Simulated Gameday Experience

Sun Bowl

One of the last games of the year, the Sun Bowl has had its share of good games and good stories in recent history – Oregon rebounding from the devastating loss of Dennis Dixon to win big in 2007, Oregon State making a huge 4th quarter comeback against Missouri and memorably going for two rather than sending the game to overtime… in fact, no game in the last eleven years has been decided by more than 12 points, and only two had double digit margins. Of course, close isn’t always good, as last year’s 3-0 win by Oregon State over Pitt was a complete disaster of a game, all the way down to the 1/4 FG line, but hey that shouldn’t happen this year, right? I mean, it’s not like one team has a great defense but at the same time has been completely decimated by injuries on the offensive… oh wait. But nah, this’ll be a good game! We promise!

Oklahoma

The 2009 season was not a kind one for the Oklahoma Sooners. Already having lost All-American TE Jermaine Gresham in the offseason, Heisman QB Sam Bradford suffered a shoulder injury in the second half of week 1 that effectively ended his college career, as he briefly returned only to have it re-aggravated in the first quarter of the Red River Rivalry. The Sooner defense picked up the slack for much of the early season, even in losses, holding Texas to their second-lowest points total of the season, and only three times all year did the opposition break 20 points against this unit, with the Texas Tech game being a 41 point blip on the radar as a tribute to Mike Leach’s genius. (For those who just watched Nebraska shut out Arizona while holding the Wildcats to 36 total yards until their final drive, realize that Leach’s offense scored 31 against that same defense in what was by far their worst outing of the season. Great move, getting rid of him.)

Indeed, when we go to the stat sheet, we quickly see that Oklahoma is 7th in the nation in both scoring and total defense, 8th against the run, and 22nd against the pass which is pretty good considering the style of offenses run in the Big 12 (plus BYU on the schedule); the defensive pass efficiency is 9th. This defense is outstanding at all positions, particularly linebacker where Travis Lewis leads the team in tackles and Ryan Reynolds’ return from a midseason injury last year has clearly reinvigorated the unit. One does wonder what the 2008 season would have been like for Oklahoma had the defense played even close to this good. Surprisingly just three Sooners made the all-conference first team defense (Gerald McCoy, Lewis, and Dominique Franks) although another three made the second team.

This is contrasted by an offense that placed just two skill position players on the second team offense ( DeMarco Murray, Ryan Broyles) and lineman Trent Williams was the lone Sooner of the conference first team offense. Landry Jones’ struggles at QB will take a lot of blame for that, but the fact is also that OU’s offensive line has been brutalized often by opposing defenses. Indeed, Bradford was repeatedly hit by BYU, not known as a physical defense, and pocket pressure was a season-long issue for the offense. In a loss to Texas in which the defense played very well and Jones played as well as you could ask at the time, the offense was held to -16 yards on the ground, with big losses from sacks and no real gains in the running game to offset that. I’m not even that interested in the stats, as OU blew out some of the creampuffs on their schedule to pad those, but in conference losses against Texas, Nebraska, and Texas Tech, this unit scored a total of 29 points.

Stanford

Stanford is quite the opposite. Behind Toby Gerhart, a Heisman finalist at RB, the Cardinal boast the nation’s #11 rushing offense, and at least nine of the teams above them are either midmajors, run the option, or both. Stanford runs a straight ahead, physical attack featuring the #2 yardage running back in the nation, and tops in rushing touchdowns. The Cardinal are 10th in scoring and 13th in total yardage. Freshman QB Andrew Luck has had a respectable season, doing enough to keep defenses from stacking up too much against the ground attack, with his primary target Ryan Whalen hauling in 861 yards for the season. Beware Toby Gerhart throwing the ball as well, with a 581 passer rating on the year, absolutely devastating opposing secondaries… okay, he’s thrown one pass. Got it in the end zone though. Along with Gerhart, lineman Chris Marinelli was named to the all-conference’s first team offense, and TE Jim Dray and lineman Chase Beeler received second team honors.

Unfortunately, the Cardinals are a bit softer on the defensive side. Coming in at #66 in scoring and #85 in total yardage, thanks largely to the nation’s #105 pass defense, the defense has been the culprit in three of the Cardinal’s four losses. In each of these conference losses, the offense scored at least 28 points, and every time it wasn’t enough to offset a poor defensive effort. Even in some wins the defense looked bad, such as a 51-42 near-comeback by Oregon, or a 45-38 shootout against Notre Dame. It may not be surprising that not a single Cardinal player was named to the all-conference defense.

What to Expect

Well, don’t look at me! In November, Stanford followed huge wins over Oregon and USC with a completely unexpected loss to Cal, then survived a shootout with a Notre Dame squad led by a lame-duck coach. That same month, Oklahoma beat Texas A&M and rival Oklahoma State by a combined 92-10, but lost to Nebraska and Texas Tech by a combined 51-16. Frankly I have no idea what kind of performance to expect from either team in this one, let alone how the two are going to compete against each other on the field.

All I can say is that this is a bowl game, and one of these is a Bob Stoops team.

Pick: (heads) Stanford

Tags: Bowl previews