You do realize that Texas has looked wretched on offense for much of this season, right? There are plenty of reasons to have questions about Texas. Texas is and should be favored in this game, but both teams' defenses are dominating, and both teams offenses have had major, major problems. OU has injuries and major o-line issues. Texas can't run the ball and doesn't seem in sync on the passing game. If this does turn into a defensive battle, then a lot of it could be determined by a few big plays, which could easily go either team's way. I expect Texas to win, but I wouldn't be remotely surprised if OU does.
It's also worth noting that it's not an officially-sanctioned championship game. The BCS conferences and bowl games all agreed to it, and they got a commitment from the coaches to vote for its winner, but it's not NCAA thing and the NCAA still doesn't recognize an official college football champion.
Game 1: 562 Yards 59 points Game 2: 544 Yards 41 points Game 3: 340 Yards 34 points Game 4: 639 Yards 64 points Game 5: 313 Yards 38 points Say what you want about the quality of UT opponents but to say the offense is "wretched" is ludicrous.
For starters, the points are misleading to some extent (though not entirely). Take Colorado, for example. Of those 38 points, 21 were scored by the defense or special teams. The other games have had lots of defensive/ST scores and short fields as welll. Through 3 quarters, against the worst team in the B12, the offense tallied 10 points and really didn't move the ball much at all. Beyond that, with this schedule, having two games with 300 yards of total offense IS wretched. ULaMo and UTEP were really the only games that they looked like a top-tier offense. Wyoming and TT, neither of which have good defenses, they seriously struggled during the first half. And Colorado they struggled for most of the game. They aren't wretched in the sense that UTEP is wretched - they have been wretched in the sense of expectations of the #2 team in the country. If they had faced OU's schedule and played as they have, there's a very real possibility they'd have a loss already. The good thing for Texas is that OU has struggled a lot as well, and the defense has absolutely been lights out. But they'll need to play a whole lot better going forward to win a national title.
Wrong. Game 1: 562 Yards 59 points (7 Offensive TDs) Game 2: 544 Yards 41 points (5 Offensive TDs) Game 3: 340 Yards 34 points (3 Offensive TDs) Game 4: 639 Yards 64 points (7 Offensive TDs) Game 5: 313 Yards 38 points (2 Offensive TDs) If you want to say the offense was wretched against Colorado, that's fine but don't use that one example and say that represents the whole offense for the season. Your "example" is the only aberration of a really strong offense. Texas put up more points against TT than any other team has this year. And yes, they should have done better against colorado but the team is still in the top 10 in yards per game and UT is not the only team in the US that has played bad teams in its 1st 5 games. If the 7th ranked (out of 120) offense is wretched, I'd love to hear what adjectives you would use for everyone else.
Brando, you do realize Major is a UT alum, right? He's just telling you how it is, you can use all the stats you want to pull out from those Div II quality schools Texas has played so far. If you've watched the games, you'll realize and especially compared to last season, Texas does not look in-sync at all on offense. Sure, they have woken up and made some nice drives in the 2nd half of a few of those games, but mostly they have hit some really big plays, punt returns for TDs, kick off returns, and defensive touchdowns. Their offense, in general, had not looked anywhere near what it was last year or anywhere near what you'd think of the #2 team in the nation. They may wake up on Saturday and plow OU, but based on what I've seen so far, it would not be a surprise at all if OU wins this game comfortably. I think OU needs to focus on shutting down Shipley, and probably shouldn't punt to him. Make Texas beat you with their running game and see what the other receivers can do. Outside of Shipley, I haven't seen much.
What does it matter if he is a UT alum? The reason you look to stats is that they give you an unbiased perspective of a team. They show you how the team performs and don't put more emphasis one one down, play or game than another like a person would if they were upset about their team. UH is a decent team that beat a few BCS conference teams. They lost to UTEP after UT dominated the miners. So if UTEP a "Div II quality school," is UH a ****ty Div II quality school? The fact is, UTs offense is not "wretched." Sure, at times it isn't clicking but it is still a very above average offense among BCS teams. This is just wrong. Look at the post I made about the offensive TDs. The % of offensive scores is much larger than you are suggesting.
