Illinois State vs NDSU - common opponents

[Buffalo.Rider]

Been a pleasure reading all the speculation, commentary, on the upcoming game.

Something I have not seen anywhere yet (perhaps I missed it, if posted by someone else).
Here is a comparison of Illinois State and NDSU on their common opponents in 2014.

	Illinois State ....	NDSU
South Dakota State	45-10	37-17 and 27-24
Indiana State	20-18	34-17
Western Illinois	37-34	17-10
Missouri State	21-7	45-10
Northern Iowa	28-42 and 41-21	3-23
Youngstown St.	35-21	38-14
South Dakota	45-26	47-7
Southern Illinois	44-29	38-10

The entries above that are Dark Red are these teams losses for the year.
A couple of tendencies - NDSU's defense was better (keeping opponents points lower) AND NDSU tended to have larger margins of victory. Not in every case, but generally the case.

[Professor Chaos]

You're making too much work for yourself

Since NDSU and Illinois State didn't play each other in the regular season they each played the other 8 conference teams. So the MVFC has your common opponents breakdown already done for you in their conference only stats page: http://www.mvc.org/football/stats/confonly.htm

[bisonaudit]

Using just the 42 MVFC games (including the playoff contests) for a Sagarin type analysis, I'm getting basically the same neutral field spread, NDSU -4.5 and an o/u of 52.

Ratings (conference rank):
Team . Overall . Offense . Defense
NDSU 14.43 (1) 4.03 (3) 10.41 (1)
Ill St .. 9.80 (2) 8.16 (1). 1.64 (4)

[CyPanth]

Nah, that is just too easy.

[HerdBot]

Both teams kick ass. Both lost to the Pansies on the road who will earn a moral National Championship and will unveil a banner next year. The sdsu game was an abberation since the Bunnies had a backup qb and somehow turned the ball over seemingly every drive in the first half and peaked late in the year.

NDSU allows less points but scores less. The winner will score more points than the othet team. That's my John Madden analysis.

[ndsubison1]

They were much better at home too.

[Bison 4 Life]

They were much better at home too.

If you take just the road wins, 5 each for the teams.

NDSU wins by an average of 23.8ppg

ISU wins by an average of 8ppg

[devin45k]

If you take just the road wins, 5 each for the teams.

NDSU wins by an average of 23.8ppg

ISU wins by an average of 8ppg

I guess we just gotta get loud as hell in TX

[Bison 4 Life]

I guess we just gotta get loud as hell in TX

Right. Once they get outside the confines of their 5k stadium, they aren't quite as hot.

[thebootfitter]

Right. Once they get outside the confines of their 5k stadium, they aren't quite as hot.

To be fair, they did just win a couple tough road games against quality opponents. I still think our "home field" will be an advantage, though.