In an effort to measure which college programs have been the most successful over the last five seasons, the Wall Street Journal has come up with The Dow Jones College-Football Success Index. I’m not sure why, but they have chosen to use a formula that calculates the success of college football teams using only NFL information. They use the number of players starting/contributing on NFL teams as one factor, which also includes how many games their NFL teams win. The other factor is a team’s “draft success” which attempts to determine whether a team’s players have lived up to their draft promise.
The Longhorns land at number sixteen, which isn’t too low except for the fact that teams like North Carolina and Texas A&M land ahead of the Horns. That’s a pretty tell-tale sign that your ranking logic is horribly skewed. They list only [tag]Derrick Dockery[/tag], [tag]Casey Hampton[/tag], and [tag]Derrick Johnson[/tag] as standout players. I guess Pro Bowlers [tag]Nathan Vasher[/tag] and [tag]Shaun Rogers[/tag], who might be the best defensive tackle in the league, don’t count as standouts.
Here’s their comment on Texas:
National champs sent only three players to the NFL this year from the nation’s top offense. One problem: Longhorns’ shotgun formation isn’t popular in the NFL.
Not a very good argument there. I’m guessing a better reason we only had three offensive player’s drafted is that the team has seven returning starters this year on that side of the football. It’s kind of hard to be drafted when you’re still in college. [tag]Vince Young[/tag] went third overall, tight end [tag]David Thomas[/tag] went in the third round to the Patriots, and tackle [tag]Jonathan Scott[/tag] was the Lions’ fifth round selection. Guard [tag]Will Allen[/tag] signed a free agent deal with the Saints and backups [tag]Matt Nordgren[/tag] and [tag]Ahmard Hall[/tag] also found teams despite not being starters at Texas. Actually seems like a pretty good success rate to me.
So basically they took a faulty premise and backed it up with terrible analysis. There’s a lot of ways to determine a successful college football program, but how many backups a school has in the NFL is probably one of the last things you should consider.
Via: The Wiz
Let’s see how this goes. I’ll post as often as I can stand to. Horns and Trojans are about to get underway.
BIG FREAKING GAME!
Did we win the coin toss, defer, and USC chose to kick? Will we receive to start both halves? Nevermind, the official said it wrong.
First Quarter
- Great deep kick and good coverage on Reggie Bush. Great start to the game for the Horns.
- Bush stopped for a loss on the game’s first play. Now let’s do that 60+ more times.
- Texas’ defense in the backfield with great penetration on the first 3 plays.
- Holy crap! [tag]Aaron Ross[/tag] fumbled the punt. Crap crap crap. Come on defense step up. Crap.
- Reggie Bush has no class. Hand the ball to the ref instead of flicking it up in the air after a 5 yard run. Let’s hope he actually gets ejected if he punches someone again this game.
- Too bad helmet-to-helmet contact isn’t illegal in college football. Plus [tag]Cedric Griffin[/tag] hit him in the chest.
- Stupid penalty by [tag]Robert Killebrew[/tag]. He seems to get one per game, let’s hope this is it. Come on D!
- Turnover costs the Horns 7 points. Game started off fantastically and then suddenly went downhill from there.
Texas 0, USC 7
- Let’s go Vince, get fired up.
- Looks like no huddle for the offense to start things off again this week. I like it.
- Poor spot on 2nd down leads to 4th and 1. [tag]Mack Brown[/tag] elects to go for it and Horns get nowhere. Turnover on downs at midfield. All the momentum is going USC’s way now. Defense has to make a big play here and get things back going Texas’ way.
- Apparently guy in charge of the clock doesn’t realize it should stop after incomplete passes.
- Freaking Rose Bowl and national championship and the clock breaks?
- Horns go to 3 down linemen on a 3rd and long. Interesting look.
- Texas makes the stop but a face mask on Michael Huff gives USC the necessary yards for the first down.
