Baylor vs. Texas - Statistical Preview

If I had to guess, I’d think Texas is going to set up their defense to try and prevent long scores.

Under the rim of his black leather beaver hat, Manny Diaz snorts. The finger bones in his hat band rattle, but no one else is there to hear.

He tosses the rooster’s head into the roiling pot, and smiles.

Someone writes about Baylor football? Huh. You learn something new every day.

Well, that someone writes about Baylor football, in detail, with high expectations, and he’s not paid to do so. THAT is a revelation.

No pun intended.

Although it would be easier to run on the Baylor D once they’ve been raptured.

That was a pretty sound analysis. I don’t find myself disagreeing with any aspect of that, save the understandable (though still undeserved) optimism that Baylor’s D will stop UT’s O. Our offense is bad, yes, but we’ve run roughshod over defenses that display the kind of ineptitude Baylor rolls out on a weekly basis. I think we’ll score 30+. The question is: can we keep them from scoring 30+.

I don’t know. The Aggies scored 25, and our D played really, really well. Baylor is better. On the other hand, our inability to move the ball hung the D out to dry over and over, to the tune of at least 13 points. So if we’re moving the ball better against Baylor, maybe limiting them to 20 or so is realistic.

Spider, I don’t know how many Baylor guys would qualify for the rapture, but I do suspect we’d have to play Ash.

@TubaJon-

You might have to play Ash, but then again, we’d probably be rolling Robert “T” Griffin out there at quarterback.

He’s a duel threat as well though – eat or sleep.

The Aggies scored 25, and our D played really, really well.

Which was a Good Thing, since the agy starting field position was on our twelve yard line.

Baylor is better.

Than agy? Not according to the scoreboard – agy D gave Baylor O one point more than they gave us, and Baylor D gave agy O 30 points MORE than our D gave agy. Yeah, people were hurt, in various combinations, but that fact doesn’t put an asterisk by the score.

I recognize that the “they scored/we scored” comparison doesn’t reflect outcomes with any great accuracy, but our point is that Baylor has a very bad D, which has not held anyone under 30 points this season, other than ISU (and SFAustin, but so what?).

Given any running attack at all, coupled with reasonable ball security and no egregiously erroneous zebramatics, I think we have a better than even chance of winning this game. I expect that with problems in any or all of those three areas, and we reprise 2010 and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

What the hell – if we could determine the outcome from history, we wouldn’t need to play at all…

“It’s bigger to beat Oklahoma State than to beat Texas,” OU tailback Roy Finch said. “I feel like Oklahoma State has overtaken Texas a little bit.”

Thank you Mack Brown.

Petunia I wouldn’t put too much stock into what a guy like Finch says. He is afterall, playing 2nd string to a walk-on, and it’s only his 2nd season with the gooners. His recency bias and lower than avg IQ account for his stupidity…

Pin this on the friggin’ board during RRR ’12 week.

@ Tex Long-

Keep in mind that our point totals are a bit inflated by the pace at which we play (as compared to Texas). Baylor games (Baylor plays and opponent plays) are averaging 153 plays – Texas games are averaging 139 plays.

That’s at least one extra drive on each side of the ball.

I just heard rumor that nick saban is in austin and Mack brown is supposed to retire after Baylor game.

Anybody else hearing anything like this?

Keep in mind that our point totals are a bit inflated…

Yes, but that makes it even worse for Baylor, because – provided that we actually have a running game going – Baylor gets fewer touches and less time to work magic. If we take care of the three things I mentioned previously, we win, I feel confident about that, although less confident that we will take care of them. The third one, of course, depends on the refs not calling phantom fouls, over which we have little control… however, the “egregious error” rule allows the replay official to overturn any call on the field, not just “reviewable” ones. This is something that needs to be addressed, as so many of the new, improved “targeting” rule PF penalties have been seen to be incorrect on replays. If I were Mack, I’d be hammering Anderson and the rest of the XII offices on this.

People commenting on BON noted a tweet (didn’t recognize the name) that says Mack is retiring after the Baylor game. JS’s tweets suggest something slightly different and that a Humidor post will be forthcoming with more details. Petersen again is mentioned as the successor. Not sure how or if Urban Meyer played into this, but JS reiterated that Petersen was always the guy when tweeted about missing on Meyer.

