I'm not going to pretend that I spent four hours watching the Ohio State game, but it does seem like they played better, even if I am just judging by the stat sheet and play-by-play. But then we're back to the question of how hard is it to look good against Maryland? So still, we really don't know anything about Ohio State . . .
It's hard to say. Maryland certainly isn't very good, but they were also playing for their coach (who they knew before the game was about to get fired), and their defense is actually not terrible. It's their offense is awful.
I've watched a fair amount of Maryland this year. I thought OSU was fine.
I'd be interested in your opinion of Michigan/Michigan State this week, and whether you think either or both still poses a realistic threat to Ohio State at the end of the year . . .
I'd probably put Michigan as the favorite in that matchup, just because Michigan State is really beat up, injury wise right now. I'd expect it to still be close though, given that I'm not sure Michigan can really exploit Sparty's shaky secondary at the moment. I think Ohio State has better players than both teams, and has a higher ceiling than both teams, but could absolutely lose to either of them. Or both.
And finally, just for Light Cleric there bc I don't think anyone else mentioned it, that was ofc and incredibly cool thing LSU did for SCAR this weekend. It's easy to look at it from the outside with a cynical eye, but I'm not sure Alabama would have treated another school that way and I doubt there are many schools outside the SEC that would have done that either, so kudos sir, well played . . .
I hope to have a story out on this in a few weeks.
Tell that to the people that rank defenses.
Serious commentators outside of lazy broadcasters have stopped using total defense (yards) as a metric, and any curious person could find lots of other ones. Yardage, absent any adjustment for pace, opponent quality or opponent style, tells us nothing. If you give up 220 yards rushing against Washington State, you probably suck. If you give up 220 yards rushing to Navy, you might still be really good.
Per S&P+, which tracks efficiency and adjusts for pace and opponent, Kansas State and Ohio State have roughly the same quality of defense (#26 to #29). That sounds about right to me.
In unrelated news, if you're interested in conference realignment, I wrote something about New Mexico State and Eastern Kentucky's bid to join the Sun Belt:
http://www.sbnation.com/college-foo...ignment-new-mexico-state-eku-coastal-carolina