BCS National Championship 2011 Preview: Part One, the cool stats

If you are reading this article on Fantasy College Blitz, we all know you are a college football freak.

Oregon RB LaMichael James leads the nation in yards from scrimmage in 2010, and leads Oregon to the title game (Icon SMI)

You may develop your own depth charts after the spring games in preparation for the fall, you may just wait until Phil Steele does it for you. Your fantasy drafts, likely all 120 FBS league formats, begin in early August to make room for the weak NFL auctions later in the month.

Fantasy season is over, the individual awards were handed out weeks ago, all that is left is to focus on the top two teams since we all recognize that the ides of January bring us to the game that makes all the research and effort worth it.

The Oregon Ducks and the Auburn Tigers face off in the 2011 BCS National Championship, and it sets up like one of the highest scoring ever.

My prediction for which mascot will do the most pushups will come later this weekend – for now, let this great collection of stats marinate in your mind as you comprehend just how good these offenses really are.

STATBOX:

Total Offense: 1) Oregon 537 ypg, 7) Auburn 498 ypg

Scoring offense: 1) Oregon 49.3 ppg, 4) Auburn 42.7 ppg

Long Scrimmage Plays: Let’s just say no matter how you sort the data on cfbstats.com, Oregon and Auburn are all over the Top 10 nationally in “chunky plays” like an old coach of mine called them.

Run-pass balance and Time of Possession mean a lot to many coaches to control the game, but neither Oregon’s Chip Kelly nor Auburn’s Gene Chizik give two dimes about this traditional approach.Oregon calls 1.7 runs per pass play (62%), while the massive Cam Newton smash leads Auburn to a massive 2.3 runs per pass play (70%!). Both squads rank in the bottom third of the Time of Possession stats also: Oregon only held the ball 27:58 per game while Auburn slowed it down and held the ball for 29:01 per game. Hell of a lot of good the extra time did their opponents.

Just try to knock down Cam Newton - not even the NCAA Infraction committee can! (Icon SMI)

No Statistical analysis would be complete without the BlitzIndex, my proprietary equal-weighted index of three important offense and defense variables: Both offenses excelled in 2010 – even casusal fans know this, so let us instead focus on the defensive stats that diverge and give me confidence that Oregon can win the title game.

Oregon ranked #9 on the defensive index, led by #7 nationally in yards per play allowed with just 4.5 ypp. Auburn struggled all season long against big receivers and they rank #54 nationally overall which is close to bad to average squads like Georgia and Miami (OH)! They were average nationally across the board and yielded almost a full yard per play more against SEC offenses. ADVANTAGE DUCKS.

Both teams protect the ball, but Oregon takes it away more while Auburn protects it better. Net, Oregon is sixth in NCAA with +14 and Auburn #32 only +5. To me, this Tiger inability to create turnovers explains why they  had to endure more close games.

Bullet point talking points by Cliff Clavin:

• 2010 marks the only BCS Title game in which neither team was ranked in the Top Ten pre-season by the AP.
• In the BCS era (b. 1998), eight Heisman Trophy winners have played in the Title Game in the same season, and only two of them won. Cam Newton is the ninth to play, result TBD.
• In the history of the Heisman Trophy (b. 1934), only 11 winners have won the mythical national championship in the same season.
• Oregon has not worn the same uniform combo in back-to-back games since 2003
• Oregon models 4 helmets, 5 jerseys, 4 pants and 4 shoes for a grand total of 1280 uniform permutations. This does not count the throwbacks nor the “Title game only” issue for the 2011 BCS Title Game.
• Did you know Cameron Newton completed all 19 passes this season in his game’s opening drives?

Finally, the sharps put this game at an expected Auburn 38-35 victory, (Tigers -3, Over/under 74) – but most books are begging bettors to take Auburn at even odds whereas it is -120 to get the 3 points on the Oregon side. Bottom line: more money is going to the Ducks, Vegas not willing to budge on the spread but willing to sweeten the odds to balance out the money flow.

Matchup analysis and prediction this weekend: any other cool stats you have seen on these teams?

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