Fans may be surprised to find out that Michigan State’s victory over Western Michigan was statistically one of the most dominant in all of college football for week zero and one.
Parker Fleming — also known on social media as “statsowar” — released his weekly “Did We Really Get Beat that Bad?” rankings for the opening weekend games, and the Spartans were near the top in dominant wins. Per Fleming, the rating system “strips out some noise and presents a view of how two teams compared in the down to down business of moving the football. Games are won and lost with explosives, special teams, turnovers, etc, and looking at net success rate just shows us how close the margins were.”
Michigan State’s 23-6 victory over Western Michigan ranked as the No. 7 most dominant win this past weekend. This is notable and interesting since the relatively poor second half left many Spartans fans with a bad taste in their mouth after an impressive opening 30 minutes.
It should be noted that the rankings from Fleming didn’t include games that featured FCS foes. So we can’t compare the Spartans’ second week opponent Boston College since the Eagles played Fordham — who they beat 66-10.
It’ll be interesting to see how the Spartans compare this week against a tougher opponent. But, it’s still a little bit more reassuring knowing the analytics suggest Michigan State more thoroughly handled the Broncos last week, despite not blowing them out on the scoreboard.
Check out Fleming’s complete graphic below:
Contact/Follow us @The SpartansWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Michigan State news, notes and opinion. You can also follow Robert Bondy on X @RobertBondy5.
This article originally appeared on Spartans Wire: Stats guru states MSU football had one of most dominant wins last week
Reporting by Robert Bondy, Spartans Wire / Spartans Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
