The Speed of Tebow’s Release

One of the major complaints about Tim Tebow by those who say he won’t make it in the NFL is that he has a slow release. This critique is related to the charge that he has poor mechanics.

I am not a trained coach, but I believe I can show you at least what armchair NFL GMs see in him that causes the real scouts to fret. I will compare him to Sam Bradford, a guy who was said to be a surefire top-five pick in the draft if he had come out.

All times that I quote here came from studying the national title game frame-by-frame in Avidemux. It’s not as precise as professional video gear, but it’s close enough for these purposes and any error will be consistent throughout.

Here is a sequence showing Bradford’s throwing motion. Pay close attention to the second frame, as that is where the biggest difference between the two guys comes from.

Bradford has a compact throwing motion, which is what NFL scouts are looking for.

In the first frame, he is holding the ball in the classic quarterback stance. Frame two shows the farthest out his arm goes in his windup. You can see that the ball is close to his body and his arm is about at a right angle.

The final two frames finish out his motion. This throw, which is representative of his standard throws, takes about 467 milliseconds to complete.

Here is a sequence of Tebow’s motion.

In the first frame, Tebow is in the same starting position as Bradford was in. The second frame shows a very different story however. The ball is far away from his body, and his arm is almost fully extended.

The final two frames finish out his motion. This was the most extreme example of Tebow’s long windup I could find, and it took 734 milliseconds to complete. That time is 267 milliseconds longer than Bradford’s throw.

Not every one of Tebow’s throws take this long, but it illustrates the perils of having a longer motion. Even moreso in the NFL than in college, a fraction of a second can be the difference between a catch and a tipped ball, and a tipped ball and an interception. The throw above was Tebow’s first interception of the national title game, a pass that was picked off by a safety reading his eyes and jumping in front of a receiver.

As I said though, this was the longest delivery I could find for him. I chose it because it makes for the clearest pictures. To find out a rough approximation of how much longer Tebow’s motion is than Bradford’s is, I took a sample of ten normal passes apiece and timed their motions. I did not include passes where the players were being hit, throwing on the run, or shovel passes.

I found that Tebow’s average time across the ten passes was 557 milliseconds, with all but one pass taking a half second or more. Bradford’s average release was 487 milliseconds, with the most common time being 467 milliseconds. The difference in average was not great at just 70 milliseconds.

As I said though, my ability to time their motions is not exact, and certainly Bradford’s motion looks a lot quicker than Tebow’s does. Tebow has a habit of bringing the ball down near his waist during his windup, while Bradford generally brings the ball straight back from his neutral stance.

Simple physics says it takes more time to move an object along a longer path, so Tebow’s release is labeled “slow.” It is not a huge difference, but just think back to Michael Crabtree’s catch that beat Texas. If the ball came a tenth of a second later, the defensive back coming to help may have gotten a finger on it.

Florida’s new quarterbacks coach Scot Loeffler has been working with Tebow this spring to shorten up the motion. He is also working on getting Tebow to have a “10 o’clock release point,” as opposed to the sidearm-like delivery you can kind of see in his fourth frame. Bradford’s fourth frame shows what I would assume to be a 2 o’clock release point (since he’s right handed and Tebow’s a southpaw).

Tim Tebow is one of the most driven people I’ve ever seen though, so the effort will be there. He has almost a full year from today to prove to the Mel Kipers of the world that he can be something other than an H-back in the pros. Shortening up his delivery and fixing his release point will go a long way to that end.

A Wrapup On Pace in 2008

The past four days I’ve posted topics on how pace affected football in 2008. The primary impetus for doing the series was to put Oklahoma and Tulsa in their proper historical context.

Oklahoma scored the most points ever in a season, and Tulsa gained the most total yards ever in a season. When two records like that fall in the same season, especially one where a clock rule change reduced plays per game and scoring from the old rules, it’s worth taking a look to see why that might have happened.

The easiest answer is that both OU and Tulsa played in 14 games. The twelfth game added to the schedule earlier this decade, when combined with conference championship games and bowls stats counting towards season totals, basically meant that it was a matter of time before some of these records fell. Anything set back when the season had only 11 games and bowl stats didn’t count towards season stats was doomed.

The extra game doesn’t tell the whole story, though. Each of these records, both points scored and yards gained, were set by 2006 Hawai’i. That team played 14 games, and that season’s clock rules lowered plays per game and scoring even more than 2008’s clock rules did. The extra game helped OU and Tulsa pass most teams, but it was not the deciding factor in breaking the records.

