Oh. As Gilda Radner used to say on Saturday Night Live: "Nevermind"
But don't worry, I've got somthing to say about slobberknockers, too.
With regard to slobberknockers, with Stanford's SOS being between #3 and #5 per the computer rankings, versus NU's #30-36, I would guess that Stanford knows its way around slobberknockers.
For example and for perspective of NU's slobberknocker defense giving up "only"
3.4 yards per carry in the fourth quarters of its last six games, as cited in the sportswriter's article:
1. Of those six games, only two were against teams currently ranked in the BCS: #19 Michigan and #22 Northwestern.
2. Stanford's defense has given up only
0.89 yards per carry (!!!) in the fourth quarters of its entire season, which includes games against Oregon, Notre Dame, Oregon State, and UCLA, all currently ranked in the Top 16 of the BCS, including the #1 and #5 ranked teams, Notre Dame and Oregon, who have been known to be at least moderately adept at running the football.
http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/tag/_/name/stanford-cardinal
Peace out. Time to get some work done.
I think slobberknocker describes not the ranking of the teams so much as the style of play. Having watched all the Nebraska games, and many of the games (though admittedly not always the complete games) played by Stanford, ND, Oregon State, UCLA, and Oregon, Nebraska has played more slobberknockers, IMHO.
PSU, OSU, MSU, Michigan, Wisky are very physical teams. Even spirited Iowa rose up for the occasion.
Oregon is not a slobberknocker team. They're a spread-finesse team, and get exposed usually when playing more physical and athletic teams, which Stanford is compared to Oregon. Oregon State is physical on defense, not so much on offense. UCLA and ND mix in physical at times, but it's not their persona, IMO.
Admittedly, I'm not sure there are some objective statistics to back this up, as this is more of what one observes when watching the team play rather than careful, measured analysis. So, even though Stanford played very well against some of the top BCS teams, I'm not sure they do have more experience playing slobberknocker games.
None of this may matter anyway, as I think a Stanford/NU Rose Bowl game will be a tough matchup for Nebraska, but one that I think would make for a good game on New Years Day. I sure would rather play them than UCLA since we play them next season anyway.
But as to your stats, for what they're worth, Oregon, Oregon St., UCLA, and ND averaged
3.08 yds per carry combined in the 4th quarter against Stanford, which is much more than 0.73 yards per carry that Stanford gave up on average in the fourth quarter for the season. (This
website I used actually states that Stanford's average yard per carry given up is lower than what's posted above.)
In fact, the average rush per carry during the 4th quarter of all the teams on Stanford's entire schedule ranks 60 out of 124 teams. Not great 4th quarter rushing teams, but not terrible either, pretty average overall. Some of those teams have an excellent 4th quarter average rush per carry such as Cal at 4 (who knew?) and Oregon at 25 but also San Jose St. at 119 and last place washington st. at 124 (no surprise from a mike leach coached team.) Stanford has the best 4th quarter average rush per carry defense, but it was against, on average, the
60th rush per carry offense during the 4th quarter, again for what this is worth.
And as for Notre Dame and Oregon, "who have been known to be at least moderately adept at running the football", they averaged
3.5 yds per carry combined against Stanford in the 4th quarter. Again, for what it's worth.
