Interesting observations from Dan Weber in this mornings Press-Enterprise.
If you heard it once Saturday night, you heard it a hundred times: that Oklahoma is the first team in history to score 60 points in five straight games and a record 602 for the season, an average of 50.2.
But did you once hear that USC had allowed just 93 all season, and 29 in the second half of the season, for an average of 7.75 a game.
Or did you once hear what a cool matchup that would be: the highest-scoring offense ever against one of the all-time stingiest defenses in a rematch between a pair of one-loss teams from the BCS title game four years ago.
If you at look at without any bias, tough I know, it really isn't surprising. We have seen every major sport adjust the rules so that we get more offensive production. whether its protecting the QB in football or juicing the ball in MLB fans want to be entertained by explosive production and that usually happens on offense. Defense is a sight to see when it is overpowering like what SC has done or how the NYG have done in the NFL but everyone wants to see the circus catches like we see in football.
The Pac 10 was once a purely offensive conference but the focus has shifted to defense while the SEC and Big 12 have gone to a more offensive focus. SC in particular takes a hit because the Pac-10 is down this year and probably will be next year with only half the teams probably having succesful seasons. Regardless, SC has put a hurtin' on a lot of teams both good and bad this season with nothing to show for it. USC hels ucla to 60 net yards at haltime, their only score cam because of a short field due to the Gable fumble so when I here James say he was impressed with Norm Chow/UCLA, inferring that he was impressed with their offense, I pretty much know where these guys are coming from. The real laugher was when James said, "Buy stock in ucla."
Right...As great as Norm Chow is I wasn't impresed with the game he called yesterday. I mean it wasn't like ucla was moving the ball with ease, they didn't put it up and they didn't move it on the ground. Kahlil Bell was ucla's player of the game on 38 yards rushing?!
Go Figure.
Another thing that we are seeing especially in how the game is covered is that most of the talking heads are offensive minded. James, Flutie and Herbstreit are all offensive players. Same with most of the NFL commentators.
Defense is important to those who really care about the game not just the guys who have a vested interest in covering it for the sake of ratings. I don't think USC's defense thiseason is the greatest of all time but they were the best THIS season but as great as they were it just wasn't important to those who try to sell the sport.