Statistical Analysis, Part 2: Texas Offense

The second in a four part statistical analysis of each unit in the Texas-Ohio State Fiesta Bowl. Part one dealt with the Buckeye defense, part two deals the 'Horns offense.

Twelve: Number on his jersey, or his real age?

Every superlative you can think of has been applied to the Texas offense, so I'm not going to waste your time: they're good. Scary good. Beat Oklahoma like a redheaded stepchild good. They are not unstoppable. No one is. Except for Florida 2008. But really, no one is. Texas has relied on its offense to carry the season, because it's defense certainly can't (or at least has not shown the ability to) pick up the slack. Part of that is attributable to ridiculous Big 12 offenses like Oklahoma, Texas Tech, and even Missouri and Kansas. Nonetheless, the defense has been subpar, especially by Will Muschamp's standards (not Muskamp, Bob "Melanoma" Davie).

Prior to the statistical analysis, I believed there are two offenses Ohio State has faced comparable to Texas: Illinois and Penn State. Ohio State struggled with the former, and performed suprisingly well against the latter. I also assumed Colt McCoy is liable to take off and run more than either of the two quarterbacks in both systems, and I don't need to remind you that Ohio State struggles against mobile quarterbacks, but I'll do it anyway. We'll see how these assumptions hold up in a minute.

I know that Google Docs sucks a wheelbarrow full of lobster-sized dicks, but bear with me so I don't have to learn anything complicated.

A key, if you need it:

APYA = Average pass yards allowed
ARYA = Average rush yards allowed

Figure out the rest for yourself.



The chart really doesn't tell you anything you shouldn't already know; more often than not, Texas' offense is housing fools. It doesn't do it in the balanced manner expected of great offenses, but it does it nonetheless. Some of the surprisingly bad/lackluster stats (UTEP, Colorado) can be attributed to the calling off of the proverbial dogs. Against Kansas, the 'Horns were up 35-7 after three. Texas A+M was a laugher almost from the start. I would not put much stock in subpar stats in most games that ended up being blowouts.

Nonetheless, there are a few key games where Texas struggled. Texas Tech is the most obvious one. For a half, Colt McCoy by his own damn self the Texas offense was kept under wraps by a smothering Texas Tech defense, which also happens to be the second-most balanced defense in the Big 12 behind Nebraska (6th vs run, 3rd vs pass). Nevertheless, Colt McCoy put the team on his back (again) and rallied Texas to a 33-32 lead. Buttergfingers in the Texas secondary and one Play of the Year of the Week later, Texas lost, but not because of any failure from the offense. Well maybe the rush offense, which was nonexistent against a unit it should have done better against. Still, the point stands: no one has truly shut down Texas for any more than a half. The offense runs in fits and starts on occassion, but Texas' fits and starts would be Nebraska '95 in the Big Ten, ACC and yeah, the SEC this year. They're that good. Not unstoppable, but definitely difficult to slow down. Even Heacock will get a bit of a pass if he gives up 30 to these guys.

My initial assumptions about Texas' offense and offenses similar to it in the Big 10 was largely correct, but I think Penn State has a far, far better running game. It isn't one guy, for starters. Okay, that's an oversimplification. Nonetheless, no team wants it quarterback to be its leading rusher unless that team is Georgia Tech. For whatever reason, Texas could not get its rushing game unstuck against some opponents (UTEP, Okie State) and obliterated others with it (Colorado, Okie). If you want to understand how hard Texas' rushing attack is to appraise, the best rushing defense nationally it faced all year was Oklahoma, and you can see above how that worked out. But against the 44th-ranked rush D of Texas Tech, it netted 80 whopping yards (almost as many yards total offense as OSU had in the '06 title game wa-hey!) In an odd coincidence, Ohio State is ranked literally just below the Sooners in rush defense, but it can be argued that the Sooners are so good against the run because they're so bad against the pass. Like, 110th in the country bad. One thing is certain: Ohio State will be the most balanced defense the Longhorns have faced, by far.

Fortunately, Ohio State's defense versus Texas' offense will be a matchup of strength on strength in the purest terms. Literally, it's Texas' downright sick passing game versus Ohio State's very good - but not great - secondary. I fully expect Malcolm Jenkins to more or less lock down Jordan Shipley. The onus is on the rest of the secondary to limit Quan Cosby et al. as best they can. I do not think Ohio State will keep McCoy under 200 yards as it did to both Mark Sanchez and Matt Flynn, for the following reasons: His name is "Colt McCoy", ARGH SOFT ZONE BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD ARGH, and I'm not convinced either Sanchez or Flynn are half the QB McCoy is.

