By the Numbers III - Petrino vs Tressel - Battle at the Sugar Bowl
Greetings, everyone!
I wrote this on December 7th and posted it on two other sites, however, I didn't see this linked/listed here, so I thought some of you would enjoy this. Bear in mind that I'm only focusing on the "On Field" performance aspects. So... enjoy!
In the third installment of
By the Numbers, and in honor of my beloved Razorbacks getting their first BCS Bowl bid (Sugar Bowl, January 4th, 2011 at 8:30 PM on ESPN), I decided to pull together some statistical information regarding the head coaches of the Arkansas Razorbacks (Bobby Petrino) and the Ohio State Buckeyes (Jim Tressel).
One thing is very apparent after reviewing all of the available data: Both Coaches have the
IT factor. Coach Tressel is the grizzled veteran, with nearly 25 years of Head Coaching experience (two schools, Youngstown State and Ohio State), while Coach Petrino is the new kid on the block with nearly 7 years of Head Coaching experience (two schools, Louisville and Arkansas). Both have fielded BCS caliber teams and both have won in BCS bowls, so this will be no shock for either one of 'em.
Coach Tressel has a major monkey to get off his back to appease the Buckeye faithful: OSU 0-9 against SEC teams in BCS Bowls.
Coach Petrino has his own monkey to chase away as well: Take an already simply amazing season and push it up one notch higher.
Both have very tall demands of their respective fan bases and each side is expecting their coach to deliver the goods.
NOTE: These are in PDF format, for ease of reading for most people. Most of you will have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed. If you don't have a PDF reader, I heavily recommend and endorse
Foxit Reader as a very lightweight alternative to Adobe.
To view these files, simply CLICK on the URLs below. If you want to save this to your local system, RIGHT click and go to "SAVE AS" or "SAVE TARGET AS".
If you are sharing this document on any other side except for DLHazard.com or Hogville.net, you MUST credit www.hogville.net.
Let's get to the two PDFs and start comparisons, shall we?
http://dlhazard.com/includes/btn/By the Numbers III - Bobby Petrino.pdf
http://dlhazard.com/includes/btn/By the Numbers III - Jim Tressel.pdf
Breaking down the numbers - SCORING
Coach Tressel has put up a few more points on the board this year in this category, often outscoring his opponents by 2.9 points for every 1 opponent point. Coach Petrino hangs 1.6 points for every 1 opponent point. I have to give the edge to Coach Tressel in this regard. (Sorry, Hog Brethren... the numbers are pretty damning at this point).
I'll see your Rush with a Hail Mary Pass!
Coach Tressel runs a pretty balanced attack, racking up nearly 5400 yards of offense this year. His defense is pretty impressive, with just a scintilla over 3000 yards. His defense seems to be a bit more skilled at stopping the Rush, allowing just over 1100 yards.
Bad news for Buckeye fans... we've got a high octane Offense, bruising out close to 5900 yards of offense. While our pass offense exceeds 4000 yards this year, bear in mind that we've got one of the most dynamic rushers in football. Knile Davis has actually busted out more Rush yardage this year (1183 yards at the time of writing,
889 of those in the last SIX games, mind you) than you've allowed (1132 yards). Add to that the strong arm of both Ryan Mallet and Tyler Wilson (both have thrown 60+ yard bombs this year) and the Buckeyes are going to get lit up... hard.
Edge has to go to the Razorbacks on yardage.
Touchdowns, Turnovers, Tanglin' Teams - Oh MY!
Both teams are very evenly matched in terms of scoring touchdowns (OSU: 59, AR: 58), though the edge has to go to OSU for turnover margins this year, as well as shutting down opponent's offenses from scoring TDs (OU: 20 TDs allowed, AR: 33 TDs allowed). Gotta give the edge to the Buckeyes on this one.
FLAG ON THE PLAY, AUTOMATIC FIRST DOWN!
While OSU has the market on First Downs, the Hogs are far more aggressive. Given how hard teams have to play in the SEC, it's absolutely not shocking that the penalties on SEC schools is as high as it is. It's also not surprising why OSU is 0-9 against SEC schools in bowl appearances. I can only hope that OSU is ready for Arkansas speed, style, finesse and aggression. Edge definitely has to go to the Hogs on this.
Overtime? Whaddya mean Overtime?!
Since these teams are pretty doggone evenly matched, I expect the final result to actually be less than 10 points apart. Here, you've got the old man trying to win one for his team versus a cocky and brash young team trying to re-stake their claim to glory.
I cannot WAIT the next 28 days and 30 minutes for these two teams to do battle.
This is going to be a battle for the ages, folks!
PAST BTNs
By the Numbers II - Coach Petrino vs "Coach" Nutt - First Three Years
http://www.hogville.net/yabbse/index.php?topic=375409.0
By the numbers - a difference between 2007, 2009 and 2010
http://www.hogville.net/yabbse/index.php?topic=375273.0
(I encourage this being shared by Buckeye Fans on your fan sites... please get the word out!)
Please provide Feedback to this article on
www.dlhazard.com or
www.hogville.net. If you've got any questions, comments or complaints, feel free to email me via douglas [@] hogville.net! You can also share this on Facebook by going to DLHazard.com, or re-tweet on Twitter by visiting
http://twitter.com/bearlydoug