UH Offense and Defense Opposition Ranks-Big Difference

Cougar Football
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Rankings below are from Teamrankings.com

Offensive PPG…as opposed to NCAA Scoring Offense stat…removes non offensive scores to give pure offense PPG number. Why is this important? Some teams have scored numerous TDs on Defense and Special Teams which inflate their Scoring Offense PPG and rank. Example…Washington is listed in NCAA Scoring Offense stats at #15…38.6 PPG…however they have scored 2 defensive TDs and 4 Punt Return TDs…or 42 non offensive points! Under Teamrankings Offensive PPG stat they are #26 at 32.2 PPG…a drop of 11 ranking spots and 6.4 PPG

UH Opponents Offensive PPG and Rank

Memphis 39.0 #7
Arizona 39.0 #8
USF 38.8 #9
SMU 36.5 #14
Texas Tech 34.6 #18
Tulsa 29.0 #43
ECU 25.0 #67
Temple 22.5 #96
Rice 14.2 #125

The Defense has faced 5 of the top 18 scoring Offenses and is ranked #43 at 22.9 PPG allowed

UH Opponents Defensive PPG and Rank(opp Spec team and def Tds excluded)

USF 19.5 #26
Temple 27.8 #78
Memphis 31.1 #97
Arizona 31.5 #100
SMU 31.9 #101
Rice 33.8 #111
Texas Tech 35.2 #116
Tulsa 37.5 #122
ECU 44.9 #130

UH Offense has faced 7 of the bottom 33 Scoring defenses and is ranked #42 at 29.1 PPG scored

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Reminds me of the Briles era…great offense, poor defense.

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Now that we seem to have found the right quarterback the ranking should improve.

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I’m not sure your understanding? The intent of the post was to show how strong our opponents are offensively and defensively.
The defense has faced 5 of top 18 scoring offenses…,and held each below their avg.
How does that equate to bad defense?
No other defense has faced 4 top 30 scoring offenses…10 have faced 3. We have faced 5 of top 17.
Conversely, the offense has faced 7 of bottom 33 bottom scoring defenses…not faced quite the same difficulty to say the least

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Sarcasam?

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Reminds me more of the Ray McCallum years in basketball. Hold opponents to 25 and under in the first half but unfortunately, UH only scored 18 to 20 points per half…

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As for offenses outside the Top 18, we did not hold Tulsa below their average. Or East Carolina. But we did for Rice and Temple.

On Arizona, there’s a bit of an asterisk since they had a transformation on offense with a new QB.

Very interesting stats. Sincerely.

It appears on average that our defense is holding foes to 8 points per game less than they score on offense.

And our offense is scoring 4.5 points per game less than our foes allow on defense.

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Thanks Red.

Both the offense and defense have had weak moments and strong ones as well.

I began to look at this after seeing a tweet from UH SID David Bassity on Oct 29 about the defense on this site.
I didn’t intend to bash the offense…but when I looked into the ranks of the defenses we played…it was the total opposite. I would say that despite a few 2nd half turnovers, the offense played well enough to beat Memphis.

Back to the defense and your comments…

Arizona…point taken. However, Arizona played Dawkins at QB for the first 4 games…he was benched after 3 ints vs Utah in game 4. Arizona scored 62, 63 and 24 points in his other games…16 vs UH(our 1st game on road west coast). Dawkins season rush stats vs other opps is 43 carries for 7.1 avg…vs UH 13 carries for 26 yards.

Tulsa…both units underperformed. And some extenuating circumstances may have contributed. There was record setting heat that day in Oklahoma.

Our defense vs Tulsa in first half…7 series, 5 punts, 1 Int and 1 TD…on a 1 yd drive following a Postma int returned to 1 yard line. Defense held Tulsa to 93 1st half yards and 2 of 8 on 3rd downs. Up 10-7

2nd half…after UH punt…Tulsa drives 93 yards in 19 plays…we hold to FG…score 10-10
Next series Postma intercepted again and returned to UH 6 yard line…Tulsa scores and we are down 17-10

The rest is history…bottom line Tulsa scored 45 points, but 7 were directly on offense(Postma fumble last min of game) and 14 points indirectly…2 ints returned to 1 and 6 yard lines.

The defense fell apart after that…I think the heat and our lack of depth played a part. After holding to FG
after 19 play drive and then having another int returned to 6 killed them. The offense then went 3 and out on next series and Tulsa broke long run for TD.
The offense scored 17 points vs very bad Tulsa defense.

ECU…defense not pretty to say the least. First the positives…3 turnovers forced that led to 21 points…McDowell pick 6…and offense scored TDs off T. Williams pick in 1st qtr and Egbule fumble recover in 3rd qtr. The last TD was against 3rd team defense for most part…I would say half players on field that drive had not played a defensive down this season. There was no sense getting anyone hurt at that point…especially with bye
week ahead. Game was in hand.

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I have to agree. The loss of Tulsa was all about the crap the offense pulled, not about the defense.

Now, Memphis is a different matter; 35 - 2nd half points given up by the defense. That isn’t to say Memphis has not done that to other teams as well. They are well-coached and Ferguson to Miller is a legitimate problem for any defense. However, I am willing to forgive that as an anomaly, but damn… that loss hurt. We would be shooting for the conference championship game right now if we had beat Memphis.

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Can’t be on top every year. I’m happy we can look good in a transition year.

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H Town
I wouldn’t say the entire Tulsa loss was on the offense…we gave up 3 TDs in 2nd half besides the ones the offense setup as gimmes with turnovers. The turnovers energized Tulsa and gave them life.

Memphis was tough. The 35 2nd half points looks bad I agree. On the other side…no other team has shut Memphis down for a complete half. UH shut them out and created 2 turnovers that led to 10 of our 17 first half points. UCF held Memp to I believe 14 points and held them scoreless in 2nd and 3rd quarters…and Ferguson threw 3 picks.

We may have survived Memphis if 3 plays we could control ended differently

  1. The Kickoff return TD
  2. Winchester holds int
  3. Birden realizes that we need a first down…not a TD…and dives forward instead of dancing on 2nd down when we are trying run out clock.

As you mentioned…Memphis does this…scored 48 on UH last year…34 in 1st half…scored on all 6 possessions. We shut them down in 3rd and then the scored to TDs in 4th

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