SB Nation User Blog: Xerxes

whose better?

Xerxes — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:58:02 -0000

Looking at the secondary of the Horns led me to look at the passing quality of the SEC compared to the BIG 12, which led to comparing the quality of the opponents of Texas Alabama and Florida. Each has played 8 games. So I looked at the NCAA rating (1-119) of each team they played for, total offense, total defense, points allowed and points scored. Then took each of those ratings and averaged them for each team and got a single number for each team. Then I took the number of each team and averaged all eight of them to get a rating of the competition each has faced.

Florida had the worst rated competition at 60.9, Texas was second at 58.9 and Alabama was at 58.4. Pretty close.

So then I threw out the 4 worst teams each played. Then you got Florida with 45.8, Alabama at 40.0 and Texas at 33.6.

Neither Alabama or Florida played a Team that rated 33.6. The closest Florida came was Tennessee at 35. Alabama played Tennessee at 35 and Ole Miss at 33.8. Texas on the other hand beat OSU soundly even though it was rated 37.5 plus it beat Tech rated at 30.5 and the best team by far any of the three faced was Oklahoma at 17.3.

the big three ratings were,

Alabama 16.5

Florida 5.7

Texas 11.5

The top 4 defensive teams average that each three faced (combining Points allowed and Total defense).

Florida 19.3

Texas 18.9

Alabama 10.6

If you take the total offense and the total defense average of all eight opponents for each three you get,

Florida 59.8

Alabama 61.1

Texas 59.3

based on just those 2 categories it is really close again.

Based on the 4 categories Texas has played the best individual teams, Alabama has played the best set of eight teams average and Florida played the worst which may have to do with it's advantage being rated slightly higher than the other 2.

One note Florida did play one div-II team which means there rankings should be lower due to the fact that Charleston Southern is rated 44th in total offense, 80th in total defense, 78th in points scored and 105th in points allowed in Div-II so might assume to add 119 to each number if all Div I teams are better than all Div II teams.

observations on the defense in the last two games.

Xerxes — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:06:40 -0000

I started noticing during the Missouri game that the coverage sets for the secondary had the conerbacks and safeties move closer to the line of scrimmage.

During the OSU game the majority of the coverage sets had the secondary close to the line of scrimmage.

There were some posts mentioning about the defense giving up to much yardage due to the pre-snap depth of the secondary. I was wondering if the tighter coverage of the last 2 games had any effect.

Comparing the first 4 games to the last 4 games.

interceptions, yards per pass, pass yards per game,

1-4 6 4.7 212

5-8 10 4.9 163.5

last 2 games

7-8 6 4.6 121

The Horns defense did better in the last 2 games stopping the pass against decent conference opponents than it did against the non conference cream puffs (excluding Tech).

Just some OSU--UT comparisons

Xerxes — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:15:05 -0000

I was looking at some stats and started experimenting.

OSU was only better in 2 game deciding categories in my mind, Sacks allowed and Passing Efficiency.

Rushing Offense,

OSU was better at rushing the ball but only 11.6% better than UT and UT was a twice as good at stopping the rush than OSU (UT was #1 in the nation at stopping the run, leading by 50% over the #2 spot). Because of this I would give the advantage to UT.

giving Tech some credit

Xerxes — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 06:06:19 -0000

Tech certainly gave good shlacking to Okie st.. The cowboys couldn't stop the Techie Offense. Every drive was a TD and two went over 95 yards.

This makes me feel better how much tighter the Horns played Tech, after spotting them one half of crap, the Horns clawed their way back and were as close as you can get but not win.

But even though tech has a much better team than they have during the past they still got those same old sissy spakley helmets. Does anyone else think they look like they were designed for the nieghborhood bowling league? maybe disco rollerskating protection or a Liberace Las Vegas extravaganza? Pirates might go for the black uniforms and some want to be praire pirates might wear black and red but playing football with a disco ball helmet is going to get you about as much respect as having Richard Simmons as a strength coach.

