How OSU’s Offense and Defense Looks Nationally

Kyle did a nice job writing about offensive and defensive efficiency this week, but I thought I would go back to my toolbox and pull out a scatterplot graph to shed some light on how the Big 12 teams stack up against each other and the rest of the country.

I used Bill Connelly’s S&P+ ratings to chart each of the 128 FBS teams in offense and defense according to their ratings in each category. The S&P+ system evaluates teams based on what Connelly calls the Five Factors of college football: efficiency, explosiveness, field position, finishing drives, and turnovers. S&P+ is adjusted for garbage time and strength of schedule, but most importantly it’s a smart ratings system — I trust it.

You want to the at the top right of this chart — closer to the top means you have a great offense, closer to the right means you have a better defense.

Notes

• All of the gray dots are teams outside of the Big 12. The team closest to the top right corner is Ohio State. Alabama is slightly lower and to the right. Michigan is the team with the “perfect” defense on the far right.

• OU and TCU are right on top of each other, which I guess is appropriate given the game they just played against each other.

• No surprise – the Big 12 has a bunch of good-to-great offenses but only three defenses in the top half of all FBS teams. West Virginia has been getting good press about playing defense, but it’s K-State that has the Big 12’s best defense so far.

• Texas Tech makes their annual appearance in the “great offense, awful defense” club.

• The one I just don’t get is Texas. They finally have a solid offense, but how can the University of Texas not find enough kids to produce an outstanding defense every year? This is why Bedford is currently Googling COBRA insurance.

• OSU is 18th nationally in offensive efficiency, but only 5th in the Big 12. What a conference.

• OSU is 75th nationally in defensive efficiency, but still manages to be 6th in the Big 12. What a conference.
Aside from K-State, the best defense OSU will face for the rest of the season is ranked No. 51 in S&P+ (WVU). Rudolph & Hill are going to light up some scoreboards.

• As for this weekend, Iowa State is ranked No. 104 in defense, also known as seven spots worse than Texas. The good news for Spencer is that ISU has just a slightly above average offense among all FBS teams – they are No. 59, also known as four spots better than Central Michigan.

S&P+ rankings in the Yurcich / Spencer era:

Offense

• 2013 – 20
• 2014 – 69
• 2015 – 23
• 2016 – 18
• Avg – 32.5

Defense

• 2013 – 9
• 2014 – 63
• 2015 – 63
• 2016 – 75
• Avg – 52.5

Yurcich had one bad year and what looks like three top 25 years. The bad year can be partially excused by having to put Daxx Garman under center due to injuries.

Spencer had one elite year and is 5 games into his third consecutive disappointing season. I’ll be kind and refrain from further comment, but let’s hope that the move to the booth produces better results.