Teams of the Decade

With, of course, one year to go

We have looked at the top scoring offenses, the top defenses, the best margins and the toughest schedules for the decade that is nearly complete.

I have run this data through our Saurian Sagacity Power Ranking System that I use during the regular season. To reiterate it works like this –



((SD Ratio) + (SO Ratio) + W/L Record)) * SOS = Power Value

Explained further (with USC after week 6 last year as an example)–

SD Ratio is a ratio of each team’s scoring defense to the best scoring defense. For example USC has the top scoring defense in the nation at 7.8 ppg. So USC, with the best scoring defense gets a 1.0.

SO Ratio is a ratio of each team’s scoring offense to the best scoring offense. Using the USC example, their offense is 8th overall at 41.5 ppg. The best offense is Tulsa’s at 56.7 ppg. Thus USC’s ratio is .7336 of the best.

W/L record is a simple calculation of % record, in USC’s case 0.83333 (5-1).

We add the three components together, in our example totaling 2.5669. Then the number is multiplied by the strength of schedule per the NCAA, which in USC’s case is a ratio of 0.692308 (40th nationally having played teams that are 18-15). The end result is 1.7771.


After running all 1054 teams in our database through the Power Ranking equation, the top 10 teams of the decade are –


1 - 2001 Miami (Fla.) 2.349
2 - 2000 Florida St. 2.330
3 - 2008 Florida 2.292
4 - 2005 Texas 2.254
5 - 2004 Auburn 2.175
6 - 2000 Miami (Fla.) 2.135
7 - 2006 Florida 2.121
8 - 2008 Oklahoma 2.117
9 - 2008 Southern California 2.088
10 - 2004 Southern California 2.057


How (and why) they came out that way –

1. 2001 Miami.

An intuitive choice at number one the undefeated BCS Champion ’01 Canes had the decade’s best Margin of Victory (MOV) at 33.78. They had the 2nd best defense at 9.4 ppg, and the 19th best offense at 43.18 ppg. Their only “weakness” was Strength of Schedule (SOS) at 160th (of 1054).

This team boasted the following future NFL players (not even naming them all) –

RB Clinton Portis
RB Frank Gore
RB Willis McGahee
TE Jeremy Shockey
WR Andre Johnson
LT Bryant McKinnie
RE Jerome McDougle
MLB Jonathan Vilma
RCB Mike Rumph
SS Ed Reed

I’m entirely comfortable with the data here.

2. 2000 Florida State

And not quite as comfortable here. The 2000 ‘Noles were an impressive bunch that included that year’s Heisman winner in Chris Weinke and the Lombardi winner Jamal Reynolds. But they lost 2 games, albeit rather close contests. The first loss was another in the long, sordid history of “wide rights” at Miami 27-24. The other loss was the BCS Championship game to Oklahoma by the curious score of 13-2.

However statistically they dominated, with the 4th best MOV (32.12), the 4th best defense (10.3 ppg), the 27th best offense (42.42 ppg), and the 20th hardest schedule of the decade (62.93% opponents winning records).

Part of this exercise in data use was to look “outside the box” in determining the best teams of the decade on the assumption that the flawed BCS process doesn’t always produce the best team. Well this pick is definitely outside the box.

3. 2008 Florida

Last season’s BCS Champions lost once to a pretty solid Ole Miss team. Data-wise this was the 5th best MOV of the decade (30.71), the 21st best defense (12.9 ppg), the 16th best offense (43.64 ppg) and the 14th hardest SOS (63.69% opponent’s record).

4. 2005 Texas

I expected this team to be a bit higher but here they are (albeit only 0.038 points behind ’08 Florida).

Texas had the 2nd best MOV of the decade at 33.75 and the 2nd best scoring offense at 50.15 ppg. But their defense was 75th overall (16.4 ppg) and their SOS 45th for the past 9 years at 61.36% opponent’s win record. (By way of contrast the ’08 Gators played teams that won a cumulative 12 more games than the ’05 Longhorns, or 93 wins versus 81 wins).

A great overall team and BCS winner.

5. 2004 Auburn

The one that was left out ends up higher ranked than either of the teams that got to play for the BCS title that year.

The undefeated ’04 Tigers had a MOV that was 47th best for the decade (20.78), and a scoring offense that was only 222nd (32.08 ppg), but the 8th best defense (11.3 ppg). They played the 36th hardest schedule with 61.78% opponent’s winning record.

The BCS winner of 2004, USC, is 10th ranked here for comparison purposes. Would the Tigers have beat the Trojans? We cannot know, but I bet they would have given them a better game than Oklahoma did.

6. 2000 Miami

Who, you ask? It may seem like a long time ago, but the ’00 Miami team was among the first to incite BCS controversy when they were passed over by Florida State to play Oklahoma in the BCS title game despite having defeated FSU earlier in the season and being ranked ahead of the ‘Noles in both human polls. The ’00 Canes went on to beat Florida in the Sugar Bowl 37-20 and served as an inspiration for the dominant ’01 team.

This team boasted the 11th best MOV of the decade (27.14), the 53rd best defense (15.5 ppg) and the 24th best offense (42.64 ppg). They also had a tough schedule, ranked 16th for the decade at 63.26% opponent’s winning record.

7. 2006 Florida

Before you scoff and cry “Homer!” in a crowed blog-o-sphere let’s look at the record. The ’06 Gators were BCS Champions in dominant fashion over highly favored Ohio State 41-14. And while their offensive stats were less than impressive (324th best offense at 29.71 ppg), their defense was top notch at 26th overall or 13.5 ppg.

But what a schedule they played! Not only was it the decade’s 3rd toughest at 67.11% opponent’s win record, but they are the only team this decade to play opponents with a cumulative record of 100 wins (100-49). For contrast, the two teams that are ahead of UF for strength of schedule, ’05 Oklahoma and ’04 Texas A&M played opponents with records of 84-38 and 86-42 on their way to records of 8-4 and 7-5, respectively. So the ’06 Gators 13-1 record looks pretty damn good with that SOS.

8. 2008 Oklahoma

The decade’s highest flying offense finds a place at 8th in our rankings. Sure the ’08 Sooners lost 2 games, including the BCS title game, but their offense was 1st overall at an incredible 51.14 ppg. Their MOV was the 13th of the decade at 26.64, and their SOS was 6th ranked at 65.51% opponent’s win records.

However it was their defense that kept them from being higher ranked (and likely winning the BCS title) at only 470th for the decade, or 24.5 ppg.

9. 2008 Southern California

The first USC team on our list checks in at 9th, and they didn’t even win any “national titles”. But for the ’08 Trojans their defense was without equal at 1st overall for the decade, or 9 ppg. They also had a fantastic 8th ranked MOV of 28.54, and a decent scoring offense ranked 72nd overall at 37.54 ppg.

Strength of schedule was the killer here, as in 2008 USC played only the decade’s 353rd best schedule at 54.11% opponent’s winning record.

10. 2004 Southern California

The BCS winners of ’04 are the final team in our decade’s top 10. The ’04 Trojan’s had a superior defense at 22nd overall (13 ppg), and a high MOV at 19th ranked or 25.15 ppg. Their offense was solid if unspectacular at 64th, or 38.15 ppg.

