Football Articles
KU Sucks! II: This Time it’s Personal
Posted by Phenomenal Smith on November 25th, 2008 under Football
Earlier this week I penned a little something I called KU Sucks! something subtitle, etc. It got rave reviews and I hear the folks at Pulitzer are poking around Atomic Teeth offices for some background on the author. Well, I’ll tell you something, I didn’t like that piece. I’ve been yelling at myself ever since and have spent countless hours reading and re-reading it to get to the source of my inner loathe.
I have figured out the problem – it was this sentence:
Seriously, with 3/4 of the games against CU, KSU, and ISU, it’d be hard for a good defense not to be #1 in every category.
First, just writing ”seriously” doesn’t make it so. I should have sought more support for the suckitude of the three weakest North competitors (I use that term loosely). I got lazy and I apologize. More importantly, however, that sentence offered me up a perfect chance to tout the Missouri Tigers as the greatest team in the history of the 2008 Big 12 North. Let’s compare Mizzou’s defensive work to KU’s against the four lesser North teams.
|
DEFENSE (v. North) |
Viking Kings! |
Defenseless Jayhawks |
| Scoring Defense | 15.3(1) | 28.3(5) |
| Yards/Play | 4.7(1) | 4.8(1) |
| Yards/Pass Attempt | 5.6(1) | 7.0(2) |
| 3rd Down Conversion | 41%(4) | 39%(3) |
| Turnover Margin | 1.4(2) | 2.0(1) |
Number in parenthesis is what the ranking in Big 12 Conference play would be. There is no significance to the faded appearance of two of the lines in the table – I don’t know what happened.
Complete domination. Those “1s” are 1s by a long shot, too. Not surprising given that Mizzou is #1 or close to it in those defensive categories even adding in the dreaded South. I’d also like to point out that Mizzou’s first team defense yields just 10 points per game against the North. KU struggled to hold the North to four touchdowns per game, while Mizzou’s first teamers give up a TD and a FG.
The offensive numbers:
|
OFFENSE (v. North) |
Viking Kings! | Defenseless Jayhawks |
| Scoring Offense | 50.1(2) | 38.8(5) |
| Yards/Play | 7.2(1) | 6.3(6) |
| Yards/Pass Attempt | 8.2(6) | 9.3(3) |
| 3rd Down Conversion | 62%(1) | 44%(7) |
More domination. Maybe not quite as dominant as the defense, but we already know the defense fares better in the stats that matter. Mizzou’s offense is the best in the North, but maybe by not quite as large a margin as the defense is the best.
The more I think about this game, the more confident I become. I need to stop thinking about it.
I do feel much better about my writing having included this tidbit of Missouri Big 12 North elitism. Enjoy. Tell all your friends about Mizzou’s stature as the best in every conceivable way.
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Roberto Frankfurter said:
November 25th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Wow, the Tigers beat the weak sisters of the North by an average of almost 25 points more than KU. The only significant scheduling difference is the Tigers played NU in early October, but NU was a better team in November when they beat KU. Sorry, that’s not enough difference. I’m definitely giving the points and taking the Tigers this weekend.
Hey, I can’t believe that I’m going to write this, but props to KU fans for setting a record average attendance this year and increasing attendance by almost 10% over last year, which isn’t bad for a team looking at a 6-6, 3-5 season. The fan support (and a soft home schedule) helped KU go 5-2 at home. However, I predict that the game in Arrowhead is going to be short on KU fans.
Phenomenal Smith said:
November 25th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Yeah, the 25 point gap is a lot. I think it’s cool that Mizzou’s #2 defense gave up 33% of the points Mizzou surrendered against the weak sisters.
FarmerTed said:
November 25th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
You guys are a lot better than KU, you should be fine. A few math observations:
(1) “Yards/play” is the telling statistic from both an offensive and defensive perspective. “Yards/pass” is a subset of “yards/play”, so while it’s interesting it’s also distracting. I raised a proverbial eyebrow when I saw the defensive YPP of MU vs. KU above (pretty much the same). By the same token, the YPP of MU’s offense is almost a full yard better, huge.
(2) Scoring — i.e. “Points per game” — in a particular GAME is pretty important, since it determines who wins. But for purposes of comparing the effectiveness of offenses and defenses from two teams in a particular SEASON, “points per possession” is more helpful, since the average number of possessions between two teams can vary significantly. I don’t have the numbers at my fingertips, but I would expect that MU’s games involve more possessions for both teams on average, which will inevitably lead to more points for both teams in MU’s games.
Gene Claude said:
November 26th, 2008 at 9:31 am
Fire Matt Eberflus! Our defense sucks! Don’t believe the stats, believe your eyes!
Phenomenal Smith said:
November 26th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Farmer Ted,
(1) Yeah, I know. We’d been using yards/play a lot around here, but then Muschamp came along and said yards/pass attempt was one of the “stats that matter.” I’d think y/p is more important, but I’m not a fancy coach-in-waiting at one of the richest schools in the world, so I could be wrong.
(2) Points/possession would be more telling, but it’s not as accessible, so I used scoring defense/offense. My biggest problem with these stats is that if the defense gets a six pick, it goes in the “scoring offense” column. That is enormously dumb.
Nobody seems to understand that either. During the UF/SCAR game, UF threw up 21 points in the first quarter by having one drive, one pick six, and then recovered a SCAR fumble at the one scoring two plays later. The announcer said “Hard to believe South Carolina is the #1 defense in the SEC – Florida’s already got 21 points.” That’s just the kind of thing that gets me pissed off.
FarmerTed said:
November 26th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Ah, got it. [I am suddenly feeling like the guy who is late to a party and rehashing something sort of obvious that was discussed earlier. Mostly because that's exactly what happened. But I stand behind my "yards/play" analysis -- the more yards per play, the better!]
On a more relevant note, shouldn’t the points/offensive possession be a more obvious and accessible stat, especially for the reasons PS points out?
Phenomenal Smith said:
November 27th, 2008 at 7:03 am
Points per offensive possession is something you’d guess every college coach knows. It’s obvious in a patent kind of way. I will email cfbstats and ask them about it. And, while I say it’s patently obvious, it’s not like I was thinking about it before you mentioned it….