Team-Focus Wins Heisman for Ingram

I don't think Mark Ingram is the best football player in the country. I don't even think he's the best football player on his own team. (That distinction, in my mind, goes to linebacker Rolando McClain; that's another post). But I do believe that he is a deserving winner of the Heisman trophy, which recognizes the country's most outstanding college football player.

It was the closest vote in Heisman history, narrower than the 1985 vote that gave the award to another running back from the state of Alabama. (Which, by the way, how did Bo Jackson not win unanimously?) Toby Gerhart finished 28 points behind Ingram, who garnered 227 first-place votes to Gerhart's 222. Gerhart had an incredible season for Stanford, and probably suffered from a lack of exposure to the majority of the country. His stats, on the surface, were better than Ingram's:

Gerhart: 1736 rushing yards, 26 TDs; 10 receptions, 149 yards receiving, 0 TDs
Ingram: 1542 rushing yards, 15 TD; 30 receptions, 322 yards receiving, 3 TDs

However, upon closer inspection, Ingram's stats stand out a bit more:

Gerhart: 311 carries, 5.6 yds/carry, 63% of Stanford's rushing attempts
Ingram: 249 carries, 6.2 yds/carry, 45% of Alabama's rushing attempts

Stanford ran the ball 497 times this season; Alabama did so 550 times, which includes one more game than Stanford. Even with one more game played, Ingram had fewer carries than Gerhart and a lower percentage of the load to carry. This can be viewed in many ways: Ingram was kept fresher because of other running backs; Gerhart's stats are more impressive because he was the focal point of his team's rushing attack (thus, meaning teams focused their game plans on him and he still piled up yards); Alabama could have plugged another back in there and he would have done just as good as Ingram.

However, I think this points to an even greater year by Ingram. If he had as many carries as Gerhart, by Ingram's yard per attempt, he'd have gained over 1900 yards rushing. Though Ingram was the starter, he wasn't as featured as Gerhart was. Stanford's second- and third-leading rushers carried the ball 61 and 55 times each, respectively, for 354 and 298 yards. (Their quarterback was their second-leading rusher). For Alabama, the second- and third-leading rushers were both running backs, carrying 126 and 46 times each, respectively, for 642 and 290 yards. 

This would seem to imply that Alabama's offensive line and running backs were stronger, giving Ingram an advantage. However, looking at each team's yards per attempt, Stanford has the edge. They averaged 5.4 yards per carry as a team; Alabama averaged 5.1 yards per carry. This means that Ingram averaged more than a yard better than his team, while Gerhart was 0.2 yards above his team's rushing yards per carry.

This isn't to take away from Gerhart's season, ability, or talent. The man is a great running back and had a fabulous season. But for those thinking that Ingram rode the coattails of #1 ranked team as his sole claim to the Heisman race (and victory), think again. Mark Ingram is a fantastic football player and was a steadying and consistent force for the Crimson Tide as they navigated the defenses of the SEC. And yet he simply played his role, not only running the ball,  but blocking and receiving as well. He cheered for and encouraged the running backs behind him, particularly Trent Richardson, someone who may have even more raw talent than Ingram.

In games that were decided by half or the third quarter, Ingram didn't get a chance to pad his stats. In the games that he started slowly (Virginia Tech) or didn't have it (Arkansas and Auburn), his coach went to the other running backs in order for the team to succeed. Ingram didn't complain; he didn't lash out. He responded.

In an outstanding way.

And though it's brought individual attention to him and his ability, it should not be overlooked that his team is what's most important to him. It's the people in his life, from family and friends to coaches, trainers, and teachers at the university, that he mentioned in his speech that allowed this to happen. The Crimson Tide fans are doubtlessly excited to finally have a Heisman winner. They should be just as excited that's it's someone like Mark Ingram. A selfless team player, playing his role and doing his best to bring to Alabama what it wants most: another national championship.

