It seemed a good idea to wait a few days before reflecting
on the 2012 season in order to fully appreciate everything that happened. No, Alabama ’s butt-kicking
for the ages didn’t need any extra thought, but the overall bowl experience
only served to muddle the national picture once more. The SEC rebounded from a
rocky start to post huge blowouts in its final two games, leaving no doubt as
to which conference remains at the top of the mountain (a seventh straight
championship will do that as well). The two contenders for second, though, both
had lackluster campaigns. The Big 12 seemed poised to emphatically grab the
title after the Pac-12 dropped to just 2-4 in the postseason, including a
blowout loss by UCLA to Baylor. But the leagues’ fortunes reversed following
the start of the New Year. The Big 12 lost its last two and three of its last
four, culminating in successive humbling efforts by Oklahoma
and Kansas State ,
the latter of which lost to Oregon .
Stanford also won in the BCS, pulling the Pac-12 back up to .500 while the Big
12 dropped to 4-5.
The ACC finished with the same winning percentage as the
SEC, but played only six bowls to the SEC’s nine. Meanwhile, the Big East
continued its surprising success in the postseason, with yet another team
downing a higher-regarded foe in a BCS game. Of course, both conferences played
weaker opponents than the rest of their automatic-qualifying brethren, but the
Sugar and Orange Bowl wins still count. Bringing up the rear (of the BCS
conferences) was the Big 10, which gratefully waved goodbye to a miserable 2012
after going 2-5.
So what lies ahead for 2013? The SEC shows no signs of
releasing its death grip on the sport, even though it took a couple of
surprising losses to even get Alabama
back into the title game. The truth is that this run won’t be over until
someone beats an SEC team in the championship, and even then Alabama will probably need to be the team
that loses. No one will be impressed if the Big 12 or Pac-12 champion wins the title over South
Carolina or Arkansas .
The season’s final rankings thus point toward where college
football might end up in the final year of the BCS.
Of course, that’s improbable because it’s incredibly
difficult for a coach and his players to maintain that level of excellence for
that long without slipping. We saw that this year when the Tide lost to Texas
A&M. At any point, any seemingly unbeatable juggernaut can be brought to
its knees. It happened to Nebraska ,
it happened to Miami (FL) and it happened to USC. Eventually Alabama ’s run will end. But with Nick Saban
apparently committed to Tuscaloosa
long-term, the program is in better shape to sustain a dynasty than any of
those others schools. It’s a scary thought.
If the Tide are firmly ensconced at the top, who can
challenge them? Even before the thrashing of Notre Dame ended, prognosticators
were throwing out ideas for next season. Notre Dame, after that performance, is
clearly not on the same level as the nation’s elite. Stanford is on the rise
and the team best equipped to match Alabama ’s
roughneck style, but the Cardinal lack the versatility of the Tide. ‘Bama can
play with or without the lead; Stanford, as currently assembled, must always be
within one or two scores to win games.
Challenges could come from within the SEC, from Texas
A&M, LSU, Florida , Georgia or South Carolina . But all those teams, like
Stanford, have issues that would ultimately make them underdogs to Alabama . A&M will
probably suffer a sophomore slump next season. LSU loses a lot defensively and
still hasn’t found a quarterback; they won’t beat Alabama without one. Florida used the Sugar Bowl as their
non-coming out-party. Georgia has lived a charmed life
for the past two seasons but this year the schedule catches up with them as
they play LSU and Clemson. South
Carolina has a lot of potential but a small window. I
think the Gamecocks need to knock off ‘Bama while they still have Jadeveon
Clowney or they’re not going to do it.
