BOL Round Table

"There are 3 types of lies in the world: lies, damn lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain.

Look, I'm not saying our offense looked crisp against Ole Miss. But... if we're going to talk stats... well, let's look at some others:

There are some problems with looking at yardage as a measuring stick for how effective your offense is. To really rack up the yards, you typically have to be playing a lot of close ballgames, and typically you have a piss poor defense that gets scored on quicker than an average defense can get off the field. Case in point: Baylor vs WVU... two AWFUL defenses that let the other team run up and down the field and offenses that NEEDED to score 70.

Just taking a glance at the Top 20 (statiscially) offenses in the nation... there are only FIVE undefeateds. Six teams have 1 loss, seven have 2, and two have lost 3 ballgames already. So it's not like a high number translates into Wins/Losses. 15 of those top 20 offenses have defenses that rank 52nd or worse... and half of them are 80th or worse. Those teams score a lot because they have to.

We, on the other hand, do not have to, and that shows in the statistics as well.

We have averaged a 24-point lead at halftime. In building that lead, our first half yardage totals average out to 239 ypg... that means we could easily expect 478 ypg if we were in an actual ballgame (good enough for ~30th), and I think we would realistically see more as the running game wore the opposing team down. As it is, we're protecting a lead the second half, and our average yardage drops to 162 second-half ypg.

It's not a coincidence that the closer the ballgame, the more yards we tend to put up.

So far in 2012... when a quarter starts and we are:

Leading by 0 - 13 Points:
116 yards per quarter

Leading by 14 - 28 Points:
92 yards per quarter

Leading by 29+ Points:
83 yards per quarter

We may find ourselves in a real ballgame and be unable to move the football. But it's pretty clear so far that we don't have to run our offense wide open, and - due to the big leads we're protecting - very often don't.