Stats are for losers

by Barking Carnival Staff on Oct 20, 2008 12:02 PM CDT in Texas Longhorns and Other Football

"Stats are for losers," Muschamp said. "I like winning games."

While I tend to agree with Muschamp on almost everything (like the the sun rising in the West and that the earth is flat), I do take exception with the stats part. I, too, like to win games. I like digging into the stats – see the college fantasy football obsession or playing rotisserie baseball when it required the Monday USA Today sports page so you can compile that week's boxscores. Others around here do too. Surely you have seen a Huckleberry post. Or Dedfisher’s drive chart obsession. I am a reformed CPA so you know I dig some digits.

Yes, I am talking to you, stat geek!

Muschamp told us before the year that he had a couple of defensive stats matter, so don't bother worrying about the fact that Chase Daniel threw for 310 yards. Anyone who watched that game knows they didn't matter a bit. Here is a review of where we stand through seven games.

It should be noted that Texas has already faced two of the top four scoring offenses in the conference, faces the best scoring offense every day in practice, and faces the 4th best offense this week.

Yards Per Passing Attempt
Through 7 games = 6.85
Last Year = 7.61
Muschamp Goal = 5.0

Notes: No one in the Big 12 is close to Muschamp’s goal. When setting his goals, Muschamp still clearly thought JP Wilson was on his schedule. And Jarret Lee and Tim Tebow and whoever now is in Spurrier's "offense". Okie State leads the Big 12 at 5.55. Texas is actually 8th in the conference on this metric.

Third Down Conversion
Through 7 games = 35.2%
Last Year = 39%
Muschamp Goal = 30%

Notes: OU, Okie State, and Texas Tech are all keeping opponents under 30%. Texas is 4th in conference. Texas is first in the conference on Fourth Down conversions at 25% (4 of 16).

Red Zone Defense (any score allowed)
Through 7 games = 68%
Last Year = 77.8%

Notes: Texas leads the conference in Red Zone Defense.

Scoring Defense
Through 7 games = 17.6
Last Year = 25.3

Notes: Texas leads the conference in scoring defense by a full 3 points.

My own stat that matters:
Turnovers Forced
Through 7 games = 10 (1.43 per game)
Last Year = 27 (2.07 per game)

Weird stat…Texas is tied for 10th in the conference – only Kansas State and Nebraska are worse at 8. Iowa State, ironically, leads the conference with 20 turnovers forced (12 fumbles and 8 picks).

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Comments

Interesting. I realize that McCoy is the most valuable player to the Texas team, but from what I’ve seen the last 2 weeks, Brian Orakpo should be receiving Heisman consideration if McCoy is. Any time you can rush 3 and still sack the QB with your DE*, it has much more of an impact on the game.

References: N.Y. Giants vs. New England Patriots

by dedfischer on Oct 20, 2008 12:10 PM CDT reply actions

Interesting, although you pretty much proved him right.

by beamwalker on Oct 20, 2008 12:40 PM CDT reply actions

Good work. FWIW, in my experience the phrase “Weird stat” gets uttered right before a light-bulb clicks on.

There’s got to be a rational explanation why UT is low on turnovers forced and Iowa State high. Perhaps time of possession disparity? ISU may give its opponents many more more opportunities to turn the ball over.

by Parlin Hall on Oct 20, 2008 1:09 PM CDT reply actions

Very interesting. Watching this team play the defense looks much more impressive than those stat lines would indicate. What do you attribute that to? Is it yards and points racked up on the 2nd team after the game is out of hand?

by t1climb1 on Oct 20, 2008 1:25 PM CDT reply actions

The yards per pass attempt stat would have to be normalized to provide any insight.

1. OSU has not played as pass-centric a schedule as UT has, so make it yppp compared to what the specific opponents have averaged over the season. The way Dr. Bob does.

2. Base it on only the first 3 quarters for all games that were blowouts and the starters were pulled early.

3. Trend it to account for the improvement of a young secondary over the course of the 7-game season.

by groover on Oct 20, 2008 1:26 PM CDT reply actions

Parlin, I think it’s explained simply by small sample size – 1-AA S Dakota State’s QB was miserable in the opener, and I think SDSU had 6-7 turnovers in that game. Take that data point away and ISU’s turnover numbers become a lot more normal.

by Ojnab Bob on Oct 20, 2008 1:34 PM CDT reply actions

That is certainly part of it T1. Mizzou had 20 yards of offense until I’d had enough beer to forget I was tracking it.

by lowery on Oct 20, 2008 2:48 PM CDT reply actions

I think an important part of football statistics that most people forget is that they only show a ver small part of the whole and in college they are subject to a very high variance in schedule strength (as opposed to the NFL)

If Offense is 1/3, defense is 1/3, and special teams is 1/3 (or approximate), then you are trying to extract truth from stats of 33% of a football game that is greatly effected by what goes on in the other 67% of the game.

While I think you can look back and find some truths from stats regarding a season after all 12-14 games have been played, it is very hard to use them predictively in the middle of the season with the variation in schedule and small sample sizes (both in games played and the phase of the game)

by H Ross Perot on Oct 20, 2008 3:33 PM CDT reply actions

H. Ross is right about the small picture that midseason stats present. But there’s something worth noticing about the relationship between turnovers gained and time of possession—especially since some of the better Big 12 teams have forced fewer turnovers than those with poorer records.

The top six Big 12 teams in time of possession (UT, OSU, NU, KU, OU and CU, in that order) average approx. 11 forced turnovers a game. The bottom six (ISU, TT, TAMU, KSU, MU, and Baylor) average approx. 12 a game.

ISU’s early windfall helps make them an outlier with 20 (which exceeds by 5 the second place—both OSU and TT). Given its advantage in time of possession, NU is seriously underperforming with 8, and UT is also below the average with 10.

OSU is pretty remarkable in this category—almost exactly the time of possession average as UT, but five more turnovers gained on the season.

by Parlin Hall on Oct 20, 2008 5:14 PM CDT reply actions

Ross,

That giant sucking sound you’ve spoken of is due to OU.

by AustinYankee on Oct 20, 2008 6:14 PM CDT reply actions

Yards per pass attempt- if you count sacks as unsuccessful pass attempts, we have had 306 passes attempted by our opponents and given up 1726 yards for 5.6 ypa.

by TaylorTRoom on Oct 20, 2008 7:06 PM CDT reply actions

B12 quarterbacks have sagged a bit this week… nine are ranked in the top 22 in passing efficiency. Texas will face six of them.

by Bob in Houston on Oct 20, 2008 9:12 PM CDT reply actions

The staff often refers to a 3 and out as a turnover and I basically agree. It would be interesting to see how the turnovers stack up if 3 and outs are factored in… but that would take time to prove something I already know: Texas is playing the best defense in the conference.