R is for Rey'n'Erin

One part stalking sociopath wraith, one part chemise-sweatered kitten bait, together were 2008's Clearest-Metaphor Couple, their forbidden love a Karmic portrait of what SC would have done to Florida.

Your Sunday Sermon

It was 1980 in Jacksonville, FL and UGA trailed Florida by 1 with 90 seconds and 92 yards to go. That's when QB Buck Beleu (Buck Beleu!) hit Lindsey Scott over the middle and evoked a call from Larry Munson that is the aria of its kind.

We'll pick back up the pace with P, Q, R, S and T this week.

M is for Magic

ESPN seems to have erased this transcendent moment from their searchable archive, but thanks to EDSBS's archive for keeping the link alive.

BCS Championship Index, Grand Unified Edition

In search of the superstring, quark or neutrino of CFB that will tell us, with blinding, universal simplicity, who the hell is gonna win.

For starters, I don't need Ferme Lab to tell me its been a while since two such overtly arrogant, unlikable teams got at it, huh?  Not that Ohio State, SC, LSU, Texas and the rest aren't arrogant.  But in terms of the players and staffs both just radiating entitlement and disdain for their opponent, these two are arrogant and don't see why they should pretend they aren't.

Many questions may decide the game.  Here's one that won't:

Can OU stop Tebow/Harvin et al?

Sure as gravity, which is Step 1 in any Grand Unified Theory worth its weight, OU gives up lots of points.  Florida scores plenty, by crazy, Tebow-fed, Harvin-fired, Meyer-madness methods.  They can roll down the field in perfect form, and they pick up cheap stuff as good as anyone.  They'll score.

The question is: when?  Let's explore that.

Four Tough Games
60:  FLA first-half points in games against Miami, LSU, UGA and BAMA.
97:  second-half points in those games

I sensed it having watched these games, and those numbers confirm it.  Against good teams, Florida wins late.

How does that match up with OU?  Intriguingly, it turns out.

Four More Tough Games

91:  points scored by OU in the second QUARTER of its four toughest games, Texas, Tech, OkSt and Mizzou.  For comparison....
154: points scored by Florida in 2nd Quarter of ALL 13 GAMES.

122: 1st Half points, same games
101:  2nd half points, same games
129-68: Same stat (!) if you (very reasonably) substitute the stats from OU's win over TCU for Ok State.

OU plays football like certain UFC fighters with preposterously chiseled bodies and low body fat - they bring one round of pure electro-magnetic fury (Step 2 in our theory).  If you make it to the bell, you know they're spent.

So given that Tebow will score some but probably not enough to overcome OU's best effort, the question really is:

Can OU throw on Florida?

All other questions either don't matter, or aren't questions.  This is the Heavy Lifting of the Grand Unified Theory, exploring the Weak and Strong forces of our equation, Passing O versus Pass Rush.

I think I'm most fascinated by Florida's fate in last year's Outback/Cap One bowl (can't remember which), when they got TORCHED through the air by the supposedly-slow-witted and plodding Big 10 also-rans from Michigan.  Sure it was the swan song of Llllllloyd, Chad Henne and his trio of ThreeLetterWord-ING-ThreeLetterWord recivers (Arrington, Hemingway, Manningham).  But that was absolutely the last time Florida faced anything like the passing game for OU.  And that Florida defense - or rather, any defense even remotely similiar to that one - would be a monsterous underdog to OU's passing game.

So is Florida better?  A lot better?  Tough to say, since they played few competant passing teams.  We could start here:

174: Passing yards allowed per game by Florida.
19:  National rank.

But then... who throws a lot in the SEC?  Does that tell us anything?

How about if we look at completions-per-game.  Why that stat?  Well, mainly because that's what OU is going to be looking for - lots of completions.  Why?  Attempts are just attempts, and yards per game suffers from long-ball variations and the general truism that passes are longer and easier between the 20s.  Completions, on the other hand, suggest a rhythm.  Anyone can hit two 40 yarders in 2 attempts and look great if you run the ball 10 straight times to set them up.  But to pile up completions, you need a plan and you have to impose it - 5 yard out, 7 yards to the TE, run, 12 yard screen, 5 yd out, etc.

If you have a lot of completions, your O is beating the opposing defense.

16.6:  Completions per game allowed by FLA defense.
37:  National rank.
Other teams allowing between 16 and 17 completions (ie, 16.1, 16.2, etc) per game.

Pittsburgh
Northern Illinois
Virginia
Air Force
Penn St.
Wake Forest
Arizona
California
Hawaii
Auburn
Illinois
Wyoming
Notre Dame
Purdue
Alabama

A mixed bag of peers, for sure.  BUt not damning.  In fact, hard to read.  Can we say that Florida definetly doesn't have an elite pass defense?  Or does no one throw against them in the SEC?
   One thing's for sure - OU will:

24.9: OU completions per game (12th nationally, with Texas and Purdue).

(And for you puritans -
3: National rank of OU's passing offense, in yards per game.)

