How good does the VT offense really need to be? -- UPDATED

Alright, started this thought process in an earlier thread the other day, and decided to expand upon it today. So, I decided to break down how our Defense does on any given year, and what are the minimum benchmarks the offense needs to hit to win games.

So what does this tell us? Well, for starters, every game shaded in maroon is an ACC game. Every number that is orange indicates a ranked opponent we faced. And all the numbers are total points allowed by the VT defense at the end of regulation. Now, completely understanding that there are other factors involved in getting to this point on a game by game basis, we can still get some information out of this.

First of all, when we're up against a ranked opponent, our offense needs to bring it, because 60% of the time, our defense is going to allow more than 20 points in those games (21 out of 35 since we joined the ACC), and in recent years (2012 onward), its even more critical with our defense allowing more than 20 in 8 of 9.

But this is where it gets interesting. Throw out averages, lets look at what teams actually do to us, and how often does an opposing offense break a given threshold against our defense...

So from this you can see how often we truly take it on the chin. I have shaded in maroon what would essentially guarantee us a trip to the ACC title game (1 ACC loss or fewer) or a 10 win season. From this you can pretty clearly see it, more times than not, a Bud Foster Defense, even in the current form, is going to limit our opponents to a maximum of between 31 and 35 points in all games, and somewhere between 26 and 31 points in ACC play.

So what can we deduce... If we have an offense that can score more than 31 points every game over the course of the season, history shows that team will win 10 or more games in that season. If we can score more than 36 points every game, in most years we'll finish the regular season undefeated. And those numbers really play out to be about the same in ACC play as well.

In 19 of 25 games Justin Fuente was head coach of Memphis, they scored more than 31 points. They scored more than 35 points in 17 of those 24 games. In only 3 games did his teams ever score less than 20 points, and one of those games was the week he interviewed for and accepted the position at Virginia Tech. If he continues the same trajectory here, we will be a 10 win team in most years, with a decent chance of finishing undefeated in any given season based on the numbers a Bud Foster defense will hold an opponent to.

Edit: Continuance
So, after stewing on it during the day, decided to look up how well our offense has performed over the years, and the numbers may or may not surprise you.

So essentially what I did is that I looked at the point totals our offense has had at the end of regulation in all of our games. While we do have games where we just absolutely pour numbers onto an opponent, most of our games that we play see our point totals taper off between a score of 21 to 25. But remember what we said earlier, to really have an offense that pairs well with a Bud Foster defense and gives us a legitimate chance to win the ACC, we need to be breaking 31 points more times than not. Look at the years that happened, 2009 and 2010 and look at how close we are to that line in 2005 to 2007. Its no surprise we were controlling the conference like we were during those years.

However, those numbers went away. From 2012 through this past season, our offense has been struggling. In those years, if our defense gave up more than 21 points in any given game, our chances of winning that game dropped to less than 50% based on the offensive help you could expect. And in ACC play, that line defensively needed to be 17 points or less. Is it any wonder we saw our win totals fall off?

But this is where things get exciting. If we prop our historical game by game scoring to be about 2 TDs more per game, we'll be right where we need to be. That'll put us breaking that 31 point barrier more times than not, and by doing so, significantly increase our odds of winning any given game, as that historically is the maximum amount of points you'll see our defense give up in a game in any given season. Considering the offense we've seen the last few years, and the playmakers we do have, who knows, 2 TDs per game might be attainable as early as this season.