Texas "Would Have Been A Good Team If Not For The Turnover Ratio"?
by Bill C. on Jul 25, 2011 3:03 PM EDT
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PrintMack said UT would have been a good team last year if not for the turnover ratio.less than a minute ago via web 
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Keith Whitmire
Keith_Whitmire
Texas isn't up quite yet in the SBN preview series, but I wanted to give a sneak preview to address a comment made by Mack Brown at today's Big 12 Media Days session. One of the best politicians in college football, Brown mentioned that Texas was basically a few turnovers from being a good team in 2010. No, Mack, Texas was a few turnovers away from being a mediocre team.
The 2010 Longhorns had a good defense -- not quite as good as in 2008-09, but good -- and a downright horrific offense. Without Colt McCoy around to bail them out on passing downs, their Off. F/+ ranking fell from seventh in 2008, to 16th in 2009, to an incredible 106th in 2010. They were sandwiched between Florida Atlantic (105th) and Louisiana-Monroe (107th). The only BCS conference teams with a worse offense: Purdue (112th), Kansas (114th) and Vanderbilt (115th). Did turnovers impact this number a bit? Yes. A bit (part of F/+ is Brian Fremeau's drive-based FEI measure, which obviously cares about drives ending without points). But not much. And you just cannot field a good overall team with an offense this terrible.
Now, the odds of Texas bouncing back in 2011 are rather strong. Look at their major projection factors:
| Four-Year F/+ Rk | 11 |
| Five-Year Recruiting Rk | 3 |
| TO Margin/Adj. TO Margin**** | -12 / -1 |
| Approx. Ret. Starters (Off. / Def.) | 14 (8, 6) |
| Yds/Pt Margin***** | +3.4 |
They had incredibly poor fumbles luck, and without it they'd have probably made a minor bowl game. But this is Texas; is there really a difference between a minor bowl and no bowl?
Texas' recruiting rankings are, of course, bananas, and their YPP margin suggests a bit of a bounceback too. They could be good in 2011, but only if the offense rebounds under new co-coordinators Bryan Harsin and "The" Major Applewhite. And I'm sorry, Mack, but there's nothing that would have made them good in 2010.
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Mack is the ultimate politician
He says only what he wants to say at these media days affairs. I don’t think for a minute that he really believes this. If he did, there would not have been the massive turnover in the assistant coaches. You don’t fire most of your staff if you think a few turnovers here and there would have made you a good team.
In effect, Mack is still being loyal to long time friends, and I respect him for that. Particularly since he put the good of the program above that loyalty, for a change.
.
by Longhorn in Canada on Jul 26, 2011 5:56 PM EDT reply actions
Hmmmm... what do you do about special teams turnovers
A good argument could be made that Texas lost a couple of games due to horrendous special teams turnovers. They hade one against Rice (albeit a game they won) and one that probably cost them the game against UCLA. They had a bunch of poor turnovers against ISU and A&M and others that cost them games. I’d say Mack has at least as good of an argument as a wannabe Sabermetric – factoring in turnovers probably would have bumped up the defense into the very good range (often put in horrendous positions) and the offense into the range above the conference average.
At any rate, criticizing Mack Brown for saying his team would have been good if not for turnovers is like criticizing your grandma for saying you’re a good looking kid. WTH is he supposed to say?
Hopefully now we can both go back to doing somethign more productive than mincing words.
by Erasmus Funderburke on Jul 27, 2011 3:50 PM EDT reply actions
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