Defense Shines, Success Rate Soars…Offense Heats Up
at the Right Moment
by. BR Battle
Photo by: Getty Images
Thanks to our friends at FootballOutsiders.com, we are able to gather a
numeric definition of what “successful” means in college football. Essentially, to be successful, an offense
needs to gain:
50% of its necessary yardage
on 1st down
70% on 2nd down
100 percent on 3rd and 4th
downs.
In addition to the Offense and
Defense success rates, explosive plays, which are any plays that gain 15 yards
or more, will calculated to showcase the lethality and instant-strike ability
an offense has.
One thing that we will do
differently on our site is incorporate defense success rates, as well as
explosive plays ALLOWED by the defense.
For starters, I tend to be slightly more aggressive in the defensive
success rate calculations since the key to a successful defense is putting the
offense in a situation that does not allow the offense to stay on track for a
first down within a maximum of 4 plays.
For a defense to be successful, it needs to allow:
30% or less of the necessary
yardage on 1st down
30% or less on 2nd down
99.9% or less on 3rd and 4th
downs.
For reference in calculations,
the NCAAF average Offense Success Rate is 40%.
These numbers are important due to the trend that the team that wins the
“Success Rate” battle come out victorious 83% of the time.
Interpreting the Data:
The Texas offense’s overall success
rate was 29%, far less than the 40% NCAA average. With a success rate 11% lower than average,
how did this Texas team manage to force a double-overtime game against,
possibly, the future number 1 pick in the upcoming NFL draft? If you pay close attention to the data,
you’ll start to notice a trend. Although
the Texas offense was not very efficient overall, it overcompensated its
inefficiency with explosive plays. The
Horns had 9 explosive plays, accounting for more than 12% of their offensive
productivity, with 5 of those 9 explosive plays coming in the 4th
quarter or overtime. Additionally, every
quarter’s success rate increased, with the exception of the second
overtime. As you can see from the chart,
the success rate increased from 11% in 1st quarter, to 17% in the 2nd
quarter, to 24% in the 3rd quarter, and 41% at the end of
regulation. The offense’s success rate climbed to 75% in
the 1st overtime, before leveling off to the NCAA average of 40% in
the 2nd overtime. When plays
needed to occur late in the game, the Texas offense found a way to make that
happen. More often than not, those plays
came in the form of an explosive play.
Although the offense began to
heat up as the game prolonged, the Longhorn defense exhibited a level of
success and efficiency consistent with top-tier college defenses. We’ll preface the defense “success” and
“explosive plays allowed” ratings with stating that, to my knowledge, this
style of defensive ratings has not been accomplished prior to what you will see
in this article. From my calculations,
the Texas defense defended 33 run and 55 pass plays. The Longhorn defense had
success rates of roughly 61% against the run and 56% against the pass. The total defense Success Rate was computed
to be roughly 58%. Using the standard of
40%, as with the NCAAF average offense ratings, the Longhorn defense was
significantly above average. In fact,
the defense was dominant for the majority of the game, with the exception a few
big, “explosive” plays.
Speaking of explosive plays,
the defense did an outstanding job against the run. The Longhorns allowed no explosive run plays
from the talented duo of Ronald Jones II and Stephen Carr…the same duo that rushed
for 235 yards and 2 touchdowns, while averaging over 7 yards a carry against
Stanford. Texas held the pair to only 75
yards on 28 carries. This was probably
the biggest defensive shock of the game.
As well as the defense did in stopping the run, they fell short in
limiting the explosive pass plays. The
Longhorn defense allowed 10 explosive pass plays, accounting for more than 18%
of the total pass plays from the Trojans.
That is a really high number of explosive plays in just one facet of the
game. To put the high number of
explosive pass plays allowed by the Longhorn defense in perspective, Alabama
completed 12 explosive plays against Fresno St, a team that is severely
inferior to both USC and Texas.
After assessing the Success
and Explosive rates of the Longhorn offense and defense during the USC game,
there is much promise for this team throughout the remainder of this
season. With the depth of athletes in
the Wide Receiver room, the Texas offense is screaming for more explosive plays
from this unit. To accomplish this, Texas
needs to run the ball more to set up the use of play action passes that can
give the tall and rangy Longhorn receivers single man coverage against smaller
defensive backs. The Longhorns need to
run the ball more…period. Texas gave the
ball to their best rushing asset, Chris Warren III, only 4 times during the
game. This is unacceptable. Rushing the ball with Warren over the course
of 4 quarters will eventually tire out a defense, creating the opportunity for
Warren to generate his own explosive plays throughout a game also.
Although the Texas offense
could have performed more efficiently, the Longhorn defense, for as well as
they played, deserve to share some of the blame for this loss also. The Texas defense has to limit the number of
explosive plays from their opponents. If
the Longhorns do not allow one particular explosive play, the 56 yard touchdown
catch with time expiring in the first half, there might have been an alternate
ending in the Coliseum this past Saturday.
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