And now for a word on talent disparity....
I decided to go ahead and take a peek at the talent on each of
Ohio State's and
Oklahoma's rosters, as kept by 247. First, I fully acknowledge 247s numbers aren't without their own problems, but at least they are a metric. Likewise, these numbers don't necessarily capture "coaching up" a player - as both Baker Mayfield (.8384) and Orlando Brown (.8731) are surprisingly low on the lists. Similarly, All Big Ten D-Lineman Tyquan Lewis is relatively low at .8978 It should be also noted, a high rating does not necessarily mean a player
should be starting for his team - for example, the Buckeyes boast a highly rated freshman class, but Baron Browning (.9940) shouldn't necessarily be the starting MLB over Chris Worley (.8675) Those caveats aside, and recognizing that overall talent does, in fact, exist here's some things that stood out....
Oklahoma's highest rated player is Kyler Murray at 0.9853. Ohio State has SIX players rated higher; Nick Bosa .9965, Chase Young .9957, Jeffrey Okudah .9955, Baron Browning .9940, Shaun Wade .9904 and Wyatt Davis .9876. Reserve Linebacker Justin Hilliard comes in at .9849
Roster-wide, the average Oklahoma player rated .879575 - or the equivalent of Ohio State's Gavin Cupp. The Average Ohio State Player is rated: .923423 - and that's when you include Long Snapper Liam McCullough (.7828) Remove him and the average player is: .92511. To put that into perspective, Ohio State's average player would be 18th best player on Oklahoma's roster. Or, if you prefer, OU's Jordan Parker would be Ohio State's 44th most talent player on the roster.
Oklahoma has 27 players rated .9007 or higher. Ohio State has 55.
Ohio State's worst rated player is, again, LS Liam McCullough at .7828 - OU has 4 players rated lower than him. In fact, removing specialists Sean Nurenberger (.8321) and Blake Haubeil (.8296) as Ohio State next two lowest, and we find Davon Hamilton rated .8457 - which would be slightly behind OU's Dimitri Flowers (.8487). In other words, 17 Oklahoma Players are rated behind Davon Hamilton... For those keeping score at home, that's a lot.
Here's a chart showing the disparity as a graph:
View attachment 16240
I next looked at the two deep for each team, on both sides of the ball. The site I used is linked
HERE for OU, and so as to be consistent,
HERE for OSU.
Oklahoma's highest rated starter is Mark Andrews .9387. Ohio State Starts the following, all of who are rated as high or higher than Andrews: Mike Weber .9604 or JK Dobbins .9791, Austin Mack .9614 or Bin Victor .9500, Johnnie Dixon .9639, Jamarco Jones .9696, Michael Jorden .9387, Isiah Prince .9496 and Marcus Baugh .9598
Ohio State's lowest rated starter on Offense is Branden Bowen at .8666. Oklahoma will start three/four players rated lower - Center Eric Wren (NR), Baker Mayfield .8384, FB Dimitri Flowers .8487, Ben Powers .8647
The average OU Offensive starter is rated .8158 - Ohio State average is .9414 OU starts 8 players who rate less than a .9 Ohio State starts 1 In fact, if we include Ohio State's entire two deep, the Buckeyes have only 5 players rated lower than .9. Oklahoma? 17 Again, this is somewhat misleading, as Baker Mayfield starts in front of Kyler Murray, despite Murray being rated .9853 and Mayfield at .8384. Still, when considered on the whole, the talent disparity shines through quite a bit.
Things don't get better for OU when we look at the Defense.
OU's top defender is Caleb Kelly at .9836 with Neville Gallimore number two at .9616. followed by Steven Parker at .9466. Everyone else is rated below .8771 (MLB Kenneth Murray) Ohio State, though hard to predict who will actually take the field for the first snap, starts as many as 6 players rated higher than Parker. In Ohio State's two deep, all but Tracy Sprinke (.8594), Tyquan Lewis (.8978), Damon Arnette (.8596) Robert Landers (.8719), Tuf Borland (.8933) and Malik Harrision (.8568) are rated .9032 or higher (Denzel Ward). In other words, OU's 4th rated defender, Kenneth Murray would be Ohio State's 18th rated defender. Stated a bit more directly, in this particular instance - OU's starting MLB would be competing for playing time at LB with reserve Malik Harrison.
The average OU starting defender is .8092 (It should be noted, the site I used has DJ Ward starting at DE, and he does not have a 247 rating) while Ohio State's is at a .9190 - tossing out the DJ Ward issue OU does rise to a .8901 average, though it's not known what the rating of the player they would start might be.
It's funny, as I joked last night about the familiar Big XII boast that the REAL talent is in the second unit... Ohio State's second unit (And this would also depend on which linemen get the actual start) has an average rating of .9425 while OU's 2nd unit averages .8867.
Again, there is a lot more to football than 247 player ratings. They are good to get a feel for the relative talent taking the field on any given game day, but they surely are not indicative of what the result will be. There are obvious limitations to taking the rankings too seriously - Baker Mayfield and Orlando Brown stand out as two fairly obvious examples of under rated guys coming out of HS compared to their actual on the field production in college. Still, the numbers aren't entirely worthless either. The Buckeyes will have far more talent at their disposal come Saturday. With a talent disparity like at issue here, depth seems to among the advantages Ohio State can be evidenced as holding coming this weekend's game.
