[LuckE2Bhere]

The Big 12 defenses look so bad statistically because they have played many more plays than the defenses from other conferences.  This especially is true against the SEC.  When you compare how many plays OSU's defense has played to Alabama, OSU has been on the field nearly 3 more games than them.  When you play against fast paced passing offenses of course it is gonna make your defense look bad.

There are (sometimes plausible) explanations for virtually every statistic you can evaluate.  My personal favorite defense of a team that gives up a lot of yards and points is when their offense scored so often that they had to kickoff to the other team more often (which undoubtedly inflated Stanford's yards-against and point-against numbers too)!  I'll give you guys the "we had big leads, so we put our subs in" story (taking your word that it's true) and maybe even the "they were throwing to catch-up, and we were just in Prevent" argument.  That said, sometimes, playing a lot of plays on defense also means that you couldn't make the other team punt.  Guess we'll see soon enough! 

[LuckE2Bhere]

The Big 12 defenses look so bad statistically because they have played many more plays than the defenses from other conferences.  This especially is true against the SEC.  When you compare how many plays OSU's defense has played to Alabama, OSU has been on the field nearly 3 more games than them.  When you play against fast paced passing offenses of course it is gonna make your defense look bad.

There are (sometimes plausible) explanations for virtually every statistic you can evaluate.  My personal favorite defense of a team that gives up a lot of yards and points is when their offense scored so often that they had to kickoff to the other team more often (which undoubtedly inflated Stanford's yards-against and point-against numbers too)!  I'll give you guys the "we had big leads, so we put our subs in" story (taking your word that it's true) and maybe even the "they were throwing to catch-up, and we were just in Prevent" argument.  That said, sometimes, playing a lot of plays on defense also means that you couldn't make the other team punt.  Guess we'll see soon enough!