Top 10, Week 14

1. Alabama (13-0) Unbelievably impressive win over Florida, like Saban had been stewing and preparing for the game since last year's championship game. They played their best game of the season so far. The hype is going to be in their favor heading to Pasadena; hopefully they've got one more dominating performance in them.
   
2. Texas (13-0) The Longhorns didn't finish the season with anything close to flair, but they did win. Their defense held down a not-so-potent Nebraska offense; it's their own offense that left the question marks. But they pulled it out, which is a mark of a winner. Another good sign for the Horns: a 7-0-1 all-time record against Alabama.
   
3. TCU (12-0) Great season, great team, unfortunate ending in the Big 12 Championship Game for them. What a match-up it would be to see them go against Texas. We'll have to settle for them against Boise State in the Fiesta, if the Fiesta knows what's good for them.
   
4. Cincinnati (12-0) Wild, wild finish in Pittsburgh today. Pike showed resilience in coming back from a rough start. Another great season for the Bearcats; they'll be hungry for some gator meat in the Sugar Bowl.
   
5. Boise State (13-0) Any chance of a letdown in their last game was quickly wiped out. Yet another team with a fantastic season; they too should go BCS bowling.
   
6. Florida (12-1) Tough, tough loss to the Tide. They got hit in the face from the get-go and couldn't recover. Giving up a 69-yard reception immediately after making it a 12-10 game in the second quarter broke their spirit; the touchdown run on the next play practically sealed the outcome.
   
7. Oregon (10-2) Pac-10 champions pull it out at home in the Civil War. They get a better-than-earlier-in-the-season Ohio State team in the Rose Bowl.
   
8. Georgia Tech (11-2) They jump back into the Top 10 with their ACC Championship Game win, which is one reason their ahead of the Big Ten champ. They sit behind the Ducks because the ACC wasn't as strong as the Pac-10.
   
9. BYU (10-2) Florida State? At home? Still mind-boggling. But at least it wasn't to a middle-of-the-pack Pac-10 team with a freshman quarterback.
10. Ohio State (10-2) Get a championship game. Beat a decent out-of-conference opponent. Get ready for a fast, tough game against the Ducks.
    

By the numbers

1 -- penalty called against the Tide, for 5 yards
3 -- touchdowns scored by Ingram
11 -- number of 3rd down conversions made by Alabama out of 15
20:23 -- amount of time Florida held the ball
22 -- number of SEC Championships Alabama has now won
39:37 -- amount of time Alabama held the ball
69 -- yards gained on a pass play to Ingram immediately after Florida cut the lead to 12-10, swinging the momentum back in Bama's favor
89 -- total rushing yards for the Gators
96 -- yards receiving for Maze on 5 receptions, double his season average
113 -- yards rushing for Ingram
239 -- yards passing for McElroy
251 -- total rushing yards for Alabama
490 -- total yards gained by Alabama, 250 more than Florida's defense averaged before this game

SEC Champions

Initial thoughts from the SEC Championship Game:

• Greg McElroy played an incredible game. This was the type of poise and decision-making I was hoping for from him this season. Great job of hanging in the pocket and making precision passes.
• Mark Ingram had great TD runs and had a good bounce-back game from last week. 
• What about the offensive line? These guys made all Tide fans forget about last year's group. What a performance. Vlachos' block of Spikes in the first quarter on a sweep or toss helped set the tone for evening. The O-line played their best game of the year.
  
• The defense was outstanding. The pressure was there from the D-line and linebackers and the secondary held strong. Good pick by Arenas; Woodall should've had one too. Erik Anders did a great job of shadowing Gonzalez and Ro was awesome watching Tebow.
• Cody's presence in the middle kept Florida from attempting to run. That Florida didn't have many rushing attempts was huge. 
• The coaching staff had a great offensive and defensive game plan. The players executed it to near perfection.
• I thought Saban might get wet with a Gatorade bath, but the players may have decided to save that for Pasadena.
• My TV messed up right after Florida scored to make it 12-10 and I thought the game was going to start messing up as well. Neither the tide nor the Tide turned and I was able to get CBS back. 
• Roll Tide!
  

