(ed. note: This guy e-mailed me all this stat-wonk stuff the other day, and, rather than stealing it and labeling it as my own - like any good blogger - I recommended he post it as a fanpost. Well, he did, and I think it's a rather good yarn and a refreshingly fair (to both sides) departure from the YOUR CONFERENCE SUCKS / NO, YOUR CONFERENCE SUCKS crap that has permeated most discussions surrounding the Rose Bowl. Enjoy.)

As most everyone (last time I saw it, ESPN's poll had it ~75-25 in favor of Oregon) seems to be favoring Oregon, and as most of the arguments tend to run along the lines of: "Ohio State has never seen anything like Oregon's offense (did you know the BigTeleven sucks at offense?)" and the equally entertaining rebuttal of "well, Oregon has never seen anything like Ohio State's defense (your offense is only awesome because the Pac10 is terrible at defense)", I thought that it was time for some good old fashion statistics.  Because, after all, statistics NEVER lie.  Ever.

So, the method (all numbers from NCAA stats page, with games against FCS teams excised):

Offense- I removed Ohio State/Oregon's points and then recalculated the Scoring Defense value for each opponent (in ppg allowed).  I then compared the points scored by Ohio State/Oregon to the season Scoring D value and averaged the % difference over the schedule.  This gives a value of what, on average, the team did to their opponents compared to what all of the opponents' opponents did to the opponents.  Or...something like that.  Negative value means you scored less than expected, 0 means you scored the exact average, positive you scored more.

Results:  Ohio State: +25.04%, or 1.25 times an opponent's Scoring D value

              Oregon: +64.62%, or 1.64 times an opponent's scoring D value

So, as expected, Oregon appears to have a far more explosive offense.  The problem for Oregon is when you try and do some extrapolating (which, with statistics, is always a great idea).  Ohio State sports a stellar scoring D of 12.17 ppg, while Oregon's is a slightly less stellar 23.58 ppg.  A little multiplication gives an expected game score (based on only Offensive Expected Output) of:

                                             Ohio State: (1.25*23.58) = 29.475, or 29

                                             Oregon :  (1.65*12.17) = 20.081 or 20

And, all is well (from the Buckeye perspective).  Since that went so well, why not the defense?  Same method, just switch to opponent Scoring Offense and Ohio State/Oregon points allowed.

Defense:   Ohio State: -54.62%, or 0.4538 times Opponent's Scoring O value

                 Oregon: -17.82%, 0.8218 times Opponent's Scoring O value

Again, the expected wins out and Ohio State appears to have the stouter D.  Taking Scoring offense values for Ohio State (29.25) and Oregon (37.67) into account, the expected final score (D values only) becomes:

                                             Ohio State: (0.8218*29.25) = 24.04, or 24

                                             Oregon: (0.4538*37.67) = 17.09, or 17

So , either analysis predicts a close Ohio State win, with a combined average coming to:

                                              Ohio State 26        Oregon 18

The idea with this was to come up with a way around the whole 'is the offense great because the defense sucks, or does the defense suck because the offense was great' rigmarole.  In this method, I am not looking at strict rankings, but comparative measures.  This allows for you to assume the crappiness of Big10 offenses (or Pac10 defenses) to your black heart's content.  The point remains: even if offenses in the Big10 stunk, Ohio State still held them to less than half what everyone else held them to, on average.  Conversely, even if Pac10 defenses were not so good, Oregon still blew them out of the water, and by far more than everyone else who had to good fortune to play them.  Still, this isn't exactly gospel, seeing as I ignored all personnel match ups, special teams, and anything/everything else that plays a part in college football. 

If anyone wants to see the actual charts, in all their number-y glory,  please let me know.  I also have similar data on rushing and passing attacks, but this was long enough already.

Go Bucks!