End Regular Season - RPI, Stats & Playoffs

My Honda Accord has passed on to Totaled Car Heaven.  I picked up my check from a lifesize cardboard cutout of Flo, the TV spokeswoman for Progressive insurance.  More about that later.

Funny RPI stuff.

Marist and Marshfield didn't play until Saturday.  The RPI's were adjusted for all teams based on Friday night's results and before the Marist-Marshfield game.  Marist dropped six points, while Marshfield gained eight points.  Then Marist picked up a win at Marshfield.  Road wins are worth more than home wins, so I thought Marist would at least break even in their RPI rating.  Nope, Marist lost eight more points.  Marshfield picked up 20 RPI points for the loss, a net gain of 28 for the weekend.

Marist          Won on the road        down 14
Ashland        Won at home              up 19
Eagle Point    Lost on the road         up 3
Churchill        Won at home             down 11
Marshfield      Lost at home              up 28
Springfield      Won at home             down 16
Willamette      Lost on the road         even
North Eugene Lost on the road         down 2

Note that three winners lost RPI points.  Two losers gained RPI points and one loser broke even.

All in all, I think the RPI is doing a fine job.  There just aren't enough games against other leagues.  At least the RPI and seeding will keep the top seeds from meeting before the quarterfinals.  There are usually three or four very good teams in 5A.  Then there are another few teams that could upset them by playing a great game and getting some breaks.  But it will be rare for a 9 or lower seed to upset a top four seed.

Stats

Six teams have updated their MaxPreps stats with final regular season stats.  North Eugene has five of seven games loaded into MaxPreps, while Marshfield doesn't  use MaxPreps.  My stats are a little more thorough than MaxPreps as I have been able to find some missing stats for North Eugene and Marshfield in the newspapers.  For my stats go here.  MaxPreps stats are more fun to play with however.  You can slice them and dice them anyway you want, including specific games for individuals, and they even have a total yardage category (combining passing and rushing only). For MaxPreps stats go here.

Thomas Spikes won the rushing title with 1033 yards or 129 yards per game.  His big outing of 305 yards against Eagle Point is what put him in first and allowed him to finish over 100 yards ahead of the second leading rusher.

Sophomore Kamerun Smith won the passing yardage title with 1777 yards and an average of 222 yards per game.  Marist's Logan Silver was the only starting QB with a quarterback rating over 100.  He crushed it at 127.  Logan was second in league in both rushing and passing yardage, making him the league leader in total yardage at 2599 yards.  That's 325 yards per game - for just one person.  Yikes.  Ashland's Jacob Scarmanich also broke 2000 yards.  He totaled 2060 yards if you add his 148 yards receiving to his passing and rushing yards.  [MaxPreps uses the NFL quarterback rating.  I use the NCAA rating and have included Darren Thomas of the Ducks for compariston.  Logan's rating is way ahead of Thomas's]


I have mentioned that it has been a fantastic year for quarterbacks several times this fall.  Four quarterbacks finished with over 200 yards per game passing. And three of the others are over 200 yards per game of total yardage because of their good blend of running and passing abilities.  That means that there had to be a lot of receivers with great stats.  I've mentioned the receivers individually a lot this year.  The leader at the end of the season is Springfield's John Davidson with 741 yards or 93 per game.  Brandon Determan led the league in receptions with 51.  Marist's Taylor Walcott (612 yds) was the only receiver to officially break 100 yards per game - 102.  However teammate Austin Baird (635) averaged over 100 yards per game in the games he caught a pass.  But he had one game (the game that Walcott returned after missing two and a half games) where he played but didn't catch a pass.  Cameron Koehler (621) and Deaunte Brown (602) of Willamette were also in the exclusive 600 yard club.

Play-In and Play-Off

In case you haven't seen all of the matchups in one place

• Winner of (Eagle Point at Dallas) at Marist (Marist traveled to Eagle Point earlier this fall)
• Winner (South Albany at Willamette) at Ashland (Ashland traveled to Willamette earlier this fall)
• Silverton at Churchill
• Lebanon at Springfield
• Marshfield at Crescent Valley
• Winner (North Eugene at Summit) at Corvallis

I think we have a decent chance of moving all three teams playing Play-In games into the round of 32.  RPI wise, Eagle Point is way ahead of Dallas.  The South Albany at Willamette game will feature two teams giving up huge points on defense.  But Willamette has been more prolific on O.  North Eugene and Summit are evenly matched and there is no reason for North's speedy guys not to win on the other side of the mountains.

Reviewing my preseason prediction:

My official pre league prediction was made after the first round of non MWL 8 games.  In the MWL 6, I had Marist and Churchill 1-2, even though Churchill didn't play the first week.  I went with Willamette third, Springfield fourth, Marshfield fifth and North Eugene sixth.  I was pretty close. 

I thought Willamette was hurt hard by losing Danny Granillo, a two way first teamer in 2009.  Granillo switched to tight end and was becoming a monster when he blew out his ACL during the second game against Springfield.  Also, the Wolverines weren't helped by not having Jordan Visarraga at running back for most of their games. 

Springfield took a second game hit with two way second teamer Kameron Bates blowing his ACL in the same game that Willamette's Granillo injured his.  Neither of these teams has the depth of Marist to stay at a high level when they lose key players to injury.  Marist, on other hand, lost three or four key players in the first game against Corvallis, and had players that acted like Terminator's and morphed into perfect replacements.  In any event, I hate to see a player go down, especially in his senior year.

I ranked Ashland third in the MWL 8 in my pre-season guess.  But I dropped Ashland hard to sixth after they lost to Klamath Union 14-7 and moved Eagle Point to third for my final prediction.  Little did I know KU would turn out to be pretty good - they haven't lost to an Oregon team yet.  Ashland Coach Hall must be smiling.

Flo and My Totaled Car

Flo is the female TV personality for Progressive Insurance.  She's always dressed in white and wears the bright red lipstick.  Flo is always talking about discounts.  "More than one car - discount", "Motorcycle - discount", "Accident Free - discount"...  Well add this - "Totaled Car - Discount".  Very funny, Flo

Wife's birthday and Friday Night Football

I negotiated watching Sheldon at Thurston on TV while listening to Springfield and North Eugene, rather than leaving her at home and going to a game.  Our second grade neighbor came over and helped me sing 'Happy Birthday' and I was good for the night.  That was a close one.