We all know from visuals if nothing else what the weaknesses and strengths of our team are

But sometimes a generic look at stats can hide both good and bad things about your team as some of those results are dependent on who you played and how good or bad they are

So I have gone thru each game and compared yards allowed and gained vs what our opponents have done across the year to see how we have done in comparison to that metric

My basic premise is this: given our talent and coaching disparity we should on offense gain at least 50 more rushing yards per game than our opponents on average allow and the same in passing, for a total of at least 100 more gained than our opponents normally give up, same holds true on defense ie we should hold teams 100 yards under what they "normally" gain.

So as an example if you played a great run D that gives say 100 a game, we should hope for at least 150 and if they are a bad run D allowing 250 we should hope for 300 ie +50 vs the opponents normal average

So first the broad average across the entire year

The teams we have faced so far on average have allowed 181 rushing per game, so we should be somewhere around 230, but instead we are at just 178 ie below what our opponents normally allow. This amount is even skewed further by the Oregon St game in which we gained +100 in that game alone. Across the other 8 games the opponents have allowed 169 yards and we have gained only 154 or -15, by any measure that's terrible, especially if the goal is to be at 219

The only games where we have been positive was the above mentioned Beavers game, TCU(+38), Tulane (+4) and last weeks Nebby game (+56)

The worst game was Minny at -96 followed by Purdue and PSU at -56 and -53 respectively

Now to passing. again the goal is to be at least 50 yards above the opponents average. For the year we are +129 which is obviously great and has in most games off set the poor to mediocre rushing.

However last week was the first time this year we were negative at -18. The next worst is +53 vs PSU, followed by Oregon St at +87 otherwise we have been +100 or better every game

So for Total yards then we are +126 vs a goal of at least +100, so barely in the good category.

Now to defense, rushing first

To date our opponents have averaged gaining 173 yards per game on the ground and we have allowed an average of 153, so -20 but not quite -50 goal. Best game was Tulane at -122, then Indiana and Rutgers at -74 and -55 respectively. The worst game was TCU at +50, followed by Org St and Minny at +28 and +24 respectively, but over all our run defense has been solid but not great

Now Pass D. So far our opponents average gaining 233 yards per game thru the air and we have allowed 244 or +11 which again is terrible especially when the -50 goal would be 183. The best performance was Rutgers at -87, followed by Org St at -53 as the only game where we met the goal. The worst game was nearly a 3 way tie between TCU, PSU and Indiana who were +68, +65 and +65 respectively

So for Total D, we are -9, which is quite far from the goal of -100. Overall had we allowed on average -100 per game we would have allowed 820 fewer yards on the year