Emilio Fantastico said:

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You might also consider that in today's college football with the unlimited transfer portal that a team with a heavy dose of transfers may put up pedestrian stats offensively or defensively early in the season as the team gels. But then could turn it on down the stretch. So long as they don't lose too much while they are coming together, they could still win it all without the definitive season stats to back up either side of this argument.

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I think that is certainly a possibility. That said, 28-35 ppg is still alot no matter how you dice it. The top teams are still scoring. Ill take a stone-cold defense with a "good not great" offense if you are asking me to weigh one side heavier.

Faustus said:

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That 2023 Michigan championship team had two 1st round draft picks at QB (10th McCarthy) and TE (10th Loveland). Three 3rd round picks - RB Corum, OL Zinter, and WR Wilson, and six other offensive players were taken in the lower rounds in the '24 and '25 drafts.

https://www.freep.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/2024/10/05/michigan-um-washington-football-2024-nfl-draft-michael-penix-jr-jj-mccarthy/75444417007/#

https://247sports.com/college/michigan/longformarticle/seven-michigan-players-selected-in-2025-nfl-draft-mason-graham-colston-loveland-others-launch-nfl-careers-249327681/amp/

They might not have needed to put up huge numbers, but they were supremely talented on that side of the ball.

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Nobody is saying McCarthy is a bad QB but again here are the stats for their title game.

Passing
UW 255
Mich 140

Rushing
UW 46
Mich 304


This proves the exact opposite of what the OP is suggesting. Teams mostly win titles by running the ball on offense and stopping the run on defense. There are some high flying offenses like LSU under Joe Burrow but that is almost the exception not the rule.

AgFan1974 said:

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Emilio Fantastico said:

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You might also consider that in today's college football with the unlimited transfer portal that a team with a heavy dose of transfers may put up pedestrian stats offensively or defensively early in the season as the team gels. But then could turn it on down the stretch. So long as they don't lose too much while they are coming together, they could still win it all without the definitive season stats to back up either side of this argument.

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I think that is certainly a possibility. That said, 28-35 ppg is still alot no matter how you dice it. The top teams are still scoring. Ill take a stone-cold defense with a "good not great" offense if you are asking me to weigh one side heavier.

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Not really. Since the strength of schedules can vary so much in college football, scoring that many points is not really that hard if you have an easy schedule. Take Ole Miss for example, they had a pathetically easy OOC schedule last year where they scored 76, 52, 50, 52 in their 4 OOC games to average 55 ppg. Yet they only broke 30 once in SEC play when they scored 63 against Arky. They averaged 28.75 in SEC play but only 23.85 if you take out the Arky game. So Ole Miss' high scoring average of 37.5 ppg for the regular season was built on the back of rolling it up on really bad teams.

However, their defense was pretty stellar only giving up more than 30 points once (31 to Arky) while averaging 13.9 ppg for the regular season.

And yet somehow, they managed to lose 3 games while averaging almost 24 ppg more than their opponents.

Man, that last line really highlights what a bizarre team they were last year or at least how uneven their schedule was.

I agree schedule differences are a legitimate point and I don't know how to statistically account for that . Maybe throw out stats from non P4 opponents would normalize it to some degree (Notre Dame excluded … maybe a few others)

Agreed. I was thinking, "What school did he win a natty with again?".

As long as you supplement the power running game with the occasional comeback route every once in a while, you can run an effective offense.

If the D is great because it's physically dominant then yes.

… cue the now infamous "been saying this for years " post

Law Of The Quad said:

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Coach Elko is succeeding in recruiting defense. Previous coaches struggled especially at LB.
The question is can a power running game with defense win in an offensive minded era?


Pundits like Cowherd would say no.
I can't think of where a defensive that dominated and won the ring since Alabama.

If it can be done, this seems like the season to do it.

Notre dame almost did it last year, but Michigan did it the year before.

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