Let’s start with a little story from Missouri.  Once upon a time there was a huge underdog from our state.  A huge double digit dog that had people wondering why he would even bother.  Missourians are a resilient lot, though, who eschew the experts’ opinions and say, “look here, if you’re better than me, show me you’re better.  I don’t care what the pollsters say!”  Well, this Missourian bothered to take on the favorite and he shocked the world. 

Just because we’ve been told that the Sooners will win easily, doesn’t mean they will.  Remember that.  A Missouri win wouldn’t be an historic upset either.  Here are the top 9 upsets by point spread:

 2007 Stanford (+41) over USC, 24-23

1985 Oregon State (+36) tops Washington, 21-20

1985 UTEP (+36) over BYU, 23-16

1972 Missouri (+35) beat Notre Dame, 30-26

1974 Purdue (+34) at Notre Dame, 31-20

1992 Iowa State (+29) over Nebraska, 19-10

1969 San Jose State (+29) at Oregon, 36-34

1995 Northwestern (+28) over Notre Dame, 17-15

1942 Holy Cross (+28) beats Boston College, 55-12

The 17 points of the MU/OU tilt, by contrast, looks miniscule.  For a more in depth look at college football upsettery, check out Huckleberry’s post on the topic over at Barking Carnival.  It would be interesting to know whether a Mizzou win would even come close to one of Huck’s lists.  Calling all Huckleberrys…..

UPDATE (12/5/08 at 8:49 CST):  I communicated with the Father of Ranks and Codes, Mr. Huck L. Berry, and he estimates that the game would be near the 80% range, so not one of the greatest upsets of all time.  As you might have noticed from Huck’s article, Stoops has dropped a couple over 80% games.  It’s all coming together.

 So upsets happen.  So what.  Can Mizzou’s much-maligned defense (I still contend that its suckitude is vastly overstated by the masses) stop OU’s unbelievable fine-tuned souped-up all-systems-go offense?  First, the good news – the faster you are, the harder you crash. 

Boomer Sooner on October 11, 2008

DeMarco Murray meets Brian Orakpo

All in all, the news isn’t very good when you’re hoping for the other team to wipe out.  Can we cause this wipe out?  Maybe, but a bunch of things have to happen first.   

 As we did yesterday, let’s take a close look at OU’s offense rate stats (with Mizzou’s for reference):

RATE STAT (Offense)	OU	MU
Yards/Play	7.2(1)	6.8(2)
Yards/Pass Attempt	9.6(2)	7.9(6)
Yards/Rush	5.1(3)	5.3(1)
Points/Game	55.1(1)	40.6(4)

Points are very impressive.  Shit. 

Here’s what Mizzou’s defense will have to do to give the Tigers a chance to win.

1.  The first three can be called the “Get OU’s offense off the field by ways other than 51 yard TD runs and 67 yard TD passes” section.  First, force turnovers.  Problem is OU doesn’t turn the ball over – only 6 times in conference play.  OU leads the conference in turnover margin at 1.75.  Mizzou, on the other hand, has a turnover margin of less than zero.  Regardless of the numbers to date, Mizzou must win the turnover battle to have a chance on Saturday.  One might say the Tiger D will have to gamble more, which I don’t necessarily disagree with, but these gamble can turn into big plays, which can turn into long days.  I suspect the D will be more vanilla, sit back, and pray for mistakes (play afraid).  OU doesn’t make mistakes.  Assuming we go vanilla, keep-the-play-in-front-of-you defense, the d-line will have to play the game of its life and get pressure on Bradford.  He’ll be wearing a cast, and if he has to pull the ball down, that hard plastic may knock the ball free.  Hey, it’s something to hope for.  It happens….

George: If she’d just take a plane somewhere.
Jerry: And what, hope for a crash?
George: It happens.  

2..  The elusive third down stops.  OU is right at 50% in third down conversions this year in conference, good for 5th (Mizzou’s O is at 56% and 3rd (oddly too, Mizzou’s offense has had the fewest 3rd down attempts while running the third most plays))).  OU isn’t overly impressive converting third downs, but Mizzou’s been overly generous in permitting third down conversions.  Mizzou is 8th best in the Big 12 at preventing the third down conversion – 48%.  In order to slow OU down, Mizzou will need an OU type day in preventing these key conversions – the OU defense tops the Big 12 at 32%.  If Mizzou can do that, OU will be forced to punt a few times.  Of course, this assumes Mizzou will be able to force OU into third down situations.  Luckily, Mizzou has forced more third downs than any other Big 12 team (the vast TOP discrepancy is starting to make more and more sense). 

Side Note:  The inability to stop teams on third down has been a hallmark of Eberflus’s defense the last three years.  Mizzou always fares well in the key rate stats and limits scoring along with the best Big 12 defenses, but is woefully inefficient. 

3.  1 and 2 are so important because I think Mizzou’s defense regresses as the game goes on.  Just a hunch, but this may be because the defense is on the field a great deal more than most teams’ defenses.   The fourth quarter is by far the worst for our pass defense. 

QUARTER	Opponent’s Pass Efficiency Rating
First	125.45(4)
Second	129.19(6)
Third	127.00(3)
Fourth	143.59(10)

The Tiger defense is gassed by the time the final frame rolls around.  The go-go offense combined with the don’t-give-up-a-big-play defense may, in fact, be a bad combination.  Hopefully, this pairing will be studied by someone smarter than me in the offseason and, if necessary, adjustments can be made.  One good thing – the thought is the offense will rely more heavily on D Wash, Bryce Brown (fingers crossed), DeVion Moore, and a mobile QB next season, which will inherently balance things out. 

4.  Like the offense, Mizzou’s defense has some playmakers.  Willy Mo, ‘Spoon, Ziggy, and Stryker all need to play better than they’ve played before.  We can have no missed opportunities (Pig Brown’s dropped interception last year), no busted coverages (KU anyone?), and no missed tackles.  These four, the leaders of the unit, have to rally their less-talented brothers and extract from them great performances.  It’s not impossible.  I’m being realistic here – a great peformance isn’t a shutout (well, that’d be great), but holding the Sooners to 42 points.  Six Sooner touchdowns would be a great performance in my book – and I believe the four future NFLers mentioned above and the seven dwarves can do it. 

 I sense this will be a high speed battle. 

Stryker and Bradford duke it out.

I honestly feel that if Mizzou can catch a couple breaks, Mizzou can win.  It will take near-flawless football, but it can happen.  The key is that nobody believes in the Tigers right now.   A prohibitive underdog, they say.  We have our chance to shake up the world.  It can happen.

 See Part 1 – Tiger offense v. OU defense here.