@Jakelebahn
According to a source Texas Longhorn head coach Mack Brown will retire this Saturday after the game against Baylor.
2 hours ago

My source is in the coaching world in regards to mack brown. Will have to wait and see if he is right.
1 hour ago

He only has 223 twitter followers, so I think it’s safe to say he’s never broken a story like this before. It also makes me wonder how this was picked up on so quickly by the Longhorn internets. I guess I don’t really understand how this “twitter” thing works.

Friend told me he heard it on sporting news. Saban gave Mack brown names to hire last year like Diaz and obviously Bo Davis. Story said that was because this move was alreadynplanned last year so saban was basically picking his own staff. Sounds far fetchednto me but that is what they are saying. I guess we will have to wait and see. My question is why would he not coach through the bowl game??

@Tex – targeting is always going to be a judgment call. What penalties are reviewable? 12 men on the field? Is that all? (Not sure, legitimately asking).

Why the f#$k would Saban come here? Just money? I don’t think so. And why would Mack leave now? Unless he’s realized that due to his negligence we won’t have a truly viable QB (and thus offense) for 2 more years. Hence, he’s lost the drive to get another possible MNC any later than that. None of it makes a lick of sense.

The Nick Saban to Texas nonsense has got to stop. Why would he be leaving Alabama again? For a Texas team that is in much weaker shape than Alabama? It’s a sideways move into a rebuilding project for a 60 year old man.

He handpicked our current staff? Where do people come up with this stuff?

Saban isn’t moving to another college job. Texas is a better job than Alabama but it’s not enough of an upgrade to justify uprooting himself and starting over. And Alabama could match anything Texas would pay. Their football program is almost as rich as ours and their obsession level is higher. Same situation as when Florida came after Bob Stoops before they hired the Zookster. UF was an upgrade, but not enough of an upgrade, so Stoops stayed at OU.

Hiring Saban to run Texas football would be roughly like hiring Capone to run the Justice Department.

You don’t question the man’s capabilities, but wow, not exactly a good cultural fit…

I want the Humidor and I want it now.

Alright JS. Time to put out. The rumor mill is all over the place with Brown’s retiring. Let’s have some Humidor.

Mike Sherman was just fired.

They played 8 common conference opponents and rice with us.
Scores vs. Common opponents…

Baylor points for:
41.8 per game
Baylor points against:
39.6 per game.

Average margin of victory is just over 2 points per game from our common opponents.

Let’s look at TX.
Points for: 28.2 per game
Points against: 21.7 per game.

We won against our 9 common foes by about 6.5 ppg.

Put it all together and we win by 4 points. Minus 3 points for Home Field and we win by one point. Yikes.

Wow, some impressive statistical analysis there. I’m impressed. Comparative scores amongst common opponents are not indicative of the outcome between two teams. But in depth statistical analysis can help in making smart wise decisions in picking winners and losers. Texas/Baylor have 9 common opponents. That’s a lot of solid comparative stats to go on. Simply put Texas, with its warts and all offense, has performed better than Baylor against the same nine opponents. The biggest difference is the score board. Pretty darn impressive that a team like Texas could outscore these 9 opponents by a 6 point margin. That’s huge. Afterall it is the points on the scoreboard at the end of 60 minutes that determines the winner.

Can Baylor blow out Texas, sure they can. They are the most explosive team I have seen in a long time, they can throw the long ball, break the long runs, 3rd and 20 is not a problem for them. Texas offense has the odds against it when they are 3rd and 4.

But the Baylor defense is another story. Of course the Baylor faithful thinks they will be good enough to stop the anemic Texas offense. They may be right as we never know which Texas offense will show up, the one that smacked Iowa State, UCLA, TT, and Kansas or the one that looked so inept against OU and Missouri.

But if I were a Baylor fan, I would not be confident at all, even on my home turf in Waco. Texas fans will dominate the stadium and outnumber the Bears. Waco is basically the Horns home field to the north.

Secondly I would be very wary of the huge difference in special teams. The kicking game is a Texas specialty once again.

Also the Texas defense will have lots to say about the outcome. Last 5 games, there are no comparative defenses in the Big 12 to Texas. Only LSU, Alabama defenses can be compared to the Texas defense over the past 5 games. I don’t see a let down in the Texas Defense.

Baylor wins if Texas turns the ball over. Texas wins if they stay away from turnovers and keeps Baylor with long field situations.

Baylor fans that think Texas is incapable of scoring 30 points on your defense are insane. I’ve seen the Baylor run defense and even their pass defense, I think Texas can even have completions on this group.