Strength of schedule, while better than the ’08 Trojans, still doesn’t shine at 147th for the decade, or 58.09% opponent’s winning record.

The Others

Where are the other BCS winners? Well according to our Power Ranking System they are –

2000 Oklahoma – 14th
2002 Ohio State – 18th
2003 LSU – 13th
2007 LSU – 39th

I feel pretty good about a system that has all the BCS winners in the top 20 of the decade (of 1054 teams) except the 2 loss ’07 Tigers of LSU.

Other top teams include –

’08 Texas – 11th
’05 USC – 12th
’01 Florida - 16th
’02 Georgia – 21st

The worst teams of the decade? Well your bottom five are –

2004 UCF
2003 Southern Methodist
2005 Temple
2005 Buffalo
2006 Florida Int'l – The worst of the decade

Every team in this list was winless except Buffalo, which had a single win.

To Take a Spot…

We obviously have a year left in the decade. In order to make our list a team in 2009 will need a score better than 2.057 which will take some combination of a great offense, defense and SOS. Several teams look likely to achieve such a status (Florida, Texas and Oklahoma come immediately to mind).

Final Word

There is no doubt some controversy in this list, but like all lists it is subject to opinion. I think it is pretty good, and sure to incite discussion as well as give another look to some teams that might have been overlooked, like the ’00 Noles. I’ve laid out the stats and tried to omit most of my personal views. If you think someone is missing let’s hear it, but bring your stats to back it up.

Now onto 2009!

Schedules – The Decade’s Toughest

As I was compiling my statistical based list of the best teams of the decade (so far), and thinking about how to rank the teams overall, strength of schedule naturally came to mind.

I use a strength of schedule component in my own Power Rankings each year, and I choose to use the NCAA’s system (last year’s results here).

I prefer the NCAA’s method of schedule ranking for its transparency, lack of bias and simplicity. I also think that, for the most part, it is an accurate representation of overall schedule strength. “Black box” systems like Sagarin don’t reveal how they calculate SOS and seem (to my eyes at least) to favor certain conferences without adequate explanation of why.

The NCAA method merely looks at the win-loss records of your opponents. As such, mid-major teams tend to fare poorly as they play in conferences against teams that tend to have a lot of losses. Take last year’s NCAA final strength of schedule ratings where the top 20 slots went to major conference teams. The highest mid-major was TCU at 22nd who just happened to play Oklahoma, BYU, Utah and Boise State this past season. Moreover the bottom slots are all filled with mid-major conference teams. Oklahoma, who faced a tough Big 12 schedule as well as Florida in the BCS title, had the toughest overall NCAA schedule, a verdict with which I firmly agree (Florida was 2nd).

So which teams have faced the toughest schedules over the past decade (from 2000)? I have compiled the records of all 1054 teams and they toughest schedules were (with their opponents win – loss percentage) –

1-2005 Oklahoma 0.6885
2-2004 Texas A&M 0.6719
3 -2006 Florida 0.6711
4-2002 Southern California 0.6622
5-2003 Alabama 0.6622
6-2008 Oklahoma 0.6552
7-2004 North Carolina 0.6549
8-2001 California 0.6514
9-2003 Florida 0.6496
10-2003 Notre Dame 0.6449


The 2005 Oklahoma team comes out at the top of our list with a group of opponents that won nearly 69% of their games with an 84-38 record. They played 6 teams that season that ended up ranked in the final poll – Nebraska (24th), Texas Tech (19th), UCLA (13th), Oregon (12th), TCU (9th) and BCS Champion Texas. They finished the season 8-4.

Oklahoma and Florida are the only teams to appear twice in the top 10, and the 2006 Gators are the only team to win the BCS title with a schedule this tough.

Since we are a Gator blog let’s look at the two UF teams that make an appearance here –

2003 Florida

Poor Ron Zook and his 8-5 Gators in 2003. They faced (and lost to) these teams ranked in the final poll – Tennessee (16th), Ole Miss (14th), FSU (10th), Miami (12th) and Iowa (8th). You can say what you want about 2003, but Florida lost to only ranked teams. And the other two ranked teams UF played, Georgia (6th) and LSU (1st and BCS Champs) the fighting Zooks managed to beat! That’s 7 ranked teams in one season – and one really hard schedule.

2006 Florida

On their way to the BCS title Florida faced a murderer’s row of teams for the toughest schedule that year, including (with final rankings) –

At 9-4 Tennessee (23rd)
11-2 LSU (3rd)
At 11-2 Auburn (8th)
9-4 Georgia
10-4 Arkansas (16th)
12-1 Ohio State (2nd)

The Gators, who naturally wound up number 1, played the 2nd and 3rd final ranked teams.


This leads us to the final step in this project – the top 10 teams of the decade (so far) using statistical analysis. Since I have all the data I use for my Power Poll for every team this decade I’m going to use the same formula to reveal the top teams of the decade. In doing so whether you were a BCS winner or not is irrelevant, and some teams may have more than 1 loss. Also with a strength of schedule component perhaps some teams have been overlooked for their greatness – like the 2006 Gators (hint).

Next: The Decade’s (thus far) top teams.

One more week.

That makes Two people that have picked a Florida vs. Notre Dame BCS Title Game. Lou Holtz made the same prediction last week. Interestingly enough neither Beano nor Lou think Notre Dame is one of the top two teams. If this happens it is possible that Florida fans are more obnoxious that Ohio State fans were in 2006 - something no one thought possible. Coincidentally that hint of cooking bacon in the air is Charlie Weis on the hot seat.

Bryce Brown is eligible, for now.

The hearing date for FSU’s academic fraud case has been set for November 15, 2009.

Usually when people jump ship this fast in Miami the wet foot/dry foot law comes into play.

CBS Sports Preseason BlogPoll

Preseason polls are useless, inaccurate and hopelessly biased. Other than that they are great.

There is a decent argument against preseason ranking at all, but as an honored member of the BlogPoll we do our duty and submit a poll. I try to take it as seriously as I can (I considered and abandoned the idea of ranking teams alphabetically preseason as a bit too cute, though I imagine Air Force would appreciate it). So in my effort to be serious I have used a recruiting based ranking system for two years now that has held up as well – if not better - than the traditional methods.

Using the same methods this season I have now submitted my preseason BlogPoll entry. (NOTE: I had previously posted what I thought would be my preseason poll, but discovered a crucial data error. The correct poll is below)

Rank	Team
1	Florida
2	Southern Cal
3	Texas
4	Ohio State
5	Alabama
6	Georgia
7	Oklahoma
8	LSU
9	Notre Dame
10	Florida State
11	Penn State
12	Clemson
13	Miami (Florida)
14	Nebraska
15	Michigan
16	California
17	Oregon
18	South Carolina
19	Texas Tech
20	Tennessee
21	Pittsburgh
22	North Carolina
23	Mississippi
24	Oklahoma State
25	Auburn

As a resume voter my poll will look entirely different after week one. But since week 1 polls are irrelevant (there is no prize for being ranked 1st after the first week) whether my preseason poll is “accurate” will depend on how the final polls look.