That is where playing at a faster pace comes in.

There are distinct advantages to running a hurry-up offense full-time beyond just getting more opportunities to score. When you go at a faster pace, you can disrupt the defense and gain an advantage. The defense may not be set every time and it will not be able to substitute as often. Plus, your team is better conditioned to play at the faster pace than a team that doesn’t, so you can tire out the other side too.

Whether each team has six drives apiece or 15 drives apiece during a game, you still want to score on more of them than the other guy. Cranking up the pace is done with the idea of gaining an advantage that you cannot get at a normal pace and exploiting it to score more often than the other team.

Oklahoma chose to turn up the pace in response to the new 40 second play clock. Gus Malzahn of Tulsa has long been a proponent of the hurry-up, and you can purchase his book on the topic on Amazon. The end result of each team’s fast paced attacks was two big records falling.

As I mentioned yesterday, 1989 Houston still holds the record for points per game. That 2006 Hawai’i team that used to hold the total yards and points records still holds the yards per play record at 8.6 as well. Since Tulsa and Oklahoma do not now hold the rate records, only the total records, it is reasonable to conclude that the records fell almost entirely because of each team’s fast pace allowing them to run more plays than teams in the past.

I want to be clear about one thing though. I am not trying to bring down either of these teams. Each turned in remarkable offensive seasons that are among the greatest college football has ever seen.

There also is no way of knowing if those Houston and Hawai’i teams of the past could have kept up their rates at the faster pace either. After all, 1970 Notre Dame holds the plays per game record at an astonishing 92.4, but that Irish team doesn’t hold any other records to go with it. It’s one thing to theorize what a team could do, but it’s another to actually do it.

Bill Simmons of ESPN.com wrote a piece recently on the way that Mike D’Antoni’s “seven seconds or less” offense affected stats in the NBA. The most dramatic effect was taking Steve Nash and turning him from a good point guard into one of only nine players ever to win back-to-back MVPs. Simmons then showed that Nash’s stats from this year without D’Antoni are nearly identical to his stats from his pre-D’Antoni Dallas days.

As a fan, I have absolutely nothing against fast-paced offenses. I loved watching D’Antoni’s Phoenix Suns teams, and what I got to see from Oklahoma and Tulsa this year was very exciting as well. Kevin Wilson and Gus Malzahn appeared to maximize the talent they had with their uptempo schemes, and that’s a beautiful thing to see any time it happens.

At the same time, it’s important to realize the distinction between the NBA and college football. What people think doesn’t matter in the team sense in the NBA thanks to the league having a playoff. College football determines its champion largely thanks to opinion polls, so what people think does matter.

I can’t think of a year in which what people thought mattered more than it did with Oklahoma and Texas this year. I don’t mean to rehash old news, but Oklahoma’s impressive scores were largely the reason why it passed up the Texas team that beat it earlier in the year. That then allowed Oklahoma to go to the Big 12 title game and on to the BCS title game.

It’s possible that had OU operated at a slower pace and didn’t put up 60 points in five straight games, it might not have passed up UT. If that doesn’t happen, Texas likely beats Mizzou in the Big 12 title game and goes on to play Florida for the national title.

There’s no way to know, but Texas could have beaten Florida and won the national title. If Texas makes the national title game, then Colt McCoy probably wins the Heisman trophy as well. So, not only did pace potentially affect the Heisman race as it affected the NBA’s MVP race, but it potentially affected the championship.

It’s not likely we’ll ever get all of the voters to look at efficiency stats like points per play or points per drive instead of final scores, so as long as the BCS exists, this same thing can happen again. The moral of the story is that cranking up the pace is a fantastic way to game the system if you can pull it off, and for the record, I’m all for gaming the system.

The 2008 Oklahoma and Tulsa offenses are the two most prolific we’ve ever seen at generating points and yards. They were special, and no one can deny that. They were not uniquely special in the annals of the game though, and that’s the takeaway for thinking about the ’08 season in historical context.

2008 Scoring at Oklahoma’s Pace

Pace was one of the hot button issues in the 2008 college football season. Oklahoma’s highly publicized switch to a fast paced offense in reaction to the new clock rules was the major reason for it. The Sooners ended up leading the country in plays at 1,106 (79 per game), and they set a record with 716 total points scored.

