On an adjusted basis for opponent, Houston's defense looks quite bad (95 in the country, compared to 26th for the OK staters.); their overall SOS is just horrible. The lone bright spot is intereceptions, at whcih they're pretty decent. Sacks are a pretty bad metric to judge the strength of a defense; Texas A&M is among the leading sack-generators in the country this year, due of course to their horrific pass defense which makes it worth it to attempt shot after shot on them even if they sack you a time or two. That said, the Cougar offense is right up there with Ok state (#3 and #2, respectively).
Weird. http://espn.go.com/college-football/team/_/id/248/houston-cougars ESPN says 26th at 11 am central.
No doubt the SOS is terrible, but like I said, check out the points surrendered per minute on the field. It's surprisingly good. UH's defense doesn't need to be good, hell, it barely needs to be average. And that's what they're close to being. To say they're not worthy of a BCS bid with 5 games to go (conceivably, I expect Tulsa and SoMiss to be ranked when/if we play them) is kind of bunk, let's see how it plays out.
Who hates em? I think people are just being realistic, I am glad they are doing well...bout time... DD
I've watched every UH game this year. That defense was obliterated by the read option by both LA Tech and Rice badly in the first halves of those games. They did manage to adjust at the half and shore up the D enough to get the offense right back out on the field, but the LA Tech game was an example of how to beat UH with a running QB. If they're playing a team that runs the spread, I don't think they'd have any trouble keeping up with them in a shoot-out. If UH runs into a team with a speedy secondary and a stout run game, I think they'll be destroyed.
Rice's first half "obliterating" only resulted in 6 un-gifted points. Running QBs have always given us trouble, which is why I'm not looking forward to going up to Tulsa. G.J. Kinne is one crafty little b*tch.
For fun I just went ahead and calculated how much points and yards each of these teams gives up per minute their defense is on the field. Some surprising results. Houston: 35:30 (.80 points per minute, 12.4 yards per minute) Texas: 24:30 (.90 point per minute, 12.1 yards per minute) LSU: 25:45 (.50 points per minute, 10.7 yards per minute) Boise: 27:15 (.60 points per minute, 11 yards per minute) Okie State: 32:45 (.81 points per minute, 13.9 yards per minute) A&M: 30 (.90 points per minute, 14.1 yards per minute) TCU: 28:45 (.83 points per minute, 12.37 yards per minute) Baylor: 39:45 (1.06 points per minute, 12.35 yards per minute) Alabama: 27:15 (.25 points per minute, 6.62 yards per minute) holy f*** Florida: 31:15 (.57 points per minute, 9.5 yards per minute) Michigan: 29:30 (.5 points per minute, 11.3 yards per minute) Michigan State: 27:00 (.6 points per minute, 8.34 yards per minute) Wisconsin: 29:30 (.57 points per minute, 10.6 yards per minute) Stanford: 27:30 (.62 points per minute, 11.96 yards per minute) Oregon: 35:15 (.66 points per minute, 11.7 yards per minute) Oklahoma: 31:00 (.62 points per minute, 11 yards per minute) Basically it just gives you a more accurate picture of who is bad, who is average, and who is good, and who is god-mode (bama wtf).
I dont see UH winning against any of those on that list.... The point of that statistic went over my head ... This is to imply what exactly?
Taking a more in-depth look at the numbers. Looking at the box score and seeing X number of yards or Y number of points doesn't tell the tale. Our defense isn't good, but it's close enough to average to give us a chance versus many AQ teams, if not most. The efficiency of the offense, which puts the defense on the field an inordinate amount of time, and the gobs of points/yards our opponents get after we're ahead by 3+ scores make our defense look much worse than it actually is.
ROFLMAO !!!! I mean honestly...that is funny...so teams that actually are on the field less time because their defense gets them the ball back, or their offense controls it more actually could have a bad rating under your per minute agenda. Maybe I am missing something but that seems an odd way of approaching something to defend a bad defense. DD
If your defense is hardly on the field, but they give up tons of points and yards per minute, then they're not really all that good. The offense is obviously just controlling the clock and protecting the defense. It's not about how long you're on the field, it's how bad you are when you're on it. And this illustrates who is more effective with their defense when it is on the field. For example, although UH has given up more yards and points than TCU overall, their defenses have played remarkably similar in terms of how effective they are. (they have similar SOS too) A&M's defense, by comparison, looks horrendous, considering the amount of yards and points they give up relative to how much time they spend on the field, etc. Although apparently the site I used had some out-dated bogus info, I'll try to run the numbers for a few teams again later tonight.
Why are you using yards per minute instead of yards per play? Not only does it seem like a much more logical unit (downs are what is crucial in football) but yards per minute would seemingly skew in favor of teams with horrible run defenses, like UH.
I figure I'll get around to doing both eventually. TOP was just easier. Edit: Somebody else calculated it for me, 62nd in yards per play at 5.5.
DM , no doubt you have dropped knowledge in the past.... But saying UH is similar to any defense on that list (besides Baylor) is ridiculous.... No matter what stat you come up with, you've taken homerism to an astronomical level...Conrad Murray's lawyer couldn't defend what you're arguing.... But do you mane! I'm sure a few of your fans will,most defintiely, make lemonade with these lemons...
Key question: what am I arguing? Answer: that the UH defense is likely somewhere in the realm of "medicore to below average" and not "craptacular to god awful".
Using teams like LSU , Alabama, or even Texas in the chart would imply that you were comparing them in some way to UH... If you had taken some of the top dogs off the list, then maybe your point would come across a lil clearer to realist, such as myself... IMO, putting them on the chart will cause more chuckles than you intended... Thats all Im saying... But now that you've made it clear what the chart is pointing out, Im snickering now instead of downright laughing....