While all the SEC rivals are formidable, Alabama would still be favored against each
one. That leaves Oregon ,
the team that many are already projecting as the Tide’s opponent in next
season’s BCS Championship. These way-too-early predictions are just that, but
there’s logic to them as well. Oregon ’s
radically different style is hard to emulate and the Ducks do have a lot coming
back in 2013. Oregon
is better than the Texas A&M team that beat ‘Bama this year. But for all of
Oregon ’s advantages, Alabama has a counter. The Tide are so
stocked with great athletes on defense it seems imperative to get them during
the wear of the regular season. Given the 40 or so days off for a bowl game,
it’s very hard to pick against them. The Ducks would need to play a brilliant
game built from an outstanding gameplan and get up early like the Aggies did.
Even then, if you recall, A&M needed a last-second pick at the goal line to
secure victory. That’s the kind of battle Oregon would be in for. It could happen.
It’s just not likely.
All of this could change. The Tide could be struck by injuries next season. Players could regress, or some of the touted guys coming
in could turn out to be program-killing busts. Perhaps Alabama has been secretly paying recruits
and gets blindsided by the NCAA. The fact that these are the biggest obstacles
to another title, though, tells you all you need to know about the current
separation between this team and the rest of the country.
Pac-12 Final Report
In a strange twist, the conference ended up more or
less where it started when the year began. Early upsets of ranked, big-name
nonleague foes buoyed the Pac-12’s reputation substantially. Oregon State
knocked off Wisconsin .
UCLA took out Nebraska .
Arizona beat Oklahoma State .
In a move that actually helped the conference’s national reputation, Stanford
upset USC, another example of how badly preseason polls skew the season’s
actual results. When a series of teams started to beat each other in conference
play, outsiders started to praise the Pac-12 for its depth, not unlike the SEC.
If Stanford beat USC, the Cardinal had to be good. If Washington then beat Stanford, so did the
Huskies. All the while, Oregon
State was creeping out to
a 6-0 record, its best since 1905. With Oregon
and USC already assumed to be BCS title contenders, anything else just made the
league look good.
Then the other shoe dropped. USC collapsed like the frauds
they were. Arizona
did likewise (though not before beating USC). Oregon State
went 3-3 down the stretch. And in the most damaging result of all for the
conference, Oregon was upset by Stanford,
costing the Ducks a trip to the national championship against Kansas State
or Notre Dame, two teams they would have dominated. The slump continued into
the postseason, where the Pac-12 started 2-4 (including a miraculous 13-point
comeback from sure defeat by Arizona )
with a couple of truly embarrassing blowouts. Even Stanford’s win over middling
Wisconsin in
the Rose Bowl was unimpressive. Oregon ’s
strong victory over Kansas
State wasn’t enough. The
damage had been done during the second half of the season. The Pac-12’s
reputation isn’t any lower than it was at the start of the year, but it’s not
any higher either.
So what does 2013 have in store? There will no doubt be a
lot of changes before next year begins, but here’s the state of each team at
the end of bowl season.
North:
Stanford will be the close second to UO. With an
ever-growing offensive line and an improving group of athletes on defense, the
Cardinal will be the team best-equipped to challenge the Ducks. They’ll need
more from their offense to become truly elite, but this is a talented team.
Finally getting over the hump and winning the conference this season was a big
deal. My only question is whether this program can keep up this level of
excellence, which has been difficult in the past.
Despite finishing above Wazzu , Cal
had to be the last team on this list. The Golden Bears entered 2012 with decent
hopes that were dashed to pieces by a 3-9 finish and the firing of Jeff
Tedford. I liked Tedford but had long maintained that he and Cal needed to part
ways; here’s hoping Sonny Dykes can get this team back on track. Cal has way too many
resources – player and otherwise – to be this bad. Dykes is a Mike Leach
disciple who led Louisiana Tech to a huge 2012. Let’s see what he can do in a
year or two.
South:
UCLA came from semi-nowhere to beat USC and win the
division. With a new coach in Jim Mora and a new QB in Brett Hundley, it seems
the Bruins have finally broken their rival’s stranglehold on L.A. Can they keep it up? UCLA has not been
consistent in the past 15 years. Seasons of promise have led to missed
expectations and coaching turnover, despite the fact that the program sits in
one of the most talent-rich areas in the country. This team needs to capitalize
now on the Trojans’ misfortune.
