Daily Blog • September 12, 2010

Welcome to my Sunday Blog. During the offseason I had just one weekend blog but each week during the season I will take a look at the Top 25 performances from the just completed week with a little analysis as well as a quick review of the past weekend. On Monday I will give you my News & Notes where I delve deeper into every game that was played this past weekend, breaking down individual drives and giving you misleading finals and other interesting tidbits.

As far as my game grades go after the 2008 season was completed I devised a power ratings system, which lets me analyze at what level each team played during an individual game. This “game grade” takes into account the yards rushing, yards passing, points scored, rushing yards allowed, passing yards allowed and points allowed and factors them in against the opponent played and even factors in the site the game was played at.

With all these factors taken into consideration you will see teams that lost the game having a better individual game grade than teams that beat them simply because the team they played was superior and much less was expected of them.

Top 25 Performances of the Week

Rk Team Opp Off
Rush
Off
Pass
Off
Pts
Def
Rush
Def
Pass
Def
PTS
TO's Yd
Diff
Gm
Grade
1 OKLAHOMA Florida St 92 395 47 113 211 17 2 163 102.9
2 OREGON AT Tennessee 246 201 48 179 153 13 0 115 99.0
3 STANFORD AT UCLA 213 151 35 152 81 0 4 131 98.5
4 CALIFORNIA Colorado 159 197 52 73 166 7 5 117 97.9
5 ALABAMA Penn St 180 229 24 126 153 3 3 130 97.6
6 S CAROLINA Georgia 187 165 17 61 192 6 0 99 97.4
7 NEVADA Colorado St 376 255 51 78 194 6 1 359 96.8
8 OHIO ST Miami, Fl 181 233 36 121 232 24 4 61 95.6
9 TEXAS A&M Louisiana Tech 216 349 48 61 208 16 0 296 94.9
10 AUBURN AT Mississippi St 190 158 17 117 129 14 -1 102 93.2
11 IOWA Iowa St 277 204 35 80 196 7 3 205 91.3
11 FLORIDA USF 251 170 38 246 85 14 5 90 91.3
13 WASHINGTON Syracuse 175 292 41 112 224 20 1 131 89.7
14 MIAMI FLA AT Ohio St 121 232 24 181 233 36 -4 -61 88.8
15 AIR FORCE BYU 409 68 35 221 88 14 2 168 88.6
16 LSU AT Vanderbilt 280 112 27 65 70 3 0 257 88.3
17 TCU TENN TECH 269 182 62 61 58 7 4 332 88.0
18 MICHIGAN AT Notre Dame 288 244 28 154 381 24 3 -3 87.5
19 VIRGINIA AT USC 148 189 14 125 202 17 -1 10 85.8
20 HOUSTON UTEP 308 348 54 100 340 24 -1 216 83.9
20 BAYLOR Buffalo 173 320 34 162 163 6 0 168 83.9
22 NEBRASKA Idaho 360 111 38 60 219 17 2 192 83.3
23 ARKANSAS UL Monroe 97 401 31 121 71 7 -1 306 82.4
24 GEORGIA AT South Carolina 61 192 6 187 165 17 0 -99 82.0
25 NOTRE DAME Michigan 154 381 24 288 244 28 -3 3 81.5

1. Oklahoma was clearly looking ahead to FSU last week as they barely beat Utah St. Landry Jones who completed less than 50% of his passes in the opener hit 30-40 for 380 yds vs FSU while Heisman candidate Christian Ponder hit 11-28-113. The game was even more lopsided than the 47-17 final. FSU got 4 FD’s on their first series but then just 5 over the next 2.5Q’s. In fact OU led 47-10 when Florida St went 71/7pl and on 3&10 on the last play of the game got a 47 yd garbage TD pass.

2. Oregon clearly benefitted from the 1 hour long lighting delay in the 2Q with the Ducks down 13-3, they went on to score the next 45 points and outgained Tennessee 447-332.

3. Stanford rolled UCLA 35-0 as they won in the Rose Bowl for the first time since 1996. The Cardinal outgained the Bruins 364-233 and were +4 in TO's.

4. While Cal did indeed dominate Colorado with their 52-7 win they did just have 18-17 FD and 356-239 yd edges but benefitted from several Buffalo TO's.

5. While Bama only had a 19-17 FD edge (409-279 yd), a 4-1 TO edge was the key in the game as Penn St had three drives deep inside Alabama territory all end in TO's. RB Richardson had a good game with 144 (6.5) and 1 TD and Alabama has now won 26 straight regular season games. (excludes SEC Champ and Bowls).

6. South Carolina had a 23-11 FD edge on Georgia and probably the key component of the game was SC true frosh Marcus Lattimore (PS#1) who was dominant from start to finish and finished with 182 yds rushing with his 3rd and 4th TD’s of the season.

7. Nevada was dominant in their 51-6 win over Colorado St with a 631-272 yd edge. The Wolfpack offense as usual starts with QB Colin Kaepernick who completed 21 of 29 passes (72.4%) for 241 yds and 2 TD’s in the 51-6 win over Colorado St. He also added 161 yds rushing (14.6) and 2 more TD’s. Last year against the Rams, Kaepernick rushed for just 24 yds and accounted for 5 TO’s in the loss but clearly rebounded this year.

8. Ohio St was impressive both offensively and defensively against Miami with a 414-353 yd edge. They would have been even higher on the list if not for their poor return coverage that marked the first time since OSU began keeping records in 1936 that the Bucks allowed a KR and PR TD in the same game. While Pryor completed just 42.9% of his passes, his 12 completions went for 233 yds (19.4) and he also added 112 yds rushing (5.6).