Houston vs Smoo predictions and discussion

[Cougar King]

Piland has already thrown for 2,000 yards and has been playing with excellence lately, The best running back in C-USA Simms has a nice complimentary back in Farrow. The defense is improving and have gotten multiple sacks the last 3 weeks especially and have completely rattled the last 3 quarterbacks before halftime and hopefully will freak Gilbert out before halftime too. As long as we stay focused and come out firing, we will score early and often.


If we come out swinging like we have the last 3 weeks, we win this one by 3+ tds.

If we come out of the gate unfocused and not taking SMU seriously, then this will be a dogfight.

[Rebel10]

I don't think you will find much argument.

[skurtn]

I still don't see how one can argue that Sims is the best running back in CUSA. Care to elaborate?

[tristatecoog]

http://www.conferenceusa.com/sports/m-f ... l#conf.wi2

Sims: 129 ypg; 6.1 ypc; 6 TDs and 643 total yds (5 games)
Line: 101 ypg; 4.7 ypc; 3 TDs and 604 total yds (6 games)

[ponyboy]

Sims has the best stats halfway through the season. He's got a LONG way to go, though, to prove he's a better rb than Zach Line.

[Comet]

Houston feels like their back. This could go a few ways:

1.) Houston blow out, not from talent disparity but from psychological issues of our team and coach.

2.) Houston wins in a close one (single digits) because our defense gives them a good fight

3.) SMU miraculously wins due to Houston miscues and decent ball movement by our offense.


I'm guessing the first one will happen.

[ponyboy]

This is a real litmus test for our team. Win and the Tulane loss will seem very distant. Lose and I can see this season coming completely unraveled.

I'm predicting an SMU W by 3 points.

[RGV Pony]

Houston 34 SMU 16. 3 fg's and a pick 6 for the ponies

we did what we did

[redpony]

CK- if your back had our O line blocking for him he wouldn't have half the yds he does.. Line is a horse and get his yards totally on his own. It is very rare that our O line gets to the second level to help him out. It is really a shame because Zack is tough player that 'brings it' every game. If we had 10 more like him on the O we would be undefeated. JMHO..

[NTXCoog]

http://www.conferenceusa.com/sports/m-f ... l#conf.wi2

Sims: 129 ypg; 6.1 ypc; 6 TDs and 643 total yds (5 games)
Line: 101 ypg; 4.7 ypc; 3 TDs and 604 total yds (6 games)

Almost as important...
Sims 41 ypg receiving; 1 TD and 204 total yards
Line 24 ypg receiving: 0 TDs and 141 yards

So total yardage from scrimmage per game
Sims 170 ypg; 7 TDs
Line 125 ypg; 3 TDs

I know Line seemed like the dominant RB last year because he had 400 more yards rushing than Sims last year, but Sims had more than 400 yards receiving than Line last year. So Sims actually had more yards from scrimmage than Line did in 2011 to make it a close comparison. Line did have 4 more TDs last year though.

[skurtn]

http://www.conferenceusa.com/sports/m-f ... l#conf.wi2

Sims: 129 ypg; 6.1 ypc; 6 TDs and 643 total yds (5 games)
Line: 101 ypg; 4.7 ypc; 3 TDs and 604 total yds (6 games)

Uh. You're cherry picking an isolated stat which doesn't say much.
Here's some other stats...

Tulsa has over 1k total rushing just half way through the season with just 2 backs. Yes, they're a running team, but where do you draw the line?

Or, perhaps you want to look at yards per carry? Look at Douglas (Tulsa), Watts (Tulsa), and even Ross (Rice).

Or perhaps you want to look at overall stats over the course of just 3 years of playing: Line and Sims

Sims (2009, 2011, 2012): 2162 yards, 347 carries, 6.23 yards/carry
Line (2010, 2011, 2012): 3322 yards, 580 carries, 5.72 yards/carry

So which is it, yards per carry, total yards, what?

Oh, and here's the rest of the chart you fail to show.

