Stupid Stats; What's a blowout?

The great outrage of our time is that Ohio State has made it to the national title game two years in a row and two years in a row been pasted. Following these routs, the unwashed masses feel disappointed and of course, seek someone to blame. That's what we do best in this great nation, assign blame.

While the 2007 title game was not quite as brutal as the previous game, there is no denying that Ohio State was beaten soundly. Only a late meaningless touchdown kept the score respectable. However, it was a score that goes in the record books so we should not discount it completely.

The truth is you cannot just look at a score and know whether or not a game was lopsided. Our good friends to the north beat Florida soundly in the 2008 Citrus Bowl. However, everyone's favorite maize and blue blowhard Mike Hart dropped the ball TWICE going into the endzone. Instead of winning by three TD's, the Wolverines only one by one. A blowout? I guess not. Thanks Mike Hart. Shithead.

For the purposes of this lame post we'll use the Buckeyes' 38-24 loss to LSU as the standard. Just looking at last year's bowl games how many were decided by 14 points or more? How prevalent are "blowouts" when it comes to bowl games?

I'll start with this fun fact. Almost HALF of the BCS national title games have been "blowouts" according to the specified measure. That's five out of 11 title games to be specific. Unfortunately the Buckeyes have produced two of those games.

Four out of the five BCS bowl games were "blowouts" last season. Only the Orange Bowl, a riveting contest between college football Goliath Kansas and Virginia Tech produced a compelling contest. I'm sure four out of five is above average for BCS games but there have certainly been plenty of ass-whompings in these exhibitions over the last 11 years.

Of the remaining 27(!) bowl games, nine were decided by two TD's or more. Yes math majors, that's one third.

So to sum up here, 41% of the bowl games were "blowouts" last year.

While there is no doubt that Ohio State's efforts in the previous two title games have been disappointing, it is not as if lopsided bowl games are a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. I am not excusing anything, I'm just saying these things happen more often then you might think.

Of course, winning one of these games would probably render this conversation meaningless.