Surprise! OU Week Basketball Hate!

The Big 12 coaches voted on the preseason-so-why-does-it-matter-but-we-care men's basketball rankings, and we came out pretty close to the top. It's amazing to me that both Kansas and Texas can lose star players year after year to the NBA and still continue to be the class of the Big 12. I'm starting to believe that the Texas basketball no longer "rebuilds, they  reload," just like Texas football.  And you'll never guess who came out first. Jerks (keep feeding the hate fire).

Big 12 Preseason Coaches Poll

1. Oklahoma
2. Texas
t3. Baylor
t3. Kansas
5. Texas A&M
6. Oklahoma State
7. Missouri
8. Kansas State
9. Nebraska
10. Texas Tech
11. Iowa State
12. Colorado

Lets Play Pessimist.

I realized recently how unusually excited ecstatic I am about the upcoming season, so I decided that in order to remain reasonably balanced I would force myself to write a post from a positive standpoint and a post from a very negative standpoint. This one, obviously, is from a negative standpoint and will be followed shortly by a post blowing some serious sunshine.

Less than two weeks until game day, and I refuse to believe that the coaches are truly as confident as all the coach speak indicates. If Mack wasn't a football coach he would be one heck of a politician, no doubt about that. I am definitely drinking the Orange Kool Aid at the moment, as I am sure many of you are, even those of you, who like me, tend to be pretty "realistic" about the Horns. 

Lets talk about a couple of the aspects of the 2008 team that make me feel happier than a handbag full of Pokemon but could in reality be little more than a great spin job. 

1. OMFG THE K IN "BUCK" STANDS FOR K1NDL3!11!!! 

I love the idea of the "Buck" package, I really do. That's why I now use it on every single play in NCAA 09. Problem is, the computer is programed to make hilarious unreasonably dumb decisions whenever a blitz even gets close. The unflattering truth behind the Buck package, in my humble opinion, is that in a conference full of fantastic OL and mature Heisman candidate QB's, maybe we need every defensive back we can get on the field. The most sacks and hurries we can honestly hope for in a game is maybe 4 or 5 from one player, even one as potentially great as Kindle. There are going to be a whole lot of passes thrown, and with most of them for 8+ yards, a few extra sacks isn't going to make a huge dent in the score. Put another defensive back out there and maybe the opposing QBs have to look long enough for our new quick D-line to do some real damage.

2. OUR OLINE IS THE TRUEFF!!!1!! 

I keep reading blurbs about the 2008 O-line being the deepest we've had in a very long time. I fear that we may have caught a little Texas Tech syndrome. Tech is returning like 12 million players on both sides of the ball, but what does that mean if most the players coming back on defense are only mediocre. Sure, we are returning nearly everyone on our O-line that played a role last season, but they fell in the bottom half of the Big 12 (T 11th) and the NCAA (T 57th) as a line. 

3. THE DOUBLE-BARRELED SHOTGUN IS IN YOUR FRIDGE EATIN YO FOODZ!!!!

This aspect of the 2008 Horns might be the hardest for me to criticize as I have made it very clear that I am riding shotgun on this bandwagon, but I feel there is a valid argument to be made. Everyone who is anyone in college football right now seems to be moving away from the running game. Look no further than our brothers in the Big 12 North to see where a heavy aerial assault can get you. In the south, Texas Tech has been using it well for years with inferior talent. Why then, is it such a marvelous idea to add a player in the backfield who has done little else than run the ball a whole bunch. Screw it, lets put everyone back there and return to the good ol' triple option offense. Now of course that is a bit of an over exaggeration, but it might just be in our best interest to get the ball to people who are already over the line of scrimmage, rather than scurrying around in the backfield.

In the next couple of days I'll ignore that negative little voice and write about all the positive stuff that has me cleaning out my cooler, stocking up on beer, and gathering up tailgate food more excitedly than I have in a long while. 

