Non-Emotional FSU Preview

I hate FSU. No team gets me angrier, faster than FSU. However, it’s worth a look at where they are while stifling that as best I can. Here goes…

Before the season began, I made a prediction that FSU would be a six-win team in 2008. I caught a lot of flak for saying that from some of the Bleacher Report commentariat who did not read the article, but I clarified at the beginning that I was talking about wins over I-A competition.

The Seminoles are sitting at 8-3 right now, with two wins over I-AA schools at the beginning of the year back when they were trying to get around the full brunt of suspensions from last year’s academic scandal. In other words they have six wins over I-A competition, exactly where I saw them being. Since I expect to see a Gator win on Saturday, I think they’ll finish the regular season that way.

I didn’t get all the details of it right, though the end outcome was spot-on. For one thing, Christian Ponder has been a lot better than I thought he would be. On top of that, his mobility has helped FSU have a credible running game for the first time in years.

Some of that credit should go to offensive line coach Rick Trickett, since FSU’s offensive line is entirely freshmen and sophomores. Some should go to Jimbo Fisher for creating an offensive framework for success in the ACC. It’s a bit early yet to say it’s definitive proof that he’s the best guy to follow Bobby Bowden as head coach. It only proves that he’s a better offensive coordinator than Jeff Bowden was, and I don’t think that was ever in doubt.

Statistically, the Seminole defense has also been better than it was during the past two seasons’ 7-6 records. The strength of that defense has often been cited as the key for FSU having a chance to pull the upset win on Saturday.

However, we’ve heard this before. We heard how LSU, Georgia, Vanderbilt, and South Carolina all were going to slow Florida down with their tough defenses, and they all didn’t turn out to be that great at stopping the Gators. I’ll pull out the chart I made before the South Carolina game, updated to be current and including FSU both with and without its wins over I-AA teams included:

Defenses & the Florida Effect

Team	Yds/Game	Points/Game	Yds/Game net UF	Pts/Game net UF
LSU	320	25.45	304.5	22.9
Kentucky	328.45	21.09	316.7	16.9
Georgia	308.36	23.82	301.9	21.3
Vanderbilt	317.55	19.82	307.1	17.6
South Carolina	280.36	19.27	256.5	15.6
FSU	272.64	18.55	???	???
FSU, net I-AA	295.44	21.89	???	???

As you can see, FSU’s defense suddenly isn’t quite as fearsome when you remove their demolishing of not just two I-AA teams, but two bad I-AA teams. It really is similar to the SEC defenses that Florida has been shredding ever since the Ole Miss loss. I’ve seen where some FSU fans have tried to make the case that FSU’s defense has more speed than any other the Gators have faced, but I’d love to see them tell that to Rennie Curran’s face. It’d be awesome.

In short, no, FSU’s defense is not materially dissimilar to any of the others that Florida has faced. The biggest difference is that it has a Rhodes Scholar on it, but nothing else stands out.

The Gators, meanwhile, play a little defense themselves. Here is a handy comparison of the two teams’ defenses with the results of playing I-AA teams removed.

Defenses

Team	Total Defense	Scoring Defense
Florida, net I-AA	274.9	11.3
FSU, net I-AA	295.44	21.89

Florida is a full 10 points a game better and about 20 yards a game better. The first string defense hasn’t given up a touchdown since the LSU game back on October 11. The defensive line could be a little thin with starting DT Lawrence Marsh nursing a sprained MCL and backup DL Matt Patchan out, but the overall unit is very, very good.

If it sounds to you like I’m trying to make the case for another massive blowout, I’m actually not. For whatever reason, Florida never plays that well in Tallahassee. Steve Spurrier never won there, and even with FSU’s downturn this decade the best Florida has been able to do there is a win by seven. Under Urban Meyer, two nine-win Florida teams have won the games in Gainesville by scores of 34-7 and 45-12; in Tallahassee with an eventual 13-game, national title winner the score was 21-14.

