S&P+ offense numbers

[blazers]

Says we're 99th overall, and passing is better ranked than expected.

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaaoff

Better than Duke, BC, etc. Am I reading these numbers incorrectly? I figured our offense would be at the bottom of the basement and I wonder if these stats don't reflect horrific negative plays like fumbles, false starts and sacks for huge losses which are things that definitely inhibited our O.

Or perhaps O statistically was decent the first three games, and slightly okay vs Pitt, making up for the horrific stuff vs vatech, notre, etc.

edit to add - 99th overall

 

[WoadBlue]

The starting place to make full sense of football stats is to place them into the right context. For example, let's say we are looking at offensive stats for BYU under Lavell Edwards. The rushing stats are not in the Top 100 in the country.

My response? So what? BYU could be next to last, and still have a powerful offense. How? Edwards had developed a very sophisticated passing game that operated very much like a sound running game. BYU QBs would complete nickel and dime passes down the field, for 3 or 4 or 5 1st downs, and then hit the receiver for a TD. BYU could have running game-like numbers of 1st downs and time of possession, and have fewer than 100 yards rushing, because 18 of BYU's 35 pass completions were for no more than 15 yards.

And as soon as a D shifted to stop those nickel and dime pass 1st downs, BYU would hit the HR deep pass.

Just like when a D shifts to place all focus on stopping the GT option runs, GT passes deep, often to a wide open receiver.

So the rushing stats for BYU often were next to meaningless.

The same works for when we look at stats for teams depending on whether they are offensive minded teams or defensive minded teams. All HCs come from one side of the ball. Some HCs manage to get their focus close to 50-50, but most have teams that are at least 60% focused on either Offense or Defense.

Mike Leach, for example, has teams that are 75-80% focused on offense. Butch Davis was a D man. His teams were set up to win with D first, not with offense first.

That, by the way, is the reason I always railed against the failures of the D while Davis was HC. The number of times we lost after leading or being tried in the 4th quarter with Withers as DC was nearly criminal.

On the other hand, Mike Leach defenses losing a 4th quarter lead is no big deal, because Leach's teams are based on offense outscoring opponents, not on defenses stopping opposing offenses.

Fedora is like Leach in that his system is overwhelmingly about offense. If a Fedora offense is not dominating in stats, then it is failing, because almost all the eggs of the team are placed in the offensive basket.

 

[blazers]

finished 83rd nationally out of 130, better than Duke, Virginia Tech, Virginia, BC, close to FSU & Pitt.

I felt like we'd be in the hundreds given the lack of points. I guess this is an indicator of how damaging turnovers and offensive penalties were. We were 114th nationally in giveaways (fumbles lost and INTS). And this probably doesn't take into account loss of yards due to penalties.