As for my resume method I’ll be looking at the following games closely that first week –

Oregon at Boise State

Georgia at Oklahoma State

BYU at Oklahoma

Alabama vs Virginia Tech

My number one team after the first week will likely be the winner of either the UGA – Oklahoma State contest, or the Alabama – VT game, depending on relative impressiveness of victory.

Florida will fall hard and fast in my rankings for starting with such a soft opponent, regardless of margin of victory. And while I’m sure this will cause some of you chagrin, Florida will have the opportunity to rise if impressive victories mount. I just refuse to give a team credit for beating a lower division team at home as, in essence, we won’t know a thing about this Gator team after the first game (unless of course they lose or Charleston Southern keeps it close).

Odds and Ends

Munroe injures knee, but apparently it is not related to the ACL injury from last year. In the same article it mentions that the offensive line starters are not set. In my opinion the offensive line played its best with Carl Johnson playing left guard, makes you wonder if Meyer not naming Johnson a starter is coach-speak or lack of effort out of Johnson.

During an interview with a Birmingham, AL radio Gary Danielson was asked which SEC he would feel most confident with after Tim Tebow and Jevan Snead. His answer was John Brantley. ‘Bama and Dawg fans had to love to hear that, since they love to say that Urban Meyer will be nothing once Tebow graduates.

More from Danielson – he thinks Georgia will be the surprise team in the SEC this year (likens Cox to David Greene), and that Florida will have a more difficult time repeating then the 2002 Miami team or the 2005 USC team because of the fact that Florida plays in the nation’s elite conference.

Sometimes the truth hurts. Ron Zook might not like it but the fact of the matter is he had no control over the locker room or the players and it was reflected by the team’s play and off the field behavior. Zook’s current players have been quoted saying that they want to do well this year to prove that Zook’s first year wasn’t a fluke.

Matt Patchan has all but locked up the starting left tackle job. Think about how amazing that is for one second. Patchan spent all of last year playing defensive end, now he is projected to start on the o-line.

Will Hill is going to start this year. It isn’t official yet, but I expect Hill to be starting at safety by the Tennessee game – my guess is that Major Wright will lose his starting role.

‘Bama fans have got to be sweating bullets about the story involving Julio Jones and Mark Ingram. Publicly the word is that Jones and Ingram went on a fishing trip with someone that may or may not have been affiliated with the program, the word behind the scenes is that some footballs were autographed for cash. Those of us who aren’t ‘Bama fans sure do appreciate the enthusiasm of their boosters.

Tennessee best offensive weapon, Gerald Jones, will miss 3-6 weeks with the dreaded high-ankle sprain. And the winner of the Tennessee quarterback battle is……Jonathan Crompton.

South Carolina recently had players involved in incidents at 3:00am and 4:30am. Word is that this is Spurrier’s last year in Columbia. With a roster that isn’t full of players committed to winning, who can blame him.

Today's question - which college team (year and school) had a roster that ended up making 63 pro-bowls?

Finally, 11 days until kickoff!

More trouble than he is worth

Tennessee appeals the initial Bryce Brown ruling regarding his amateur status. At issue is whether or not Brown received improper benefits while he was in high school. Is this really what the Vols want to be dealing with as the prepare for their week 3 game against the Gators? Yes I know that they have 2 other games before September 19th, but if you don't think the Half-Monte is prepping for the Gators your as crazy as Ed Orgeron.

So Close Now

The season approaches. In order to get everyone in the mood (as if you aren't already!) I thought I would post this gem I came across at Gator Tailgating called "The Seven Levels of Tailgating".

Here are a couple of shots from last season at my tailgate. Suffice to say I know a couple "Mooches"

Yes, I even go by "Mergz" when I'm Tailgating

The Superlative Teams of the Decade

Part 3 – Margin of Victory (and Football "IQ")

In our first two parts of this piece we looked at the top Scoring Offenses and Scoring Defenses as defined statistically using standard deviation for the decade (thus far).

We did the Top Ten MOV teams of the decade in an earlier piece, but as you will see this will be a little different.

The MOV average is 0.88 for the decade with a standard deviation of 11.3 points per game. No teams fell more than 3 standard deviations higher than the mean which would not be surprising under a “normal distribution” as we would only expect this to occur 0.1% of the time, or perhaps once in our sample size of 1054 teams. The closest was the 2001 Miami team at 33.78, or about 1 point short of 3 standard deviations.

On the other hand we would expect 22 teams to fall 2 standard deviations above the mean in a normal distribution (2.1% of the time) and we got almost exactly that with 24 teams.

The Superlative teams of the decade by MOV are -

1. 2001 Miami (Fla.) 33.78
2. 2005 Texas 33.75
3. 2002 Kansas St. 32.97
4. 2000 Florida St. 32.12
5. 2008 Florida 30.71
6. 2004 Louisville 30.05
7. 2001 Florida 29.72
8. 2008 Southern California 28.54
9. 2000 TCU 27.67
10. 2003 Oklahoma 27.63
11. 2000 Miami (Fla.) 27.14
12. 2002 Boise St. 27.12
13. 2008 Oklahoma 26.64
14. 2007 Kansas 26.37
15. 2005 Southern California 26.28
16. 2003 Boise St. 25.9
17. 2004 Utah 25.83
18. 2001 Texas 25.47
19. 2004 Southern California 25.15
20. 2008 Boise St. 25
21. 2000 Toledo 24.96
22. 2008 Penn St. 24.54
23. 2008 Texas 23.61
24. 2003 Miami (Ohio) 23.6


BCS title winners in this group include –

1. 2001 Miami
2. 2005 Texas
5. 2008 Florida
19. 2004 Southern California

The other BCS title winners fell accordingly –

27. 2000 Oklahoma
28. 2003 LSU
58. 2007 LSU
92. 2006 Florida
93. 2002 Ohio State

Even at 93rd the 2002 OSU team had a MOV of 16.19 or about midpoint through 1 standard deviation above the mean.

For comparative purposes let’s use an example most people are familiar with – the Intelligence Quotient, or IQ. IQ is believed to fall along a standard Gaussian Bell Curve, or normal distribution, with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. Using this as a guide we can equivocate an IQ score for the BCS Championship teams for the decade (as compared to their MOV).

The “Football IQ’s” of the BCS Champions (rounded) –

2000 Oklahoma – 131
2001 Miami – 145
2002 Ohio State – 121
2003 LSU – 130
2004 USC – 133
2005 Texas – 145
2006 Florida – 122
2007 LSU – 125
2008 Florida – 141

American Mensa accepts a 132 score on the Stanford Binet IQ test, so by that measure Miami ’01, USC ’04, Texas ’05 and Florida ’08 are the football “geniuses” of the pack.

The Truly Miserable

A single team fell 3 standard deviations below the mean in our sample, or had a Margin of Victory worse than -33.05 points per game. That team was the winless 2005 Temple Owls with a MOV of -35.57. The football IQ equivalent of the ’05 Owls is … 53. My candidate for worst team of the decade.

What Now?

As I mentioned before Dr. Saturday made a list of his top 10 teams of the decade so far. Since we have all this data at our disposal I plan on doing the same from a statistical viewpoint. I also agree that winning the BCS in any given year doesn’t necessarily mean you are the “best” (just a champion). In making my top 10 list MOV will also be important, but I plan on adding one more statistical input – strength of schedule. The 2002 Kansas State team, for example, appears to be one of the top teams of the decade by MOV (as well as Offensive and Defensive Scoring). Should they be considered a top team?


