Defense wins championships
The hiring of Will Muschamp has Texas fans rightfully excited. The guy is one of the best defensive coordinators in college football and there are a lot of people out there who think that a great defense is what is keeping Texas from winning championships.
I’ve always thought that it was better for a Mack Brown coached team to have a great offense rather than a great defense. So I’m going to look at the great defenses that Mack Brown has had at both North Carolina and Texas and see if they led to a championship. I’m defining a great defense as one that ranks in the Top 10 nationally in both total defense and scoring defense.
1996 North Carolina - Ranked in the top 5 in the nation in every defensive category and did not give up more than 20 points in any game that season. They get extra credit for doing it in such faggoty uniforms.
Florida State won the conference that year, and North Carolina finished 2nd. Florida St beat them 13-0.
1997 North Carolina - Again ranked in the top 5 in the nation in every defensive category and did not give up more than 20 points in any game that season.
Florida State once again won the conference, handing North Carolina their only loss 20-3.
2000 Texas - Ranked in the top ten in total, rushing and pass efficiency defense and ranked number eleven in scoring defense. I know I said top ten, but forty two of those points given up were defensive and special team touchdowns. Take those away, and it would have been top ten.
Oklahoma won the conference with Texas finishing second. A distant second. Bob Stoops made a statement by destroying Texas 63-14. Total team breakdown.
2001 Texas - This was the best defense Brown has had at Texas, and it was ranked in the top six in total, scoring, rushing and pass efficiency defense.
Despite losing to Oklahoma 14-3, Texas won the South Division. Chris Simms’ meltdown in the championship game against Colorado led to a heartbreaking 2 point loss.
2005 Texas - Ranked in the top ten in total, scoring and pass efficiency defense.
Texas shelled OU 45-12, and went on to win both the conference and the national championship.
So what have we learned?
1) Mack Brown can be counted on to have the second best team in his conference.
2) Mack Brown will have the second best team in his conference because he can’t beat the best team in the conference.
3) Mack Brown can’t beat the best team because his offense can’t score any points against them.
Defense be damned.
July 23, 2008 at 9:00 am
Is the opposite true, i.e. top 10 offense equals championships?
July 23, 2008 at 10:12 am
Certainly not for Tech.
July 23, 2008 at 11:38 am
What are the season results when Mack has had top 10 offenses?
Without looking at numbers I would guess that the 2004 team would lend creedence to the theory that elite offense has suited Mack better.
I would contend, however, that we haven’t had a shut-down defense as good as Ohio St. 2005 or 2001 that might win a championship with a less than stellar offense. The 2001 defense was less than an immovable object.
July 23, 2008 at 11:45 am
Sad but true, no matter how the echeeses of the world try to spin it otherwise.
July 23, 2008 at 12:04 pm
What are the season results when Mack has had top 10 offenses?
Using similar criteria as the defense, 2005 was the only year Texas was ranked in the top ten in both total offense and scoring offense.
2004 was top ten in total offense and #13 in scoring offense. It certainly would have been higher if they had unleashed Vince sooner.
July 23, 2008 at 12:12 pm
What about when Mack Brown has the best Special Teams? I’m trying to look for echeese-worth positives here.
July 23, 2008 at 12:49 pm
If we could only isolate some constant of Mack Browns career that would have kept his teams from performing better on offense.
July 23, 2008 at 12:59 pm
ChrisApplewhite, I do not appreciate those baseless allegations.
July 23, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Since Stoops arrived at OU, we’ve held them to less than 14 points four times. We’ve won two of those.
OU has also held us to less than 14 points four times. They’ve won all four.
July 23, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Mr. Davis,
It is unwise to refute allegations before they name you specifically. And stop drinking sterno in the box and driving home.
July 23, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Henry James, you’ve detailed something I’ve relayed to other posters–that simply to say “we just need a great defense to win championships” is too simplistic, too wishful thinking with GD at the controls.
You noted that UNC got a grand total of three points in those two FSU contests, and Texas got the one FG vs OU in ‘01. If anything, history indicates we’d just likely see a low scoring loss to OU than a triumph.
July 23, 2008 at 3:29 pm
And it would be the defense’s fault.
July 23, 2008 at 5:04 pm
in fairness to Greg, though, we haven’t seen nearly the amount of fetal position playcalling starting ‘05 that we had those five straight losses.