I’m not closing the door on the possibility of a large win, as Florida has surprised me in just about every game since the Ole Miss loss in its ability to win and win big. The fact still remains that UF hasn’t won in Tallahassee by double digits since a 10-point win in 1984, and you have to go back to 1972 to find a Florida win there by more than 10 points.

I think Florida has an excellent chance to score its first win by more than 10 points since the final year of Richard Nixon’s first term because of they are focused on the task at hand. They are not looking ahead to Alabama, and they will be ready for this game.

That is important because I don’t think FSU can beat Florida outright. The Seminoles will need help from the visitors in the form of turnovers or busted coverage on defense as Ole Miss received. If Florida comes out sharp, they will win going away.

I still don’t fully trust them, or any other Gator team for that matter, to absolutely win in a blowout in Tallahassee because it hasn’t happened in my lifetime. However the Gators have delivered Les Miles, Mark Richt, and Steve Spurrier their worst losses ever all in this season, a fact I never would have believed before the year began. If there ever was a year to break a trend, this is it.

SEC Power Poll, Week 13 Released

The voting was a little light, but that happens when it’s a holiday week. Full poll with comments here.

SEC Power Poll Ballot, Week 13

1. Florida

I saw nothing against the Citadel that made me think they should move.

2. Alabama

After a nice week off, it’s time to break Auburn’s Iron Bowl streak in emphatic fashion. There’s no excuse for not doing so.

3. Georgia

Given the periodic defensive struggles for UGA in the second half of this season, I’d be scared to death of playing Georgia Tech if I was a Bulldog fan. What they did to Miami was sick.

4. Ole Miss

In four career meetings against Les Miles, Houston Nutt is 2-2 with 13 more points scored in those games. A win in the Egg Bowl likely clinches a Cotton Bowl berth.

5. LSU

I have the Tigers ahead of South Carolina only because of the head-to-head result.

6. South Carolina

If the Gamecocks beat Clemson, can we give them the ACC title? No one in that conference appears to want it, and they used to be in that league once upon a time.

7. Vanderbilt

You would think the Commodores would get up for a rivalry game, but they appeared to still be hung over from celebrating the bowl berth.

8. Kentucky

The six wins and bowl bid are nice, but the Wildcats haven’t yet beaten a team that currently has a winning record. None of them even have the chance to, with 5-6 being the best record of any they’ve beaten.

9. Auburn

The team that nearly beat Georgia had better show up. In fact, they better bring that team but make it even better, or else it will be an ugly Iron Bowl.

10. Tennessee

Where was that team we saw Saturday against Wyoming? Or for that matter, where was it in every other game of the season?

11. Mississippi State

I’ll give the Legion of Croom credit. They are still fighting.

12. Arkansas

That was a big step back, although Casey Dick’s little brother Nathan put up some nice numbers. So much for the bowl hopes.

Rainey Honored by SEC

Chris Rainey was named SEC Freshman of the Week for his ridiculous rushing numbers against the Citadel. As improbable as it was going to be given that Florida was playing a I-AA opponent, the Gators extended their streak of having at least one player name All-SEC after every win. I guess it helped that Julio Jones had the week off.

In injury news, Matt Patchan is out but Lawrence Marsh could play against FSU. I think Florida would still win without either, but I’d prefer to have Marsh playing.

BCS Outlook, Week 14

The process of how games select their participants is outlined here.

