Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Big 12 offense VS. SEC defense, or is it the other way around.

Berry Tramel takes a look at the Big-12/SEC debate. He concludes the adage defense wins championships is true, but isn't so sure it applies to regular season or non-BCS bowl games.
Berry Tramel: SEC defenses have the advantage | NewsOK.com
The SEC has won three straight national titles and four of the last six. Two of those SEC championships came at the expense of Oklahoma, which despite juggernaut offenses and Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks lost 21-14 to LSU and 24-14 to Florida.

The SEC has not otherwise dominated the Big 12. The SEC leads the Big 12 15-13 this decade in head-to-head matchups, and that’s with the SEC yet to return games on the back end of home-and-home series (OSU-Georgia, Colorado-Georgia, Kansas State-Auburn).

Here’s what’s interesting. Divide those games into high-scoring and low-scoring, and a clear trend develops.
Bob Stoops weighs in and says it is easy to play defense when you are NOT facing great quarterbacks. Ouch. Could we then assert it is tough to play great offense when you are facing a great defense? How quickly football becomes a game of tic-tac-toe when things are determined off the field.

Thankfully, on the first Saturday in September, Georgia and Oklahoma State will get after it on the field. Then the columnists will have another x or o, depending on their perspective, to play tic-tac-toe with.

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