Everyone is anticipating an SEC champion vs. Texas BCS Championship Game.  The reality is that if Texas wins their remaining games this will happen.  This post presents arguments that Texas might not even be the best team in Texas.

Let me start by looking briefly at Massey's College Football Ranking Comparison to gain an idea of what current reasonable opinions represent.  Texas has a mean of 2.48 and a SD of 1.47.  TCU has a mean of 3.81 and a SD of 1.11.  If we treat these as independent measures one would estimate that Texas would be expected to be favored three to one.  Examination of the polls suggests these are not completely independent with Texas favored four to one.

The shame of this entire argument is that these two teams were once conference rivals in the old SWC.  In those days this would have been settled on the field.  Today it will be settled in the voting booths of the BCS electoral college instead. 

Imagine if former Texas Governor Ann Richards did not throw her weight around and force the BIG 12 to take Baylor if they wanted her to approve the board of regents allowing Texas to change conferences?  This would have allowed the Big 12 to have room for further expansions according to market pressure rather than political clout.  TCU would have been a stronger contender than Baylor in many of those 25 years since. 

Had politics stayed out of football then, Texas would have likely played TCU this year instead of Baylor.

The Big 12 might generate more revenue and interest in their championship game if they snub the Big 12 North and invite TCU instead.

TCU needs Texas to lose to get into the BCS Championship Game.  My question is should they?

Schedule

The first fact I would like to examine is the strength of the top teams played.  Texas has beat only one ranked opponent while TCU has beat three ranked opponents.  Clemson and the loser of next weeks Utah-BYU game might drop out while Nebraska might jump in.  Even if Nebraska does they would drop out with a loss to Texas in the Big 12 Championship Game.  The fact is the top of the Big 12 is not as dominant over the MWC as in years past and Texas did not schedule any teams to make up the difference while TCU tried to gain games against top ACC teams.  One of those paned out in Clemson.

Offense

TCU is ranked #3 and Texas #25 nationally in yards per game.  Texas averages 2.4 more points per game.  The question is did TCU earn that #3 ranking by playing inferior opponents?

To mitigate against this I looked only at the top three defenses each team has played to date.  Based on yard per game rankings TCU has played against better defenses than Texas has to date.  Looking at the averages from these three games against top defenses Texas expands their scoring edge to 3.0 points while TCU opens a 128.7 yard per game edge.  TCU has a 19.7 yard edge in the air and dominates on the ground with 91.0 more yards than Texas per game and 3.7 more first downs.  Turnovers are a wash. 

TCU's offense has dominated quality defenses at level that Texas can not claim.

Defense

Texas is ranked #1 in defense and TCU #4 in yards per game.  Texas averages 0.3 points per game less than TCU.  Again we will look at the performance against the top three offenses faced to mitigate agaisnt scheduling differences.

Texas has faced the better offenses so their higher ranking is amplified.  TCU is allowing 2.7 less points per game than Texas while preventing an additional 72.3 yards per game.  Texas holds teams to 26.7 less yards rushing than TCU, holding two opponents to negative yards to TCU's one.  TCU leads in passing by 99 less yards allowed per game.  Texas gains an extra 5.7 first downs per game and forces 1.3 more turnover per game.

Texas has the stronger defense against better offenses, but TCU is respectable and may be better against the pass.

Head to Head

The numbers suggest that TCU's offense would be able to push them over the top in what would be a tough physical game in the trenches.

TCU's rankings did not come just from padding numbers against MWC bottom dwellers, but by beating teams like the Sugar Bowl Champion Utes 55-28 and ACC title contender Clemson.

Texas's rankings came from playing in a less that 2008 level Big 12 (that lost twice to C-USA West runner up Houston) and Sun Belt #3 or 4 Louisiana Monroe.

Stating that Texas might not be the best team in Texas is not as ridiculous as it might at first seem.  You can count me among the 18% who reasonably think TCU is better than Texas.

This much is clear:  The best team in Texas is certainly not Baylor!