I’m struggling to control my optimism. CFB is largely confined to regional cells, isolated from each other. It’s hard to compare records, stats or even SoS when there are virtually no common opponents and few second degree comparisons until the end of the year. Now we are getting data
Frankly, Texas’ opponents have performed much better than Washington’s have. The difference has been so great that it’s tempting to regard UW’s season stats as fools gold. I’m more focused on the defensive results which are less likely to be severely skewed by a few opt outs than offenses. And frankly the PAC-12 slate plus Boise have looked bad.
Arizona smacked Oklahoma’s scout team but they gave up over 200 rushing yards and 350 passing yards to a Freshman quarterback seeing his first real action and a 3rd string tailback playing behind a salvage yard O-Line. 363 yards passing and 111 on the ground doesn’t look that impressive now, does it?
Boise faced UCLA which UW did not this year. The Bruins had slightly lower offensive output than Washington but with a hugely different distribution. UCLA had 280 rushing to (78) for UW and 230 to (478) passing. Oregon St gave up 110 rushing 162 passing to UW vs 232 and 236 to the Domers. Cal surrendered 256 passing to Texas Tech vs to (389) for UW and 128 to (140) rushing.
Utah v Northwestern: 225 (332) passing, 65 (125) rushing
USC v Louisville: 141 (256) passing, 220 (316) rushing
Oregon vs Liberty TBD
TL;DR - With a bunch of decent teams matching up, UW’s offense looks pretty comparable to their schedule’s bowl matchups. Their offensive results are clearly superior to Louisville and Northwestern but inferior to ND. Running results are very similar to TTU and OU’s replacements but way below UCLA. Not suggestive of anything more than an average ground attack.