The Conference Debate

As a fan and follower of the Southeastern Conference, I believe I watch the nation's best conference week after week. I've held this belief since my elementary school days, reflecting an obvious point in the debate for college football's best conference: where you live heavily influences your answer.

In college, the guys on my dorm hall were a mix of SEC and Big Ten/11 fans, with Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee, Mississippi State, LSU, Kentucky, Ohio State, Purdue, Michigan, and Indiana represented in some way or another. We gladly agreed that the Pac-10 and Big 12 sucked and little else.

With this year's college football season winding down, I decided to spend Sunday afternoon compiling information about the BCS conferences, as well as the Mountain West Conference since they have three teams ranked in the Top 25, including #4 TCU.

Looking at out-of-conference games, here are the records for the seven conferences, in order by number of wins:

1. SEC: 42-6
2. Big 12: 35-13
3. Big East: 32-8
4. Big Ten: 31-11
5. ACC: 30-18
6. Pac-10: 21-9
7. MWC: 21-15

Since the Pac-10 requires each of its teams to play the other, giving them nine conference games instead of the seven or eight like the other conferences, they only have a total of 30 out of conference games. Also, the Big East only has eight members, limiting them to seven conference games. Here are the ranking of the conferences by winning percentages:

1. SEC: 0.875
2. Big East: 0.800
3. Big Ten: 0.738
4. Big 12: 0.729
5. Pac-10: 0.700
6. ACC: 0.625
7. MWC: 0.583

By these numbers, it appears the SEC is on top, with the Bigs (East, Ten, and 12) following behind. However, having watched a lot of SEC football over the years, I know that they don't always schedule tough games, giving themselves a healthy portion of FCS schools to pad the win columns. Now, they're not the only ones who do this, so I broke down wins and losses against other BCS schools.

1. SEC: 10-4
2. Big East: 8-6
   
3. ACC: 8-9
4. Pac-10: 6-5
5. MWC: 5-9
6. Big 12: 4-7
7. Big Ten: 3-7

Though a 10-4 record is a strong showing, playing only 14 of 48 non-conference games against other BCS conferences is a shame, which propelled me to look at the percentages of games scheduled against other BCS schools.

1. MWC: 38.89%
2. Pac-10: 36.67%
3. ACC: 35.42%
4. Big East: 35.00%
5. SEC: 29.17%
6. Big Ten: 23.81%
   
7. Big 12: 22.92%

Of the BCS conferences, the Pac-10, ACC, and Big East do a better job than the others scheduling games against each other. The SEC could do a much better job, but the Big Ten and Big 12 are just atrocious. Combine these percentages with their non-conference BCS records and it looks like they're the bottomfeeders for the 2009 season.

These percentages, though, do not include games against Notre Dame. Since Notre Dame has the possibility for a BCS tie-in in the BCS contract, I also worked out the percentages if Notre Dame games were included:

1. Pac-10: 50.00%
2. Big East: 40.00%
3. MWC: 38.89%
4. ACC: 37.50%
5. Big Ten: 30.95%
6. SEC: 29.17%
7. Big 12: 22.92%

 With Notre Dame included, the Pac-10 schedules 50% of its non-conference games against legitimate competition (games versus MWC were not included in these percentages). Though I'm not a strong believer that Notre Dame is always legit competition, they do recruit nationally and have a certain rivalry factor with some of the schools it plays. Also, they have a national television contract, meaning they get most everybody's best shot.

As far as scheduling goes, based merely on playing other BCS schools, the Pac-10, Big East, ACC, and MWC are on the right track. I'd love to see more SEC vs Pac-10 games (only three this season), SEC vs Big 12 (only three this season), SEC vs Big East (only two this year), and some regular season SEC vs Big Ten games as well (none this year).