USC can only go up from here after their embarrassing 2012
ended with losses in five of their last six games. Lane Kiffin may not have
been fired but he’s on a blazingly hot seat and losing Matt Barkley and Robert
Woods is not going to help. I think the Trojans will win more than seven games
next year, but they certainly won’t be favored to win the division or the
conference. For this program, that’s unacceptable. Kiffin has a lot to prove,
fast.
It’s unfair to criticize Kyle Wittingham and Utah too harshly for
2012’s failures. For the second straight season, the Utes lost veteran QB Jordan
Wynn for the year to a shoulder injury, at the cost of the entire offense.
There’s no denying that Utah ,
with its quality defense, would have been a different team with a competent
signal-caller. However, the squad has to make plans without Wynn and keep
improving its depth, which has been suspect since moving up to a BCS
conference. At this point Utah
has not yet looked ready to compete in the Pac-12.
Although the Buffaloes beat fellow bottom-dweller Wazzu,
it’s obvious this is the worst team in the conference. There are a lot of
questions over whether firing Jon Embree was the right move, but what’s done is
done. CU has been horrendous the past two seasons; think 2008-2010 Washington
State bad. There are few players on the roster who would start for any other teams
in the league, there’s no identity on offense or defense and the coaching
situation is in flux. Unfortunately, this may yet get worse before it gets
better. History shows that Colorado
is a place where football games can be won. It’s just hard to see that
happening in the near future.
Season-ending Thoughts
I don’t even know where to begin with the Manti Te’o story.
Suffice it to say that his and Notre Dame’s explanation of what happened seems
more than a little suspect, and even if this Tuiasosopo character (dear Lord,
there’s ANOTHER one?) confesses to everything many people will never believe
this was anything but a cover-up. Only Te’o knows what happened and I doubt
he’ll ever come clean. I’d like to believe that he lied to school officials
about the situation and they were unaware… but this is Notre Dame. Myth-making
is practically a major there.
In more relevant Notre Dame news, I went looking for answers
as to why the Irish defense – so good during the regular season – looked
utterly outmatched against the good, but not elite Alabama offense. Granted, the Tide play a
physical, in-your-face game, but style isn’t enough to explain the domination
we saw. Notre Dame led the entire country in scoring defense (before the
bowls). An elite D should have been able to do something to adjust. So was it
possible that the Fighting Irish’s strong defense was a product of a weak
schedule?
Recall, in August, that Notre Dame’s schedule was daunting.
10 BCS conference opponents, the only good academy (Navy) and a solid
independent (BYU) lay in wait. If the team could get through that minefield
unscathed, they deserved to play for a national championship, I said. And they
did. However, as the season progressed it became clear that, through no fault
of its own, many of the team’s opponents were decidedly underperforming. USC
was the biggest flop, but Oklahoma
– despite a 10-win season – underachieved as well (Side note: Kirk Herbstreit,
how do you feel about OU playing in the BCS now?).
This trend continued down the Irish’s schedule. With the
exception of Stanford (and we all know how that game ended), not one of Notre
Dame’s foes lived up to the hype. BYU dropped to 7-5. Likewise for Miami (FL). Traditional
rivals Michigan
and MSU were a combined 14-10. All in all, the schedule turned out to be merely
average. More to the point, the offenses the Irish faced weren’t even that.
That’s where the defensive numbers begin to be explained.
Notre Dame faced exactly three offenses ranked in the
nation’s top 50, and even that comes with an asterisk – USC, the lowest ranked
of the three, was playing without Matt Barkley (One might argue that being
coached by Lane Kiffin was in fact a bigger handicap, but I can neither confirm
nor deny that). In any case, that’s a pretty easy group of offenses to play
against. The story becomes even clearer when you compare Notre Dame to the
other scoring defenses in the top five nationally: Alabama ,
BYU, Rutgers and Florida .
