Nat’l Championship Blog

Alright everybody, it’s a sad time for me.  College football season is coming to a close and so is football in general, with the Superbowl a month away.  Obviously I’m excited to see my Oklahoma Sooners playing in the National Championship game, but this is the time of year where sports, in my opinion, take a dive.  It is pretty steady with College basketball with March Madness and all, but I can’t really stand the NBA.  Baseball season starts, but the only time I’m interested in that is if I’m attending a game or if it’s playoff time.  Golf is there in between, but it’s just not as exciting as the other sports.  Anyways, that’s another blog, another day.  Let’s get to why we are really here…the National Championship between the Oklahoma Sooners and the Florida Gators.  

The Sooners are a 3 and 1/2 pt underdog which is fine with me.  I think it gives more motivation to OU to come out and win, and personally they need something to motivate them after the last 4 BCS losses.  Ridiculous!  Anyways, I heard Tebow and his talk about wanting to face a Big 12 defense and I’m sure he will have some success, but I don’t think that Florida can keep up with OU.  I’m not saying that OU is going to score 60 pts on Florida (but I do think it’s possible with this amazing offense), but I have compiled some stats for your personal viewing to make your decision on your own.  

[Note: Both OU and Florida has played a Div II team, Chattanooga and Citadel, so their stats aren't included.]  OU has faced nine top 50 offenses, six in the top 25, and 4 in the top 10.  Florida has only played two top 50 offenses with Georgia ranking the highest at #20.  So, right off the bat Florida should have better defensive numbers due to the fact that they haven’t played any good offenses.  Keep that in mind when I give you the defensive numbers.  Florida has faced ten top 50 defenses with the highest being #3 Alabama.  OU has faced three top 50 defenses with the highest being #2 TCU.  Now TCU has only given up 18 TD’s all season long and OU has 5 of them.  Almost 30% of the TDs given up by TCU came from OU.  Now, I’m not sure who’s saying that OU hasn’t played a good defense, but they are wrong.  One thing is for sure is that both teams can and will score in the red zone.  OU has been in the red zone 80 times while scoring on 76 of those (69 TD’s and 7 FG’s) for a 95% efficiency rate.  Florida has had 64 trips to the red zone and scoring on 58 of those (48 TD’s and 10 FG’s) for a 91% efficiency rate.   

Now, looking at the stats it seems that Florida has the edge, but if you think about it even though OU has given up a lot of points, it has been to the nine of the top 50 offenses in the nation.  It would be difficult for any team to play that schedule and not give up points.  OU has played a few good defenses and one great defense this year, but Florida hasn’t even come close to playing an offense like OU has.  Georgia (#20 in total offense) is the highest ranked offense Florida has played and OU has played 5 of the top 12 teams in total offense and all of those rank higher than the Gators at #17.  Oklahoma’s defense is not going to be impressed by Florida’s offense.  Yeah, they are going to do things a bit different with a fullback playing quarterback, but it’s nothing new.  Florida’s defense has a huge task in front of them trying to stop Oklahoma’s offense.  And if you look at the season, no one really has stopped their offense.  Texas did beat OU, but it wasn’t because of their defense, it was because one of Oklahoma’s defensive players was injured in the game and he turned out to be a major cog in the defense and they fell apart.  The only other team came close to beating OU was OSU and not because of their defense.  It was their offense that matched OU touchdown for touchdown until OU’s defense stepped up a couple of times with a few stops and a turnover.   So, in my opinion Oklahoma has the edge in the game and should have an easier time to win the game than Florida.  I’ll give my score at the end of this blog, but here are some more things to think about.  

These are my keys to the game: (Rankings are in parentheses)

1. Turnovers.  Both teams are very good at keeping the ball away from the other team and making turnovers.  I wouldn’t expect a sloppy game with a lot of turnovers, but whomever loses the ball doesn’t have a good shot at winning.  

2. Defense.  This could go under the turnover category, but I separated it to show you some more detailed stats about these defenses.  Defensive stops will be huge, because the more an offense (especially OU’s) can be on the field, the more chance of them getting a larger lead and never looking back.  

 
3. 3rd Down Efficiency.  An offense has to keep their drive going and 3rd downs are a big part of whether a team punts, kicks a field goal, or keeps the drive going

 
4. Special Teams.  This has been a problem for OU this year with them giving up 4 returns for touchdowns.  That looks bad, but with 119 kickoffs, bad things are going to happen.  Missouri has the closest kickoffs with 107 and Florida has 104.  But the stats below don’t show that much of a difference.   

 

So there you have it.  If Oklahoma can come out on top in these keys to the game, they win.  I personally think that Oklahoma hasn’t played against good defenses on a consistent basis like Florida, but they have faced a great defense and came out a 25 point winner, they have the upper hand.  Plus, the Florida defense hasn’t seen anything like OU’s offense ever and that gives OU a huge edge.  The Florida defense is going to have to be quick and rested because they only average 60-65 plays a game, but OU’s offense averages 80+ plays a game.  I think OU’s offense throws Florida off in the first quarter adjusting to OU and they might be able to slow down OU in the 2nd and 3rd quarters, but come the 4th quarter Florida will be wore out and won’t be able to stop OU.  Obviously I’m picking OU to win their 8th National Championship with the score of:

Oklahoma – 49
Florida – 28

BOOMER SOONER!!!