Next – My Top Teams of the Decade.

The Superlative Teams of the Decade

Part 2 - Scoring Defense

In our last piece in this series we revealed the top offenses of the decade statistically using standard deviation from the mean.

Now its time for the top defenses. The average Scoring Defense, or mean, for the years 2000-2008 is 25.7 points surrendered per game. Our data sample of 1054 team's Scoring Defenses shows a standard deviation of 6.8.

Perhaps not surprisingly, with zero serving as a bottom limit of our sample, there are no teams with a 3 standard deviation from the mean, or a Scoring Defense of less than 5.3 points per game. So we will look at those teams that were more than 2 standard deviations from the mean, or a Scoring Defense less than 12.1 points per game.

They are (with Scoring Defense)–

2008 Southern California 9
2001 Miami (Fla.) 9.4
2000 TCU 9.6
2000 Florida St. 10.3
2005 Alabama 10.7
2003 LSU 11
2006 Virginia Tech 11
2004 Auburn 11.3
2008 TCU 11.31
2000 Toledo 11.4
2000 Western Mich. 11.6
2002 Kansas St. 11.8
2006 Wisconsin 12.1

BCS title winners in this group include the ’01 Canes and the ’03 LSU Tigers. The 2004 Auburn squad was undefeated but didn’t get to play for the BCS title.

Two of these teams had 3 loss seasons – the ’06 Hokies and ’00 Western Michigan team. Miami and Auburn were undefeated in their seasons, while Alabama, TCU and Kansas State had 2 losses. The rest had a single loss. (Also, in retrospect, what a squandered opportunity were last year's Trojans? The best defense of the decade. But for that loss at Oregon State...).

Average Scoring Defense for this group is 10.8, with an average Win-Loss record of 11 – 1.4.

For a sample size of 1054 data points to have only 13 teams beyond 2 standard deviations is remarkable.

Where are the other BCS title winners in terms of Scoring Defense? If we rank the 9 BCS winners among the 1054 teams we find –

2. Miami ‘01
6. LSU ‘03
21. Florida ‘08
22. USC ‘04
24. Ohio State ‘02
26. Florida ‘06
63. Oklahoma ‘00
75. Texas ‘05
229. LSU ‘07

(LSU’s ’07 number is an aberration due to 2 overtime games where a huge number of points were scored.)

It is pretty remarkable that, excepting the ’07 LSU team, the BCS winners of the decade had defenses in the top 7% of all teams (75/1054).

The Truly Miserable

Hard as this seems to believe, there were actually 2 teams that found their way to 3 standard deviations above the mean, or teams that gave up more that 46.1 points per game in Scoring Defense. They were –

2002 Eastern Mich. 47.2
2008 North Texas 47.58

Somehow Eastern Michigan managed 3 wins, while North Texas last year had 1.

The worst major conference teams of the decade for Scoring Defense were the winless Duke team of 2001 (44.6 ppg) and last season’s ’08 Washington State which gave up 43.9 ppg on their way to a 2 win campaign.

Stat Geek Stuff























A fairly normal looking distribution here, albeit with a heavy concentration to the middle (most scoring defense clustered around the mean).


Next – Top Margins of Victory of the Decade

The Superlative Teams of the Decade

Part 1 - Scoring Offense

Having done all the work to see which teams had the top Margin of Victory for the decade (which, once again, is not quite finished) I decided to aggregate my data to see which teams truly stood out – for good or for bad.

The data set is a stat geeks dream with 1054 data points, or the Scoring Offense, the Scoring Defense, the Margin of Victory and the Win-Loss record of every FBS team since 2000. At over a thousand data points we can feel pretty confident the results will be reasonably solid.

First let’s look at the averages –

Average Scoring Offense (2000-2008) = 26.6

Average Scoring Defense (2000-2008) = 25.7

Average Margin of Victory (2000-2008) = 0.88

Average Win-Loss Record (2000-2008) = 6.3 - 5.8

You might ask why the average scoring offenses and defenses don’t equal out, or why the average MOV isn’t 0. The answer is lower division teams. This data includes scores and wins (or in the case of Michigan, a loss) against the former Division II teams rather than against the members of the data set. Hence the slight inequality.

Having the averages allows us to calculate standard deviations, which in turn helps show which teams were truly superlative in the relevant category. If you recall your normal distribution, or “bell curve” it looks like this –


















Now I don’t believe all the data here would fit a normal distribution, and some would be better than others. But by looking at those stats that fall beyond 2 or even 3 standard deviations we can see those teams that truly stood out.

Scoring Offense Standouts

3 Standard Deviations

3 standard deviations above mean would indicate an offense that scored more than 47.6 points per game which we would expect to happen less than 0.1% of the time on a normal distribution. In our sample it happened more often than that.

The average Scoring Offense for the top group was 49.8 ppg, and the average Win-Loss record 11.8 – 1. The teams were -

2008 Oklahoma 51.14
2005 Texas 50.15
2004 Louisville 49.75
2005 Southern California 49.08
2004 Boise St. 48.92

Only one of these claimed the BCS title (Texas), while 2 lost it in the BCS title game (Oklahoma and USC). Texas was the only undefeated team of the group, and Oklahoma the only 2 loss team (the others had 1 loss). Notably that same Texas team was the only one to have a Scoring Defense less than 17 points per game (16.4).

2 Standard Deviations

2 standard deviations above mean would indicate an offense that scored more than 40.6 points per game which we would expect to happen 2.1% of the time on a normal distribution. The average Scoring Offense for this group was 43.0 ppg, and the average Win-Loss record 10.5 – 2.3

Those teams were -

2008 Tulsa 47.21
2006 Hawaii 46.86
2001 Brigham Young 46.77
2002 Boise St. 45.62
2004 Utah 45.33
2000 Boise St. 44.91
2002 Kansas St. 44.77
2004 Bowling Green 44.33
2001 Florida 43.82
2008 Texas Tech 43.77
2008 Florida 43.64
2005 Louisville 43.42
2007 Hawaii 43.38
2001 Miami (Fla.) 43.18
2003 Boise St. 43
2003 Miami (Ohio) 43
2003 Oklahoma 42.93
2007 Kansas 42.77
2000 Miami (Fla.) 42.64
2007 Florida 42.46
2003 Texas Tech 42.46
2000 Florida St. 42.42
2008 Texas 42.38
2007 Boise St. 42.38
2007 Oklahoma 42.29
2008 Missouri 42.21
2008 Oregon 41.92
2000 Nebraska 41.45
2008 Rice 41.31
2007 Tulsa 41.14
2003 Southern California 41.08
2003 Texas 41
2007 Texas Tech 40.92
2002 Bowling Green 40.83
2008 Oklahoma St. 40.77
2008 Houston 40.62

In terms of national success Florida in ’08, Miami in ’01 and USC in ’03 claimed the top prize. (All 3 were among the top 10 defenses in this group). Utah in ’04 was undefeated.

Also noteworthy is the fact that Urban Meyer coached several of the teams on this list – Bowling Green in ’02, Utah in ’04 and Florida in ’07 and ’08. (But that Spread Offense is just a gimmick).