- [tag]Drew Kelson[/tag] in the game early instead of [tag]Rashad Bobino[/tag] (I think that’s who isn’t in there.) [tag]Gene Chizik[/tag] getting more speed on the field.
- [tag]Tarell Brown[/tag] has a pick go in and out of his hands.
- Reggie Bush gets about an extra 2 yards thanks to the generous spot. These simple plays need to be reviewed as much as any others.
- Another generous spot for Matt Leinart on the 4th down QB sneak but I still think they’re short. Come on!
- Horns stop them and get the ball back. Let’s go let’s go!
- Meanwhile ABC is on commercial break #26 after like two minutes of football.
- Bad play design or something as [tag]Billy Pittman[/tag] and [tag]Jamaal Charles[/tag] end up next to each other on pass routes. Complete to Pittman for the first though.
- Another freaking fumble. Charles bumps into David Thomas and just drops it. Crap. Lost 5 yards. Kills the offense’s momentum.
- Bud Light commercial featuring the “daredevil” are dumb.
- Lost takes such long hiatuses that they have to have recap shows by the time they come back.
- Interesting counter play from USC. Kind of a WR and FB counter instead of a GT counter.
In a nutshell, Texas had their way with Louisiana Lafayette, which is indicated by the 60-3 score. Texas did pretty much anything they wanted to on offense, including rushing for 418 yards. The defense was also stout, and you could tell right from the start that Louisiana Lafayette was going to have trouble doing anything. I guess the only real down spot is Saturday’s game is the special teams, who missed 3 extra points! Now let’s move on to a position-by-position look at how the Longhorns graded out on Saturday.
Quarterback – Overall Grade: A
After [tag]Vince Young[/tag]’s 5 touchdown performance in the Rose Bowl, there is no surprise that he entered this season as one of the top contenders for the Heisman Trophy. With all of that pressure, I was interested to see how he would perform. I think it is safe to say that Young did not disappoint. Young finished the game with an efficient 13-17 for 173 yards. He looked to be very comfortable throwing the ball and you could tell he has gained a lot of confindence this past off-season. [tag]Matt Nordgren[/tag] played for most of the second half but did not attempt a single pass attempt. He did scramble a few times, showing off an interesting technique of gaining more yards when going out of bounds.
Running Backs – Overall Grade: A+
Texas appears to have a full stable of speedy and powerful tailbacks to compliment quarterback Vince Young this year. Freshman running backs [tag]Jamaal Charles[/tag] and [tag]Henry Melton[/tag] had a huge impact on the game, with Charles running for 135 yards and 1 score and Melton running for 65 yards and 2 scores. I swear it looked like Melton couldn’t be tackled. A bigger and quicker [tag]Selvin Young[/tag] added 65 yards and speedster [tag]Ramonce Taylor[/tag] also added 65 yards. With a total of 418 yards, I would say things are definitely looking good for the Texas running game.
Receivers / Tight Ends – Overall Grade: B
[tag]David Thomas[/tag] was up to his usual self, making big plays and scored 2 touchdowns on 3 catches. With his 2 touchdowns, David Thomas moved into fifth place all-time at Texas for a tight end with his 51th career reception. Senior [tag]Brian Carter[/tag] also help out by setting a career high with three receptions against the Ragin’ Cajuns for 65 yards, matching his previous career total of three receptions in only the first half. [tag]Nate Jones[/tag], [tag]Limas Sweed[/tag], and [tag]Quan Cosby[/tag] also performed well, with Nate Jones scoring his first career touchdown. It was nice to see some consistency in this group and I look forward to seeing them improve this year.
Offensive Line – Overall Grade: A+
Considering that Selvin Young, Jamaal Charles, Henry Melton, Ramonce Taylor and Vince Young averaged 9.5 yards per carry, I would say that the offensive line did pretty well on Saturday. [tag]Justin Blalock[/tag] (fellow Plano East grad) led the offensive line who just totally dominated Louisana Lafayette. Hopefully they keep the same aggressiveness next Saturday against OSU.
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