The Sooners weren’t the only team to crank it up. Tulsa, under no-huddle guru Gus Malzahn, was second in plays behind OU, and Houston, TCU, and Nevada also broke 1,000 plays for the season.

The average number of plays per team for the whole season was 858.52. The average number of games played was 12.68. Therefore, the average number of plays per game for any given team was 67.7.

But what if everyone played at Oklahoma’s pace? Here is a look at what the top ten in scoring would look like if everyone ran 79 offensive plays a game.

This would be the point where I mention that this is based off of the NCAA’s “scoring offense” stat, which includes defense and special teams scores in the totals. Because this study is looking at pace in terms of plays, and it proportionately increases or decreases each team’s total plays, it still works out under the assumption that teams would continue to get defense or special teams scores at the same pace as before.

The top ten in scoring, adjusted to be at Oklahoma’s 2008 pace:

Top Ten Points per Game at Oklahoma’s Pace

Team	Total Pts	Pts/Game	Pts/Play	Adj. Total Pts	Adj. Pts/Game
Florida	611	43.64	0.70	773	55.23
Oklahoma	716	51.14	0.65	716	51.14
Tulsa	661	47.21	0.60	666	47.60
Missouri	591	42.21	0.60	666	47.54
Oklahoma St.	530	40.77	0.58	599	46.11
Texas Tech	569	43.77	0.58	597	45.92
Texas	551	42.38	0.58	593	45.58
Oregon	545	41.92	0.57	584	44.90
Penn St.	506	38.92	0.57	581	44.71
Rice	537	41.31	0.56	572	43.96

Tulsa edges out Missouri in points per game, even though rounding to the nearest point makes them equals in total scored.

What we can see here is that Oklahoma was ahead of pretty much everyone at scoring points. Adjusting for pace, they still were ahead of most of the nation and earned their record 716 points scored.

Florida was the one exception. Thanks to getting points in many ways other than just offense (INT returns, off of blocked punts, in the return game, etc.) while running about an average number of offensive plays, Florida would have shattered the Sooners’ new record in the very year they broke it.

The Gators would have topped out at a little over 55 points a game. That means Army’s all-time record would have been safe, but only barely. In 1944, Army scored exactly 56 a game, less than a point than Florida’s hypothetical total.

It is almost a little surprising to see Missouri so high since the Tigers were a bit of a disappointment this season. It goes to show that the offense was still good at turning plays into scores, but that defense just didn’t quite work out.

As great as Florida and Oklahoma were at turning plays into points by having relatively high points per play ratios, they weren’t the best of the decade. Since 2000, the team with the highest PPP was 2006 Hawai’i, with 0.72 points per play. At Oklahoma’s pace over 14 games, that would come out to 795 points on the season.

One would figure though that if they were that close to 800, they’d find a way to get one last touchdown to get to 802. Maybe something like the Florida Flop?

2008 Yardage at Oklahoma’s Pace

Pace was one of the hot button issues in the 2008 college football season. Oklahoma’s highly publicized switch to a fast paced offense in reaction to the new clock rules was the major reason for it. The Sooners ended up leading the country in plays at 1,106 (79 per game), and they set a record with 716 total points scored.

The Sooners weren’t the only team to crank it up. Tulsa, under no-huddle guru Gus Malzahn, was second in plays behind OU, and Houston, TCU, and Nevada also broke 1,000 plays for the season.

The average number of plays per team for the whole season was 858.52. The average number of games played was 12.68. Therefore, the average number of plays per game for any given team was 67.7.

But what if everyone played at Oklahoma’s pace? Here is a look at what the top ten yardage gainers would look like if everyone ran 79 offensive plays a game.

Top Ten Yards per Game at Oklahoma’s Pace

Team	Total Yds	Yds/Game	Yds/Play	Adj. Total Yds	Adj. Yds/Game
Tulsa	7,978	569.86	7.27	8,043	574.53
Houston	7,316	562.77	7.20	7,395	568.86
Florida	6,231	445.07	7.13	7,885	563.21
Texas Tech	6,903	531.00	7.05	7,241	557.03
Oklahoma St.	6,340	487.69	6.98	7,171	551.61
Oklahoma	7,760	547.86	6.93	7,670	547.86
Missouri	6,778	484.14	6.90	7,634	545.28
Georgia	5,538	426.00	6.70	6,886	529.66
Ball St.	6,195	442.50	6.70	7,407	529.09
USC	5,911	454.69	6.63	6,813	524.10

The Tulsa Golden Hurricane tops the list at an incredible 8,043 yards for the season. The all-time record, if you’re wondering, was 7,826 set by 2006 Hawai’i before Tulsa broke it with its actual 7,978 yards in 2008. However, the per-game record of 624.9 set by 1989 Houston is still safe in theory as well in actuality.

