[NU Sports] National Rankings and Other Stats

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

>While finishing the marathon task of picking every bowl game for Stephen's
>contest,

:) - thanks for the plug (and don't forget that we skipped the N'awlens
Bowl, so you coulda had one more!) ... don't forget that they need to be in
by Tuesday!

>covered here in the past, but our national rankings made it clear where our
>weakness lies:  40th in the Nation in Rushing Offense, 40th in Passing
>Offense, 47th in Rushing Defense and 99th in Passing Defense.

Interesting -- we certainly had much more balance this year on offense,
thanks to Baz' maturation (and despite some injuries at wideout), so that's
nice to see. And our run defense looks good too.

The pass D was to be expected ... losing Loren at the start hurt any
semblance of a pass rush and really had us focusing to take away the run
and making teams pass to beat us. We never had the secondary to shut a team
down and playing Hawaii certainly hurt those numbers.:) Not good, but I
expected that.

>Other interesting rankings:  107th out of 117 in net punting

Ouch! SPECIAL TEAMS HEEEELLLLLPPPP!

>Fumbles Lost: 2nd in the nation.  Only two all year.

This is a HUGE improvement from our turnover-plagued 2003 season. Big kudos
to Noah Herron for protecting the ball. I thought we had more than 2 from
Jordan, but I guess I'm just thinking of that dang ASU game fumble ...
otherwise, looks like TJ did well as well.

>IN .553
>IL .454
>WI .372
>MN .372
>PD .340

We've really stumbled with the pesky vermin from Minny and Purdoo recently,
but been strong on IU, UI and Wisky the last decade or so (Michigan too,
actually).

Interesting look at the numbers. I know the W/L is the only one that
ultimately counts, but I think those stats above show a better team on the
field in 2004 than in 2003. Good balance on O, solid run D, better on
turnovers and some nice wins. Much as a lot of us predicted in the
preseason - we'd have a better team, but the record might not show it with
the schedule. It doesn't get any easier next year with MSU and Iowa back on
the schedule and Indiana off. Ouch.

But fortunately, things are looking up on the hardcourt to keep us occupied
between now and spring football. A win at ASU this week would be huge to
heading into league play with a lot of momentum. Hopefully Peg's
golden-shirt "ASU! ASU! ASU!" friends will be on their way to El Paso and
not making noise at the game.:)

GO CATS!!!
-SjT


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