh made the decision he did. Starting with SC first TD drive and leaving out the final series where they went conservative to get what they hoped would be the game sealing field goal they ran 22 plays, gained 225 yards (10.2 avg per play) and scored 23 points. Even if you leave in that last series you have 26 plays for 221 yards which is still an average of 8.5 per play.

I don't think it was a great decision to go for it on 4th and 10 from your own 25 but I can totally understand why he did. At the time it would have been really hard to have much faith in my defense after watching them implode after playing really well in the first half. Had he had all 3 timeouts still I think he would have punted but with only 1 timeout and a defense that was giving up lots of yards I can understand the decision and don't think it was a terrible idea at the time.