I will likley expand upon them later.

Our opponents thus far are a combined 1-7.  This leads me to believe that our level of competition has been inferior.  We already knew this, but some thought that Oklahoma was good, based on their (undeserved) ranking of 21.  Oklahoma will improve as the season goes on, and this game did get a lot of media attention for the Bruins, which was sorely needed.

It is a good win in those senses, and all wins are good wins.  But we were favored by a touchdown, so this was definitely not an upset.

Here are some more stats on our opponents.  If you look at it, they all look pretty bad.  Rice and San Diego State, especially, are terrible.  Again, I wouldn't be surprised if Oklahoma got significantly better as the season progresses, and their level of talent is clearly superior to Rice and SDSU.

San Diego St. 0-3 (L UCLA 21-44, L Air Force 29-41, L Ohio St. 6-27); PF 56; PA 112; avg. points scored 18.67; avg. points allowed 37.33

Rice 0-2 (L UCLA 21-63, L Texas 10-51) PF 31, PA 114; avg. points scored 15.5; avg. points allowed 57

Oklahoma 1-2 (L TCU 10-17, W Tulsa 31-15, L UCLA 24-41); PF 65; PA 73; avg. points scored 21.67; avg. points allowed 24.33

Each of our opponents' offenses scored more than their season average against us.

However, we have scored more than each of our opponents allows on average.

This tells me that our offense is pretty good, but that our defense is not all that good.

Our defense looked a lot better than these stats indicate against OU.

Adrian Peterson rushed for 220 yards against Tulsa, and 63 yards against TCU.  We held him to only 58 yards (and an impressive -- for the UCLA defense 2.5 ypc).

On the other hand, we gave up 398 yards of offense to OU, 255 total yards to Rice (192 rushing yards), and 402 yards of total offense to SDSU.

10/1      Washington 1-2
10/8     California 3-0
10/15     at Washington State 3-0
10/22     Oregon State 2-1
10/29     at Stanford 1-1 (L to UC Davis)
11/5     at Arizona 1-2
11/12     Arizona State 2-1
12/3     at USC 2-0

Combined W-L record of remaining schedule, 15-7.  Karl Dorrell's record against teams with winning records, still 1-10.  (This number was calculated based on the team's season ending record, so it is possible that this number will go up, if say, OU finishes with a winning record.  I don't think it's likely at this point that SDSU or Rice will have records above .500)

What do I make of all this stuff?  Not much, quite honestly.  The stats are what they are, and at this point in the season, the sample size is probably much too small to draw conrecte conclusions.

But I still have concerns about the defense.  I really don't have too many concerns about the offense.

I don't know how good the competition has been, but the record suggests that it has been terrible.

We're 3-0.  That's fantastic.  But we've been down this road before.  I think that it's premature to draw any conclusions.  

This was a game we should have won, and needed to win.  The team did it.  Karl Dorrell, the staff and the players deserve credit for their start to the season.  But the season is 12 games long.  We've finished 1/4.

Breaking it down by quarter:

Opponents record, pct
1 @ SDSU, Rice, OU 1-7, .125
2 UW, Cal, @ WSU,  7-2, .778
3 OSU, @ Stan, @ UA, 4-4, .500
4 ASU, @ $C, Bowl 4-1, .800

Based upon current records, we finished the easiest portion of the season.  The next quarter will be a challenge.  The third quarter will be much more difficult than the first quarter, but much easier than the second quarter or the final quarter, which looks to be the most difficult.  

One last note:

Attendance was 44,808 for Rice, 56,522 for OU.  That's not good.

Average attendance by year

2005 50,655 (so far; it's hard to say if this will increase (likely) and by how much, on the one hand, who wants to see UW in two weeks, on the other, the Cal and ASU matchups could be huge)

2004 60,515
2003 56,636
2002 over 65,000
2001 over 64,000
2000 over 67,000
1999 under 50,000
1998 over 73,000