If the season ended today, the following teams would get the automatic bids based on the current BCS and conference standings:

ACC: Georgia Tech (5-3 in conference, beat fellow 5-3 FSU and VT has only 4 ACC wins)

Big 12: Texas (above Oklahoma in the BCS poll, giving them the South Division tiebreaker)

Big East: Cincinnati (5-1 in conference, holds tiebreaker over 4-1 WVU)

Big Ten: Penn State (clinched Big Ten title)

Pac-10: Oregon State (holds tiebreaker over USC)

SEC: Alabama (undefeated so far)

Non-BCS: Utah (12-0, won’t be passed by any other non-BCS teams)

Other: Oklahoma (a non-conference champ in top 4 of BCS standings, thereby getting in automatically)

The Sugar Bowl and Fiesta Bowl get first picks for at-larges since they lost their tie-in teams. This year, the rotation after they pick replacements is Fiesta-Sugar-Orange. The order of the selections goes like this:

1. Sugar takes Florida to replace #1 Alabama to lock in an SEC team
2. Fiesta takes Oklahoma to replace #2 Texas to lock in a Big 12 team
3. Fiesta takes USC, the most desirable at-large left and a nearby team
4. Sugar takes Utah
5. Orange takes Cincinnati

I am making the assumption that the Sugar Bowl will want to set up an “Urban Meyer against his former team” storyline. It will have the luxury of doing so because of how well Florida fans travel. Plus, Utah at this point probably brings quite a few fans themselves, and I don’t know how big a crowd Cincinnati will bring.

In total:

BCS Title Game: Alabama vs. Texas

Rose Bowl: Penn State vs. Oregon State

Fiesta Bowl: Oklahoma vs. USC

Sugar Bowl: Florida vs. Utah

Orange Bowl: Georgia Tech vs. Cincinnati

Contingencies

If Virginia Tech beats Virginia, then they go to the ACC title game instead of Georgia Tech. Not much else matters, because the ACC will not be getting any at-large teams this season. Whoever wins goes to the Orange Bowl and that’s that.

If Florida defeats Alabama in the SEC title game, then just flip them. Same thing goes if Oklahoma hops over Texas, something that could happen since OU is a very close third and will get a better bump in the computers for beating Oklahoma State than UT will get for Texas A&M. I assume either would beat Missouri in the Big 12 title game. If Cincinnati somehow loses to Syracuse and West Virginia takes the Big East, I could see the Sugar Bowl taking them instead of Utah.

If Missouri wins the Big 12 title game over Texas, then all bets are off. I would venture a guess that Oklahoma slides up into the No. 2 spot. I could see voters putting USC (and only USC, not Penn State) in the No. 2 spot if they still believe that you must win your conference (or at least tie for the lead) to play for the title. Utah has no shot at all of going to the national title game.

A Missouri win puts the Tigers in the Fiesta Bowl. That much is certain. If Oklahoma goes to the national title game then, just drop them in place of Texas above. If USC goes to the national title game, look for the Fiesta to avoid an all-Big 12 game and take Utah or West Virginia (if available). That pushes Oklahoma to the Sugar, with either Cincinnati or Utah in the Orange.

Then again, Oklahoma and Mizzou didn’t play this year and taking OU guarantees high ticket demand moreso than any other available team. If that ends up being the case, the Sugar probably takes Utah, leaving the Orange with Cincy.

The Fiesta Bowl does get to pick in front of the Sugar in the event of a Big 12 team being No. 1 and an SEC team being No. 2. The Fiesta would not be able to take an SEC at-large without the Sugar Bowl’s permission under BCS rules though, due to the SEC tie-in with the Sugar. That is why the Rose Bowl never could have taken Georgia last year: the Sugar wouldn’t have allowed it. In the same vein, I doubt the Sugar would let the Fiesta take a one-loss Alabama team this year.

Programming Note for This Week

This week is Thanksgiving week as you all know, so content will be a little light. Also: if you post a comment and you haven’t already had a comment approved, it will not appear until I manually approve it (which may take a while). I do that because the WordPress spam filter is not as robust as I’d like.

Have a good Thanksgiving, and beat FSU!

Let the BCS Fretting Begin

Urban Meyer said he’d be disappointed (or something to that effect) if the Gators didn’t hit 60 points this weekend. We got to 70, so mission accomplished.

