They can’t help it if the offense surrenders points and field position. The Texas defense clearly won their matchup. If you’ll recall the Horns’ last game, Texas handled Baylor’s offense just fine but the Bears scored a safety and a defensive touchdown to fuel a 27 point total that suggested Baylor offensive efficacy to the casual box score scanner. Playing very little defense is an illusory way of playing “good” defense. They have games where they might have to defend against only 6-7 offensive possessions. Air Force plays pretty good defense, but nothing like the gross statistics imply. Complementary clock chewing offensive pace can also contribute to scoring defense illusions. Scoring defense is a decent short hand, but it can be incredibly deceptive, such as when the defense being measured is saddled with a moribund turnover prone offense or poor special teams play. I’ve argued many times that scoring defense is a team measure, predominantly influenced by your defense. Hey, points on the board is all that matters, right? We’ll start big picture with scoring defense and then narrow our focus… Scoring Defense Index So let’s make the data dance, add a little context, and see what we see. And even into postseason All Big 12 selections (ahem). Non-conference play, in combination with preseason hype, fuels false perceptions that still carry into November and December. But the human mind still wants to see the latter team as “more dominant.” I understand that. There’s nothing to be gained in comparison by whether a team blew out a really bad team 48-7 or 69-7. Which they even acknowledge by throwing out FCS results vs FBS teams. You can’t do it very well - even if the Football Outsiders tell you they can.
The idea that we can still glean data from these contests for comparison with the right statistical boundaries is unsophisticated. Baylor’s defense dominated non-con Albany and Texas State while the Longhorn defense faced potent non-con offenses like Alabama and UTSA. We also care more about what happens in our conference ecosystem in general. Nonetheless, round robins provide very useful data because it throws out questionable non-conference opponents and forces like against like. Dillon Gabriel isn’t the best QB in the league, but OU had the steepest drop off from starter to back up in college football. There’s little doubt that Texas was done a major statistical favor by not having to face Dillon Gabriel in Dallas, which would have turned a 49-0 utter demolition into a more conventional 52-28 woodshedding. The Kansas Jayhawks were also spared getting lit up by their own offense. Limited conference universes are not true apples to apples because Iowa State’s defense never had the good fortune of playing Iowa State’s offense.
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