Reasons Texas is #1
After Brian's comments about why he chose Oklahoma ahead of Texas, I thought I might post why I think Texas is better than Oklahoma. I took Texas Tech out of the equation because I think they are the weakest of the 3. I also know there are plenty of reasons why Oklahoma should be ahead of Texas, but from my point of view, the points for Texas outweigh the points of Oklahoma.
1) The most obvious. Texas beat Oklahoma on a neutral field. Texas and Oklahoma both had weak opponents the previous week and should have been fully prepared for one another.
2) Texas faced Oklahoma(11-1), Missouri(9-3), Oklahoma St(9-3) in the 3 weeks leading up to their loss to Texas Tech.
Oklahoma faced Washington(0-12), TCU(10-2), Baylor(4-8) leading up to their loss to Texas.
2.5) Oklahoma faced Kansas St(5-7), Nebraska(8-4), Texas A&M(4-8) leading up to their game at home against Texas Tech. Texas was @ Texas Tech for their loss.
3) Texas' opponents that did not play Oklahoma had an average of 6.5 wins while Oklahoma's opponents that did not play Texas had 5.7 wins. The teams that those opponents beat had an average of 4.6 wins (Texas' opponents' opponents) and 3.2 wins (Oklahoma's opponents' opponents). This shows that Texas had a somewhat more difficult schedule than Oklahoma. This is probably the least important and weakest point, but I thought I would point it out considering that Brian said he made his decision on strength of schedule.
4) Texas lost on a last second touchdown playing on their opponents field. Texas scored the winning touchdown with almost 8 minutes left in the game and then put another TD on top of that to seal the deal. If all 3 of the games between these teams had been played on a neutral field, I think we would have a 12-0 Texas, 11-1 Oklahoma, and 10-2 Texas Tech.
5) Texas actually plays defense, which I think is a large part that they won against Oklahoma. This will also be important when they play in the BCS games.
a) Texas held Oklahoma to their lowest score of the season (35 points, tied with TCU) while Texas's score was right in the middle of the range of the rest of their scores in the season.
b) Texas' opponents had an average score of 18.6 points while Oklahoma had an average score of 24.8 points and if you drop the 2 point Chattanooga game that is largely out of the range of the other score, that rises to 26.9 points.
c) Texas's opponents only surpassed 25 points 3 times this season while Oklahoma opponents scored more than 25 points in 7 games.
Is there any thing else that I missed? BTW, this would be so much more fun if the controversy involved Michigan.
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:08 AM ^
I was wondering when the discussion would start about which team is better: Texas or Oklahoma.
I think Oklahoma is a better team (for beating more top 30 teams), but I think Texas should be the Big 12 rep. Why? Head-to-head + overall strength of schedule (which is slightly in Texas's favor). But I blame any discussion on the Big 12. Who makes the first tiebreaker BCS ranking? I figured it was the same system across the board: overall wins/losses, then head-to-head, then record against common opponents. If all of those are ties or N/A, then use something like ranking as last resort.
Personally, I like Texas Tech's recommendation to use graduation rate as the tie breaker.
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:37 AM ^
but the first four couldn't be applied to a three-way tie. Any way you want to decide this is going to be a mess. I just think that if Oklahoma gets the nod, then this is put up or shut up time for the next decade for them. Its been just long enough that most people have forgotten how badly they've laid an egg in big bowl games. Personally I think they've fooled everyone just like they did back with those Jason White teams.