Unbeaten teams

Xerxes — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:27:04 -0000

watching Tech shred KU it looks like they are gonna be unbeaten going into next week.

Okie st is unbeaten going into today's game. So the question in my mind is what are the stats on playing unbeaten teams in a season.

The Horns will have three this year how many others teams have played that many?

(on top of that they are all conference games).

Another thing to remember the Horns have one more game against the best of the Big XII but

Oklahoma still has Tech and Okie St..

Tech has the Horns, Okie St. and Oklahoma.

Okie St. still has to get by Tech and Oklahoma.

The Horns have made at least a one loss out of our biggest rivals in the conference. So our biggest rivals have at least 2 more games against the best teams in the conference.

Whining is for losers

Xerxes — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 21:33:58 -0000

when I went to look at the Coaches poll I noticed Texas didn't get all the number one votes. that seemed odd to me, first as an underdog they beat the #1 team and then did what not many teams have done this year and proved they deserved being ranked #1 by beating a top ten team this week. Not only beat them but played almost 1 perfect half of football. Scored on every drive, stopped their opponent from scoring on every drive but one where they got a field goal. Didn't have a turnover and only 1 penalty in the half.I don't remember any team playing so flawlessly. This was against a team that never had to punt the ball until the 5th game of the season and was a top pick to get to the championship game and not some talentless cream puff.

I though maybe I should look at the schedules of the other two teams that got #1 votes maybe that was why they got the vote.

Texas the consolidated win loss record of the teams it played was 27-22 and it scored 337 points to 123

Alabama played against teams with a win-loss record of 24-25 and it scored 226-101

and Penn St. (what a joke it's the big X) it opponents were 22-35 but of course it beat them 363-94

Both Alabama and Penn St. played only 2 teams with winning records and 5 teams with losing records.

Texas had played 4 teams with winning records and 3 teams with losing records.

Texas has played twice as many teams winning teams as Alabama and still scored more than 100 more points than they have.

The quality of the Big XII is still underrated and the bowl season is sure going to be a shock to some writers.

Congrats for a pass rush

Xerxes — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:18:21 -0000

The Longhorns are tied for first place in sacks with 14 and losses of 144 yards.

Brian Orakpo is 2nd in country in sacks.

It been a while since the defence had a pass rush. Also 2nd in the country in stopping the run 52.5 ypg. not given up a rushing td yet ( only 3 passing) not bad.

On top of that CM is 2nd in the country in passing efficicency.

Points given up so far;

Oklahoma 38 points, 9.5 ppg

Missouri 34 points, 8.5 ppg

Texas 33 points, 8.25 ppg

the best passing in the Country

Xerxes — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:11:07 -0000

How things change.

Looking at the "Passing Efficiency" stat for Div I

Quaterback Ratings

you see something I dont believe has ever happened. John Davidson of Tulsa leads the country in passing rating at 225. Then you get to

Sam Bradford at 214

Colt McCoy at 206

Chase Mcdaniel at 193

If it is not amazing enough to have 3 QB's at 2,3,and 4 you look down the list at 8,9,and 10 you have,

Zac Robinson, OK state at, 179,

Robert Griffin, Baylor, at 171,

Josh Freeman, K state, at 170,

With this as evidence I would say the Big VII is now the Dominate passing Conference in the country.

15 minutes for Mooney

Xerxes — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:52:56 -0000

Ian Mooney gets gets his moment in the spotlight

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_...

I think it should be 3 days of drinking and then fell off the potato truck.

He's back in the Southwest.

Xerxes — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 00:42:38 -0000

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While watching Kansas vs Nebraska I flipped over to catch some of the Spurs play the Pistons. I had a terrible shock, I though I saw KELVIN SAMPSON's head on the bench behind Gregg Popovich. Like seeing a ghost, I was startled, I smelled sulfur and had a bad metallic taste in my mouth, it couldn't be. At the next time out there he was with the other coaches. Checking around I found out he some kind of adviser for the team. Now I am scarred to go down to the local watering hole, I might find Eddie Sutton sloppy drunk and harassing the wait staff.