But scheduling doesn't give the full picture, in the same way that non-conference wins or percentage of wins doesn't provide the whole shebang. I looked through the wins and losses against other BCS conferences and found that a lot of those wins were against the lesser competition from those conferences. For example, the SEC has 10 wins against other BCS schools. They've got wins against Georgia Tech and Clemson (the ACC's two division winners) and West Virginia (3rd in the Big East), but that total also includes some mediocre and lowly teams, like Florida State (6-6), Arizona State (4-8), and Louisville (4-8).

So, I looked at wins and losses against the current BCS Top 25 (Week 13, 2009). Here's what was found, by number of wins:

1. ACC: 4-5 (W: Pitt, BYU, Nebraska, Stanford; L: TCU (2), Alabama, Florida, California)
2. SEC: 3-4 (W: Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, West Virginia; L: Ok St, Georgia Tech (2), Houston)
   
3. Pac-10: 2-4 (W: Utah, Ohio State; L: Boise St, Cincinnati, LSU, Iowa)
   
4. Big East: 1-3 (W: Oregon St; L: Miami, Penn State, Utah)
   
5. Big 12: 0-6 (L: Virginia Tech, Iowa, Houston (2), BYU, Miami)
   
6. Big Ten: 0-4 (L: USC, Oregon, California, Cincinnati)
   
7. MWC: 0-3 (L: Oregon, Texas, Oregon State)

Now, this list has varied week to week (at least in the Top 25) since the BCS rankings came out, meaning that it cannot be the sole determiner of the nation's top conference. It seems odd that no conference has a winning record against the Top 25. It should also be noted that the Big 12 was listed ahead of the Big Ten and MWC even though it has more losses; the fact that they played against more teams in the Top 25 counted more so than those that didn't.

The last measurement that I'll list concerns wins against FCS schools (formerly Division 1-AA). In my assessment, the fewer FCS schools on the schedule, the better. The shame list reads as such:

1. ACC: 12-2
2. SEC: 11-0
3. Big East: 10-0
   
4. Big 12: 9-0
5. Big Ten: 8-0
6. MWC: 6-0
7. Pac-10: 4-0

Thanks to Virginia and Duke, the ACC owns the only blemishes for BCS schools against FCS opponents. Good for the Pac-10 for only scheduling four games against a completely separate division. It seems ridiculous to me that FBS schools are allowed to schedule games against FCS schools. Shame on the ACC, SEC, Big East, Big 12, and Big Ten. Switching half of those games to games against each other would be a great start.

Taking all of this into account, I still think the SEC is this year's top conference. They have some improvements to make as far as their scheduling goes, needing to reduce the number of games against FCS opponents and increasing the number of games against other BCS teams, especially beyond the ACC. However, they keep winning, whether it is against inferior, superior, or equal competition.

This is how I see the conferences stacking up, by strength from top to bottom. It includes information from above, as well as some input from the BCS rankings.

