Today's offense and defense, with some context

So the numbers put up today by Illinois and Michigan were unbelievable, but I thought it would be interesting to consider them with a bit of context.  So consider this:

Today's combined score of 132 is

• More than the total number of points given up by the 1997 team (114).
• Only 33 points less than the total given up by last year's NC winner Alabama, and that was over 14 games (165).

The 67 points given up the Illini is:

• More than the combined points they have given up in Big 10 play (62) if you exclude OSU.  
• Represents the most points scored by UM this season, and makes UM the only team in the country to score 61+ against two FBS teams this season.  

The 257 net rushing yards by UM is

• 5 yards less than Illinois gave up the past two weeks combined (to Purdue and Indiana).
• More than doubled the average rushing yards given up by the Illini this season (117.5 yds/gm).
• A little less than half the total rushing yards given up by the Boise St. this year, the #2 rush defense in the country.

The 419 passing yards by UM is

• 2.2 times the number of average passing yards given up the Illini this season (184 yds/gm).
• 259 yds less than the total number of passing yds by Georgia Tech this season.
• This might be a little convoluted, but if 419 yds is considered in terms of miles, the distance between Ann Arbor to Urbana (~347 miles) is less.

The combined 49 2nd-quarter points is

• Equal to or greater than the final scores for 7 games this week featuring at least 1 ranked team.
• More than the combined scores for every Big 10 game this weekend, save for the 56 put up by PSU-NW.

The 561 total yards given up by UM is:

• About 2.5 times more than the average total yardage given up the 1997 team (223 yds/gm).
• But, only .5 yds/play more than the defense usually gives up per game (6.07), and factoring out the OT scoring was just about equal per play for the season.

Miscellaneous:

• UM's 3rd-quarter shutout of Illinois was only the 2nd time during league play the defense had accomplished the feat (the other time was the 1st quarter against MSU).
• Illinois was credited with only one sack on the day, which is below the average for Illinois (1.88/gm) and only raised UM's total for the year to 4.  Think about that for a second and then think about 2008.

So yeah, not all great news, but I am still constantly amazed by what this offense is able to do against legitimately good defenses.