Perhaps, though, we are missing half of the equation.  If Florida DOES stop OU, what is that likely to look like?  What factor will have to be in play?  Corners swatting away endless bombs?  Not likely.  Judging half by what we saw from OU this year, and half from what we saw from Fla against MIch last year, I think we can add that to the Questions Which Aren't Questions-pile.  Tebow will get his points, but Fla's coverage will not slow down OU.
  Which is not to say OU won't be stopped.  The last time OU took a Heisman-winning QB to a national title game, they discovered that ninja receivers and brilliant schemes are for shit if the other DLine holds a dance party in the backfield.

How to measure that?  Well, how about sacks?  They won't need a sack every play, of course, but if you get one sack out of every five good rushes, that still makes sacks a good barometer of pressure.
  Looking at sacks, we can ask if Florida's D gets to the QB better than, say, Texas or Tech or Ok St?  And, alternately, does OU's line generally give Bradford a lot of time?

31:  Sacks, Florida in 2008
31:  National rank (not a typo)
(for comparison
42:  Sacks, OU
3:  National Rank)

1: National Rank of Texas, who beat OU
2: National Rank of TCU, who OU whipped
5: OU opponents with more sacks than Florida - Texas, TCU, Tech, Mizzou, Nebraska
6: National Rank of Ol' Miss, who beat Florida - the only SEC school in the Top 25 of sack leaders

hmmm.....  sacks are not Florida's thing nor the SEC's in general, and Florida lost to the one school that does it well.  And OU is 4-1 (almost 5-0) against teams that are really good at sacks.  Hmmmm....

OU Offense vs Fla Defense, or, The Grand Unified Theory of Passing

So let's roll it all together.  Can Florida's defense get to Bradford - ie, gets some sacks - enough to break up OU's passing game long enough for Tebow and the offense to crank out points in the second half?  Or will OU's line keep Bradford safe long enough for him to find a rhythm which, almost definetly, will spell first-half doom for the Gators?

Grand Unified OU Offense
29:  OU completions per Sack-allowed (In English, Bradford completes 29 passes between sacks - enough for perhaps 3 length of the field drives).
2: National rank of that stat.  Only 5 teams are over 20.
421: OU passing yards per sack-allowed - a flat-stupid number.
1: National rank of that stat.
385, 295, 271:  2nd (T Tech), 3rd (Miz) and 4th (Boise St) in that category.

Verdict:  OU's protection and Bradford's production is, collectively, WAY better than anybody else in the country and miles past anybody in the SEC.

Grand Unified FLA Defense
8.6: Fla completions allowed per sack made.  To put that in context, if an 80 yard drive lasts 9 plays and if a sack kills a drive, then - on average - you can't drive the field on FLA by passing.  Barely.
29:  National rank.
72:  Yards allowed per sack made.

Verdict:  Florida has caused a decent amount of trouble - though not complete chaos - for passers in a league short on good passing.

Grand Unified Advantage:  OU.

And since run games, special teams, coaching adjustments and mental focus never matter, you can take that as a lock!

I-35: Quarterback Road

The flatest, loneliest stretch of highway this side of Deadhorse, Alaska is our topic tonight, I-35, the official Interstate of Flyover Country, which perhaps is why footballs apparently spend so much time in the air near it.

C-words from the T-word
25: Percent of the nation's top 12 QBs, by passing yardage, named "Chase"
4768: Yards passed for by nation's leader, Houston's Case Keenum.
3445: Yards passed for by Colt McCoy, 11th nationally.
100: Percent of five above-referenced QBs - Chase, Chase, Chase, Case and Colt - that were born and raised in Texas (all play for Texas colleges, except NMSU's Chase Holbrook, who is from Lubbock).
9: Combined QBs (any name) in top 12 from I-35 states, Texas and Oklahoma.
504: Miles of I-35 across Texas, from Laredo to the Red River, just outside Gainesville.
7: Texans in the top 12.
235: Miles of I-35 through Oklahoma, from Thackerville to the Kansas border, where it becomes a toll road.
2: Oklahomans in top 12
2: Ohio Qbs in the top 12
3629: Yards passed for by Max Hall, BYU, who is from Arizona... and the nephew of Danny White, former QB of the I-35's flagship football team, the Dallas Cowboys.

Sports-Tells-Us-Who-We-Are, and the coastal sportswriters who believe that
thank goodness we have sports experts at such august institutions as the Wall Street Journal and USA Today to tell us which geographic region has "conquered in nearly every respect" the game of college football and and where to find Quarterback U

"...you'll just die tired."
20: minimum number of CFB players with Sniper School Slogan stats ("one shot, one kill") for 2008 - 1 attempt, 1 completetion, 1 touchdown.
858.4: Quarterback rating of ThisU's Graig Cooper (yes: rating. and "Graig"), a rating over 100 points better than second place in the nation and the mathematical result of Cooper's single pass attempt in 2008 going for a 51 yard touchdown.