1. SEC
2. Pac-10
3. ACC
4. Big East
5. Big Ten
6. Big 12
7. MWC
   

Top 10, Week 13

1. Florida (12-0) Tebow went out in style on Saturday against the Seminoles. So did the rest of their senior class. I'm sure the game film from Alabama's Auburn game will provide plenty of ideas of how to attack and confuse the defense. 
2. Alabama (12-0) Two straight undefeated regular seasons; a comeback win against their in-state rival; a strong home stretch for their where-did-he-go-in-October quarterback; but coming up short against Florida again would leave the sourest of tastes for them and their fans. 
3. Texas (12-0) McCoy may have all but wrapped up the Heisman trophy this season. Another showing like this against Nebraska should seal it. Funny how a dropped interception in the Texas Tech game last year may have been what kept him from the trophy then.
4. TCU (12-0) There will probably be a lot of red being worn in Ft. Worth this week. If Nebraska can't pull it out against the Horns, the Fiesta Bowl could do college football a great and beautiful favor by matching up the Horned Frogs and Boise State.
5. Boise State (12-0) Good job avoiding possible upsets the past two weeks. With Oklahoma State's loss, a BCS bid should be theirs.
6. Cincinnati (11-0) Their match-up with Pittsburgh becomes even tougher with Pitt's loss to West Virginia. For them to lose two in a row to finish the regular season seems a bit dicey. If they do win, look for the Sugar Bowl to end up with them, primarily because of their poor showing at the Orange Bowl last year.
7. Oregon (9-2) This is the first time the Civil War will be played for the right to go to the Rose Bowl. Playing at home will be the advantage that pushes them over in this game.
8. Ohio State (10-2) They're one defensive stop and one let-down game away from being undefeated and possibly in the championship game, where they'd once again get crushed by an SEC team again.
9. Iowa (10-2) The best Gameday sign I saw all year was at Penn State when the Hawkeyes came to play. A PSU fan held up a sign that read "Ricky Stanzi listens to Hannah Montana." Not sure why it made me fall off my couch laughing, but it did. If Stanzi doesn't get hurt in the Northwestern game, they're ranked much higher.
10. BYU (10-2) Only losses were to the #4 team and a home blow out by Florida State, which remains inexplicable. Nevertheless, if OSU and Iowa can be in the Top 10 with losses to Purdue and Northwestern, respectively, then BYU can finish the list this week.
    

Top 10, Week 11

1. Florida (10-0) Just keep winning. Don't do it please anyone else. Good win against tough competition on the road, though South Carolina may have shown some small holes in the defense.
   
2. Texas (10-0) McCoy and Shipley could start a boy band they've got so much rhythm right now. Ok, that's a bit much, but I'm sure the coeds (and cougars) in Austin would love to see them in that garb. As for football, Texas is hitting the home stretch with great stride.
   
3. Alabama (10-0) Played great in what many thought would be a trap game. The offense hit some big plays and the defense held another back under 100 yard rushing, with the secondary providing some timely interceptions and pass break-ups.
   
4. TCU (10-0) I haven't written a lot about this team, but have kept them at this spot for four weeks straight now. They made quite a statement last night with a big win over what's become a quick rival in Utah. The Big 12 would do itself a great favor by finding a spot for them in its conference.
   
5. Cincinnati (10-0) Beat a pretty good West Virginia team on Friday night. They have Illinois at home and then Pittsburgh on the road, a de facto Big East championship game.
   
6. Boise State (10-0) They're actually not number one in their league; Nevada has one more conference win then Boise, keeping them atop the standings. That gets settled on the field in a couple of weeks, but not before a trip to Utah State this Friday night.
   
7. Georgia Tech (10-1) The ACC needs them to win the conference championship game. It also needs them to take care of business against Georgia this week. Losing to a struggling SEC team would not help this conference's image right now.
   
8. LSU (8-2) Closer than expected game against Louisiana Tech, but good for them to schedule an in-state game like this (hint, hint, Alabama and Auburn, who should be scheduling UAB and Troy). With Ole Miss and Arkansas left on their schedule, there's no guarantee that they've got 3rd-best in the SEC sown up yet.
   
9. Ohio State (9-2) An overtime win at home against a team without their starting QB, who's been their caped-crusader in games like yesterday's. I don't think their trip to Pasadena is going to go very well. But I'm sure they'd clobber Pittsburgh.
   
10. Pittsburgh (9-1) Again, a weak, weak schedule. Holding off Notre Dame like they did is commendable, but the Irish haven't shown to be great. Fortunately, they get a chance to settle it on the field against Cinci in a couple of weeks. 

Apologies to:
Oregon: If I can't put Stanford up here, I can't find a place for Ducks either.
Oklahoma State: That loss to Houston has been very difficult to overcome, especially after their game on Saturday. Maybe next week.