Stats are for champions (part 5)

In installment 5 of "Stats are for champions" we take a look at the stats for teams still alive in the national championship race and how their stats aligned with the history of the 10 previous national champions.Teams eliminated this past Saturday: Penn State and Oklahoma State. In summary, the past 8 national champions (starting in 2000) look like this: Of those 8 title winners only one (Ohio State in 2002) finished below 10th (23rd) in total defense. The average ranking of the total defense for those 8 teams was 8th.Offense has not been as important statistic in determining the national champion. The average rank for those 8 offenses was 23rd and only 2 of the 8 champions (Miami in 2001 and Texas in 2005) had offenses finish in the top 10. The 2002 Ohio State team actually won the national title while being ranked 70th in total offense. The 2007 LSU team finished 26th in offense and the 2003 LSU team finished 31st in total offense.

With that in mind, here is an updated look at the teams, in my opinion, that remain with a realistic chance at the national title and their current defensive rankings:

USC - 1
Alabama - 4
Florida - 14
Oklahoma - 51
Texas Tech - 57
Texas - 60

This weeks schedule has South Carolina at Florida, Mississippi State at Alabama, Texas at Kansas and Southern Cal at Stanford. Oklahoma and Texas Tech are off this week as they prepare to meet in Norman next week in a gigantic game.

We'll continue to update this as the season progresses.