A Pair of Dueces Wild
2,2,2,2: Attempts-completions-TDs-#of players nationally to record that line in 2008. They are: ULL's Richie Falgout and the perhaps-appropriately named Marlon Lucky, who plays for a more mainstream team we'll mention in a moment.
2: Consecutive years Falgout, a WR, has made the Conference Honor Roll at UL-Laf ("you'll laugh"), mirroring his duece's wild line of attempts-completions-touchdowns. Also, his mom's name is "Candy". That's what his bio says.
2.2: Yards/game for Lucky, which is what you get when you divide the 24 yards his 2-2-2 passes went for across the 11 games he played this year for Nebraska, the flagship school of a state bisected by I-35

75: More than twice as big as 35
I would have voted for Tebow, who attends a university located in a town named Gainesville on a major North-South interstate, but not the one just south of Thackerville, OK.
Now, even though I-75 connects by less than two hours the current capitals of college and high school football, UF and Valdosta, GA, that's not why I would have voted for Tebow. I would also not have voted for him because he promised you that you will never see any player in the entire country who will play harder the rest of the season or because you will never see a team play harder than we will the rest of the season.
I would have voted for him because he started that speech, the greatest college football speech ever actually given (I'm looking at you, ND), with "I'm sorry" and, like this post, ended with "God Bless."

The Index Ain't Been Sober Since Maybe October Of Last Year

Five Deep Breaths, courtesy 2004
3: Winning margin, USC-Stanford, last weekend in September.
6: Winning margin, USC-Cal, very next game.
8: Winning margin, USC-Oregon State, first weekend in November.
5: Winning margin, USC-UCLA, last game of season.
36: Winning margin, USC-No. 1 Oklahoma Orange Bowl, for the national title.


Five More Deep Breaths, courtesy 2005
4: Arizona State lead with 3:44 left in game, USC-ASU, first weekend in October.
7: USC lead early in the 4th quarter, USC-Arizona, very next game.
3: Winning margin, Northern Indiana Affair, very next game.
6:22: Time remaing in game when USC took lead, USC-Fresno State.
47: Winning margin, USC-No. 11 UCLA, very next game.


And now: Inhale... Hold... Exhale... 2006!
6: Winning margin, USC-Washington State, last weekend in September.
5: Yardline on which USC intercepts WSU Hail Mary on final snap.
6: Winning margin, USC-Washington, first weekend in October.
15: Yardline on which UW's final drive stalls, despite copious time-management assistance from refs.

EA-SY! Breath! BREATH!!!!

(by way, anybody get the title of this post yet?)

Just what do we have here:

1. Two up-market football teams blow a season's worth of want-to and luck in their once-a-year shot at the shiniest program in the country (consider: UW scored a TD on a fake kick(!) but SC was the team playing with house money? Really?)
2. With SC breaking in a new QB.
3. In the the last weekend of September and first of October.
4. And, just like at least 10 times in the past two years, it almost worked.
5. And, just like at least 10 times in the past two years, SC came through.

So what is the general concensus? From today's ESPN CF podcast:

David Albright, to Ivan Maisel: "...maybe you can figure out what's wrong with USC."
Maisel: "They are having more trouble than anybody dreamed, aren't they?"

Or from the AP's story on Florida leaping-frogging USC to No. 2:

Mike Radano of the Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, N.J. [ed - Courier-Post's nearest IA teams: Temple and Rutgers], was one of many voters to move Florida ahead of USC this week. "USC hasn't been its same dominant self," Radano said. "I thought they got a little fortunate yesterday."

Really? USC got 'a little fortunate' but Florida, after beating LSU, is the New Economy? Sure about that? Let's take a look:

5: LSU turnovers.
52: Consecutive I-A teams to lose after committing 5 turnovers in a game, according to CBS (last team to win with 5 turnovers: LSU! ta da!)
1: LSU fumbles in endzones recoverd by LSU for FLA safety.
16: Florida points off turnover/kickoff-safety.
1: LSU punts blocked.
2: LSU turnovers in Florida Redzone.
1: Florida yardline LSU's Jamarcus Russell fumbled on in second quarter.
17: Plays in drive leading to fumble.
1: Number of offensive plays later that Russell threw an interception.
2: LSU first-play-interception drives.
10: Seconds into second-half Florida scored safety when LSU returner fumbled kickoff, recovered in endzone and was tackled (NOT one of the 5 turnovers).
14-102: Florida Penalities-Yards penalized. That's 7 penalites per spots in AP poll. Sounds like a contender.

But Florida is No. 2 (next to Holy Writ Ohio State) and USC was 'very fortunate.'

Didn't we already sit through our annual eruption of irrational SEC exuburance after Cal-Tennessee? Didn't it take Air Force one week to burst that bubble?
And wasn't Auburn already composing outraged letters last week about being left out of the BCS championship game?

Pardon while I fail to evacuate my bowels trying to decode the many enigmas of Florida's offense, like 'if Tebow comes in, just what kind of Mad Scientist-shit is Urban trying to pull?'