Something that will be on Gator fans’ minds this week is whether Oklahoma’s big win could put the Gators’ national title game hopes in jeopardy. It’s one thing to put up 70 on a I-AA team with the backups going most of the way, but it’s another entirely to put up 65 points on the undefeated No. 2 team.

In the short term, no one should be shocked at all to see Oklahoma pass up Florida in the standings. With LSU crashing and burning to turn a good win into just a win, it’s hard to make a case for UF to be ahead of OU. In fact, I’d be surprised if the Sooners were not the new No. 2 behind Alabama.

Now before we get too ahead of ourselves, there still are two more weeks to go before the BCS selections. Oklahoma has been known to drop shockers or Oklahoma State this decade, and it is never easy for Florida in Tallahassee. Alabama won’t be a picnic either. Throw on top of that two straight Texas A&M upsets over Texas the past two years and Missouri waiting in the Big 12 title game, and you can see the chances for peril.

No matter what happens in the Big 12 though, I still say that if Florida wins out they will go to the national title game. That is especially true if Alabama beats Auburn (which they will).

We learned in 2006 that voters as a whole do not want rematches. We saw in both 2006 and 2007 that winning your conference is an important factor too. Twice we’ve seen a Big 12 team not win the league and still go to the national title game (2001 Nebraska, 2003 Oklahoma), and both times that team lost. There’s no way voters will ignore that.

I don’t expect to see Florida get to the No. 2 spot until after a win over Alabama (should it come), because poll inertia wins until the final ballot when voters manually choose who they want to see play for it all. Texas can’t impress anymore because of how bad Texas A&M is, and the way Oklahoma beat Texas Tech will override the 10-point loss at a neutral site to the Longhorns.

In other words, rest easy Gators. All we can control is ourselves, and taking care of business should be all we need.

Annotated Letter to Obama on the BCS

Yesterday I reported on the revival of the congressional anti-BCS bill. CBSSports.com came up with a letter addressed to President-Elect Obama from the sponsors of that bill. I have annotated it helpfully to show how little these guys know about the sport which they are trying to change.

If you haven’t been around here long, just know that I am a playoff proponent. I just don’t think these guys have a clue of what they’re talking about. My comments are in bold.

—–

President-elect Barack Obama
Presidential Transition Team
Washington, DC 20270

Dear Mr. President-Elect:

In your recent interviews on 60 Minutes and Monday Night Football, you indicated that the current Bowl Championship Series (BCS) is not the way that our National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) national championship should be decided. We agree, and earlier this year, we introduced H. Res. 1120, which we believe provides the basis for the NCAA to establish a football playoff to determine the national championship. [Until you put a money value on it, you’re meddling. Congress is charged to keep the flow of money equitable, but not titles such as “champion.”]

H. Res. 1120 rejects the BCS system as an illegal restraint of trade, in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The U.S. Supreme Court has applied the Sherman Act to collegiate sports, as they became more commercialized. This is among the reasons why the NCAA withdrew from sponsoring postseason Division I-A football. [The NCAA has never once sponsored postseason play in I-A/FBS football. The bowls are and have always been separate, and the NCAA does not recognize an official champion.]

The BCS cannot withstand application of the Sherman Antitrust Act. . The test most applicable in this case is the rule of reason analysis. When applying this test, the Court weighs anticompetitive effects against procompetitive benefits, and determines if there is a less restrictive alternative to meet the objectives sought in the issue at hand. In both tests, BCS fails.

The anticompetitive effects of the BCS far outweigh its competitive benefits. The most obvious anticompetitive effect is the vast difference in revenue generated in the postseason between the BCS and non-BCS schools (members of Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West, Sun Belt, and Western Athletic Conferences), which do not have an annually-guaranteed slot in a BCS game. [They agreed to the contracts and system though. Unless you can prove they did so under duress, then there’s no case here.]

