2014 Eric Striker vs. 2003 Teddy Lehman Thru Four Games

I can’t really explain how I came about this, boredom I suppose. But I was going thru OU’s stats for these first four games and got the idea to try and compare some of the standouts to previous OU greats and/or award winners thru their first four games.

First, I looked at Jordan Phillips with a Tommie Harris 2003 comp (All-American, Lombardi Award winner). The stats were pretty comparable, but I just felt like at that position it’s not even neccsarily about your stats so much as your presence. And while I feel like Phillips’ ceiling is on a similar level with Harris, he’s just not quite there yet.

Then I went to Quentin Hayes who has put up some pretty impressive numbers in these first four games. Roy Williams 2001 (All-American, Nagurski & Thorpe Award winner) was going to be my comp (but understand in no way whatsoever would I have been putting Hayes on Willams’ level), but then I started comparing the stats. Hayes has been really good, but Williams was other worldly.

So now I’m down to my final guy, Eric Striker. And while they are asked to play much, much different roles, my comp for Striker is Teddy Lehman 2003 (Butkus Award winner). Lehman would go on to finish with 117 tackles, 63 solo, with two sacks and one interception. And I’ll touch on where he finished compared to where Striker is currently projected to finish, but here is where they stand thru the first four games.

2003 Lehman: 25 tackles – 0 sacks – 1 TFL – 1 INT
2014 Striker: 23 tackles – 1.5 sacks – 4.5 TFL – 0 INT

Coming off the Sugar Bowl and the love fest Fowler and Herbstreit had on national television the night of the Tennessee game, Striker certainly has the name recognition from a national perspective to garner attention for the Butkus Award. And there is no reason to believe, barring injury (/knocks furiously on wood), he will not continue to put up stats with this OU defense and the talent around him. So let’s revisit Lehman’s final numbers from his award-winning 2003 season.

He finished with 117 tackles, which is a big number, but had 25 of those thru the first four games as noted above. However, he also had the advantage of playing in 14 games that season (regular season + Big 12 Championship game + National Championship game). Only time will tell if Striker will be afforded the same opportunity this year, but just sticking to the numbers after his first four games Lehman averaged a little over 6.5 tackles per game to get to that 117 number.

As you can see above, Striker has already surpassed Lehman’s 2003 sacks total of one and is well ahead on TFL’s as well. Now thru those first four games, let us project what Striker’s final numbers may look like. And for the sake of comparison, we’ll just use the same 14 game season for the projection.

2014 Striker (14 game projection, rounded): 80 tackles – 5 sacks – 16 TFL – 0 INT

It’s not unfathomable Striker could have a monster last 3/4 of this season and catch Lehman in tackles, but it’s probably not likely to happen. At the same time, I think using his slow start with just 1.5 sacks so far makes that projection of just five sacks for the entire season seem unreasonably low.

I don’t know that we really learn anything from this other than I think we all kind of feel Striker has started this season a little slower, at least on the stat sheet, than many of us expected. Which probably reads like a criticism, but I watched that Tennessee game just like you all did and while I’m certainly no expert, a blind person could tell just how much of an impact he had on that game, stats or no.

Admittedly, at the end of the day this is probably pointless. But it sounded like a fun idea in my head, so hopefully that at least came across in what I’ve written in some small way.

So will Striker win the Butkus Award this year like Lehman did back in 2003? I have no idea. But based simply by a comparison of their respective stats thru four games, it certainly seems within the realm of possibility.