The appearance of two SEC teams on this list while not appearing on the actual list shows that run-first, slower paced conferences can still produce some efficient offenses. That fact was lost on a lot of people when picking the national title game, as many saw Oklahoma as clearly the better offensive team. The Sooners were definitely more prolific, but we can see here that the Gators were more efficient.

Everyone on this list averaged more than 524 yards a game at Oklahoma’s pace. In real life, only four teams averaged that much: Tulsa, Houston, Texas Tech, and OU. Only one other team, Nevada, averaged more than 500 real yards a game.

The presence of Georgia, Ball State, and USC also show that pro-style offenses can be highly efficient just like the spread offenses that are all the rage. You likely won’t hit Gus Malzahn-like pinball numbers, but there is something to be said for doing it the old fashioned way. It still gets the job done.

I don’t know if we can really learn much from this, but it’s still fun to look at and think about how close Tulsa was to getting to eight grand. Malzahn may have left Tulsa for Auburn, but Oklahoma returns a lot of tools from its team last season. What do you say, Bob Stoops and Kevin Wilson? Why not make a run at 8,000 yards next year?

BCS Title Game: 7-7 at the Half

My brother texted me not long ago to say that we’re lucky it’s not 21-7 at the half. I don’t fully agree with that because letting teams gain yards but then stiffening up in the red zone is what the defense has done all year. Nothing new there.

Tebow is not having a good game on his handoff/keep reads though. On a couple of the 4-9 yard losses, Tebow should have kept it instead of handing it off. The two INTs don’t help his cause much either,  but he’s been pretty sharp throwing the ball except for those.

In short, the Florida offense is not executing very well. The Oklahoma offense is executing very well, but the Florida defense is stopping them when it counts.

If Florida’s offense can step up the execution and the defense can keep it up, we should be in good shape. We’ll see.

One Last Look at the Defenses

The relative value of the two defenses in this BCS title game has been the most pervasive and contentious debate. It’s what both teams have been mouthing off about the most, and it also is perhaps what has inflamed message boards the most (other than the generic Conference Wars woofing).

Something I’ve see brought up a lot in recent days is that one reason why Oklahoma gives up more points and yards than Florida does is because of the fast pace of its games. More plays per game means more points and yards allowed, you see. Another thing I’ve heard is that Oklahoma tends to give up a lot of points when the game is out of hand, skewing their numbers.

I went through the play-by-play of each teams’ games (throwing out each’s game against a I-AA opponent) to see how much this was true.

I counted up how many full drives each faced. I threw out any drives that ended halves with something other than a score or punt from the drive count totals.

I also counted up how many yards and points each defense surrendered. Defensive penalty yards were included in the yardage count because it would have taken too long to pull them out. Plus those are yards the defense allows the offense to move, so they are relevant in that sense.

The twist is that I recorded what the point margin in the game was at the time the yards and points were given up. That way, I could draw some sort of conclusion on the part about Oklahoma giving up a lot of points when the game was out of hand. For points, I recorded the margin before they were scored. So for example, if a touchdown was allowed when the game was 14-0 in favor of OU or UF, the recorded margin goes down as 14.

What makes a competitive game is subjective of course. However, in my casual observation I have noticed that teams generally don’t change their strategy until the opponent’s lead is more than 14 points. That can change as the course of the game goes on, but they certainly do change strategy when the lead is more than 21. Those became the two benchmarks for the “out of hand” analysis.

Here is a handy table organizing my findings:

Defense, Oklahoma and Florida

	Oklahoma	Florida
Drives	156	136
Points	301	153
% Drives Scor	29.5%	18.4%
% Drives TD	24.4%	9.6%
Yards/Drive	31.27	23.29
Points/Drive	1.93	1.13
% Pts, 14 & under	45.8%	45.8%
% Pts, 21 & under	52.8%	56.9%

So it was true that Oklahoma had to defend more drives than Florida did. Twenty more, to be precise. You can see in the yards and points per drive what happens when you smooth out the difference in drive count. The yardage difference is there but not great, but the Sooners allow almost a full point per drive more.

