See here for last week's thread, where I didn't do too badly in my final prediction (34-20, also predicting a DJax punt return TD).  Of course, if I had been totally off, there's little chance I would be linking to it, would there?

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Up here in New Jersey, I don't get the chance to gloat as much as I would like.  Just got one, though, as while on my lunch break I stopped by the store and saw a man wearing a Florida Gators sweatshirt.  I casually strolled by and winked at him, gave him the thumbs up, and remarked "Roll Tide!"

He stared at me for a moment or two, then in an exaggerated (and not really fun kind of way) slapped his head and said "Oh, yeah!"  I flatter myself into thinking I put a little pothole in the road for him today.

Anyone else want to share how they gently rubbed it in the faces of Florida fans?  Maybe you're a co-worker with a Texas fan who was sure McCoy would win the Heisman?  I'd say no picking on poor Auburn or Notre Dame fans, why kick them when they're down?  Wait until they put on airs, then when we cut their knees out from under them we can gloat all day long.

Guess which ones?

 Mark Ingram

Rolando McClain

Mt Cody

Javier Arenas

Michael Johnson

Leigh Tiffin

This is simply an incredible change from where we were as a program 3 years ago. What a great class!

Alabama safety Mark Barron made the third-team, giving the Tide seven players who received AP All-America honors. Texas put three players -- kicker Hunter Lawrence, center Chris Hall and linebacker Sergio Kindle -- on the third team for a total of six overall.

Florida also had six players make the three teams, including cornerback Joe Haden and tight end Aaron Hernandez as first-teamers.

The SEC was the most represented conference on the first team, with 11 players, including Tennessee safety Eric Berry, South Carolina linebacker Eric Norwood and Georgia punter Drew Butler.

Any thoughts about this?  We have #5 looking like a kid again, #7 proving that he can in fact run a real offense, and Kolb, all under contract next year.  Kolb with 2 impressive outings this year when McNabb was out.  Time to trade Kolb?  Would a team trade anything to give him a shot?  What kind of compensation would we get?


By comparison, the Falcons traded Matt Schaub for 2 2nd round picks a few years ago, which is about as much as I can see us getting for Kolb.  Make any sense?

Micro-breakdown (based in part on DVOA)

What the Eagles do:

Offense - Balance running and passing well, tend to exploit the opponent's weakness rather than dictate play on our own terms.  WR playmakers.  Overall a big-play offense which, on those game when big plays do not happen, looks crappy

Defense - Stop both the pass and the run well, rush the passer, generate turnovers in the passing game.  Awesome against WRs, ok against TEs, poor against RB in the receiving game.

Special teams - hidden weapon this year, great in KOs and Punt returns, above average overall in everything else.

What the Giants do:

Offense - Pass the ball well, run the ball ok, some passing to RB.  TE average in catching the ball.  Most passing damage to their WRs, where 3 different WRs have at least 4 TD catches.  Don't give up a lot of sacks (less than 5% of passes result in sacks)

Defense - Just ok overall, average against both the pass and run.  DL living off previous seasons' reputation as pass rushers, not so much this year, though still above average.

Special teams - Hidden weakness this year, Above average in punt returns, poor in punt and kickoff coverage.

Prediction:

Eagles get short fields and big plays.  Giants go into halftime down by 10.  Eagles let up in 3rd quarter and Giants tie it up.  Eagles go ahead in 4th and late INTs by Eli makes the ending score bigger than the game actually was.  Possible DJax punt return for TD.

Eagles 34

Giants 20

ed.- bumped from the fanposts

Not that into individual awards, but if there is any justice in the awards, Ingram should easily win the award due to superior play against superior competition.  Look at the finalists:

Toby Gerhart,Stanford - His counting stats are good, especially the TDs! 

Gerhart is not a receiving threat with 149 receiving yards, total of 1885 yards from scrimmage.

C.J. Spiller, Clemson - Not the stats Gerhart and Ingram put up, he did score a TD in every game.

Mark Ingram, Alabama - You know him and his stats:

Of course you throw in the 322 receiving yards for1864 yards from scrimmage.

I don't think there's any harm in ruling out Spiller here.  I don't see him beating out Ingram or Gerhart.  In total yards from scrimmage, Ingram and Gerhart are basically tied.  So, looking at just the rushing,

YPC

Ingram: 6.2 YPC

Gerhart: 5.6 YPC

Edge is clearly to Ingram

TDs:

Ingram: 15

Gerhart: 26

Edge is to Gerhart, though I'd love to have the time to see how many TDs for both backs were short yardage (i.e. cheapies), which would have gone to other backs on Bama.

Competition:

Here the balance is extremely one sided.  The toughest defense Gerhart faced was ranked #20 by FEI in Oregon.  Overall he faced 4 teams with defenses between 20 and 30 in his season, rushing for 649 yards (162/game) on 122 carries (5.3 YPC).

Ingram, on the other hand, faced 6 defenses ranked in the top 20(!) during the year.  During those games, he ran for 924 yards (154 YPG) on 146 carries (6.3 YPC). 