HOWEVA (credit to MGoBlog), there is hope. Texas' lack of a consistent rushing attack from anyone other than Colt means that if the front seven does its job against the running game, the secondary may get help from the linebackers, cutting off Texas' butter ins, outs and slant routes. This is not a great downfield passing game, but neither were LSU or Florida. But both of those teams could generate a serious rushing attack when it mattered most. I'm not sure Texas can with any consistency. If Ohio State does the impossible and shuts down the Texas passing game, the rushing game simply won't be able to make up for it, due to its own deficiencies and Ohio State's typically stellar rush D.

The difference between Ohio State and every defense Texas has played is that it actually has a living, breathing secondary, something no Big 12 team seems to have. Fun fact: Colorado was the number one pass defense in the Big 12, allowing just 215 yards a game. Arkansas was 10th in the SEC allowing 208 yards per game. What does this mean? Probably bupkis. Name one reasonably good QB in the SEC not named Stafford or Tebow. Still, if you buy into the perception that Big 12 defenses are simply atrocious as a group, your viewpoint softens a little bit. Regardless of what you believe, it's hard to argue that the Buckeye defense isn't the most balanced defense the Longhorns will play all year, and provided Heacock coaches about as well as he did versus PSU, it should keep the game from becoming yet another ugly blow out. Cross your fingers.

Personally, I'm not all that optimistic. For all the progress Jim Heacock appeared to show against Penn State, he regressed against Illinois. As you saw in the last post, Illinois basically did what it wanted with the Ohio State defense in Champaign, and was killed in the end by frequent turnovers. Illinois also had a ridiculous pass offfense and a meh rush offense, and torched the Buckeyes doing both. Illinois was starting Juice "40%" Williams, people. I don't care how much he's improved, he'll always be "40%" to me. Regardless of what you think of him, he's not Colt McCoy. Daniel Dufrene is not Chris Ogbonnaya. Arrelious Benn is probably not Jordan Shipley or Quan Cosby, though Arrelious was quite limited against the Buckeyes. Still, I don't think Heacock has learned much if at all. I'll be surprised if Ohio State's defense, as good as it may seem, holds Texas under 30 points if it again deploys the same defensive game plan it did in every big game prior to the one against Penn State. Then again, maybe Heacock has some voodoo over Mack Brown, because even with Vince Young, Limas Sweed, Selvin Young et al. Texas was only able to score 25 points on Ohio State in 2005, and 7 in McCoy's first (important) start as a Longhorn. Maybe Heacock has pictures of Mack Brown making a blumpkin pie with a goat that he'll release if Mack ever beats us by more than three. Or something. The prognosis is still not good. I'll believe - hesitantly - in Heacock again if he can actually gameplan to stop this offense.

It's Tejas

"Watch this, Lis. You can actually pinpoint the second his heart rips in half."

While it is far from the best of all possible match-ups, Ohio State has drawn a relatively favorable one in Texas. In the Fiesta bowl, too, where we had so much success before the Game That Shall Not Be Named, though Buckeye partisans are sure to point out that that wasn't actually the Fiesta Bowl, just a national championship game played at the Fiesta Bowl site. Whatev. What matters is Ohio State is 3-1 in Tempe, and the last four trips there have showcased partisan Buckeye crowds. Given the results of the last two bowl games and the spiraling deathstorm that the gubmint calls an economy, bowl attendance for Ohio State is likely to take a hit. Yes, the Buckeyes are typically one of the best traveling fanbases, but so is Texas, and I'd be shocked in the crowd isn't basically split down the middle.

I like this match-up for a number of reasons. First, Texas has a terrific fanbase. I went to the game in '05 and by far they were the best of any visiting group of fans. Predictably, they were treated awfully by most of Buckeye nation, but the hilljacks Ohio State fans I sat near were very cordial to the visitors. The atmosphere was suitably tense for most of the game, but the vulgar language was directed toward the field (three audible "RIP HIS FUCKING HEAD OFF"-s when Vince Young toted the ball), and not at the opposing fans, which was nice. The horror stories I've heard from that night are undoubtedly true, but it seems Texas fans in my section took it in stride if they were victimized in any way.

