Simulated Gameday Experience

Doc Saturday brought up an interesting fact: no eventual BCS champion has ever allowed as many points or yards in regulation as Texas did this Thanksgiving against Texas A&M. Call up the engravers, tell them to go ahead and sketch Florida’s name onto the Sears Trophy, right?

I’m going to focus on the points allowed, because frankly I don’t feel like sifting through hundreds of box scores to look at yardage and yards per play numbers.

Through 11 seasons, every BCS champion has had two things in common statistically speaking – a junior or senior at starting quarterback and a top 10 scoring defense during the regular season. 2007 LSU is the exception to the latter point, but if you only count points scored in regulation (as I did when I analyzed both their offense and their defense), the Tigers were #6 in scoring D so they certainly fit the spirit of the trend. Depending on the result of the Arkansas-LSU game this weekend, Texas’ defense will drop to #9 or #10 in points per game allowed.

Since 2001, only 2008 Florida (30-31 to Ole Miss) has ever given up over 30 points in regulation and gone on to win the BCS. Oklahoma twice allowed 31 points during 2000, Florida State gave up 35 to Georgia Tech in 1999, and Tennessee gave up 33 to Syracuse in 1998.

Now, the fact that it’s happened to the last BCS champions, as well as the first three, already says to me that this isn’t a harbinger of certain defeat at the hands of the SEC Champions. But my immediate next question was – how many teams have even gone on to lose in the championship game after giving up 39 points in a regular season game? Typically a defensive performance like that results in you losing the game, which makes it very difficult to even play in the BCSCG. Here are the regular season games in which the BCS runners-up surrendered more than 30 points. 39 points or more in bold.

1998 Florida State: only twice allowed more than 20 points
1999 Va Tech: only twice allowed exactly 20 points
2000 Florida State: only twice allowed more than 20 points
2001 Nebraska: 31 points in win over Texas Tech…. 62 points in loss to Colorado
2002 Miami: 45 points in win over Virginia Tech
2003 Oklahoma: 35 points in Big 12 Championship loss to Kansas State
2004 Oklahoma: 35 points each to Oklahoma State and Texas A&M
2005 USC: 31 points to Notre Dame, 42 points to Fresno State
2006 Ohio State: 39 points against Michigan (other games all below 20)
2007 Ohio State: 28 points in loss to Illinois (other games all below 20)
2008 Oklahoma: two games over 30 points, and allowed 41 points against Oklahoma State. I feel like there was another game where they gave up even more than that, but if it ever did happen surely it’s been deleted from the archives.

Since Texas must go unbeaten in order to play for the MNC this year, comparisons to 2008 Oklahoma are off. (Besides, their defense allowed lots of points on a weekly basis. Texas Tech’s 24 is the only other time anyone has broken 20 against Texas.) Same goes for 2001 Nebraska, whose 62 points allowed to Colorado were not only a whole other level of defensive collapse, but also resulted in the losing the game. As it turns out, only three teams have even been able to go undefeated and play in the championship game after allowing 39 or more points in regulation. If the nature of this win puts Texas in the same category as 2002 Miami and 2005 USC, I’m okay with that. Doesn’t that more or less indicate what we thought back in August – that they’re a team who is capable of playing for the title but won’t be expected to knock off Florida? Nothing’s changed; this was simply the one game all year when McCoy and the offense have had to carry the team.

All of that isn’t to simply write off this performance, however. If nothing else, Florida now has an exact gameplan for how to beat the Texas defense. The fact that it revolves around a running quarterback is particularly troubling, and I’ll go as far as to say that if Tim Tebow makes the volume of plays that Jerrod Johnson did, Texas will almost surely lose. Given that Tebow is a Heisman winner, most touchdowns scored in SEC history, Jesus’ younger brother, etc etc etc… that’s a definite possibility.

But again, wasn’t that always the case that if Tebow has a monster game, Texas really wouldn’t have much chance to put up 40+ against the Florida defense? Jerrod Johnson is obviously no Tim Tebow, but his gameplay on 11/26/09 was better than anything I’ve seen from Tebow in 2009. Johnson typically plays a few levels below this, which is why A&M came into this game with 6 wins rather than 10, but it was one of the better quarterback performances of the season – not just the stats, but making throws from a full sprint or off his back foot, completing passes into double coverage, the guy was on fire. This is what Terrelle Pryor was supposed to be capable of.

And yet, the offense was up to the task, and the special teams provided the difference. Pretty much what we expected back in August.

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