Very Good Offensively AND Defensively
Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2004 2:49 pm
Lots of people are complaining about our defense. I did a little checking on statistics and confirmed my intuition--VERY FEW teams are very good both offensively AND defensively and they tend to be ranked in the top 5-10 teams in the country.
On offense, BG is ranked 4th in terms of average points per game. On total defense, they are ranked 60th.
There are 5 teams ranked in the top 25 both on offense and defense. Guess who they are?--USC (8 and 4), Oklahoma (10 and 14), Auburn (18 and 5), California (7 and 11), and Texas (6 and 25).
No Big Ten team comes even close to being ranked in the top 25 on both offense and defense. The highest ranked team on offense is Purdue (22) and on defense the top ranked team is Wisconsin (8).
Now, I'm sure we can argue about the reliability of statistics. But I think one conclusion is pretty solid--that only a few teams are very good both on offense AND defense and those that are turn out to be the best teams in the country.
We can complain all we want but we need to realize how difficult it is to achieve what some BG fans are asking for--being very good on both offense AND defense.
By the way, the rankings also confirmed another intuition I had. Of the top 10 teams on offense, 6 were non-BCS teams. Of the top 10 teams on defense, there were NO non-BCS teams. Conclusion?--it's much easier to build a good offense than a good defense.
Now, what about BG and its future? I suspect most of us would agree that our forseeable future for having a good offense looks very good. What about building a very good defense? Maybe we can make solid advances here but we have to realize that this is more difficult.
My prediction is that our offense will continue to be one of the best and that we will get better on defense. The result?--a promising future for BG football.
On offense, BG is ranked 4th in terms of average points per game. On total defense, they are ranked 60th.
There are 5 teams ranked in the top 25 both on offense and defense. Guess who they are?--USC (8 and 4), Oklahoma (10 and 14), Auburn (18 and 5), California (7 and 11), and Texas (6 and 25).
No Big Ten team comes even close to being ranked in the top 25 on both offense and defense. The highest ranked team on offense is Purdue (22) and on defense the top ranked team is Wisconsin (8).
Now, I'm sure we can argue about the reliability of statistics. But I think one conclusion is pretty solid--that only a few teams are very good both on offense AND defense and those that are turn out to be the best teams in the country.
We can complain all we want but we need to realize how difficult it is to achieve what some BG fans are asking for--being very good on both offense AND defense.
By the way, the rankings also confirmed another intuition I had. Of the top 10 teams on offense, 6 were non-BCS teams. Of the top 10 teams on defense, there were NO non-BCS teams. Conclusion?--it's much easier to build a good offense than a good defense.
Now, what about BG and its future? I suspect most of us would agree that our forseeable future for having a good offense looks very good. What about building a very good defense? Maybe we can make solid advances here but we have to realize that this is more difficult.
My prediction is that our offense will continue to be one of the best and that we will get better on defense. The result?--a promising future for BG football.