Second, Texas' defense leaves a lot to be desired. They're vastly improved from last year, given the acquisition of the Right Honourable Boom Motherfucker, Esq., head coach-in-waiting and card-carrying twisted psycho. Nonetheless, Texas has been a bend-but-don't-break defense for most of the year, getting aggressive when need be but giving up yards in bunches, mostly through the air.

Third, Texas has one thing it does really well on offense, and that is airing it out. RoboColt completes roughly 77 percent of his passes last I checked, but (probably) hasn't seen a secondary as good as Ohio State's all year. Secondly, Texas doesn't have many burners in the vein of Damien Williams from SC or Percy Harvin from Florida. They're there, but they're either young or not starting. I fully expect Texas to put as much speed on the field as it can against Ohio State, because while the Buckeyes don't lack speed (grr), they have had trouble stopping speedsters with their soft zone approach, which more often than not makes the Buckeyes look slow.

Fourth, there is one team Texas played all year that looks certifiably like Ohio State's offense, and it's Oklahoma State. Texas barely beat Okie State 28-24 in Austin. The same Okie State team traveled to Lubbock weeks later and found itself the victim of a 35-point beatdown at the hands of Texas Tech. Okie State is not particularly good. There is a problem: Okie State has a passing game. Texas could not stack the box against Okie State because Zac Robinson is a true dual threat with a playmaker like Dez Bryant to throw to, unlike the One at this point in his career. Ohio State absolutely must attack Texas' secondary, the weakest part of the defense, in order to win. If they cannot do this, Texas will stack the box, like Penn State and USC, and dare Ohio State to throw its way to a win. Terrelle Pryor has not shown he can do that yet. If there is any time for the Ohio State passing game's coming out party against a sub-par pass defense, it is now.

This is by far the most winnable BCS game in which Ohio State could have landed. Those of you who care about our program's "reputation" should enjoy this match-up as a chance for Ohio State to show it really can beat the Big Boys. By no means is Texas overrated, or is Ohio State underrated. These teams are where they deserve to be in the polls. The line is currently at 10 and will likely move up come game time. This game is on the coaching staff, because this team is undoubtedly talented enough to win this game, and every game it had on its schedule for that matter, but I digress. The coordinators have one last chance to impress. Regardless of how this game goes, I'd like to see them gone gone gone in the offseason. But a win against a genuinely good team earns them a little of our patience. I fully expect them, when given said patience, to flush the opportunities it presents down the toilet come September, but maybe that's just me.

In the coming weeks I'll be doing unit breakdowns and match-ups as bowl preview. I fully expect analysis of the facts to improve my outlook of the game, but I caution against any and all optimism on the grounds that I grew more optimistic while examining the stats prior to the LSU game last year, and then reality promptly took a nice giant nutty shit on my happy little world come January 7th.

Sittin' on top of the world, part 2

Part two of a three-part series of incoherent rants, jumbled musings and confused bullhockey about the last three seasons. Highlighted here is the Season of Unfulfilled Promise, 2007.

So the fluke may have been just that, a fluke. We'd never lose a game that ugly under Tressel again, for reasons I can no longer scrounge from what remains of my seventeen year old self. It simply couldn't happen again, could it? We're the elite of the elite, a top 5 program, and nothing can slow us down, right?

Well, for the first eight games, 2007 seemed to return to the storybook sensibility that 2006 often portrayed up until the brutal, final end. Bruised and battered from humiliating defeat, a young team was rising to the occasion to redeem itself and the program for one massive, recent failure that shamed them (unfairly) in the eyes of the nation. Led by yet another in a long line of big, bruising Buckeye running backs, an affable, fifth-year (!) junior at quarterback and a downright sick defense, the men of the Scarlet and Gray were carving out a warpath to New Orleans, and they were hellbent on bringing back the crystal to its rightful home. That yarn culminated in a 37-17 prison rape of Penn State in Happy Valley. Todd Boeckman put Troy Smith's performance in '05 to even greater shame, Thunderous McTankly could not be stopped by the best run defense the Buckeyes would play all year, and the passing game finally showed signs of being a genuine threat, something other teams actually have to worry about. The defense gave up some yards to Penn State, but they "always ran on us", so it was forgivable, ya know?

