Mark Schlabach's Incredibly Thorough Assessment of the BigXII
This article (linked below) is exactly why I can't stand to read the crap spewn out by national writers (the same illuminati who vote for the Heisman trophy and the AP poll, mind you). In his rundown of competition for the BigXII title, Schlabach utterly ignores Texas, giving the title to Oklahoma because they have a better defense than Mizzou and Tech.
As many people have noted already this year, it's great to be flying under the radar for once, but come on Schlabach. Texas is a legitimate Top 10 team who has manhandled 3 early opponents and has a dominant quarterback who is probably playing the best football in the country alongside Chase Daniel.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/notebook?page=notebook/onthemark0922
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On the plus side
He did mention Colt as #3 QB in the On The Mark: Precision passers section on the right side of the page.
I don't know that there's anything controversial
about suggesting that Oklahoma is better than Texas right now. That would fall under the category of “national consensus” type material.
I don’t know if that means they are actually a better team, but Mark Schlabach has a lot of moral support for his opinion.
That's not the point
Most people who don’t really know anything substantive about either team (and Schlabach probably doesn’t, given that all he’s doing is throwing out stats) would automatically assume OU is better. That’s fine. The problem is that he says what separates OU from everyone else in the conference is their defense. Then he proceeds to compare them to Missouri and Tech and says nothing about how their defense stacks up against the Texas defense. Texas has better defensive numbers than Tech and Missouri. Texas is giving up over 100 yards more game than OU but still 3 less points per game than the Sooners. I think those things are worth mentioning if you’re going to make a stats-based argument about OU being a defensive stalwart and Missouri and Tech being the only teams that could potentially challenge them.
To be fair
It’s not meant to be a thorough analysis. His “On the Mark, Off the Mark” stuff are just quick shots at a lot of different areas of college football. Be glad that he didn’t mention Texas; he mentioned Mizzou and Tech because both defenses were hyped up before the season (at least, Tech’s was “hyped” as the best Leach has ever had) and both have not been very impressive. Our defense, particularly our secondary, was pinpointed as a big problem before the season. We have yet to answer those questions, but we haven’t been totally lit up yet either.
by TheElusiveShadow on Sep 23, 2008 8:15 AM CDT reply actions
I've said it before, I'll say it again
Reading Mark Schlabach is a waste of time. ESPN.com has two intelligent and insightful CFB writers (Maisel and Feldman), and one entertaining writer who dabbles in CFB (Forde). Why they need to produce crap by Mark Schlabach is beyond me.

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