Monday, January 9, 2012

Counting Down the Champions, #1: 2005 Texas Longhorns

Date TFG RBA Away Team       TFG RBA Home Team Plays Odds
TFG / RBA
2005/09/03 108 / 104 LA-Lafayette 3 at   8 /  10 Texas 60 168  98.3% /  96.9%
2005/09/10   3 /   6 Texas 25 at  12 /  13 Ohio St. 22 157  52.5% /  33.1%
2005/09/17  96 / 107 Rice 10 at   2 /   7 Texas 51 157  98.0% /  97.1%
2005/10/01   4 /   7 Texas 51 at  43 /  44 Missouri 20 189  82.4% /  89.7%
2005/10/08   4 /   3 Texas 45 vs   7 /  24 Oklahoma 12 167  55.8% /  70.7%
2005/10/15  30 /  28 Colorado 17 at   4 /   2 Texas 42 173  87.4% /  73.9%
2005/10/22  14 /  14 Texas Tech 17 at   2 /   2 Texas 52 184  81.9% /  73.2%
2005/10/29   2 /   2 Texas 47 at  68 /  80 Oklahoma St. 28 186  91.0% /  94.6%
2005/11/05   3 /   2 Texas 62 at  87 /  84 Baylor 0 164  95.8% /  96.1%
2005/11/12  49 /  38 Kansas 14 at   1 /   2 Texas 66 175  93.6% /  86.0%
2005/11/25   1 /   2 Texas 40 at  44 /  48 Texas A&M 29 171  92.5% /  91.4%
2005/12/03   2 /   1 Texas 70 vs  36 /  29 Colorado 3 166  88.7% /  75.8%
2006/01/04   1 /   1 Texas 41 vs   3 /   2 USC 38 182  62.6% /  38.8%


Texas Longhorns
Year WinPct SoS Off. Def. Pace
2005 0.948 1 0.538 62 36.0 1 11.2 3 170.5 55
Justin
They were called the greatest college football team ever assembled. Eleven players went in the NFL draft: seven on the first day, four on the second. Their offense had two Heisman winners.

And the best BCS champion in our countdown defeated them, 41-38, in the 2006 BCS championship game. In retrospect, the blind "arrogance" of Will Ferrell versus the cool, justified confidence of Matthew McConaughey in this pregame clip sums up the pregame attitudes better than I can say here.

This Texas team was the clear TFG #1 heading into this game, listed at 62.6% likely to win. So why Texas and not USC? The Longhorns eeked by (12) Ohio State, but from there on out simply dominated their competition. They put up 26.9 PPH against (7) Oklahoma, 28.3 PPH against (14) Texas Tech, and averaged 33.0 PPH in their two meetings against (30) Colorado. On top of that, their defense was the #3 defense in FBS that year, only allowing 11.2 PPH. USC, by comparison, allowed 12.7 PPH in their season. So why all the USC hype? They were the defending national champions (possibly two-time national champions, depending on who you ask), played a tougher schedule than Texas, and defeated more top-30 teams than the Longhorns. But USC also had more close calls than Texas, which should have been cause for concern (who remembers the "Bush push" against then-TFG#27 Notre Dame?). In the end, the Longhorns proved that they and not the over-hyped Trojans were the team of the decade.

Texas Longhorns
Year WinPct SoS Off. Def. Pace
2005 1.000 1 0.500 65 29.5 2 8.4 7 169.8 67
Eddie
(1) Texas beat out one of the greatest teams of all time in the 2006 Rose Bowl in (2) Southern Cal, and that tells you something about Vince Young's Longhorns. After beating (15) Ohio State by a field goal in September, nobody came within 10 or held the Longhorns to fewer than 40 points until the Rose Bowl. Even then, the Trojans only came within a field goal of the Longhorns. Texas's offensive efficiency of 35.1 +/- 11.1 PPH is amazing. To put that in perspective, we'd expect Vince Young and company to hang 27.8 PPH against this year's LSU Tiger defense. That's roughly equal to 46 points. Think about that for a second. This year's top two teams played to a 9-6 final score in overtime, and RBA expects Texas to score over 40 points against them. Texas's defense is very good at 4.4 +/- 7.5 PPH. That's not quite as good as many of the teams on this list, but they didn't have to be due to their explosive offense, making them the top team in our countdown.

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