The Truly Miserable

Standard deviation of course goes both ways, and several teams in the decade were 3 standard deviations below the mean with Scoring Offenses less that 12.6 points per game. This group of shame is –

2000 Central Mich. 12.45
2000 Kent St. 11.64
2003 Southern Methodist 11.17
2006 Temple 10.92
2006 Utah St. 10.83
2001 Rutgers 10.82
2006 Stanford 10.58
2005 Buffalo 10
2005 Temple 9.73
2006 Florida Int'l 9.58
2000 La.-Monroe 8.73

For the group they averaged 10.6 points per game and a Win-Loss record of 1 – 10.5.

As I hinted above defense is pretty important to overall success, and that will be our next examination of this data.

UPDATE:

Commenter Clark makes some points that I should clear up. To his points (in his comment)

1. There are 1054 points for each statistic. This is the total number of teams for the 9 years, or about 117 teams a year.

2. I ran a quick and dirty histogram and got the following –

Not a perfect "normal distribution" but close enough for our purposes.

3. I’m not sure how I would adjust for rule changes, though their existence is duly noted. Many of the highest offenses were in the past year.

4. Thanks, I think.

Finally there is this – where is the offense SEC? The only team to make this list in the SEC for the decade is Florida. Hmmmmm.

Championship Statistics and Margin of Victory

Smart Football linked to my piece regarding the Statistical Characteristics of BCS Champions where it was noted that the BCS Champion is not necessarily the best team in college football in any given year.

There was a link in turn to Dr. Saturday with his list of the best teams of the decade which indeed included some teams that did not win the BCS title.

I don’t disagree. I don’t think anyone would say the 2002 Buckeyes, or the even the 2006 Gators, were objectively the “best” teams. Likewise I think there is a general agreement that the 2007 New York Giants weren’t the NFL’s best.

However in looking at Dr. Saturday’s list of the 10 best teams of the decade (or decade so far, he notes) the characteristics of BCS Champions – top scoring defenses, excellent total defenses, effecitive passing efficiency defenses and strong offensive passing efficiency – are shared characteristics of all his top 10 teams (except one, which I will address in a minute).

In other words the shared characteristics shouldn’t just be thought of as “BCS Champion” characteristics, but those of nearly every successful team.

Take the national rankings of the 2004 Auburn team, which Dr. Saturday lists as 4th overall for the decade –

Scoring Defense – 1st
Total Defense – 5th
Passing Efficiency Defense – 26th
Passing Efficiency – 2nd

Those stats fit right in with my theme.

The exception in Doc Saturday’s list? That would be the 2005 USC Trojans.

While the 2005 USC team had one of the most impressive offenses ever, their eventual fatal flaw was their defense. Their national rankings in the key defensive categories looked nothing like a championship team, and as the good Doc noted “Their mediocre defense finally collapsed in the Rose Bowl”.

Their defensive stat rankings –

Scoring Defense – 35th
Total Defense – 48th
Passing Efficiency Defense – 42nd

In many ways the 2005 Trojans remind me of last year’s Sooners, an offensive powerhouse that fell flat when faced with a stronger defense and nearly equally accomplished offense. The 2008 Oklahoma team had even a more impressive scoring offense than the 2005 Trojans (51.1 ppg versus 49.1). Notably the 2008 Sooners do not appear on Dr. Saturday’s top 10 list, and in my opinion a team as defensively challenged as the 2005 Trojans doesn’t belong their either (I think the '08 Trojans were better overall than the '05 team).

Dr. Saturday also likes to look at Margin of Victory in assessing his top teams. (He also looks at other criteria and while I wouldn’t say MOV is dispositive to him it is certainly appears to be on his mind). This got me to wondering who the top teams for Margin of Victory were this decade.

The list may surprise you.

Top 10 Teams by Margin of Victory this Decade

1. Miami (2001) – with a MOV of 33.78 the Hurricane’s were the top team in this category in the decade, and would have been my choice as top team overall (so far, that is).

2. Texas (2005) – a MOV of 33.75, and the Doc’s top team.

3. Kansas State (2002) – An incredibly high MOV of 32.97 was a complete surprise to me. They had an amazingly good defense that ranked number 1 in the national giving up only 11.8 ppg, and the 2nd ranked offense with 44.77 ppg. They went 11-2 with narrow losses at Colorado 31-35 and against Texas 14-17. What could have been!

4. Florida State (2000) – With a MOV of 32.12 the 2000 FSU team was a case of opportunities missed. The Noles went 11-2 with a 24-27 loss at Miami and a loss to Oklahoma in the BCS title game 2-13. Yet FSU had the top Total Offense, the 3rd Scoring Offense, and the 2nd Total Defense that year, and were superior in virtually all statistical categories to Oklahoma.

5. Florida (2008) – 30.71 MOV. With most of the team back maybe the Gators can push it higher this year.

6. Louisville (2004) – The Cardinals in 2004 had a MOV of 30.05, or only one of 6 teams this decade to be over 30. They had the number 1 scoring offense at 49.75 ppg and the 24th scoring defense at 19.7 ppg. Notably in both these categories they were superior to the 2005 USC Trojans, but against admittedly softer competition. They went 11-1 with their sole loss coming by 3 points at Miami.

7. Florida (2001) – The best Spurrier team not to win it all, and maybe among his best ever, the '01 Gators had a MOV of 29.72. A 3 point loss at Auburn, and a 2 point loss to Tennessee at home (the game was rescheduled to the last of the season because of 9/11) kept this team from the SEC title game and more.

8. USC (2008) – Last year’ Trojans were the best of the decade for MOV at 28.54, or 3 points more than their 2003 title team.

9. Oklahoma (2003) – This team is famed for losing to LSU in the BCS title game and went 12-2 overall (also losing to Kansas State the game before). The split title year of 2003 still has many debaters, but the best team that year by MOV was far-and-away the Sooners at 27.63.

10. Oklahoma (2008) – The 3rd team from last season on this list, the 2008 Sooners had an MOV of 26.64.

(Note – Boise State in 2002 and TCU in 2000 had top 10 MOV's but I didn’t include them as mid-major teams playing lesser talents).

Of our list of top Margin of Victory teams only three – Miami, Texas and Florida – won the BCS title for their year. Those same three teams were the only teams of the top Margin of Victory teams to make Dr. Saturday's list.

But, as Dr. Saturday said, if we are considering who might be the “team of the decade” we would want to consider them all. This list of the top MOV’s adds a little more food for thought.

He said what?

Miami fans love to call our coaching staff a bunch of liars – cleverly naming our head coach Urban Liar. I found this interview interesting. It makes you wonder which staff lies and which staff doesn’t.

Statistical Characteristics of BCS Champions

We can’t know who will win the BCS title this year (though we do have a certain bias here). However, based on the statistics of the BCS champions this decade, we can have a pretty good idea – statistically – what they will look like. We also know what statistical categories are mostly irrelevant to BCS title success.