The current BCS process is fundamentally unfair. Non-BCS schools are at a competitive and financial disadvantage prior to the first kickoff of the season. [They always have been and always will be due to differences in fan base size, tradition, brand strength, and so on between the BCS and non-BCS schools.] This has repercussions far beyond their restricted access to the national championship. [Which as it is a title, its assignment is beyond Congress’ jurisdiction.] The BCS generates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue annually, and this money is disproportionately awarded to the six BCS conferences. Sixty-six bowl-eligible schools—just more than half of the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision — shared 85% of the $217 million generated by the 2006-2007 post-season bowls, about $185 million. [Could it be possible because those schools and conferences drive the vast majority of the interest in the sport, and that interest in the sport drives TV ratings and revenue? Maybe?]

Money generated by the postseason games helps schools cover costs for their athletic departments, facilities, equipment, recruitment, and other sports programs. Non-BCS schools must use their general funds to cover the costs of their athletic departments, which takes funding away from academic and administrative needs. [No one is forcing them to play I-A football, and if they want to compete they must find boosters to pay for it.]

The lopsided distribution of BCS revenue results in two tiers within the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision: those with access to the BCS, and those without. [The winners of 5 of the 6 BCS conferences have auto bids to specific BCS games via contract. Aside from the top-4 auto bid rule and top-14 to be eligible rule, nothing keeps bowls from selecting non-BCS schools as at-larges except perfectly legitimate capitalistic reasons.] Those without are unable to change their situation as the money and prestige associated with the BCS makes it highly unlikely that a non-BCS school will be able to compete for the same recruits, coaches, sponsorships, national television exposure, and the revenue it generates. This disparity locks them in the second-class status. [Except for schools like Boise State and Utah, who are rapidly gaining in all those categories as we speak. Why? Because they win, that’s why. The model is Gonzaga in men’s basketball, who is considered a power despite playing in the WCC. That took them less than a decade.]

To defend itself, the BCS claims that its system fosters competition and allows the best teams in the country to compete for the national championship. They claim this is enough of a competitive benefit to outweigh the anticompetitive effects. [The point of the big bowl games before the BCS came around was to match up the best teams. That goal has not changed.]

However, even [some] BCS schools and coaches do not believe the BCS system is the best way to determine the national champion. [But most of them do.] Recently, Pete Carroll, head coach of the Pac-10’s University of Southern California Trojan football team, whose team regularly plays in the BCS bowls, was supportive of your remarks and of a playoff system.

Others who have recently expressed reservations about the BCS include Michael Adams, President of the University of Georgia, and James Bernard Machen, President of the University of Florida. Both schools are members of the Southeastern Conference. Their schools have been very successful in the BCS system. However, they realize that the BCS does not necessarily place the best schools in the championship game.

The BCS itself has changed its system in the past when pressed. The last major change came in 2004, which allowed the possibility of one non-BCS school per year to participate in the BCS bowls. [False – there was no restriction before 2004 that specifically barred non-BCS teams from participating. And even before the agreed upon fifth game and provision for an auto bid for non-BCS schools went into effect, Utah broke into the BCS under the old rules.] This happened when the Presidential Coalition for Athletics Reform, consisting of the majority of non-BCS school presidents, demanded reform. The Coalition’s actions, as well as Senate and House Judiciary Committees hearings on the legality of the BCS that year, brought the BCS to the table to negotiate. [At which point all of them agreed on the current system. Yes, everyone, including the non-BCS school presidents who had been complaining.]

With the support of the U.S. Department of Justice, we believe the BCS system could be replaced with a fair, inclusive playoff system.

An NCAA Division I FBS Championship playoff would be a much less restrictive alternative. The NCAA would have to retake control of the postseason for Division I FBS. [Retake? I think you mean just “take.”] The NCAA could determine the logistics of the playoff, as it does for 88 other team championships, including Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS, formerly Division I-AA), II and III football. [Except that the NCAA has never expressed interest in doing this. You’d have to force them to do it, and I don’t know if Congress can legally.]

