Burrowing Into Box Scores: Beyond Denard, Eye-Popping Numbers Abound In Week 2

Fewer and fewer cupcakes make their sacrificial pilgrimages to the temples of college football in each week after the first one in September. That doesn’t mean the really interesting numbers vanish, though; they just get harder to find.

I found a few about Denard Robinson last night. I burrowed a bit deeper today, found some more, and figured out some things about the Big East and ACC that neither conference will be happy to hear.

Points Per Minute. Oregon has scored 120 points in two games, or an average of one point per minute. New Mexico, Oregon’s victim in Week 1, is allowing just a bit more than a point per minute; Alabama, having given up just a field goal each to San Jose State and Penn State so far, is giving up one point every 20 minutes.

Huskers Threshing. In Nebraska’s opener, the Cornhuskers averaged 8.8 yards per carry against Western Kentucky. In Nebraska’s second game, the Cornhuskers averaged 8.8 yards per carry against Idaho. That’s not quite stiff competition, but so far, Big Red’s running game has been superb.

Tulane Names. Tulane may have two of the best names in college football in its receiving corps. Orleans Darkwa and Casey Robottom both catch passes for the Green Wave. And Darkwa has four touchdowns in two games.

Mr. Versatility. Kentucky’s Randall Cobb has been lightning in many bottles so far this season. He has four touchdowns on the year: One rushing, one passing, one receiving, and one on a punt return. Those last three scores all came on Saturday against Western Kentucky. After the game, he bragged on his Wildcats via Twitter.

Army Is The Army, Hawai’i Is ... The Air Force? Matching Army’s triple option against Hawai’i’s wide-open passing attack produced predictably strange results. The Warriors threw 37 times for 343 yards, but ran just 11 times for ten yards. The Black Knights countered by running 64 times for 250 yards and passing six times for 58 yards. It’s rather unlikely that there will be a difference in run/pass play selection balance (23%/77% for Hawai’i, 91%/9% for Army) quite so drastic this season.

Kiffin’s Undisciplined Trojans. Earlier this week, reports surfaced that Derek Dooley found himself having to teach Tennessee players shower discipline. The guy who left that problem for Dooley has his own problem with laundry in Los Angeles: USC has been flagged 24 times for 240 yards through two games.

Grand Opening, Grand Closing. Marcus Lattimore helped South Carolina wear down Georgia yesterday, but did most of his work early and late. On the Gamecocks’ first drive, he rushed for 50 yards on ten carries; on their last, he got 56 yards on eight carries. That latter drive is especially impressive when you know that his first carry on that drive was his 30th of the day.

Almost Competent Conference Or Big Least? I don’t know whether the ACC or the Big East is the worst BCS conference this year. I just know that putrid wouldn’t be enough to suitably insult either.

The ACC is a collective 15-8, 0-5 against teams from other BCS conferences, and 10-1 against FCS teams. (The conference’s lone win against a BCS conference team belongs to Wake Forest, which outgunned Duke 54-48, but allowing just 48 points to Duke isn’t something any football team should ever take pride in.) The ACC’s Coastal Division is a collective 4-7. Virginia Tech lost by three to Boise State—and by five to James Madison. North Carolina State got five turnovers from UCF and won by seven.

Virginia missed a field goal late against USC, got the ball back, drove down the field, then ran down the clock to four seconds remaining, then scored a touchdown to cut the deficit to a field goal just in time to not recover an onside kick that would have left them with enough time to try a 60-yard Hail Mary. It might have been the most impressive performance by an ACC team on Saturday.

The Big East is a collective 10-6, 0-5 against teams from other BCS conferences, and has just three wins against non-FCS teams.

West Virginia and Rutgers are the conference’s only unbeaten teams; the Mountaineers had to rally from a 21-6 deficit in the fourth quarter to beat Marshall, and the Scarlet Knights were outgained 371-176 by Florida International, got just eight first downs, and benefited from five FIU turnovers in a 19-14 win. Syracuse’s season-opening win came against Akron; the Zips lost to FCS school Gardner-Webb on Saturday.

Given these two collections of marginally talented football teams, picking the better conference is like choosing the more appetizing dinner comprised entirely of garbage.