Texas hate fest

Tim Griffin over at ESPN's Big 12 blog affirmed something I think most Longhorn fans have already come to terms with, the rest of the Big 12 hates us as much as we hate ourselves (come on we boo our own team). He did so by posting not one but two articles in a row today about the less than favorable opinions of our fellow conference members. He makes nice, though, by blaming it on our superior everything. We are like the America of the Big 12.

2008 Football Defense: Volume 1

2007 was an interesting year for the Horns in terms of defense. By "interesting" I mean the kind of interesting a professor uses when you answer a posed question totally wrong, but he/she doesn't want to hurt your feeling so replies with "That's a very interesting point, but not quite what I was looking for." Of course it would be foolish to say the Horns totally missed the point as far as defense goes in '07, but there are certainly areas they absolutely must improve in if they want to be relevant in the Big 12 next year.

The Bad Guys' Offense

In '08 the conference foes we will be losing are Kansas State, Iowa State, and Nebraska. Northerners added to the schedule for next year are Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado. Assuming that all the new players signed in the Big 12 will have little or no impact* on the existing team and that all major player losses are at least kind of compensated for, the BCS final ranking from last season pretty much sums up how much stronger the teams the Horns will face next year will be. Kansas State, Iowa State, and Nebraska all ended the season unranked in every top 25 poll and had a combined record of  13-23. Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado ended up ranked 6th, 8th, and unranked, respectively, with an incredible combined record of 30-10. We literally traded the bottom of the Big 12 North for the top based on last year's performances. Other noticeable additions to our schedule 

*Colorado signed the infamous Darrell Scott, who in my opinion is the only new player that will make a major impact on the Big 12 next year. 

Pass Defense

Everyone who has ever even walked by DKR or posted a comment on any college football blog knows that "teh horns pass d3fense like totally suckz!!1!" Although there are a few reasons as to why the pass defense hasn't been what it should be (ranked 67th in yards/pass attempt with 7.0,  109th in passing yards/game with 278 , 112th in passes attempted with 517), it is safe to say it wasn't stellar. You might say "we play Tech and they attempt like 6.022x10^23 passes per game, so that's why our average attempts per game is so high." Not true, the Horns rank 10th in the Big 12 in attempts/game, barely edging out the defensive heavyweight Baylor, and squeaking ahead of them by just over 1 passing  yard/game allowed. The fact that everyone wants to throw against the Horns tells me one thing: every team Texas faced last year knew we were far better at stopping the run than the pass. Here is a graph of how prolific the offenses the Horns face next year are at getting the ball to their receivers against the national average, and our offense for comparison's sake:

Not surprisingly, Tech on average passed for the most yards per game (it is their entire offense after all). The graph does show that except for Arkansas and Texas A&M, every single team on the schedule passed more than the national average. Except for Arkansas and Texas A&M, every team on our schedule runs the pass-heavy spread offense. It should be noted that Florida Atlantic only played one ranked team, but still managed 309 yards, averaging 8.1 yards/attempt. Essentially, Texas is a team that struggles to stop the pass in a conference that absolutely loves to throw the ball. All these numbers prove one thing: pass defense is going to be extremely important for the 2008 Longhorn defense.

Rush Defense (nice things!)

The 2007 Longhorn defense was much happier when the ball stayed on the ground. The Horns were ranked 6th nationally in rushing yards allowed on the ground with 93.38 yards/game, and 7th in rushing yards per attempt with 2.86 yards/attempt. Here's a graph of how well our '08 opponents ran the ball on average last year.

Six of the teams Texas faces next year were below the national average, two of which apparently only ran because they didn't want to feel dumb for completely wasting scholarships on running backs. Arkansas was actually ranked fourth in the nation in rushing yards per game, the reason for which just ran a 4.33 40 at the NFL combine. Oklahoma State also lost a mutant athlete in running back Dantrell Savage to the NFL draft, so their rushing attack may not be as powerful in '08. Based on last season, Texas will be facing a great deal of teams that don't run well with a defense that has been very successful at stopping the run. The upshot: the 2008 Longhorn defense will be best served if improving pass defense is their main goal.

NOTE: all the statistical information in this post came from cfbstats.com, an awesome site for anything to do with stats in college football.