The 2015-16 College football thread (SPOILERS)

Jank · Nov 19, 2015

JRod said:
Is is it abysmal offenses or just good defense? I know sparty had no trouble putting up points against Oregon and I can't think of any other OOC games they had where it was an issue, other than Minnesota .

Against Oregon's 114th ranked defense? And Ohio State hasn't played MSU, yet, so they weren't factored into my argument. Sure, abysmal may have been a bit harsh, but so is saying that OU "doesn't play defense". Just to be clear, I'm not comparing OSU this year to FSU last year or arguing that OSU shouldn't be in the playoff. Both teams deserved to be in the top 4 at this point in their respective seasons.

CBaker · Nov 19, 2015

Jank said:
Against Oregon's 114th ranked defense? And Ohio State hasn't played MSU, yet, so they weren't factored into my argument. Sure, abysmal may have been a bit harsh, but so is saying that OU "doesn't play defense". Just to be clear, I'm not comparing OSU this year to FSU last year or arguing that OSU shouldn't be in the playoff. Both teams deserved to be in the top 4 at this point in their respective seasons.

I'm pretty sure JRod is stating that the Big 10 as a whole is a pretty solid defensive conference, meaning the offensive numbers are going to be lower in general.

Big 10 defense as of total yards allowed:

#2 - Michigan
#3 - Wisconsin
#9 - OSU
#15 - Penn State
#17 - Iowa
#21 - Northwestern
#31 - Minnesota
#34 - Illinois
#46 - MSU

the highest ranked defense in the Big 12 is OU at 23, and the next team isn't until Baylor at 41.

If you go by points allowed you still have 5 teams in the Big 10 inside the top 20 (with Wisconsin and OSU #1 and #2), while only OU at 24 is inside the top 50 in the big 12.

So yes, OU has played defense. But they are practically the only one.

Jank · Nov 19, 2015

Fair enough. The same argument can be made for the Big 12 with their top offenses (5 of the top 7 scoring offenses) vs. poor defensive numbers. I'm enjoying the debate and wanted to clarify OU's position and their margin of victory since them and Baylor were called out. Trash Baylor's defense all you want

rallo · Nov 19, 2015

Common opponent stuff never really holds up for me, but look at iowa state... they put up 31 against a terrible okst D and 17 again Iowa... Iowa's margin of victory was 10 points higher than okst's... then you look at yardage... Iowa gained 485 and gave up 310. Whereas okst gained 497 and gave up 411...

My point is that there is a bigger drop off in defense than there is in offense... at least in this common road opponent

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CBaker · Nov 19, 2015

Jank said:
Fair enough. The same argument can be made for the Big 12 with their top offenses (5 of the top 7 scoring offenses) vs. poor defensive numbers. I'm enjoying the debate and wanted to clarify OU's position and their margin of victory since them and Baylor were called out. Trash Baylor's defense all you want

Agree, good defense numbers could be helped by bad offense numbers and vice versa. I've never had anything against OU though. I'm still trying to figure out how they lost to Texas. They are a good team, but the rest of the big 12's defense is bad.

Jank · Nov 19, 2015

cbaker2882 said:
Agree, good defense numbers could be helped by bad offense numbers and vice versa. I've never had anything against OU though. I'm still trying to figure out how they lost to Texas. They are a good team, but the rest of the big 12's defense is bad.

Ugh, you and me both. Probably one of the worst OU/TX games I've been to. Honestly, though, that could have been the best thing to happen to them. They were very lethargic in the first half of their games leading up to the Texas game. Maybe the loss knocked a little sense into them because they have been playing phenomenally well since then.