A 3-Pack of Trojans

In response to Matt’s analysis, allow me to note that going into last year’s bowl game, USC had scored 441 points and allowed 150, while Oklahoma scored 433 and allowed 164. You may also recall that the game was not quite as evenly matched as this would suggest. The kind of quick -and-dirty analysis Matt is doing can tell you something in the pros, but in college–where a majority of games played by an elite team are utterly non-competitive–margin-of-victory stats are basically meaningless. Exactly how much you beat up on teams that don’t belong on the same field of you is basically a matter of coach’s discretion, and yields little useful information about the quality of the teams. (And the strength-of-schedule is far more important in college, and I maintain that the PAC-10 is the better conference.)

Texas is a better team than Oklahoma last year–they beat arguably the third-best team in the country on the road, after all. They certainly could win. But I’m sticking with USC until somebody beats ’em. I don’t see the Longhorns stopping the Cal offense, and I don’t see them winning a shootout either.