Originally Posted by
BiffTFinancial
decent is about as far as i would go. A&M allows 5.26 yards/play defensively (39th nationally), OU allows 5.44 (55th), so they are right in the middle of the bell curve. offensively, they are both top 10 in YPPlay (A&M 6.91, OU 6.6) and both do very well at converting yards into points (A&M 12.3 YPPoint, OU 12.6; close to 12 = elite there).
i think that you need to be careful looking at defensive points allowed/game. many of their games were against teams not in their class who tried to bleed clock in the 1H to keep it close against their elite offensive opponent and had no ability to keep up once the offensive onslaught began. in their respective games against excellent offensive teams (top 20 YPPlay), A&M beat Bama 29-24 in a game that just went under (and if you'll recall the final drive, couldn't have been much closer to going over), while all four of OU's games went over with relative ease (Okie State, Baylor, WVU, TT). perhaps most important is pace. A&M games averaged 154 plays this year while OU's averaged 147. A&M/Bama had only 142 plays, but it was Bama that wanted to limit pace there. total plays in OU games against these four teams with excellent offenses: 182 (Okie State; note was OT game), 163 (Baylor), 160 (WVU) and 142 (TT in early season). down the stretch, against good offenses, OU put its foot on the gas.
so, two elite offenses against two decent/average defenses and both teams should play up tempo. i have it at 150 plays and 79-80 points. if the pace exceeds that (and it might well be in the neighborhood of 160), so much the better. over for me but BOL whatever you play.