Sports: ESPN and USC

Jonathan Chait over at Slate and I don't agree on much, but apparently we view USC in the same light:

The ESPNers also entertained the thought of this year's Trojans facing off against great powers from a generation ago. May noted that the 1969 Texas Longhorns ("the size of the players ... forget it, they're gonna roll over them") and the 1955 Oklahoma Sooners ("Not even close, and I look at the size of the players … their starting center was 5-8, a sophomore, and 158 pounds") would both be overwhelmed by today's Trojans. Which is probably true, though one could use this method to prove that the 2005 Temple Owls were the greatest team of all time. Fielding H. Yost's 1901 Michigan team trampled opponents by a cumulative score of 550-0. But, hey, the forward pass wasn't legal then, and those guys didn't even wear helmets. The concussions alone would make this a huge Temple blowout.

What makes this orgy of genuflection so odd is that there's a team from the very recent past that could beat this year's USC Trojans—last year's USC Trojans. There's no one perfect statistical gauge, but the best measure of football dominance is probably a team's ratio of points scored to points allowed. If you score 200 points and allow 100, that's a ratio of 2.0. The 2005 Trojans have a ratio of 2.3, which is not terribly impressive for a national championship team. Last year's USC team had a ratio of 2.9. The 1997 Michigan team had a 3.1, and the 1991 Washington Huskies outscored their opponents 4.6 to 1—twice the ratio of this year's Trojans.

Nor is it clear that USC is better than this year's Texas Longhorns. Both teams have fantastic offenses. (USC averages 50 points a game, Texas 51.) But Texas' defense is very good (allowing 14.6 points a game), while USC's is barely above average
(allowing 21.3.) . . .

While USC may be wildly overrated, they're still very, very good. They were not as dominant as Texas throughout the year, but their battered defense will return a lot of injured players in the Rose Bowl, they'll be playing in their hometown, and they have a coach who makes the most of bowl preparation. But maybe we should play the game before considering how much they would win by if the team consisted of a bunch of 14-inch Pete Carrolls.

Chait takes the words right out of my mouth . . . and then changes them into different, and far more elegant, words.