We can also see that Oklahoma allowed its opponents to score on almost 30% of their drives, as compared to Florida’s defense allowing opponents to score on just 18% of their drives. You can also see in the next row that OU allows touchdowns quite a bit more often than Florida does. That fact is something that can be attributed to the Gators’ incredible red zone defense and its propensity to hold teams to field goal attempts.

The real juicy stuff comes on the last two rows. Each team allows the same proportion of its points when they lead by 14 or fewer points, and the difference when the margin was 21 or less is only very slight.

So while Oklahoma gives up a good number of its points when the game is out of hand, Florida basically gives up the same percentage of its points when the game is out of hand too. Because of that fact, you then have to go back to the chicken-or-egg fight about offensive and defensive strength in the two conferences to settle this one once and for all. That battle is not something I intend to get into here, because there is no ultimate, satisfying answer.

The Sooner players have done an admirable job at defending their defense, and some others have brought up some interesting points about game pace and the timing of when points
are given up.

However, those arguments don’t cut it when it comes to explaining why Oklahoma gave up more points than Florida did this season.

Appendix

If you prefer graphics and pretty colors, here are pie charts for what the margin is when these two teams give up their points.

A Preview of the Game

I volunteered to write a few bowl previews for Bleacher Report, and the final one for tonight’s game is here.

Time for the DEs to Step Up

Watch these highlights of Texas DE Brian Orakpo against Oklahoma:

The left tackle he’s often going against is Phil Loadholt, a 6-8, 337 lb man/mountain. Even with Orakpo’s freakish strength, going through Loadholt is not something that is going to happen consistently.

What you do see in that video is that you can go around him if you’ve got the speed to do it. Something that Kirk Herbstreit gets cut off from mentioning is that Loadholt doesn’t have the best lateral speed/quickness, an understandable condition for a guy his size.

Sam Bradford leaves games without once hitting the turf more often than not. If Florida is to get the pressure it craves, the ends are going to have to create it because clearly it’s possible.

Jermaine Cunningham, Justin Trattou, and Carlos Dunlap all need to have good games. The success of the defense as a whole could depend on getting some heat on Bradford, and they’re the guys who will need to do it.

(video via Dr. Saturday)

What I Learned From Watching an Oklahoma Game

Back in November I recorded the Oklahoma-Texas Tech game on my DVR both in hopes of capturing the career-defining win for Mike Leach (so much for that), and just in case Florida ended up playing either of them in a bowl. I figured it would be good to have a game in which both played another top team to get some good studying in.

As it turns out, Texas Tech’s threat to win the game was about as real as the cherry flavoring in Diet Mountain Dew Code Red. The entire team, and Graham Harrell especially, just plain had a bad game. As a result, it didn’t turn out to be that great of a game for study. I should have saved the Red River Shootout instead, but I forgot to record it that weekend. Such is life.

Despite that issue, I was still able to pull some nuggets of wisdom from the game after re-watching it yesterday evening after work.

The Fox telecast on Thursday might end up the worst sports broadcast ever.

The Fox cameras had trouble at times keeping up with the pace of the Texas-Ohio State Fiesta Bowl. With the up allegro tempo that the Sooners sometimes run their offense, the film crew could fall hopelessly behind. We might never see the Sooners’ formation for more than a second before the snap.

But seriously folks, the Sooners’ fast break is a variable speed machine.

The fast pace of the Sooners’ offense has enabled them to set a scoring record despite the new clock rules slightly reducing the number of plays per game over last season. They seldom snap the ball with less than 15 seconds to go on the play clock and often hike it with more than 20. By contrast, you almost never see Florida snap it with more than 15 seconds to go.

The fast paced OU machine is not a consistent thing though. The farther away from the opposing end zone they are, the generally longer they take in between plays. I guess the idea is to be more careful so as not to get any turnovers close to the opponents’ goal.

When they were within their own 35 or 40, they generally snapped it with 13-18 seconds to go. From about their own 40 to the Red Raiders’ 30, they hiked with about 19 to 25 seconds to go. From there in, the pace got up to a breakneck speed that’s faster than most teams run their hurry up, two minute offense.

So yes, they do go fast. Ricky Bobby fast, even. However, they do have more nuance to it than most give them credit for.

