Week 4 2022 Preview

Hi All!

Welcome back to Goosepoop, newsletter #39!

Today is our fourth of 14 weekly previews.

For this week’s post, we’re going to have a very similar format to the last two weeks:

1. Big Games: A brief overview of 2-5 of the State’s biggest games

2. Fun Facts: A smattering of ‘fun facts’ about matchups occurring that week

3. Other Info: General football information (polls, etc.)

Lastly, if you haven’t checked out our Week 3 Wrap-Up, I highly suggest you read that before continuing (link below).

Before we jump into post, I want to take a second and thank you guys, the members of our community. The support we receive from you all is the reason we continue to post these updates, and we are proud to say that we now have over 667 subscribers! Let’s keep pushing to 1000!

On that note, if you like what you’re reading, please take a second to subscribe & share. You guys reading each week and sharing with your family & friends really is the best way for us to grow, so we appreciate any support we can get.

Week 4 Big Games

Clarkston (#4 D1) vs. West Bloomfield (#6 D1)

If you saw the release of our computer rankings this week, you likely observed one fact about Division 1: it’s incredibly close between the teams at the top. So much so that our model has only a 7 point difference between the teams in our D1 top 6.

Beyond this slight difference in rating, there’s also a bit of hypocrisy: despite having lost to DCC in Week 2, we actually have Davison ranked higher than the Shamrocks.

This seemingly illogical ranking is driven by two things that happened in Week 3: Davison had an impressive win over TCC (4 scores), and Clarkston, whom Davison had defeated in Week 1, took down an undefeated Rochester Adams by 10 points. In our model, both developments outweigh the Cards’ Week 2 loss to DCC.

Ok: so what? What does any of this have to do with the Clarkston vs. West Bloomfield matchup? One word: parity. In the lines above, we just got done describing the cluster-f*** that is trying to rank D1 teams. When you combine that with our model’s projected point spread on this game in particular (the Wolves are favored by 1 point), you have to step back and think, “if things go as planned in this game, this game will both A) be close and B) tell me absolutely nothing about who our D1 State Champ will eventually be”.

And this is our base case: with the way that these teams are playing right now, either of these teams could ultimately take home the trophy come November ….. unless you see a blowout in either direction, take the ultimate result here with a grain of salt. Very likely, this one will be replayed come playoff time.

Saginaw Heritage (#3 D2) vs. Davison (#2 D1)

Unlike our game above, we think the result of this matchup will tell us a lot about the teams involved. Namely, is Saginaw Heritage for real?

If you follow us on social media, you’ll remember that the Hawks are currently averaging the most points per game of any program in the State. And those performances aren’t coming against scrub teams: they most recently posted 52 points against Grand Blanc, a D1 semifinalist from last year.

But are they capable of running with the likes of DLS in a D2 title or semi final game? The results of this game will give us a strong indication of whether this is possible ….. despite the impressive performance to date, our model still has Heritage as a 2 score underdog.

So, this is the marker of achievement for Heritage: if they keep it close with Davison, it’s a win for them in our books. If they win the game outright (as the Playoff Wizard Users believe they have a chance to), all the more better: the Hawks most certainly will be ‘for real’, and a real threat for the D2 title this year.

4 Sets of Fun Facts for Week 4

The Best Game In Every Division

Similar to our feature games, the debut of our computer model last week allows us to set the spreads & over/unders for every game in the State.

Here’s the model’s projections for the top game in every division this week:

Tracking the Champs

Let’s also use the model to check in on last year’s Champs:

Identical to our top games in every division, there’s only once place where our model disagrees with the Playoff Wizard Users, and that’s MLK’s matchup with Cass Tech.

Our model is showing Cass as a 25 point favorite to MLK; this seems pretty rich to us, and it’s likely driven by the lack of data we have on MLK (they have only played 2 games, one of which was out of State). Look for MLK’s rating to jump substantially next week, regardless of outcome.

Games Between 3-0 Teams

Finally, there are also 10 games between 3-0 teams going down this week. Here’s the model predictions for each:

Superlative Matchups

This is a new section this week - we’re going to take a look at some fun stats that the model is spitting out about various games around the State this week:

• Game w/ the highest over/under: (97) Southfield A&T vs. Rochester

• Game w/ the lowest over/under: (5) Chelsea vs. Pinckney

• Pick ‘em Games: (4)

  • Walled Lake Western vs. South Lyon East

  • Romeo vs. Utica Eisenhower

  • Beal City vs. Lake City

  • Kalamazoo United vs. Benton Harbor

Other Useful Information

Coaches Poll

The Week 4 Coaches Poll was just released on Tuesday. Check it out here if you’d like to see how the State’s coaches are ranking the teams in all 8 11-man divisions:

• MHSFCA Coaches Poll

AP Poll

Similarly, the first AP poll of the season released on Monday. Check it out here if you’d like to see how the State’s press are ranking the teams in all 8 11-man divisions

• AP Poll

That’s all for today! We hope everyone has a great Week 4.

Check back here on Monday for the next edition of our Goosepoop Computer Ratings - subscribe below to make sure you don’t miss out!