It was Penn St. and they were our most serious competition, but he had offers from Pitt, UF, FSU, etc., almost all the top schools. He had so much talent, I was expecting great things from him...
Tell me about Washington
- Thread starter bamaslammer
- Start date
If tonight's performance by Washington State was any indication of the entire conference, things will be ugly Saturday.
(And yes we understand some teams don't show up for bowl games.)
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
(And yes we understand some teams don't show up for bowl games.)
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Washington blew Washington State out...but the fact WSU started 7-0 in the Pac-12 with all their bad OOC losses does say something about the relative strength of the Pac-12.
As we all know, the transitive property doesn't work
1) Minnesota went 2-0 against the Pac 12, beating both Wazzu and Oregon St
2) Minnesota barely beat both teams, Washington routed both teams
3) Washington MUCH>>>>>>>>> Minnesota
4) Minnesota narrowly lost to Penn St, who was B1G champs, who beat Ohio State yadda yadda
Now....if Indiana can clobber Utah tonight.....
1) Minnesota went 2-0 against the Pac 12, beating both Wazzu and Oregon St
2) Minnesota barely beat both teams, Washington routed both teams
3) Washington MUCH>>>>>>>>> Minnesota
4) Minnesota narrowly lost to Penn St, who was B1G champs, who beat Ohio State yadda yadda
Now....if Indiana can clobber Utah tonight.....
It's quite possible that the team got into Coach Leach's stash.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
This reminds me of 2009 when UT fans and commentators were saying how Bama had zero chance at running the ball against the #1 rush defense of the Shorthorns. Then when we looked and saw they hardly played ANY teams that ran the ball, the team's they "stuffed" were all in the 110s in rushing and that they played like one team that was in the top 75 in rushing. Stats don't always say what will happen.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I remember how I felt in 2014 watching most of the SEC teams get blown out in their bowls. That was the year that 3 SEC West teams were in the top 4 of the 1st CFP rankings. Sure enough we ended up losing to OSU. It'll be interesting to see how all the conferences do in bowl games this year..
I mean, I can't say much about Washington on the front of Washington State. They didn't struggle with them at all. UDub went on the road and just flat out blitzed 'em in the first quarter. Wazzu came crashing back to reality when they caught CU and UDub in the last two weeks of the regular season. WSU's best win was against Stanford who was reeling with defensive secondary injuries at that point of the season (got blown away by UDub and Wazzu in consecutive weeks). They didn't really catch a tough draw from the South as UDub did.
Like I said earlier, I don't think this is all that important because the game is about teams playing each other not conferences. It might be a 2nd order insight to Washington's strength of resume though. You don't usually see teams going 7-2 in the Pac-12 that couldn't beat a Boise State team that struggled against a disinterested 6-6 Baylor squad, an FCS team early in the season, and a middle-of-the-pack in the Big Ten Minnesota squad short 10 players. Additionally Stanford's season opening win over an 8-4 Kansas State team was the best OOC win for the Pac-12 this year.
Like I said earlier, I don't think this is all that important because the game is about teams playing each other not conferences. It might be a 2nd order insight to Washington's strength of resume though. You don't usually see teams going 7-2 in the Pac-12 that couldn't beat a Boise State team that struggled against a disinterested 6-6 Baylor squad, an FCS team early in the season, and a middle-of-the-pack in the Big Ten Minnesota squad short 10 players. Additionally Stanford's season opening win over an 8-4 Kansas State team was the best OOC win for the Pac-12 this year.
That's what we're saying. Not saying take that one game and prove Washington is good. You can take the fact Washington State finished 7-2 (tied with USC for third overall in the conference) looked like garbage against a very mediocre Minnesota team and lost to a Boise State team that got beat by a pitiful 6-6 Big 12 team. What does that say about the strength of the conference overall?
Yeah, I remember that, too.
In 2012, my looking through the numbers suggested, "My God, we're gonna kill Notre Dame." The press seized and held tight onto the notion of Louisville beating Florida somehow proving the SEC was not that great. Clemson beat LSU, although it was a single point "any team can win this one" game.
But most of the SEC roared. I thought the most telling game was this one:
Ole Miss 38
Pitt 17
Notre Dame 29
Pitt 26
(3 overtimes)
Have you/do you plan to post your analysis for this game? If so, looking forward to it.
)
At this juncture, the SEC could have 6 losses or more in the bowl season. The OOC performance overall wasn't that great...better than the Pac-12 and Big-12 but not great nonetheless.
Look, I respect Washington and think they have a great coach and few really good players. However, Bama has the best coach in the business with a few great players and many good players. I don't think that the SEC's bowl performance overall means anything to Bama vs the playoff field. If anything, Bama looked like those great Miami teams of yore that crushed its Big East foes. Albeit, even in a down year, the SEC is much better than those Big East clods by a wide margin. Alabama is on its own plane. Of course, the Tide is beatable, but it is very unlikely. I can't wait for the playoff and, hopefully, Bama finishes 15-0 with NC #17.