I’ve compiled the NCAA stats for the past 9 BCS Champions (Oklahoma in 00’ to Florida in 08’) and found that title winners have certain common characteristics. Likewise there are certain statistical categories that appear unrelated to eventual BCS success. The statistics I looked at were –

Kickoff Returns
Net Punting
Pass Defense
Pass Efficiency Defense
Passing Efficiency
Passing Offense
Penalty Yards per Game
Punt Returns
Rushing Defense
Rushing Offense
Scoring Defense
Scoring Offense
Total Defense
Total Offense
Turnover Margin

So, want to be a BCS Champion? Then make sure your team is strong the certain following statistical categories, while not worrying about these others -

You Will Pass Efficiently – The fourth most common characteristic of BCS title winners is that, when they decided to throw, they did so efficiently. The average BCS champion had a national rank of 12.3 in this category, or an average rating of 150.0. (What exactly is passing efficiency? Well th NCAA formula is: [ { (8.4 * yards) + (330 * touchdowns) - (200 * interceptions) + (100 * completions) } / attempts ]. Suffice to say if you complete a lot of passes for yardage and touchdowns without throwing interceptions, you are doing well.)

Exemplar – Texas 2005, 1st overall with a 160.96

Contrarian – LSU 2007, 37th overall with a 133.61

Last Season

2008 Florida – The Gators were 4th in this category at a rating of 170.6.

2009 Fail – Virginia Tech. Yes they had 10 wins. But with a rating 108.12 they were ranked 99th in the nation.

You Don’t Need Passing Yardage – This may seem contradictory to the previous, but teams that have a lot of passing yardage aren’t necessarily successful. The average national rank of BCS champs is 42.5 nationally at 237.2 yards per game. Teams that throw for many yards don’t win it all.

Exemplar – Ohio State 2002. The Buckeyes were 92nd in the country in passing offense with only 173.2 ypg.

Contrarian– The best passing offense to win it all? USC in 2004, but they were only 13th nationally with 271.7 ypg. No team in the top 10 in passing yardage has won the BCS championship.

Last Season

2008 Florida - The Gators were ranked only 61st in the nation in passing yardage per game at 213.9.

2008 Fail – Texas Tech. The Red Raiders had the number 1 passing offense in the nation at 413.2 yards per game, but it didn’t stop them from getting blown out by Oklahoma and losing their bowl game to Ole Miss. Also, Missouri was 4th overall in the nation but ended up with 4 losses.

You Will Defend the Pass Efficiently – The other side of passing efficiently is defending efficiently, which means not letting the other team pass effectively. As we have seen they can get a lot of yards (Texas Tech had 361 yards passing in their 44 point loss to Oklahoma) as long as they don’t score. The average national rank for Passing Efficiency Defense of BCS winners is 6.7 with a rating of 95.3.


Exemplar – Miami 2001, 1st overall with a 75.6

Contrarian – USC 2004, 9th overall with a 101.33. No team has ever won the BCS title with a Passing Efficiency Defense worse than 9th nationally.

Last Season

2008 Florida – UF was 3rd ranked nationally with a rating of 96.8.

2008 Fail – Missouri. The Tigers gave up big plays passing, and often. Ranked 80th in the nation they had a rating of 133.6.

You Don’t Need Kick Returns – Obvious, perhaps, but Kickoff and Punt returns were among the least relevant stats to BCS success, with average national ranks of 48.3 and 32.6 respectively.

Last Season

2008 Florida – The Gators ranked 55th nationally in Kickoff returns.

2008 Fail – The Temple Owls were the number one kickoff return team in the NCAA. Enough said.

You Will Have Great Total Defense – Perhaps obvious this one, but the average national ranking for total defense for BCS champions is 8.0, surrendering a meager 281.6 yards per game.


Exemplar – LSU 2003, 1st nationally giving up only 252 ypg.

Contrarian – OSU 2002, 23rd overall surrendering 320.9 ypg.

Last Season

2008 Florida – The Gators were 9th nationally in this stat, giving up only 285.3 yards per game.
2008 Fail – Oklahoma State – The Cowboys managed 9 wins, but with a national ranking of 93 in total defense giving up 405.5 yards per game, they weren’t going to win any titles.


You Don’t Need a Top Offense – Yeah, it’s true. The average national ranking of Total Offense, or the number of total yards per game, of BCS title winners is 26.8. LSU in 2007 was the 26th ranked offense, and in 2003 they ranked 31st. Ohio State in 2002? The 70th ranked offense in the nation. However, offense certainly doesn’t hurt, and the best BCS Champion offense was Texas at 3rd. It just isn’t critical.


Exemplar – Ohio State 2002, 70th in the nation in offense with only 364.5 ypg.

Contrarian – Texas 2005, 3rd in the nation in Total Yards at 512.1 ypg. Only 2 teams in the top 10 in total yards (Texas and Miami 01’) have won the BCS title.

Last Season

2008 Florida – The Gators were 15th in the nation, among their worst major statistical categories at 445.1 yards per game.

2008 Fail – A group award here. Offense ranked higher than the Gators in 2008 include –

Houston
Nevada
Oklahoma State
Oregon
Missouri
Rice
Nebraska
Louisiana Lafayette

Not one of them won a title in anything.

You Will Stop Your Opponents from Scoring – The absolute most common and critical shared characteristic of BCS Champions. The average Scoring Defense ranking of BCS winners is 5.4, and champions surrender an average of only 13.9 points per game. 9 of the past 10 winners was in the top eight nationally in this category. Essentially if your team is giving up more than 16 points per game, you can’t and won’t win the BCS title.


Exemplar – LSU in 03’ and Miami in 01’ were both number 1 in the nation in Scoring Defense giving up just 11 and 9.4 points per game, respectively.

Contrarian – LSU 2007, 17th overall at 19.9 ppg, but this stat included two high scoring overtimes. Excepting LSU that year, no team worse than 8th overall in Scoring Defense has ever won the BCS, nor any team that allowed more than 16.4 ppg.

Last Season

2008 Florida – The Gators were 4th ranked nationally at 12.9 points per game.

2008 Fail – Oregon. Yes, a 10 win season. But what might have been with just a little defense, as the Ducks gave up 28.2 points per game for a 78th national ranking in the category.

You Don’t Need to Worry About Penalties – It’s true. Not only are they irrelevant to whether you win it all, in fact more highly penalized teams seem MORE successful than not. The average national ranking in Penalty Yards per Game of BCS Champions is an astounding 76.9, and the average Champion gives up 61.1 yards per game to penalties. In fact, 7 of the past 9 Champions ranked 73rd or worse in this category!


Exemplar – Miami 2001, 114th nationally at 85.8 ypg.

Contrarian – Ohio State 2002, 10th nationally at 40.3 ypg.

Last Season

2008 Gators – 95th national in yards penalized at 59.9 yards per game.

2008 Fail – Top ten among least penalized teams in 2008 included Navy, Pitt, Iowa, Arizona, Vanderbilt, Army and Boston College.


And there you have it. If you want to hoist that crystal trophy come January 2010, make sure you play great defense – against the pass, overall and keep your opponents from scoring, and on offense pass efficiently.

Don’t worry too much about kick returns, or throwing for a lot of yards (you listening Big 12?). Mostly, however, don’t worry about penalties in the general sense.

Simple, right?

NEXT: Who it might be this year, based on the statistics

Friday

Just some thing I have found around the web today.

