Oregon v Ohio State - A Tale of Two Stories - Part 2: QB's

Alright sports fans, here is Part 2 of my analysis and now that I'm over that Buckeye grads are seemingly not as smart as Oregon 5th Graders, I'll try and be more impartial (see my earlier post here).

Today, we are going to look at the QB's and in the case of the Bucks and Ducks it's the once wannabe Duck Pryor vs the real deal Masoli (I've had a number of people tell me that they are now thrilled that Pryor never became a Duck and that sometimes the best blessings are those not granted).

Time for the numbers based on the NCAA stats:

	Pryor	Per/Game	Masoli	Per/Game
Rushes	142	11.83	115	10.45
Net	707	58.92	659	59.91
TD's	7	0.58	12	1.09
Avg/Carry	4.98		5.73
Passing
Att	258	21.5	285	25.91
Comp	144	12	168	15.27
Percent	56.00%		59.00%
Yards	1828	152.33	2066	187.82
Int	10	0.83	5	0.45
TD's	16	1.33	15	1.36
Total O
Plays	400	33.33	400	36.36
Yards	2535	211.25	2725	247.73
Pts	44	3.67	72	6.55

The first thing to remember is that Masoli only played 11 games to Pryor's 12.

Now for the breakdown.

One will notice that Masoli is better in 9 of the 13 categories, Pryor is better in three and they are tied in one.  They each have a total of 400 plays.  Pryor has more rushes for more yards, but Masoli seems to make more use of his limited running at 6 yards per carry vs Pryor's 5 yards per carry.


In the passing department, Masoli averages four more passes per game than Pryor, and the completions are nearly there as well.  Notice that Masoli has a 59 percent average for the year and Pryor's is close at 56 percent.  The big difference is in the Int and TD departments.  Pryor averages almost one Int per game and has double the number of Int's as Masoli. Masoli almost averages a half a Int and only trails Pryor by one TD.

Probably the most notable difference is that Pryor is responsible for nearly 4 points per game and Masoli is responsible for about a TD.

My final analysis is completely subjective in that after watching Pryor in several games and of course Masoli in several games, I have come away with the competitive personalities that whereas Masoli runs over people, Pryor runs out of bounds.  This is NOT to say that Pryor is any less competitive, but it is indicative of their mind sets.

In light of the immediate above, in a close game, I get the impression that Masoli is more the gambler and Pryor most the "close to the vest" typed.

As a team the following will help:

Per Game	Bucks	Ducks
Rushing Offense	198.92	236.08
Passing Offense	165.92	188.58
Scoring Offense	29.25	37.67
Total Offense	364.83	424.67
Passing Efficiency	127.45	131.71
Sacks Allowed	1.67	1

The Duck offense is better in every single catagory as a team.

This becomes more apparent when one considers that the Bucks faced defenses that at the time they played them, averaged a rank of 63 whereas the Ducks when they faced their opponents their opponents averaged a rank of 48.  If one wants to look at the final rankings in comparison, then the Bucks faced teams with an average rank of 60 to the Ducks facing teams with an average rank of 50.

Next, we'll look at the Defenses and how they stack up to each other and how they stacked up to the competition.