I'm still working it up, and I got behind because a co-worker here (an Alabama fan from Red Bay no less) hit a deer over the holiday weekend and nowhere was open. So they pulled me in to work nights - which has my sleep pattern completely off. So I plan to, yes.
And I'll probably just put it here on this thread, too.
So far in the bowl game mix (FWIW, which is debatable, of course):
An SEC team with a losing record lucked into a win over a mediocrity (but the two teams were probably even...don't you suspect Alabama would beat Miami of Ohio by the same 51-3 count as the Tide beat MSU?)
The SEC's worst team historically got routed by a team that took Clemson to overtime
An overrated ATM (they were #4 in the first playoff ranking) not only lost to Alabama, they went "0 for Mississippi" and got creamed by LSU. Then they lost a close one to a mid-level Big 12 team.
The Pac 12 north runner-up with a high-powered offense that averaged 38.2 ppg got held to only 12 points by a team that surrenders an AVERAGE of 22.1 ppg. In other words, Minnesota not only held Wazzu 26 points below their season average.....they held them 10 points below what would be expected of Minnesota to surrender. By contrast, Washington averaged surrendering 17.2 ppg and the Cougars got.....17. (Again, we are looking for TRENDS, not singular games).
Last night, a team that gave Washington all the Huskies could handle (the winning TD was a fourth quarter punt return with three blocks in the back that weren't called - and I'm not impugning Washington as I was pulling for them but it was still one of the most permissive returns I've ever seen) barely scraped by Indiana. Indiana surrenders an average of 27.2 ppg while Utah surrenders 23.9. Offensively, the Utes average 29.8 ppg while Indiana gets about 25.8 ppg. Using 'naked numbers' (with no correction for obviously anomalies like Alabama hanging 55 on CSU in 2015), this would suggest Utah would score about 26-28 points and Indiana 23-26 points......and the final was 26-24 Utah, about what would be expected. Of course, this also ASSUMES the two teams are about even otherwise. But they SHOULD NOT be.....Utah is 8-4 against the #37 SOS (Sagarin) while Indy is a .500 ballclub against a WEAKER schedule.
In such a case, Utah should have routed Indiana, all things being equal otherwise.
So we've had two Big Ten-Pac 12 match ups and the Big Ten team dominated one and barely lost another.
Against Washington's 17.2 ppg defense, Utah scored 24.
Against Indiana's 27.2 ppg defense, Utah scored 26.
They did substantially better against a higher rated defense - which DOES create one data point in favor of the notion "the Huskies numbers are inflated."
Now Huskies fans - let's not have a back and forth because this is merely one point of observation. But it does give a little more support to the suspicion that not only Tide fans have regarding this year's Pac 12.
An SEC team with a losing record lucked into a win over a mediocrity (but the two teams were probably even...don't you suspect Alabama would beat Miami of Ohio by the same 51-3 count as the Tide beat MSU?)
The SEC's worst team historically got routed by a team that took Clemson to overtime
An overrated ATM (they were #4 in the first playoff ranking) not only lost to Alabama, they went "0 for Mississippi" and got creamed by LSU. Then they lost a close one to a mid-level Big 12 team.
The Pac 12 north runner-up with a high-powered offense that averaged 38.2 ppg got held to only 12 points by a team that surrenders an AVERAGE of 22.1 ppg. In other words, Minnesota not only held Wazzu 26 points below their season average.....they held them 10 points below what would be expected of Minnesota to surrender. By contrast, Washington averaged surrendering 17.2 ppg and the Cougars got.....17. (Again, we are looking for TRENDS, not singular games).
Last night, a team that gave Washington all the Huskies could handle (the winning TD was a fourth quarter punt return with three blocks in the back that weren't called - and I'm not impugning Washington as I was pulling for them but it was still one of the most permissive returns I've ever seen) barely scraped by Indiana. Indiana surrenders an average of 27.2 ppg while Utah surrenders 23.9. Offensively, the Utes average 29.8 ppg while Indiana gets about 25.8 ppg. Using 'naked numbers' (with no correction for obviously anomalies like Alabama hanging 55 on CSU in 2015), this would suggest Utah would score about 26-28 points and Indiana 23-26 points......and the final was 26-24 Utah, about what would be expected. Of course, this also ASSUMES the two teams are about even otherwise. But they SHOULD NOT be.....Utah is 8-4 against the #37 SOS (Sagarin) while Indy is a .500 ballclub against a WEAKER schedule.
In such a case, Utah should have routed Indiana, all things being equal otherwise.
So we've had two Big Ten-Pac 12 match ups and the Big Ten team dominated one and barely lost another.
Against Washington's 17.2 ppg defense, Utah scored 24.
Against Indiana's 27.2 ppg defense, Utah scored 26.
They did substantially better against a higher rated defense - which DOES create one data point in favor of the notion "the Huskies numbers are inflated."
Now Huskies fans - let's not have a back and forth because this is merely one point of observation. But it does give a little more support to the suspicion that not only Tide fans have regarding this year's Pac 12.
TideFans.shop - Get your Gear HERE!
Alabama Crimson Tide Car Door Light
Get this and many more items at our TideFans.shop!
Purchases may result in a commission being paid to TideFans.