Two weeks later, [Name Redacted] and the fighting [Redacted]i came into Columbus with two losses: to middling Michigan and Iowa teams. In quite possibly the strangest choice of defense in his entire time at Ohio State (outside the Florida game, of course), Heacock chose to run almost exclusively soft zone against Juice Williams, one of the most mistake-prone quarterbacks this side of Chris Leak. Blitzing only on obvious passing downs (a meme that will be reinforced later on), Juice was asked to make simple reads and simply run to the side they're not blitzing on when said reads were covered. Thus, we have the easiest 4 TD passing day Juice Williams has probably ever had. Maddeningly, Jokester Jim number two chose to blitz on seemingly every down on Illinois's final possession, and, enragingly (that's a word now), all Juice had to do was run where there wasn't a LB blitz. That's it. Ohio State gave him the easiest first downs of his life, and he took them without question. But to blame this game on Jokester Jim number two and Jokester Jim number two alone is unfair, and ignorant of a number of other factors I don't feel like listing because for me the grief is still too near oh fuck it here they are: Todd Boeckman threw three picks, three defensive breakdowns and one terrible fumble call by a corrupt ref and simply a better game from the Illini gave Illinois the win. It's as simple as that. Despite their thuggish actions after the game, I hold no grudges to Illinois for exploiting the second-dumbest defensive scheme I've seen.

Sigh.

So you can tell that loss still sticks with me. Losing to Ron Tiberius* Zook at home is something that should scar anyone for life, even if you're a Northwestern fan (my condolences).

*Not really his middle name, but should be

You know the rest of the season. Ohio State rode Thunderous McTankly to a 14-3 win at Michigan, Pandora's box was opened in the intervening weeks: War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, American Idol, and Ohio State finding its way back to the title game. Against an SEC team.

Hell, LSU looked beatable. Darren McFadden beat them By His Own Damn Self, and so did a meh Kentucky team. Surely we're better than Kentucky?

Turns out, not so much. After another fast start, the Buckeyes crumpled, and Tressel and Heacock went into their respect run-run-pass and soft-zone-obvious-blitz shells after LSU came back and left a big ol' mushroom print on Ohio State's hopes of actually winning. I don't know why they did it, I don't care to know why they did it, they did it, it sucked, life sucks, and we're never gonna fucking win a bowl game against these mulleted hicks and their fried food and their shitty T-birds and their shitty Kenny Chesney and fucking Christ next year better fucking redeem us.

I stopped thinking that way the next day. Well, at least the redemption part. I realized that as much as I love and support the players on this team, there is a chance that, like God Himself Bruce Springsteen once sang, their best will never be good enough. I knew it was a little early to declare this special group of players; Malcolm Jenkins, James Laurinaitis, Alex Boone, and the rest to be - for lack of a better term - cursed. To this day I still don't think they are, because since then I've realized the fault does not lie entirely with the players and the multiple first-day draft picks on both sides of the ball. The problem is increasingly coming from the top, and no matter how much talent is being brought in, this problem can not be covered by recruiting the daylights out of the "speed states" and grabbing three of the best offensive tackles in the latest recruiting class.

This is already too long, but as a footnote, you may have noticed a distinct lack of funny in this piece. This season was unbelievably frustrating because it showed what this team can be at its highest point (Penn State) and the very lowest (Illinois, LSU), and the timespan between those highs and lows was short and jarring. Thus, the humor, what little their was, didn't come easy.

I want to point out that I have never felt a sense of entitlement for this program. I have never believed that since I spend so much money on Ohio State merchandise and because my father donated something like 1/10th of his company's worth to the University, that the program, or the players, owe me a damn thing. Even when I was young and (less) stupid, this concept never entered my mind. I owe far more to this program for great memories of great football than it does for my meager contributions. When I call for the heads of certain coaches in the final installment of this series, it will not be because I "demand" it or I find the current (very good) state of Ohio State football "unacceptable". Think of them more as business recommendations, or how the program can improve its standing by trimming the fat, literally and figuratively. There is a particular path we don't want to go down, and that is the path of Michigan and Florida State - one of cronyism, nepotism, arrogance, misplaced trust and blind faith that because we are good we will always be good and nothing will ever change forever and ever amen lalalalalalalala I can't hear you we're the elite of the elite no matter what happens lalalalalala.

You get the point. I hope.