Oregon v Ohio State - A Tale of Two Stories - Part 1: Rushing

Ok, so I've been away for a while, but now that I'm back, it's time to crunch the number.

First, I happened upon a blog that totally distorted the number and dissing the Ducks The Buckeye Battle Cry.

So, I attempted to correct and critique him and he deleted my posts.  Normally, I am pretty impartial because I think it's simply better reading.  However, I found the actions of this blogger to be so homerist that I had to answer with real numbers.

To begin with, lets look at Mr. Knowitall's first chart:

First, I asked him if these were rankings at the time Oregon played them, or what.  So, using the NCAA's official stats (the game between the Ducks and the Beavers have not yet posted at the time of this writing.  When they are I will update the post), it appeared to me that he was using what are the current rankings, which may not reflect where that team was at the time being played.

Example:  At the time that the Bucks played Navy they had a  national ranking in Rushing Offense of 44 and today it is 3.  Obviously, they are better now then when they played the Bucks.

Realize of course that for the first game there is no national ranking, so for the sake of consistency, I used the results of that first game to determine the ranking.

Now let's look at what that chart shows using the rankings at the time played which is more reflective of actual challenges and not playing the then/now game.

Oregon has faced 7 of their 12 games against defenses in the top 25 and with the exception of BSU, has consistently rushed for far more yards than what that team usually gives up.  Oregon has faced four teams whose rushing defense was in the top 10.

If we look at OSU's chart:

This is interesting because the Bucks are using (in the case of Navy) what they performed in the first game as compared to what they averaged at the end of the year.  Kind of like comparing an apple seed to the apple after it's grown.

Now when we look at that same chart using comparative data:

As one can see, while the Bucks rushing D consistently plays better then the other teams rushing offense, the Bucks have only faced 1 rushing offense that was in the top 10 and currently, Oregon is ranked 8th in the nation.

What is the most interesting are the averages.  Oregon has averaged 236 yards against teams averaging only giving up 101 yards and Oregon has faced teams with an average rushing D rank of 33 to the Bucks 45.

Jeff at The BBC says that "And did anybody tell them that defense wins championships? Well, first we’ll have to explain the concept of “defense” to the entire Pac-10 conference, but still…..".  Hmm, seems to me that USC seemed to show them what defense was when USC beat them in their own house.

The difference in the above numbers comes down to competition.  I'll use an average of all rankings so that there is little or no bias, see Comparative Ratings.

The Bucks have had an average ranking of 11.67 throughout the year and have faced opponents with an average ranking of 54.83.

Oregon on the other hand has had an average ranking of 10.42 and an average opponent ranking of 34.08, a full 20 slots harder than OSU.

Sagarin currently has Oregon's SOS at 5 and OSU's at 60 - a big difference(see below).

Next, I will talk about the two QB's Pryor who almost went to Oregon (thank goodness he didn't) and Masoli - who cooks up the offense . . .oh never mind.

Finally, Jeff says:

In the meantime, they’ll start screaming about how they beat this team and that team and it proves they will win. They’ll stomp their little feet and then they’ll hold their breath until you agree with them.  However, their pathetic comparisons are the most unscientific method you could find, and they’re often the tool used to justify fear.(emphasis is mine).

And yet, he uses skewed data in his tables.  I do hope he is not an example of the college level of OSU grads or even students.