Matt Melton, at his fine blog Statistically Speaking, has posted his statistical breakdown of the SEC’s last season here. Essentially, he ranks each team in the conference based on how its performance gaining yardage and stopping yardage in conference games only ranks against the mean.
Here’s how Matt breaks it down:
Not a whole lot of surprises there, really. The biggest one is LSU’s poor showing. And we thought the defense in Athens stunk last year! Rich Brooks probably deserves a little more love than we give him for getting a team with those numbers to a bowl game (and winning it).
There’s lots of other good stuff in there – Ole Miss’ passer ratings over the past five years, the percentage of passing plays Arkansas ran over the past five seasons, Jon Gruden’s likely feelings about Junior and LSU’s prospects for next season – that’ll make you take a moment to think about. It’s an interesting post worth your attention.
Get The Picture 
Although I like Ole Miss next year, I can’t pull the trigger for them to win the West vs. Bama and LSU.
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I guess if you are UT….defense doesn’t win championships…
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The West is going to be a fustercluck in ’09. All of the teams, sans the Cow College, are pretty good, but they all have glaring holes.
Alabama is retooling a dominant offensive line and trying to find a quarterback. Ole Miss is trying to replace a huge chunk of the defense. Arkansas is still a few players away, but I expect the 2nd year bump. Auburn is still without a quarterback. LSU has questions here and there and a brutal road schedule.
I don’t envy Phil Steele (yes, I do). I would ordinarily take Alabama as the safe money, but Nick Saban has NEVER (as in EVER) won 10 games in back-to-back seasons.
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B-b-b-b-but he’s the best coach in the history of ever!
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Hey TR, in addition to replacing 3 of the top 4 tacklers, the Rebs are also having to replace 2 starters on the offensive line, including Oher.
The biggest thing working in OM’s favor is the schedule – for once – as we play an absolutely pitiful OOC slate and host LSU, Alabama, Arkansas, and Tennessee. There are potentially tricky roadies to Columbia and Nashville (Vandy always gives us problems), but we really luck out not drawing your ‘Dawgs or the Gators in the regular season.
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Truthfully, I think Brooks needs to have a big year sooner or later or else they need to find a new coach. I know Joker is coach-in-waiting but I bet they could get out of that somehow
UK will never be a powerhouse in football but I am surprised that it has not at least seriously challenged for the East late in the game
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“Not a whole lot of surprises there, really. The biggest one is LSU’s poor showing. And we thought the defense in Athens stunk last year! ”
And what did they do about it? Replaced their co-DCs with John Chavis.
Us, on the other hand…(whistles, rolls eyes)
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Sure, they did “something”, but who knows if the problem was the players or the coaching. Some of the LSU d line might have been counting their NFL money a year early. Chavis is serviceable, though.
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Chavis is serviceable.
Kind of like Gabrielle Union is alright.
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