Coaches poll

Janoris learned something about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Chris Vernon on the Orange Lamborghini. Absolutely hilarious! His Coach O impression is dead on and you have to love his impression of Lane’s first press conference.

Here is a scary thought - early word out of practice is that Jeff Demps is the 1st team gunner on the punt team, along with Brandon James. Henry might go all year without a returned punt.

Here's an example

Some of you might wonder why the SEC has put a cap on the number of Letters of Intent schools can accept each year. Well here is an Example. Alabama was significantly over the 85 scholarship limit as recently as last week, due to the fact that they have signed in excess of 30 each of the last two years. Well since we all know that Saint Nick cares about his kids.....

ESPNSayWhat?

ESPN is currently involved in an exercise to redefine college football into 4 conferences of “super teams” that would compete for a true national title. Pointless though the exercise might be they seem to have put much time into it.

I haven’t paid the exercise much attention, but I did notice today the members of the so-called “Bear Bryant” conference looked a might familiar.

They are –

BEAR BRYANT CONFERENCE

Alabama
Auburn
Clemson
Florida
Florida State
Georgia
Georgia Tech
Miami
South Carolina
Tennessee

Why that looks like…like… well, like the SEC.

Assuming Florida were to play in such a conference not much would change. We already play FSU, Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina every year, and Alabama and Auburn on a rotating basis. We played Miami last year. The only 2 that we don’t play are Clemson and Georgia Tech (which, of course, are regular opponents of South Carolina and Georgia).

So, in trying to form a super conference ESPN has reformed the SEC?

What is the point of this again?

How Lucky I’ve Been

You Too, If You’re A Gator Fan

Our friend at Get the Picture has a post today about, well another post, that examines SEC football history. (The other post is by “Threes a Pattern”). And while the point of both posts is not my concern here, one of the comments to Senator Blutarsky’s post got me to thinking how lucky, as a Gator fan, I’ve been.

The comment was thus –

• Turd Ferguson

August 6, 2009 at 10:39 am

I’ve yet to hear a decent argument for the conclusion that “the only years that REALLY matter are [fill in the blank].” So either the whole history of a program matters, or none of it matters.
If it ALL matters, then Florida’s still got some catching up to do before it can really be considered the sort of all-time, historical powerhouse that Gator fans already think it is.

My response was –

• Mergz

August 6, 2009 at 11:23 am

Historical powerhouse? Who cares?

Which would you rather have for your school (choose one) ?

A. Great success during your lifetime?
B. Great success during your grandfather’s lifetime?

I started at Florida in 1984. (Yeah, I know, old guy blogging). I graduated in 1991 (Law School, don’t snicker). During my college tenure I saw 3 SEC titles, 2 of which were stripped away. I saw, in my last year, the first official title.

Then, as a young alum, I got to see SEC titles in 93′, 94′, 95′ and 96′. I got to travel to the games. I got to see our first “official” MNC in 96′. All by the time I was 31.
2000, 2006 and 2008 saw more SEC titles, and 2 more MNC’s. So in my 25 years as a Gator I’ve seen 8 “official” SEC titles and 3 MNC’s.

Not to shabby.


Which leads me to this – for people of my generation how has our SEC experience as Gators compared to other SEC teams? Well, here it is –

SEC titles since 1984 (official only) –

Florida - 8
LSU – 5
Tennessee – 5
Auburn – 4
Alabama – 3
Georgia – 2

That’s 8 times I’ve been able to celebrate a conference championship, or 32% of the time every year I’ve been a Gator.

As for Mythical National Titles, I’ve seen 3. As for our other SEC brethren we have LSU with 2, and Alabama and Tennessee with 1 each. Only Miami, with 5, has had more than Florida during my Gator fandom years (Nebraska is tied at 3).

Yeah, I know, you younger Gators have it better, at least as a percent of your experience.

But I wouldn’t trade my history for anyone’s.

As for those of you who hang your hat on the experiences of your fathers and grandfathers, my guess is it isn’t the same. But I wouldn’t know.

Florida is a 1984 National Champion

I’ve written on this topic before, in fact it was one of my first major posts for Saurian Sagacity back in December 2006.

Anyone who has followed my writing here knows that I don’t really believe in the existence of a single “National Championship” per se. Any system based on voting, with a seemingly limitless number of self appointed selectors, isn’t worthy of full recognition. The NCAA itself states that it is not involved in the process. At best any “national championship” title in Division I-A college football is merely a claim to supremacy. Although the BCS title system has improved the narrowing of the process, but it still remains far from perfect.

But in the current system, based as it is on claims, it’s time the University of Florida to make the claim for the 1984 season. Simply put, other universities would claim it, and have claimed national titles based on far less supporting evidence than Florida had in 1984.

I’ve written before on the absurdity of Alabama’s claim of 12 national championships as well pointing out other dubious claims.

However it was a recent comment by poster “Tommy” that really got me thinking. “Tommy” pointed out that Georgia “claims” the 1942 National Championship, so I decided to do a little research into the claim. Sure enough if you go to the Georgia Football website there it is.

According to the Georgia athletics site–

“In more than 100 years of Georgia football history, five Bulldog teams have actually been declared national champions at season's end by at least one of the national polls recognized by the National College Football Hall of Fame and included in the official NCAA Football Record Book. Both 1980 and 1942 teams were consensus champions, being chosen by at least half of the recognized polls.”

OK then, fair enough. Turning then to the best authority I know for information of this type, the College Football Data Warehouse, we find that there are TWO claims of national championship in 1942, Georgia and Ohio State. The selectors choosing each are broken out as follows –

Georgia

Bill Libby
Billingsley Report
Century Football Index
Cliff Morgan
Clyde Berryman
Edward Litkenhous
Harry DeVold
Houlgate System
James Howell
Loren Maxwell
Mel Smith
Montgomery Full Season Championship
Nutshell Sports Football Ratings
Poling System
Sagarin Ratings
Williamson System

Ohio State

1st-N-Goal
Angelo Louisa
Associated Press
Bernie McCarty
Boand System
Bob Kirlin
Bob Royce
College Football Researchers Association
College Football USA
David Wilson
Dunkel System
Earl Jessen
George Trevor
Harry Frye
James Whalen
Jim Koger
National Championship Foundation
Patrick Premo

Obviously the most prestigious of these names is the Associated Press, and they chose the Buckeyes.

A quick count here shows 16 selectors for Georgia to 18 for Ohio State. There were also 5 other selectors that chose either Georgia Pre-Flight Navy (it was 1942), Tulsa or Wisconsin.

Ohio State also, quite naturally, claims the 1942 national title. In fact they count it as their first.

And a Wikipedia post on the same topic lists the Buckeyes as number one, and Georgia as the runner-up.

Anyway the point of this post really isn’t about the validity of Georgia’s claim to the 1942 title. In fact, I support it.

But if that claim is valid, so is Florida’s 1984 national championship claim.

After the 1984 season selectors were torn between BYU and Florida as to who deserved number one. The AP chose BYU, but overall the number of selectors between the two schools was equal.