This Bradford guy looked awfully familiar…

It was bothering me for more than a quarter. You know what it’s like, when you see someone and you know they remind you of someone else but you can’t quite place it.

Eventually I got it. Sam Bradford reminded me a lot of Georgia’s Matthew Stafford. It wasn’t so much in his delivery, and he didn’t make as many bad decisions as Stafford generally does over the course of a game. However the way he stood in the pocket, handed off, and threw down field gave me flashbacks to watching the Bulldog signal caller play.

It is true that Florida’s defenders haven’t seen an offense as prolific as OU’s, but they have seen a pocket quarterback with an excellent arm. Bradford almost certainly won’t be gift wrapping any interceptions though, and that makes the task that much tougher.

Gresham will be a problem.

Jermaine Gresham is by far the best tight end Florida will have seen all season, and he’s the biggest pass-catching target too. The Gator secondary has seen a 6-6 receiver in FSU’s Greg Carr and it did just fine against him, but Gresham won’t be running jump ball routes all game as Carr does. Plus, the Sooner tight end outweighs Carr by 50 about pounds.

I can’t say enough about how well the Gator secondary has played. They surpassed all of my expectations. However no one is especially big, and bringing down Gresham in the open field one-on-one will be perhaps the toughest task they face.

Zone defense is choosing death against Oklahoma.

I like Florida’s defensive line, but it is not the 2006 unit. Oklahoma has a monstrous offensive line, and I have a feeling the Gators up front will have even more trouble getting pressure than they did against Alabama. Any pressure will probably come from the ends or blitzers, but it won’t come as often as it did in Glendale against Troy Smith. The result is that Bradford will have some time to go shopping for receivers.

Texas Tech played a lot of zone, and Bradford picked them apart. Given the protection he had, there was always time for someone to get open in a hole in the zone.

Fortunately, Florida doesn’t play much zone. They don’t play strict man coverage, something that allows guys like Joe Haden and Janoris Jenkins some freedom, but they cannot stray too far. If Florida is to get many sacks, they are going to have to be coverage sacks.

Oklahoma will miss DeMarco Murray.

I know the guys behind Murray are great backs and they’ll be productive. Neither of them appeared to be able to bring as much to the table as Murray does however.

The more things a single player can do, the more dangerous he is. If you have to use more than one guy to replicate someone you’re missing, then you’re going to be under your peak potential. That’s just the way it works.

The Sooners will need to embrace the blitz.

In general, Texas Tech’s offensive line did a good job of protecting when OU only rushed four players. Far more often than not, no blitz meant that Harrell had time to set his feet and throw. The problem was that he just plain missed his receivers too often to mount a credible counterstrike to the Sooners’ offensive onslaught.

The trouble came whenever an extra defender or three went after the quarterback. The Tech blockers often became confused with the creative blitzing schemes and that is usually what got Harrell into hot water.

Florida’s offensive line has been a huge part of the post-Ole Miss turnaround, even to the point that Urban Meyer says its the main thing that makes the offense go. From what I saw in this one game, I’d say that the Gator O-line will be able to handle the Sooners’ front four well enough to allow Tebow’s Flying Circus to do almost anything they want to.

I have no doubt that Brent Venables has been cooking up some new wrinkles for bringing some extra heat. His crew is going to need it because Florida has a great O-line this season.

There are some possibilities for running against them.

It’s one thing to look at numbers all the time, and something else entirely to see a team play. It may have something to do with how pass-heavy the Red Raiders are, but the Oklahoma run defense didn’t appear to be that fearsome. They missed some open field tackles that I would have expected them to make.

The Sooners did a good job of stopping the screen pass game, which Tech often uses in place of a traditional run game. On the other hand, the Red Raiders enjoyed some success in traditional rushing with RBs Shannon Woods and Barron Batch going for 4.9 and 5.9 yards per carry respectively.

Woods and Batch are nice backs, but they do not have the speed or explosiveness of Percy Harvin, Chris Rainey, or Jeff Demps. Emmanuel Moody is probably an upgrade too. Florida will have a lot a success running the ball if Oklahoma hasn’t shored up its rush defense in the time since.

The best defense is a good offense.

You’ve heard this phrase a million times, but in this game it was true. Texas Tech didn’t score until the second quarter, but it moved the ball well enough to have it for a little over half of the first quarter. With the Sooners’ offense on the sideline more often than not, it was only able to manage a single touchdown.

