Point Blank – September 18
The Perils, and Possibilities, of Pace
Reading box scores may be the single most important thing that anyone betting football does over the course of each season. Perhaps the only rival would come from someone that would have the ability to watch every game, but while streaming is bringing that closer to the realm of possibility, there still remains a time issue – you simply can not go through all of them in a manner that has you ready for the early markets. So the box score becomes the leading reference point because of the time sequences, and absorbing each box as it comes in is a prime task. Much like just about everything else in life, those processes have changed through the years.
Once upon a time the sorting through an NCAA Saturday brought the “quick glance” to First Downs and Total Offense. In the late 70’s and into the mid-80’s, the Wishbone/Power I/Veer era, the eye went first to Rushing Attempts and Yards. In this millennium, the quickest path to Pass Efficiency gets taken. But as more teams focus on speeding the tempo, another factor now needs to be part of those first glances – the number of plays that were run, and in particular if there was a major discrepancy between the teams.
Last Saturday alone there were eight lined games in which one team got at least 25 more offensive snaps than their opponent, all the way up to the enormous gap in West Virginia/Maryland -
West Virginia 108 Maryland 65 (+43)
NC State 86 South Florida 47 (+39)
Bowling Green 113 Indiana 77 (+36)
Rice 91 Texas A&M 59 (+32)
Colorado 91 Arizona State 60 (+31)
Ohio State 87 Kent State 57 (+30)
Arkansas State 89 Miami F. 60 (+29)
Washington 83 Illinois 57 (+26)
When there are such disparities, it begs for a look inside of the game, in order to understand why they happened, and then to adjust accordingly. You will find some keys, with per-play averages meaning more than total yardage counts, and while there are no iron-clad rules (little does, in this endeavor), it can help make sense out of extremes.
One of the new realities is that defenses tend to be more conservative against no-huddle attacks, with a lot more “bend-but-don’t-break” alignments. Since it is more difficult to substitute and get in play calls vs. a fast-paced offense, there are more base alignments, forcing the offense to execute through a series of shorter gains to get down the field. And that leads to the play counts piling up, hence more first downs and yards, even if the defense may actually have accomplished what it had set out to do.
West Virginia had 33 first downs and 694 yards at Maryland, vs. 16 and 447 for the Terrapins, making the game look like a rout, despite the fact that it was 37-37 to the final play. Then you see a -3 in turnovers for WVU, and voila, you think you have found it – the game really was one-sided, but the imbalance in those miscues kept it close. But then take another step - in terms of yards-per-play (YPP), it was actually a 6.9 to 6.4 advantage to Maryland. See where the confusion can build? The Terrapins twice scored long TDs on their first snap of a possession (77-yard pass; 75-yard run), and also had a TD drive of just four plays. When you score quickly, you do not get to hang on to the ball very long, while naturally big plays carry weight in the YPP tables. It was not a total domination by West Virginia, but rather the Mountaineers doing a lot of little things right, with Maryland doing a few big things right.
Miami was an example of that Maryland theme. The Hurricanes averaged 8.1 YPP vs. Arkansas State, and simply did not need to run many plays in order to score, with a pair of 63-yard TD passes. So no penalty to them for not having longer possessions, and also note that they burned off the last 5:01 with only eight snaps, effective clock management to close out an easy win.
At the opposite end of the spectrum comes Rice. How do the Owls manage 91 plays, 28 first downs and 481 yards, yet only score 10 points? They did not have a three-and-out all night, but there were five drives of eight plays or more that reached A&M territory without producing points (among them a pair of missed FGs, plus a fourth-down failure). So it becomes a mixed bag – there is a credit to the Rice offense for doing a lot of little things right, but also a penalty for not making big plays to get the production to the scoreboard. Naturally it corresponds to a mixed bag for the A&M defense.
Make Arizona State yet another mixed big. One of the youngest defenses in the country (only four seniors on the two-deep; six sophomores or freshmen started at Colorado) will have growing pains, and there were struggles to get off the field. But the offense would have almost assuredly had the ball longer had QB Taylor Kelly not been injured – they only generated 36 yards on 15 snaps after he left.
Want more YPP fun? Indiana ripped off 7.5 per snap at Bowling Green, and allowed just 5.1. So while you see glaring counts of 45 points, 38 first downs and 574 yards allowed by the Hoosier defense, which appears awful at first glance, when 113 snaps are factored in it can offer a much different viewpoint. But should it? That leads to some of the art behind the science, as we attempt to make both better evaluations of a past event, and use some emerging concepts to take us into the future…
In the Sights…
Let’s focus on two applications from Indiana/Bowling Green. The first is whether or not the Indiana defense might have been OK, based on YPP analysis, instead of the total plays and yardage. That answer is no. The Hoosiers got to halftime with a 14-12 lead despite only forcing one punt, with the Falcons settling for FGs four times, and also having another drive end with a failed fourth-and-one attempt. The stance here is to attribute that as much to early-game Bowling Green offensive issues, with inexperienced QB James Knapke in his first game vs. a lined opponent, replacing the injured Matt Johnson.
What happened once Knapke settled in? He did throw an INT in the second half, but outside of that here were the other six Falcon drives: 10 plays, 78 yards, TD; 10-75, TD; 11-77, TD; 8-40, stopped on fourth down at the Indy 35-yard line; 10-88, TD; 11-88, TD. With the game on the line, the Hoosier defense allowed back-to-back TD drives of 88 yards on the final two possessions.
So let’s do two things – first, temper any notions that the YPP count made Indiana respectable in that loss; and then use those play counts as a tool going forward.
Not only was that a long afternoon for Hoosiers, but when any defense is on the field for a lot of plays in a close game it means that the starters are logging big-time minutes (that would not have been the case for Texas A&M vs. Rice, for example). That defense faced 32 snaps in the fourth quarter alone, and part of the failure to make stops was because of fatigue. The consideration put forth is that fatigue also becomes a hangover issue, which could make this week’s trip to Missouri an adventure.
The gap in talent between these programs was most evident LY, Missouri rolling 45-28 in Bloomington in a game that was not really that close (it was 45-20 when Indiana scored a meaningless TD, and added a two-point conversion, with 0:10 left). The Tigers rolled up 33 first downs and 623 yards. So does the flow change here? On paper there is no particular reason for that, especially since the lack of talent and depth on defense has made this particular role a harrowing one for Indiana in the Kevin Wilson era – as road underdogs of +7 or more it has been an ugly 3-10 ATS ride, losing to the spread by 142.5 points in the process, nearly a full 11.0 per game. Teams struggle to cover on the road when they can’t make stops, and with an expectation that last Saturday afternoon may have stretched a thin defense even thinner, the fact that the markets have dropped the opener from -17 to a lows as -13 makes us take a closer look at Mizzou.