Florida

Angelo Louisa
Annual Football Predictions
Bob Kirlin
David Wilson
Dunkel System
Football by the Numbers
Foundation for the Analysis of Competitions and Tournaments
Harry DeVold
Jeff Self
Loren Maxwell
Massy Ratings
Matthews Grid Ratings
New York Times
Nutshell Sports Football Ratings
Sagarin Ratings
Soren Sorensen
Sparks Achievement Ratings
Steve Eck
SW!-TECH Computer Ratings
The Fleming System
The Sporting News

BYU

ARGH Power Ratings
Associated Press
Billingsley Report
Bob Royce
Century Football Index
Cliff Morgan
College Football Researchers Association
DKC Ratings
Football Writers Association of America
Harry Frye
James Howell
Mel Smith
National Championship Foundation
National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame
Poling System
Quality Champions
Sports Illustrated
Thomas Jech
United Press International
USA Today/CNN
Washington Touchdown Club

BYU had the AP, but Florida had the New York Times and The Sporting News.

Both BYU and Florida had 21 selectors in 1984.

Also, in common with Georgia’s 1942 claim, UF was chosen by Harry DeVold, Loren Maxwell, Nutshell Sports and Jeff Sagarin. If those selectors are strong enough to support a claim for a Georgia title in 1942, they are strong enough for Florida in 84’.

Many people are comfortable with the “co-championship” situation in college football that arises from time-to-time. Obviously Georgia is comfortable making the claim in 42’, as well as Miami in 91’ and USC in 03’. I submit that Florida, in 1984, has every right to claim the same with BYU.

If not, there are a host of schools that probably ought not to be claiming what they are.

At a Loss for Words

Render unto Gainesville all that is Gainesville's

LA Times article on the SEC.

The One Man Fallacy

My morning reading brought me across our friend Senator Blutarsky’s “Get the Picture” Georgia blog and his comments on Urban Meyer’s new salary extension. While the good Senator gives credit where due – saying Meyer deserved his new contract – he once again raises the ongoing suspicion that Meyer may, someday, leave Florida.

However, the comments to the post are even more telling, with Georgia fans speculating what might happen when Tebow graduates (will Meyer stay?), and even adding their personal hopes for the eventual departure of Coach Meyer.

All of this seems eerily familiar. History does indeed repeat.

In 2002 I received an email from a friend (who happens to be a Notre Dame alumnus) that, with the retirement of Steve Spurrier, the Gators were done. “Once in a lifetime coach” my friend wrote, tauntingly, “Welcome back to the pack”.

So how did that prediction work out?

Now I am by no means suggesting that Urban Meyer isn’t a great football coach. He is. However what fascinates me is the hyper-focus fans – and people in general –put on an individual when it comes to crediting them, or blaming them, for larger events. The credit or reproach the President of the United States gets is a prefect example of this phenomenon. Presidential approval rises and falls inversely with gasoline prices, for example, while the President himself has virtually no control over the price of a barrel of oil.

College coaches, while having more direct input, aren’t much different. As I recall there was elation in Athens equal to the deflation in Gainesville when Spurrier resigned after the 2001 season.

And, in the seven years since, the Dawgs are 2-5 against the Gators. Even Zook went 2-1.

Meanwhile Steve Spurrier, who went 122-27-1 while at Florida, had a disastrous stint with the Washington Redskins, and then returned to the SEC in 2005 where he has since gone 28-21, or only 6 losses less than his entire time at Florida.

Moreover, with Spurrier as a Gamecock having gone 1-3 against Georgia, I doubt there is much current concern in Athens whether he stays at South Carolina or not.

Our rivals have similar feelings when it comes to Tim Tebow, believing that his absence from the Gators will serve as a panacea for their travails against Florida. Yet Tebow, as a starter, is 1-1 against Georgia. A win against the Bulldogs this year would make him the equal of Chris Leak’s 2-1 against Georgia.

While Leak and Tebow might be thought to have little in common on a skills level, what they did have in common, at least with regard to their championships, was Charlie Strong, or more specifically his defenses. Against Ohio State in 2006 and Oklahoma this past season the Gator defense gave up the same number of points – 14. In other words, offensively, 15 points or more was a winner for Florida in each contest. Florida has scored at least 15 points in its last 45 consecutive games, with the last time it failed to do against Georgia in 2005, a game Florida actually won 14-10. Even the much maligned Ron Zook failed to score less than 14 points only 3 times at Florida.

Now I’m not saying any quarterback could have led the Gators to the championships of 2006 and 2008, but I am saying that the single most important aspect of both those Gator teams was the defense. Consider the following –

Tim Tebow 2007 – 3286 yards passing, 32 passing TD’s, 66.9% completion AND 895 yards rushing, 23 rushing TD’s.

Tim Tebow 2008 – 2746 yards passing, 30 passing TD’s, 64.4% completion AND 673 yards rushing, 12 rushing TD’s.

2007 was statistically the better year in every category for Tebow (he won the Heisman, after all) but the Gators went 9-4. 2008 was statistically, although a great year, inferior to 2007 and all Florida had to show for it was 13-1 and a SEC and “national” title.

You don’t hear much talk of opposing fans wanting our defense to graduate, or Charlie Strong to take another job, but as far as the opposition’s success is concerned these events would be statistically more important.

Florida’s success is a compilation of many things of which Meyer and Tebow are a part. Of equal importance are our first rate facilities, our donor support and our athletic department. (Yes, Foley did hire Ron Zook. Foley also fired Ron Zook, and hired Meyer. Good athletic departments are smart and flexible.)

Most important, however, is our ability to recruit top flight talent right at home. As I have stated before it is no coincidence that over the past 25 years the state of Florida’s big 3 (UF, UM and FSU) have won 10 of the 25 “national” titles, and played for 6 others. Those 10 titles were won by 7 different coaches. Two of those coaches remain at their respective schools (Bowden and Meyer) and the 4 of the other five (Schnellenberger, Erickson, Coker and Spurrier) have had limited success elsewhere, generously stated. The other coach – Jimmy Johnson – of course found NFL success, but it can hardly be stated coaching has been the reason for college football success in the state of Florida.

Further, the top states for college football talent in addition to Florida year-in and year-out are widely considered to be Texas and California (certainly they have the most top level recruits every year), with Ohio, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania also known to be talent rich. Consider where the top national contenders and winners have been the past couple decades. See a theme?

Players always move on, coaches eventually do. Talent bases are much more durable. In Georgia’s case their problems with Florida didn’t end with Spurrier’s departure, nor did South Carolina’s problems with Georgia end with the arrival of the same. No single individual, whether coach or player is responsible for the entire fortune of any program.

As to my Notre Dame friend's assertions of early 2002, Florida appears to have had two "once in a lifetime coaches" in a span thankfully far shorter than that. What he thought impossible has in fact become reality, but not for the reasons he surmised.

That's why I don't lose any sleep over Meyer leaving, or Tebow graduating.

Monday's update

Since the team gets back to work this week, I figured I should too.

There is a new Sherriff in town when it comes to coaching pay. Can anyone tell me what Meyer has that the two ahead of him don't.

Stephen Alli a 6'6" 210lb WR out of Andover NH committed to the Gators in June just before his senior year in high school. In a strange twist, Alli will skip his senior year in high school and enroll this fall at Florida. Because of the fact that he enrolled now, he will count back towards the 2009 recruiting class. For those that want to know, Alli has been timed at 4.38 in the 40.