Once again, the edge is fairly clearly on Ingram's side here.

Top games:

Top games for both players came against top defenses, with Gerhart running for 223 yards on 38(!) attempts (5.8 YPC) against #20 defense Oregon, while Ingram ran for 246 on 24 (10.25) against the #9 Defense SC.  Ingram once again clearly had the best top game.

Worst game:

Here, Gerhart's worst game was quite a bit better than Ingram's worst one, where Gerhart had a game of 82 yards on 17 carries (4.8 YPC) against Wake (not a great defense in case you were wondering), while Ingram had the totally inexplicable Auburn game, running for only 30 yards on 16 attempts (1.9 YPC).  Even though it was a tougher defense, you can't rule this one in anyone's favor but Gerhart's.

Overall:

While Gerhart has the more total rushing yards, when receiving yards are considered, Ingram ties him.  Although Gerhart has more yards per game, Ingram has a much superior YPC.  Gerhart has more TDs, but Ingram played against far superior competition.  Overall, any close look at the numbers shows Ingram has been a better RB all year than Gerhart, or any other RB for that matter.  Gerhart was run to death with a huge attempt count, but he did not as effectively as Ingram.

I think Gerhart might win tonight, based on first of all the fact that Ingram's worst game was the second to last of the season, and second of all because I sense a kind of anti-Bama sentiment in the air.  Sort of a desire to recognize another team's accomplishments, since Alabama has the SEC Championship and a good shot at the NC.  I'd much rather win the NC than Ingram win any award, but In think the overall picture is clear.  Ingram is the superior back.

I read a post which pointed out that Bama was far more successful converting 3rd downs than Florida.  Looking up the game boxscore, this seemed to be true, as Bama converted 11 of 15 while Florida converted only 4 of 11.  Now I happen to believe that 3rd down conversion is important to deciding individual games, but somewhat random throughout the season, so this concerned me.  Maybe the game was not so one sided as I had thought.  Maybe Bama just happened to convert more 3rd downs, and otherwise was evenly matched against the Gators, leading to the seeming one sided result!  So I looked deeper into the drive chart.

What I learned was that as far as 3rd down conversion was concerned, the great success Alabama enjoyed was more a product of their overall domination than the producer of it.  That is, Bama had great success on 1st and 2nd down generally, which lead to short 3rd down conversion attempts, which lead to more being made successfully.

The average to go in Florida's 4 successful conversions: 3.5 yards.  Bama's average in their 11 made: 3.2 yards.  Florida's average to go in their 7 unseccessful conversions: 9.7 yards.  Bama's average to go in their unsuccessful 4: 8.3 yards.  Florida converted every 3rd down attempt of less than 7 yards, and converted one of 7 yards.  Bama converted two 7 yard attempts, but failed in one 4 and one 5 yard attempt, and also converted none of over 7 yards.

Overall, Alabama's average yardage to go on 3rd down was only 4.5 yards, while Florida faced an average of 7.5 yards to go on 3rd.  If Florida had been better on 1st and 2nd, they would have had much more success on 3rd, and Bama's overall success was not just the result of a few big plays on one side of the ball or another.  The game inside the game clearly validates the overall result:  Alabama was by far the better team on Saturday, and no flukes can explain their total domination of play.

Read all about it here.

Florida faced 117 opponent non-garbage possessions this season, and 49 percent of those lasted only three plays or fewer. Before the game-clinching drive in the SEC championship, Florida had only given up two non-garbage touchdowns all season on opponent drives that began at or inside the opponent’s 20-yard line. Only 15 out of 79 opponent drives that began at or inside the opponent’s 30-yard line resulted in a score of any kind against Florida this season -- six of these drives were produced by the Crimson Tide offense on Saturday. In terms of game-specific Offensive FEI -- efficiency adjusted for opponent -- Alabama had the single best offensive game of the 2009 college football season.

 Also, a little taste of the upcoming matchup with Texas (ranked #3 behind Bama and Florida).

Compare that to Texas, who faced an almost impenetrable Nebraska defense on Saturday night, eking out a victory in the final harrowing seconds to clinch a spot in the BCS championship game. Colt McCoy and Texas’ offense took the field 16 times in the game, twice as many non-garbage opportunities as Alabama, but only managed 13 points. Against Nebraska and Oklahoma, the two best defenses the Longhorns faced in 2009, Texas’ offense never could find their rhythm. An average offense against an average defense would have expected to score more than 66 points with Texas’ starting field position in those two games -- Texas scored only 29 total points.

For their part, the Longhorns’ defense dominated their side of the ball in those games, setting up Texas for enough short field position situations to knock in a few clutch field goals and pull out victory in the end. But with a championship tilt against the nation’s best defense looming, the Longhorns are going to need to figure out how to jumpstart their offensive attack. Otherwise, workhorse Mark Ingram and the ball-hogging Crimson Tide will roll to a national championship victory.