Football Outsiders' Baylor Stats Through 2 Weeks

Because it's still only Week 2, and the sample sizes are ridiculously small, we still don't have the more specific offensive and defensive aspects of both FEI and S&P+, aka, most of the stuff I include in my weekly previews to see how we stack against our opponents.  And because we don't have an opponent this week with our boys hibernating until next Saturday, we won't get a weekly preview.  I did one for fun last year that had us beating "Off" and someone got upset about the somewhat dirty joke.  Whatever.

That doesn't mean we can't look at how Baylor stacks up in the larger picture through FootballOutsiders' rankings, which at least try to take into account things like strength of schedule, tempo, and the like where absolute stats like yards/game don't, on both sides.

On that note, in a strange reversal from last season, Baylor's first two wins of the season haven't really moved the needle much in FEI, where we're ranked 23rd overall.  Last week we were 24th.  It's important to note that this measure only counts one of our games, the other being against FCS Wofford, which FEI has no way to quantify considering it isn't included in the rankings, itself.  I say this is a strange reversal because last season, FEI loved us where S&P+ didn't.

Speaking of S&P+, that's where we made our big move after this past week, jumping all the way to #16 from 30.  That puts us third overall in the Big 12 behind both Oklahoma schools.  Offensively, we're about where you'd expect at #4 behind Florida State, Texas A&M, and Oregon, all of which should be strong offensive teams this season.  Defensively, we fell a bit from last week's 30 to 72.  That's probably a better representation of where this team is right now, anyway.  But don't be upset by it; if we can keep a defense in the 70s or higher all season, we should be extremely good with our offense.

For the Big 12, despite the fact that the sample size is quite small (one game in many instances), S&P+ works out pretty much as you'd expect.  Oklahoma State is first, with an offense and defense that are both in the teens.  Oklahoma is second, with a middling offense (52) and a strong defense (7).  Texas comes up after Baylor with a strong offense (6) and defense even worse than our own (87).  Next is TCU (30, 23), followed by Texas Tech (42, 41), and Kansas State (33, 75).  Of that group, the only thing that is really surprising is that Tech's offense is ranked so low.  Apparently, S&P+ doesn't love the defensive schedule they've faced or how they've faced it.

RELATED CONTENT

The boys over at FootballOutsiders.com have a pair of article worth looking at, including one looking at drive efficiency and another at the best QB games of the past 4 years.  Geno Smith occupies a few of the top spots on the latter post for his game against Baylor.

Also, this week's The Numerical focuses on the outstanding Baylor offense, asking whether this kind of performance can possibly continue.