How Many Points Does The 1st Team Defense Allow?

Photo Attribution: @eknielsen

We all know the stats by now: leading the country in turnover margin, 111th in total defense, and (my favorite) 7th in S&P defense.

Tom Fornelli, who does an excellent job running the Big 12 portion of CBS’ college football coverage, wrote:

On the whole, Oklahoma State has given up 212 points this season. Which is quite a bit, but did you know that 110 of those points have come after Oklahoma State has already built a lead of 25 points or more?

That means 52% of the points the Cowboys have allowed this season have come after the outcome was essentially decided.

It’s a great stat for the haterz, but this is the Big 12 where 50 point leads aren’t safe until halfway through the 4th quarter. I want to go a little deeper, so I went back and combed through each game to find out how many points were 1. given up by OSU’s special teams and/or offense (ie: Weeden pick 6s) and 2. how many points were given up by OSU’s 2nd team defense.

Let’s take a look.

Louisiana – Weeden threw two pick 6s and the scored 7 more in the last three minutes when some of the fans were trying to play. Points allowed: 34 | First team defense points allowed: 13

Arizona – Starters played most of this one and surrendered a pair to Herbie’s favorite QB, Nick Foles and Co. Points allowed: 14 | First team defense points allowed: 14

Tulsa – As best I can tell, the starters played the entirety of the game here too considering Devin Hedgepeth picked a ball off with 1:26 on the game clock and 3:26 on the actual clock. Points allowed: 33 | First team defense points allowed: 33

Texas A&M – The only close game of the year so far. The D only allowed 27 though, Blackmon was responsible for the other 2. Well really 8, but we don’t need to go there. Points allowed: 29 | First team defense points allowed: 27

Kansas – The starters didn’t play the second half but the defensive guys did. Points allowed: 28 | First team defense points allowed: 14

Texas – Here’s where it kind of gets interesting. You have Texas, anemic Texas, putting up 26 on OSU. It’s so misleading though because one of those scores was a kick return and another was the safety on Weeden in the 4th quarter. Points allowed: 26 | First team defense points allowed: 17

Missouri – Again, starters played the whole game here. Points allowed: 24 | First team defense points allowed: 24

Baylor – This is the one that bums me out. Gundy is killing my attempt at creatively telling you why you should believe in this defense (even though all of you already believe in it anyway!) by leaving his defensive starters in what was a 49-3 rout at the end of 3 quarters. Points allowed: 24 | First team defense points allowed: 24

Total points allowed for the year: 212 (26.5/game)
Conference points allowed for the year: 131 (26.2/game)

Total first team defense points allowed for the year: 166 (20.75)
Conference first team defense points allowed for the year: 106 (21.2/game)

So as you can see, the numbers are better, but still not ideal. Again, I’m not taking “garbage time” out of this because if I was I wouldn’t look at anything past the 1st quarter of the KU game or the 2nd quarter of the Baylor game. I’m simply looking at how long the defensive starters were in the game and what they did when they were in there.

The bottom line is this: we can look at this sideways, backwards, with Gundy’s visor on, or standing on top of a pile of Boone’s money but this defense is special.

To watch them is to watch a decade’s worth of Jarvorskie Lane nightmares washed away in a single quarter or half of ball-hawking. Is it the best D in the country? No. Flip up a few channels on Saturday and you’ll see two that are far better. But like I’ve said before, you pair the most ruthless offense in OSU history with these guys and you’ve got something to get excited about.