Craziness in College Football!

All this crap that is going on, from complaining to politicking to flying banners to getting style points, would be gone for the most part if College Football would have a playoff. As long as you’re in the top 8 of the BCS rankings, you’re in. There will be discussion of those lower rankings to get into the playoff, but the National Championship would be settled on the field. Yes there would be upsets and people pissed about losing to a lower seed, but it would be settled on the field with no complaints. If you don’t come to play, you will get beat. No biased media or computers deciding the National Championship game.

Besides, the people who vote in the polls are supposed to rank the best teams in the nation, but it’s turning out to be listening to people (cough…Mack Brown and ESPN) politic for certain teams. And then proceed to vote other teams down to help other teams and they can do it, because their votes aren’t public. As much as I hate to say it, but Stoops is right when he said this about the computers, “They don’t have agendas, they don’t have loyalties, they don’t have opinions, they don’t have all the bias that everyone else does. Like it or not, they don’t have all those things and if you say that no one else does, then you’re not really being truthful.” But for once in the time of the BCS, the computers like OU.

The head to head element with OU losing to Texas is irrelevant. USC and Florida both lost early in the season and look at where they are now, #4 and #5 in the nation. OU lost early and they should be ahead of Texas, because they lost late in the season to Texas Tech. The voters have always, and I mean always, punished teams that lost late in the season. I’m not sure why, probably because it is fresher on their minds and they have probably forgotten about the earlier losses. I never said I agree with this, but that has been the system probably before I was even born.

OU doesn’t need to apologize for what happened. The flaw is in the system. All Oklahoma did was win their games and let the pollsters and computers do the rest. OU has one of the best, if not the best, resumes in College Football this year. The media should be apologizing to OU for all the ridiculous politicking they did for Texas. Kirk Herbstreit, Mark Schlabach, ESPN/ABC (TSPN – Texas Sports Programming Network), and it’s announcers were constantly plugging Texas. Everytime I watched a Big 12 game, all I heard was that Texas beat OU on a neutral field, 45-35 signs, interviews with Mack Brown, interviews with columnists on ESPN constantly talking about Texas, etc. Stoops took the high road in declining to do these interviews. Listen, Mack didn’t have to come on the phone or do interviews about this, because all those aforementioned people did it for them. All I’ve heard is that Texas should be in no matter what. They beat OU. Now Herbstreit says Alabama and Florida are the best two teams in the nation. Hello, what in the world have you been doing for the past two weeks? Watching OU kick the crap out of ranked opponents and your going to sit there and tell me that Alabama is better than OU. Bull Crap! Florida is a way better team. They are going to beat Bama by 35 pts. It won’t be a game. Oklahoma and Florida are the two best teams in the nation. I would love for Bama to win so OU can beat them, cause once Bama gets behind, they are not going to catch OU. They have no offense and their defense may slow OU down like OSU did, but OU still scored 61 pts on them.

Here’s an idea to fix the tie breaker in the Big 12 (which they will probably do next year). Get rid of the North and South divisions. Keep the rotation of the 3 teams every two years along with the same 5 teams you always play. This would put the two best teams in the Big 12 Championship game. This year, OU would play Texas and it would be settled on the field. Many times the North or South opponent doesn’t deserve to be in the Championship game, like Missouri this year. They are the 5th best team in the Big 12.  Just a thought.  Here are some other thoughts that I have been reading.  Click on the links for the full articles.  

Eleven Lessons Learned: BCS process just stinks; Karma haunts Texas
Nov. 30, 2008
By Eric Sorenson – CBSSports.com 

Lesson 2
Texas just learned what karma is all about.

The Longhorns are up in arms about Oklahoma getting voted into the Big 12 title game. They should be. But look beyond the anger. This is payback My Name Is Earl-style.  Rewind to December 4, 2004 when Cal had just won at Southern Miss by 10 points (which included taking a knee with a minute left inside the USM 10) and was ranked No. 4 and in line to get picked up by the Rose Bowl since No. 1 USC was going to the Orange Bowl to win the national title. But then Mack Brown publicly politicked and allegedly made a number of glad-handing phone calls to his poll-voting cronies, begging them to rank his Longhorns ahead of the Bears in the final regular-season poll. This tactic worked. Cal’s lead over Texas in the coaches poll went from 48 points to five allowing the ‘Horns to jump the Bears in the final BCS poll and get the Rose Bowl bid.
Guess what Longhorns, 2008 is your karma for 2004. OU gets to go to the Big 12 title game because you only beat the Sooners by 10. Only this time it looks like it cost you a shot at the national title. Grin and bear it. 

 
BCS antics leading to disturbing poll trend
By Brad Edwards – ESPN.com

When the BCS was created many years ago, the polls were supposed to provide a passive element of the overall formula. But as the polls have been given more power, there’s been a trend toward voters attempting to serve a very active role as a virtual selection committee.  Ballots have ceased to be one man’s opinion. Some of them are trying to manipulate the outcome of the race, and that’s not what the polls were intended to do.
Thanks to the Big 12 for exposing yet another flaw in this system!