Each of those teams played at least four top-50 offenses and
none was against a crippled team like USC. Additionally, comparing the 12
FBS offenses each of the five defenses faced in descending order (from best to
worst) reveals a couple of things. For one, Notre Dame had the strongest
opponent in only two of twelve games (their eighth- and ninth-best foes), while
they had the weakest opponent in three and the second-weakest in two more. In
eight of 12 games – or two-thirds of the season – the Irish faced the third,
fourth or fifth rated offense, i.e., average to below-average. That includes
each of the best seven offenses they played.
This is particularly relevant because the gap in quality
gets much wider past the middle of the pack. At a certain point, be it ranked
75th or 85th, an offense just isn’t very good. Every offense in
the top 50 is pretty solid. All of the top-five defenses played at least one
top-25 offense, so those numbers are about even. But because the other schools
faced additional offenses near that level of quality and Notre Dame did not,
the results show that the Irish faced a fairly weak set of teams en route
to their lofty defensive ranking.
Even with this information, though, I wasn’t satisfied.
There wasn’t a consistent pattern to explain what made the ND defense
overrated. That’s because I hadn’t noticed the outlier. Oklahoma ’s offense finished 12th
in the nation and Notre Dame played its best game of the season – on both sides
– against the Sooners. But OU was by far the best team the Irish faced. What
would happen, I wondered, if you eliminated the best and worst offenses each
team played and then re-averaged those opponents?
The results speak for themselves:
Average rank of opposing offense Average rank (minus
best/worst)
BYU 71.3 71.7
Notre Dame 69.8 82.6
First off, well done, Florida .
A top-five defense with that schedule? Wow. When you consider how bad Florida ’s offense was,
you can make a strong case that the Gators, not the Tide, had the nation’s best
defense. Now, about these numbers. It’s fairly obvious that Oklahoma severely skewed Notre Dame’s
average. None of the other four schools here saw their number change by any
more than about one point. Notre Dame’s skyrocketed. It further explains why
the Irish defense was “less than meets the eye.” All of these teams played a
few terrible offenses and few so-so ones, but only Notre Dame failed to face
any that were truly great (save one).
By the way, I also didn’t count the national championship,
when Notre Dame gave up 42 points.
It was a wild and wonderful season. True, I had hoped
someone other than an SEC team might be holding the crystal football in
January, but there’s always next year. This was also a season in which I learned a few lessons, which I’d like to share.
Traditional football logic says that offense wins games and
defense wins championships. That’s certainly never been truer than in this
SEC-centric age. However, within that philosophy there’s always been a certain
understanding that crucial to playing great defense is the ability to keep said
defense rested by denying the opposition the ball. Hence the decades of
offenses based on rushing as a first, second and third option. The spread
revolution of the past decade has been the greatest challenger in history to
that philosophy and changes in the rules at the pro and college level have
enabled offenses to soar to heights that would have been laughable only a
generation ago.
Running the football, though, requires at least a token
ability to keep the defense honest with the threat of the pass. One of my
biggest irritants is teams that win by stubbornly handing the ball off 40 times
and tossing a half-dozen bad passes a game with a mediocre QB.
However, given the success of several SEC schools in the past several years,
it’s become clear this formula is not without merit. By placing the best
athletes on the defense (to keep games close) and at the skill positions (to
break one or two big plays), these teams can play this ugly style to great
effect. It’s immaterial that they get stuffed on the ground over and over, as
long as the QB can get the ball downfield more or less in the area of one of
his talented receivers on that one occasion the defense bites. It’s an aggravating
strategy, but what’s inarguable is that it’s effective.
How will the rest of the country respond? They’ve got eight
months to figure something out and end the conference’s stranglehold on the
sport. For some reason, I think they’ll be ready. Until then, we’re all just
living in an SEC world, albeit one in which their boost from the BCS will soon
disappear. Who knows what the brave new world of a playoff will hold? The
countdown has begun.