July 24, 2008 at 7:40 am
That’s true. In rewatching some old games circa 2000-2003, it’s really obvious how much we’ve improved offensively (and regressed defensively). Watching us get our shit packed with Chris Simms, Cedric Benson, Roy Williams, Bo Scaife, etc…. I’d forgotten how depressing that was.
July 24, 2008 at 9:12 am
There was just as much fetal position play calling in 05, it was just that with Vince those plays turned into touchdowns. I mean how hard is it to call a zone option roll out pass where Vince decides whether to hand off run or throw? It is the opposite of a play call. The greates offense in that GD orchestrated was the abdication of decision making.
July 24, 2008 at 9:48 am
To this day, Chuck insists that the defense was to blame for the 2001 Big XII title game loss, because it was unable to stop CU from scoring in the drives that followed Simms’ interceptions. The defense is also to blame for failing to prevent A&M from burning out the clock in the final drive of the 2006 one-touchdown-at-home-against-a-.500-team embarrassment, for giving up 200+ yards to Adrian Peterson in a 12-0 shutout loss and for running out of gas in the fourth quarter of the 2002 OU game in which our offense had a string of roughly 79 straight 3-and-outs.
When your fans are that stupid, why fire your best buddy just because his job performance is woefully subpar?
July 25, 2008 at 12:11 pm
El General–one could say that (that GD benefitted tremendously by Vince’s presence). Kinda goes without saying. It’s just one example, but I consider the stark difference approaching halftime vs OU in ‘02 vs ‘05. We had the latter somewhat under control, but the bomb to Pittman in the last moments really stunned ‘em. Stoops later admitted as much. He said it was a backbreaker and caught OU off guard (considering our enormously predictable, protective playcalling for several years). Maybe GD was just setting up OU for that all those other games.
Brick–I’ve many times heard people complain about our defense’s failure in the ‘06 aggie game. And, for whatever reason, Chizik was impotent vs the option.
But to be more reasonable, those posters need to remember without the D at least doing a reasonable job the rest of the game, we don’t have a shot with our shit offense going like it was. Additionally, said D likely pooped out having to hold the fort.
And, in response from those posters, we’ve been reminded about Colt being hurt. Well, it’s obvious he was a shell in the second half. What about the first? Watching him warm up and then seeing him hit nearly all of his passes the first 30 minutes while we had zero points is hard for the apologists to reconcile.
Ripped off on the Sweed call? Maybe. But then remind those guys that we had tremendous field position the first half and still couldn’t get it done.
Speaking of field position, you mention the ‘04 OU game, and that was the best FP anyone could have dreamed about the first half, yet we had that goose egg going into the locker room. Though down only 6-0, it felt like an unscalable mountain. I figured if we couldn’t even get a simple FG after starting with such incredible position time and again, we weren’t going to score.
July 25, 2008 at 12:27 pm
But to be more reasonable, those posters need to remember without the D at least doing a reasonable job the rest of the game, we don’t have a shot with our shit offense going like it was.
Bingo. We lost that game 12-7. It’s tough to blame scoring ONCE on a pathetic defense at home with a Big 12 Title Game appearance on the line on the defense.
July 25, 2008 at 1:35 pm
I think the 01 loss to Colorado in the Big 12 championship game can be blamed in large part on the defense, although Chris Simms’ turnovers helped.
People forget that Colorado was simply running the ball at will, and they weren’t being stopped. IIRC, they had a play, 34b or something like that, where they kept running right behind Andre Gurode and they kept running it over and over and over again b/c the defense wasn’t stopping it.
Also, wasn’t this the game where Benson was knocked out in a freak accident with Mike Williams?
July 25, 2008 at 1:42 pm
“Also, wasn’t this the game where Benson was knocked out in a freak accident with Mike Williams?”
Yes.
July 25, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Beergut,
The D gave up 32 points in that game. Only 10 of those points were scored in the second half. Of the 22 first-half points allowed by the defense, 19 occurred in drives that immediately followed Chris Simms turnovers. The other 7 points were scored by CU’s defense on an interception return.
Take away Simms’ interceptions, and we blow out CU in that game. The D was dominant until a string of turnovers forced them to play with little to no rest and their backs to the goalline, and was really only responsible for 13 of CU’s 39 points.