When the second quarter came around, the Red Raiders ended up having the ball for only about a third of it. Thanks to some turnovers and a downturn for the offense, Oklahoma exploded for 35 points in that second period alone. It was the knockout blow.

This may seem like a cliche (because it is) and fairly obvious (because it is), but it is relevant because Florida’s offense can chew up clock with the best of them. UF is understandably known for long runs and big plays, but the power running and short passing game can grind out yards too.

Don’t be surprised to see the Gators come out and try to run between the tackles early and not just because the mini Woody Hayes in the back of Urban Meyer’s mind tells him he must at the beginning of nearly every game. It will also be to keep the offensive Sooner Schooner parked in neutral.

Conclusion

Watching for details in a 65-21 blowout reveals all kinds of things you would normally miss as you dismiss the game as not worth watching anymore. I have an even greater appreciation for how effortless Oklahoma can make offensive football look, and it can do it to a degree not even this year’s Florida team can match.

I cannot wait for this game to come to see how everything turns out.

Did the Fiesta Bowl Tell Us Anything About Thursday?

Once again, a Big 12 offense has underperformed its expected value based on its and its opposing defenses’ play all year. Texas projected to score 36.5 points, but ended up with only 24.

Kansas is still the only Big 12 offense to exceed its expected point value, and again, it was against a cratering Minnesota team. Oklahoma projects to get about 38 points, and I wouldn’t call it a stretch to think that Florida could hold the Sooners under that if they show up ready to play as a D.

Run defense was an early talking point in the game, as someone on Fox’s research staff pulled out the gem that the Longhorns had seen the fewest rushes of any defense. This tidbit was to point out how pass-heavy the Big 12 was this season.

I looked it up, and the NCAA stats that are currently available include all games through the Sugar Bowl. Even with everyone getting their bowls counted and Texas not, UT did indeed face the fewest rushes. They saw 317 runs against them, with second place being TCU who saw 355 rushes.

What about percentage though? Maybe Texas just didn’t see that many plays run against it thanks to its great offense being on the field a lot.

Well, Texas saw the lowest rush percentage too with opponents running just 40.5% of the time against them. The strong Texas D-line combined with a really young secondary was probably the reason behind this. The pass-happy Big 12 did help some, but it’s not the whole story.

Kansas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Missouri all ended up in the bottom ten of opponents rush percentage along with Texas, and five teams in the bottom ten is a trend, not an outlier. Even so, Alabama and Iowa from the quarterback-challenged SEC and Big Ten were also in the bottom ten. Florida clocked in at 21st-lowest opposing run percentage.

The conference doesn’t explain it all. The fact these teams (Iowa excepted) got up big early and often meant that opponents were forced to pass more often. That’s a main reason why who finishes a game with the most passing yards is generally a poor predictor of who won the game, while the team that rushes for more yards is a much better one.

The fact that Texas’ players didn’t see a power rushing attack all season had more to do with Beanie Wells’ early success than a flat lack of running plays in general. Will Muschamp has seen plenty in his day, and he knows what to do against them, but it’s different when you experience it in a live game. Besides, the fact that Wells is simply a gifted back had something to do with it too.

So what about Thursday? The fact that Oklahoma saw a relatively low number of rushing plays probably means nothing either. Florida has actually seen fewer, at 411 to the Sooners’ 425. OU also saw a power-oriented rush attack against TCU and did fine, holding the Frogs to 2.9 yards per rush. TCU doesn’t use option the way Florida does and certainly doesn’t have a power-running quarterback like Tim Tebow, but the Oklahoma defense does get to go up against the monstrous Oklahoma offensive line in practice.

It’s basically a non-issue, even if it is a nice bit of trivia.

As has been reported, Florida’s defense is much higher in the national rankings than Oklahoma’s is. It is also considerably higher than Texas’ defense too, and the ‘Horns tied for holding OU to its lowest point output of the year.

Florida’s defense is practically even with where Ohio State was going into this game, and we saw that the Buckeyes held Texas to 17 points for more than 59 minutes.

Florida’s offense is considerably better in just about every quantifiable way than Ohio State’s is. Yes, that even includes rushing as the Gators rush for more yards a game and at 5.96 to 4.59, they get almost a yard and a half more per rush.

Throw all those together and mix them around and it points to a Florida win. In reality though, will it blend? We’ll find out.

In the game of Will it Blend, Tom always wins.