📵The Big Ten semifinal

Can Northwestern really knock off Wisconsin?

Josh Rosenblat

Nov 20, 2020

Bobby Pillote @BobbyPillote

Wisconsin fans throw snowballs at #Northwestern as they sing the fight song with fans.

What’s up, everyone?

We’ve got a big football weekend ahead of us. So, I’m ready to jump right in.

But, before we do that, the Northwestern football community lost two members in recent weeks.

First, reader Robin Pendergrast from Salt Lake City wrote in asking about the late Bill Jarvis. Jarvis, Northwestern’s equipment manager for more than 35 years, died a few weeks ago. The equipment room at Ryan Field was named for him before he retired in 2011. When Northwestern took on Purdue, you might have noticed a sticker on players’ helmets with the word “JARV” on it. Here’s a full obit from the Daily Northwestern.

Also, former Northwestern assistant performance coach Joe Orozco died last weekend. He was 30. Orozco and I overlapped at Northwestern and I’ll always remember his energy at practices and pregame. We also had a nice chat while waiting for a flight to go to a Northwestern bowl game (either the Outback Bowl in Tampa or the Pinstripe Bowl in New York — I can’t remember). When Eastern Illinois hired former Northwestern coach Adam Cushing to lead its football program, Orozco joined Cushing and was EIU’s director of football performance. Here’s a full obit from the Chicago Tribune.

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📵Blame Wisconsin

Since Paul Chryst took over at Wisconsin ahead of the 2015 season, Northwestern and Wisconsin have played five times. The Badgers have won three times (2016, 2017, 2019) and the Wildcats have won twice. Northwestern has covered the point spread in all but one game (2016) and has been the underdog each time.

The most lopsided game, at least by advanced metrics, was a 33-24 Wisconsin win in 2017, a game in which CollegeFootballData.com measured Wisconsin’s post game win probability at 99%, meaning that the probability of Wisconsin winning the game if played again with equivalent stats is 99%.

(In case you were wondering, Northwestern’s post game win probability in games this season is 100% vs. Maryland, 100% vs. Iowa, 96% vs. Nebraska, and 100% vs. Purdue. As an aside, I’m really curious about the concept of analyzing individual events without the context of time or sequence — and that goes for football games and other things. I’m not sure how valuable it is, but this win expectancy metric gives me a sense of how close the game actually was, regardless of score. To borrow the words of the legendary Sixers GM Sam Hinkie: "Why do we watch basketball games front to back?” Hinkie asks. “Why not watch games back to front, or out of order?”)

Back to Wisconsin-Northwestern games … I’m highlighting this post game win probability metric to show the close nature of these games compared to other “close” Northwestern games played this season. (Aside from the win over Maryland, each of Northwestern’s other three games finished as one-possession contests.)

2015: Northwestern 13, Wisconsin 7. Post game win probability: Northwestern 70%.
2016: Wisconsin 21, Northwestern 7. Post game win probability: Wisconsin 74%.
2017: Wisconsin 33, Northwestern 24. Post game win probability: Wisconsin 99%.
2018: Northwestern 31, Wisconsin 17. Post game win probability: Northwestern 91%.
2019: Wisconsin 24, Northwestern 15. Post game win probability: Wisconsin 60%.

The scores are close, sure. But these win probabilities are interesting to me because they can give a sense of the factors that could tilt the game in Northwestern’s favor.

Some college football statisticians, notably Bill Connelly of ESPN, believe in five factors that most determine the outcome of a game. They are:

Explosiveness
Efficiency
Field position
Finishing drives
Turnovers

When looking at advanced metrics measuring the past five Northwestern-Wisconsin games, some interesting patterns emerge.

The team who has had the higher field position average expected points metric has won each game. (It’s a measure of how a team’s average starting field position translates into the number of points expected to be scored based on that field position.)
The team that lost the turnover battle has not won a game in the past five seasons.
Explosiveness, while the factor Connelly rates as the most impactful, actually was relatively uncorrelated with the winner of these games.

So, I know it’s boring but Northwestern-Wisconsin games are about turnovers and field position. So far this season, Wisconsin is ranked 9th in the country in field position average expected points, with Northwestern comes in at No. 33. In terms of turnover margin per game, both teams are top-10 in the nation.

I don’t know who’s going to win, but I’m going to guess that the team who is able to get more opportunities with shorter fields will win. (Hot take, I know.)

The smart money is on Wisconsin to win, but Northwestern to cover. Wisconsin 27, Northwestern 23.

📵Blame men’s basketball

Basketball season is happening, I guess. And the men’s team released its schedule. I know it’s a pandemic so scheduling is weird, but this non-conference slate is even weaker than usual for a program notorious for loading its preseason with cupcakes.