The playoff would be less restrictive, as it allows all the teams an even start at the beginning of the season. A playoff takes away the obvious advantages BCS schools enjoy simply for being members of the right conferences. While BCS schools may still dominate at first, [Dear sirs: Who said? Sincerely, Boise State and the MWC.] it would immediately give non-BCS schools an opportunity to become a “Cinderella story,” as happens nearly every March in the NCAA Division I Basketball Tournament. It also removes any doubt as to whether the best teams competed in the championship, which the BCS currently fails to do. [Categorically false. The best teams do not always play in the championship rounds of playoffs, and if the theoretical best team is a non-BCS team that plays a lousy schedule, there’s no way to guarantee it will make whatever playoff you set up.]

Our resolution calls for the Department of Justice Antitrust Division to investigate and bring appropriate actions against the parties of the BCS. This, we believe, is the best way for the federal government to take action to end this illegal system.

We have seen the BCS alter itself in the past when legitimate inquiries are made about its structure. With the prestige of the Presidency and vigorous pursuit by the Department of Justice in support of fairness and equity, we are certain the BCS will be persuaded to resolve the issues involved to the benefit of the nation’s colleges and their fans.

Thank you for your attention. Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can be of further assistance. [Barack, please don’t. Just do it yourself and leave these clowns out of it.]

Sincerely,
Neil Abercrombie Mike Simpson Jim Matheson
Member of Congress Member of Congress Member of Congress
1st District, Hawaii 2nd District, Idaho 2nd District, Utah

Congressional BCS Bill Resurfaces

Apparently Neil Abercrombie of Hawai’i and his co-sponsors Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia, Mike Simpson of Idaho, and Jim Matheson of Utah are going to be reintroducing their bill in Congress that declares the BCS an illegal restriction of trade. If you notice a pattern there, three of them represent the states of the three BCS busters and the fourth represents Georgia, who was unhappy about not making the title game last season.

Such a pattern combined with the fact that this is Congress we’re talking about here should set off an alarm in your head. That is your “pandering and grandstanding” alarm, and there is a good reason why it is going off. Part of it is that they are piggybacking off of President-Elect Obama’s recent pro-playoff arguments, and part is that they are trying to look good for their constituencies.

I covered this bill’s original appearance back in April, and the likelihood of success for their particular arguments is not high. The very presence of Utah, Boise State, and Hawai’i in the BCS show that the system is not restricting non-BCS conference schools from getting a piece of a pie. Since all BCS games have the same payout, from a strictly monetary point of view the BCS isn’t locking the non-BCS schools out. They have access to the kitty now.

If you want to say the BCS locks non-BCS teams out of getting a championship, then you’re getting warmer. However, once you bring up the “C” word, you open a Pandora’s box of semantics and technicalities. That avenue I covered in April as well.

The biggest problem in the whole deal is Rep. Abercrombie. He appears to have no understanding whatsoever of the BCS process, yet he is running ahead full steam with this while saying nonsensical things. A quote I grabbed from him in April from the Yahoo! Sports article on the topic (which has since expired from their servers) goes as such: “Who elected these NCAA people? Who are they to decide who competes for the championship?”

If the man doesn’t know what the NCAA is, then he probably shouldn’t be sticking his nose into its business. Besides, the NCAA does not choose the teams who play in the national title game, the BCS formula does. On top of that, the NCAA is not even a signer of the BCS contracts. The eleven I-A conference commissioners, the A.D. of Notre Dame, and the BCS bowl committees make up the parties to those agreements, leaving the NCAA itself out of it.

But wait, there’s more. This quote is from the CBSSports.com article I linked to above, which he also said back in April: “It’s a racket. They’ve got a little cartel. It’s La Cosa Nostra … and slavery.”