Code: Select all

 1. SIMS, Charles.. HOU  JR  5  105  643   6.1  6   53 128.6
 2. LINE, Zach..... SMU  SR  6  128  604   4.7  3   33 100.7
 3. DOUGLAS, J..... TLS  JR  7   72  533   7.4  5   81  76.1
 4. WATTS, T....... TLS  JR  7   73  507   6.9  2   77  72.4
 5. McHARGUE, T.... RICE JR  6   83  433   5.2  7   47  72.2
 6. JOHNSON, Storm. UCF  SO  6   92  427   4.6  4   48  71.2
 7. JOHNSON, D..... USM  SR  6   70  410   5.9  1   58  68.3
 8. JEFFERY, Nathan UTEP SO  6   89  410   4.6  0   71  68.3
 9. COOPER, Vntvus. ECU  JR  7   85  458   5.4  1   39  65.4
 10.ROSS, Charles.. RICE JR  7   73  452   6.2  1   64  64.6

[NTXCoog]

http://www.conferenceusa.com/sports/m-f ... l#conf.wi2

Sims: 129 ypg; 6.1 ypc; 6 TDs and 643 total yds (5 games)
Line: 101 ypg; 4.7 ypc; 3 TDs and 604 total yds (6 games)

Uh. You're cherry picking an isolated stat which doesn't say much.
Here's some other stats...

Tulsa has over 1k total rushing just half way through the season with just 2 backs. Yes, they're a running team, but where do you draw the line?

Or, perhaps you want to look at yards per carry? Look at Douglas (Tulsa), Watts (Tulsa), and even Ross (Rice).

Or perhaps you want to look at overall stats over the course of just 3 years of playing: Line and Sims

Sims (2009, 2011, 2012): 2162 yards, 347 carries, 6.23 yards/carry
Line (2010, 2011, 2012): 3322 yards, 580 carries, 5.72 yards/carry

Speaking of cherry picking stats... you didn't include receiving numbers there. Sims has 1538 career receiving yards. Line only has 443.

So total yards from scrimmage... Line 3765. Sims 3700. And since you're comparing a senior who is in his 3rd year as really the only legitimate RB on the team (<200 yards from the 2nd RB) to a junior who is in his first year of not splitting time with another RB who runs for >600 yards per season, you might want to reconsider how you look at their career stats.

Regarding the Tulsa RBs, their top 2 rushers have 1000 yards, but they've also played 7 games. Sims has played 5 games. Sims 129 yards rushing per games is close to the combined rushing of Tulsa's 2 backs at 148 ypg. If you throw in receiving yards, Sims at 170 ypg is very comparable to both Tulsa RBs' combined 174 ypg.

[mustangxc]

http://www.conferenceusa.com/sports/m-f ... l#conf.wi2

Sims: 129 ypg; 6.1 ypc; 6 TDs and 643 total yds (5 games)
Line: 101 ypg; 4.7 ypc; 3 TDs and 604 total yds (6 games)

Line has faced much better teams than Sims. I will wait until the end of conference play to determine who the better runner is.

[ojaipony]

Houston feels like their back. This could go a few ways:

1.) Houston blow out, not from talent disparity but from psychological issues of our team and coach.

2.) Houston wins in a close one (single digits) because our defense gives them a good fight

3.) SMU miraculously wins due to Houston miscues and decent ball movement by our offense.


I'm guessing the first one will happen.

I agree with all of this, especially point #1. In all my memories of playing Houston (20 years) it seems we have some kind of psychological roadblock - I was hoping JP could help us with that (one reason I really like Kingsbury as our next HC - has that swagger). I think the problem stems from having all these TX players who grew up in a era win Houston blew us out (you see the same inferiority complex with teams like aTm) - one of the reasons I like recruiting guys outside of the area (especially on the west coast: they don't really know or care).

[skurtn]

Speaking of cherry picking stats... you didn't include receiving numbers there.

Now you see where I'm coming from. Second, I don't need to consider anything.
I can play numbers games all day long. I keep a DB on my own server at home to store interesting tid bits. If you like, I can pull some more meaningless data that doesn't show context.

More importantly, Line led CUSA in yards the last 2 years.
Though, he probably won't this year, because he doesn't have the OLine to support it.

Which brings me to my last point, calling any RB "the best" in this scenario is a no-win situation considering it requires the full faith and cooperation of the rest of one's team to pull it off (e.g. blockers).