1-6-12

[Mr. IWS]

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[Mr. IWS]

Brandon Lang


50 Dime Play

Kansas State +9


Free Pick

Kansas State/Arkansas OVER the posted total

[Mr. IWS]

Larry Ness
Larry's 10* Las Vegas Insider GOY (5-0 in bowls!)
KANSAS ST +PTS.

[Mr. IWS]

Scott Spreitzer has the over in K st. bowl game

[Mr. IWS]

Dr. Bob

Strong Opinion
ARKANSAS (-7.5) 38 Kansas St. 24
Cotton Bowl
06-Jan-2012 5:00PM Pacific
Kansas State is 10-2 with their only two losses coming against good teams Oklahoma and Oklahoma State and the Wildcats have wins over Miami-Florida, Baylor, Missouri, Texas A&M, and Texas. That’s pretty impressive. What’s not impressive is that Kansas State was out-gained 349 yards at 5.2 yards per play to 428 yards at 6.0 yppl in 11 games against Division 1A opponents. How does a team that bad go 10-2? The Wildcats were +16 in turnover margin in their 11 Division 1A games and they had 5 return touchdowns to zero for their opponents (part of that being due to their good special teams). Even with a large turnover differential and good special teams the Wildcats still shouldn’t have been close to having a 10-2 record, but being 8-1 on games decided by 7 points or less turned a team that should have been 6-6 or 7-5 into a team that went 10-2. Going 8-1 in close games, while mostly random, does have something to do with good coach and Bill Snyder’s team out-played their stats by 5 points per game this season. Part of that is just variance but I’ll give good in game coaching some of the credit. Regardless, Kansas State is simply not good enough to beat a very good Arkansas team whose only two losses were to #1 LSU and #2 Alabama. The Razorbacks were 3-0 in close games and they certainly should have lost at Vanderbilt, but Arkansas is a very good team that should win this game comfortably unless Kansas State is +2 or more in turnover margin, which is unlikely

Kansas State’s offense averaged 5.2 yards per play against teams that would allow 5.2 yppl and quarterback Collin Klein is pretty much the entire offense. Klein is a below average passer (only 5.4 yards per pass play against 1A teams that would allow 5.6 yppp to an average quarterback), but he only threw 5 interceptions all season and ran for over 1000 yards while rushing for 26 touchdowns. Arkansas’ defense doesn’t have great stats for the season, as the Hogs allowed 5.4 yppl to teams that would combine to average 5.6 yppl against an average defense, but Arkansas struggled early in the season without star DL Jake Bequette, who wasn’t healthy enough to start until week 6 and still led the team with 8 sacks. From week 6 the Razorbacks were 0.1 yards per rushing play better than average, yards per pass play better than average and 0.4 yppl better than average. My math model projects a modest 347 yards at 5.2 yppl for Kansas State in this game.

It will be tough for the Wildcats to keep up with a potent Arkansas attack that averaged 6.5 yards per play and 36 points per game this season against a schedule of mostly good defensive teams that would combine to allow 5.2 yppl and just 23 points to an average team. Arkansas is actually better than that, as the Razorbacks started to run the ball better when leading rusher Dennis Johnson (6.3 ypr) started getting 10 to 15 carries a game starting in October after an injury limited him to just 7 carries in the first 4 games. Johnson is much better than Ronnie Wingo (4.6 ypr) and Broderick Green (3.3 ypr), so getting Johnson more carries certainly made a difference. The rushing attack is 1.0 yards per rushing play better than average rather than the season rating of +0.6 yprp. The pass attack rates at 1.9 yard per pass play better than average with Tyler Wilson at quarterback if you exclude the game that leading receiver Jarius Wright missed (he missed week 3 against Troy). Arkansas’s offense is 1.6 yards per play better than average and the Razorbacks averaged 40.8 points per game if you exclude the 31 total points that they scored against Alabama and LSU – the 2 most dominating defensive units in the nation. The other 9 teams combine to have a slightly better defensive rating than Kansas State has, so it certainly wouldn’t surprise me if Arkansas hit the 40 point mark in this game.

Kansas State’s defense is a bit worse than average from a yards per play perspective, as the Wildcats allowed 6.0 yppl to teams that would combine to average 5.9 yppl against an average defensive team. However, Kansas State had a particularly tough time defending very good passing teams, as the Wildcats allowed 9.8 yards per pass play to Miami-Florida, Baylor, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State - the 4 teams Kansas State faced that rate at 1.0 yppp above average or better. Those teams would combine to average 8.1 yppp against an average defensive team (adjusted for facing Oklahoma with star WR Broyles), so the Wildcats were 1.7 yppp worse than average against good passing teams while being average against the pass overall. A regression analysis of the Kansas State pass defense as a function of the level of opposing quarterback shows a slope of 1.47, which means that for every yard better the opposing quarterback is the Wildcats would allow 1.47 more yards per pass play (i.e. they were relatively worse against better passing teams). My math model projects Arkansas with 8.2 yards per pass play in this game without adjusting for Kansas State’s pattern of being relatively worse defending good passing teams and plugging in Arkansas’ pass rating into the regression equation would yield a prediction of 8.9 yppp for Wilson in this game. Arkansas is also expected to run the ball well (5.8 yprp) and my math model projects 453 yard at 7.2 yppl without adjusting for Kansas State’s trend and 475 yards at 7.5 yppl if they continue to perform relatively worse against good quarterbacks.

Kansas State does project to have a 0.33 edge in turnover margin, which is much lower than their average turnover margin of +1.45 in their games against 1A foes, which had a great deal to do with luck. Arkansas’ Tyler Wilson simply doesn’t throw many interceptions (just 6 in 12 games), which is only 1 more than Klein threw, so it’s not likely that Kansas State will be lucky with turnovers as they often were this season. Kansas State’s good special teams rating had a lot to do with the kickoff return skills of Tyler Lockett, who averaged 35.2 yards per return with 2 touchdowns. However, Lockett was injured late in the season and will not play in this game, and the other kick returners on the team combined to average a modest 21.0 yards on 29 kickoff returns. Lockett’s absence is worth 1.2 points in special teams alone and it also may affect the passing game since he was their #2 receiver in receptions per game (although I didn’t make an adjustment in the pass attack). Kansas State still has better than average special teams but Arkansas has great special teams thanks to the punt return skills of Joe Adams (3 returned for touchdowns) and kick returners Dennis Johnson (25.6 yard average and 1 TD) and Marquel Wad (26.5 yard average and 1 TD). Arkansas also has a very good punter, who averaged 45.2 yards per punt and a 37.3 yard net. Arkansas’ edge in special teams, with Lockett out for Kansas State, is a significant 2.1 points.

Overall the math favors Arkansas by 13 ½ points based on the projected stats and special teams and I’d get 16 points if Kansas State’s pass defense continues to be relatively worse against good passing teams. Kansas State out-played their stats by 5.0 points (and Arkansas out-played their stats by 0.7 points), so I’d still get Arkansas by 9 points (or 11 ½ points) even if Kansas State continued to be better on the scoreboard than they are on the stats sheet, which is unlikely. Part of the difference between the stats and their actual scoring margin I will credit to good coaching but I think a fair line on this game is at least 12 points. That stats also predict just 58 ½ points but an adjusted points model predicts 64 ½ points so I don’t have an opinion on the total. I’ll consider Arkansas a Strong Opinion at -7 ½ or more and I’d take Arkansas in a 2-Star Best Bet at -7 or less.