I hope for their sake that Rep. Abercrombie’s co-sponsors know a little more about the process than he does. It still doesn’t answer the question of why they allowed him to speak on the topic though.

If this bill makes it beyond the emotional press conference stage, it will be discussed in January at the earliest when the new Congress convenes. I would love to see a college football playoff as much as anyone, perhaps even more, but now is not the time. Congress has a lot bigger fish to fry than whether Boise State is unfairly being kept out of the national title game. A foundering auto industry, the continued cleanup of the disastrous derivatives mess in the world of finance, and foreign policy are all more pressing and worthy issues.

These guys are going to try, but I honestly don’t think they’ll get anywhere with the bill. We know that they will have a sympathetic ear in the White House, but hopefully the folks spearheading this effort will at least educate themselves on college football before they bring it up for discussion. A spectacular crash and burn would probably hurt the playoff cause more than it would help it.

Dominance Percentage

With this weekend’s game being a scrimmage for all intents and purposes, it allows for some exploration of the national scene. I’ve been trying to think of ways to measure how well Florida has done for the most part of this season and compare it to how other teams have done nationwide.

Here’s my attempt at doing just that. I call it Dominance Percentage, and I hope I’m not just repeating work someone else has already done. There are so many people out there making up new kinds of football stats (yours truly included) that it’s hard to keep track of them all.

Anyway, the idea is to see what percentage of the total points in its games a team has scored. I have taken out results against I-AA teams because those are meaningless. Then, I took the total points score and allowed, subtracted out the greatest single-game value from each to limit outliers. Once I had those adjusted totals, I took the adjusted points scored and divided it by the sum of the adjusted points scored and allowed.

A team that shuts out every opponent will have a percentage of 100. A team that gets shut out every game will have a percentage of zero. If a team has given up the same number of points it has scored, it will have a percentage of 50.

See how it works? Here’s the top 25 teams in terms of this measure.

Dominance Percentage

Rank	Team	Pts. Scored (Adj.)	Pts. Allowed (Adj.)	Pct.
1	USC	315	56	84.91%
2	Florida	378	82	82.17%
3	Boise St.	273	64	81.01%
4	Penn St.	312	86	78.39%
5	TCU	255	90	73.91%
6	Alabama	259	101	71.94%
7	Ball St.	283	116	70.93%
8	Texas	426	175	70.88%
9	Utah	301	134	69.20%
10	Oklahoma	391	189	67.41%
11	Texas Tech	311	151	67.32%
12	BYU	300	147	67.11%
13	Missouri	382	197	65.98%
14	Arizona	327	172	65.53%
15	Tulsa	373	205	64.53%
16	Ohio St.	208	115	64.40%
17	Oklahoma St.	342	193	63.93%
18	Iowa	217	129	62.72%
19	North Carolina	212	132	61.63%
20	Oregon St.	271	173	61.04%
21	Boston College	188	124	60.26%
22	Michigan St.	254	169	60.05%
23	Oregon	372	253	59.52%
24	West Virginia	142	97	59.41%
25	California	249	177	58.45%

It reveals that only USC has dominated the number of points scored it its games more than Florida has. That is about what I was expecting. I mean, Florida gave up 21 points to LSU on October 11. USC gave up 20 points in the entire month of October.

The list doesn’t have too many surprises, considering that all of the national title contenders are at the top. You have to go down to No. 13 Missouri to find a two-loss team. The appearance of a pair of 6-4 Pac-10 teams in Arizona and Cal is a bit surprising, but it goes to show that just tossing out the top-scoring game in each is not enough to smooth things out completely.

The other glaring problem is that this does not adjust for schedule strength. If I was feeling extra ambitious, I could go and calculate what would be the expected numbers in each column given the collective offenses and defenses the teams have faced, but that would require a lot more work than I wanted to do today.

I was looking for something quick and dirty, and this gets the job done. Let me know in the comments if you have an idea on improving on the methods.