I definitely understand what you are saying, and there is no denying (especially in the Wyoming and Tech games) that Colt has looked a little shaky, but isn't a sign of a good team that they still perform even when everything isn't clicking? I mean Texas has looked like absolute crap in a few games, and still is able to win by 3 TD's. The only game where we pulled everything together, UTEP, we looked like world-beaters. I guess it all depends on which team decides to show up. The funny thing is that Texas's has actually scored the same amount of points (236) this year as it did last year through 5 games. Sure, Colt may look off, but I think that is more of a testament to how darn good he was last year. I really think Saturday will be the first time anyone knows exactly how good (or bad) this team is. Really, up until now, it is just the UT-homers (myself included) blindly supporting the team and ignoring the few visible negatives... while the UT-bashers ignore the few visible positives. No one really knows what this team is capable of just yet. I hope and pray that I leave the Cotton Bowl happy on Saturday, but I am absolutely terrified of a very possible OU win. Oh, and I love Colt even more now. Screw Tebow.
Brando, I went to 3 of those games, we've played some crap teams. McCoy looks bad in the first half of all these games, I don't know what the deal is. So far on offense, MVP=Shipley.
Except it wasn't. Wyoming and TT, the offense looked horrible for the first halves. Eventually, they wore them down, but you're not going to wear down better teams. Combined with Colorado, that covers 40% of the season. I didn't say the offense is horrible or has looked wretched the entire season. I said it has looked that way for much of the season, and it has. Fortunately, those stretches have been against terrible teams, and combined with one of the best defense/ST units in the country, that was good enough to win. I would hope so. Texas had better be putting up more points against TT than New Mexico, Rice, ND, and KState. UH's offense put up more points than Texas' offense (again, we had a defensive TD, and 10 of our offensive points were due to short fields thanks to our defense). But they are the only team amongst the top tier of teams to have played 5 bad teams. Of the top 20 teams in the Sagarin ratings, Texas has the 2nd worst schedule behind only Cincinnati 100th and 109th respectively). Florida, Alabama, VaTech, USC, OSU, Oregon, Boise, LSU, Miami, Iowa, etc have all played at least one ranked opponent. In fact, every team except Texas, TCU and Cinci in the top 15 has done so. And worse yet, 4 out of Texas' 5 opponents so far are amongst the bottom tier of defense teams in the nation (UTEP is 2nd worst). So yes, Texas' stats should be better than those other top-tier teams. Stats aren't the most useful thing when teams are basically playing a bunch of scrimmages against lesser talent. I don't care if Texas puts up 1000 points on Wyoming after all their players are worn out. I don't care how many points or yards Garrett Gilbert and the backups accumulate. What matters is how the team looks moving the ball, and how that would translate against a better team with legitimate talent. And if they play like they did Saturday, they are going to have major problems winning unless the defense keeps scoring. Hopefully, they'll sort things out - Colt needs to be running more, they need to be passing downfield more, etc. If they do those things, they'll be fine. But they've looked sketchy thus far against some really mediocre competition.
Can't argue there. Shipley is a freakin stud. He should have a huge game on Saturday. On a side note, a big "WTF" to my wife's cousin for getting married this Saturday. Granted, the wedding doesn't start until 3, but that still means I miss watching at least the last quarter getting dressed and going to the church. Her husband has no balls if he allowed this to happen.
And on the 3rd day the Lord God Timothy Richard Tebow sent down a rain to destroy the Colt McCoy for his insolence and clearly half-hearted mission trip in which he spent most of the time listening to Toby Keith on his iPod...
dude, this happened to me before where people got married on Texas/OU weekend. OU destroyed us, so the wedding ended up be the better place to be.
oh, the irony. the most militant UT fan/defender is a T-shirt fan who attends a different university. and LOL Donny, when did Texas become a UH rival? they never even play each other!
I hope you don't cheer that hard for the Rockets or Texans, then; after all, since you can't "attend" them, then by definition you're a T-shirt fan unless you work for them.
That's fine.... but that's not what I was referring to. I'ma let it go... I'll just play the role of the nice guy and I won't bash anyone if they win. I'll just be happy...
