Deceiving stats, in the current era of college offense

[AustinDawg]

While glancing at statistics from the Auburn vs Arky St game, a few things jumped out at me.

1) Arky state ran about 20 more plays than auburn
2) Arky state had about 10 more mins of time of possession
3) Both teams had about the same number of first downs

This got me thinking... in the current era of offense, are things like time of possession and first downs no longer relevant? In the times of "3 yards and a could of dust" those stats clearly showed who was controlling the game, but now, with quick strike offenses and a lack of traditional "drives", do they still have meaning?

The number of plays differential still seems important, since even if you are a quick strike offense, your defense still should be able to stop overmatched teams.

What do folks think?

For reference, I think we had about 19 more first downs than memphis, 12 more plays and a couple mins more in time of possession.

 

[futaba.79]

for a formula that still works. Run the ball, control the clock, play D -this isa winning formula. Always has been, always will be. Of course, it also helps to have the betterplayers.

 

[maroondawg]

This made me think of the Navy-Maryland game. Statistically Navy dominated.

Navy had over 39 minutes in time of possession compared to Maryland's 20.
Navy ran 82 offensive plays compared to Maryland's 39.
Navy had 485 yards of total offense, Maryland had 272.
Navy had 26 first downs and Maryland had 11.

Looking at just those stats you would say that Navy dominated the game. And technically they did, but got hurt by turnovers.


I think it is still very important to have long time consuming drives. Especially if you know the other team can strike on just a couple of plays. The key is getting results out of the drive; you cannot use up all the clock and the then turn the ball over when you get in the redzone.

 

[UpTheMiddlex3Punt]

I'd love to run the numbers and find the standard deviation for yards per play. Auburn averaged 9.4 yards per play and I bet the standard deviation was about 5 yards per play.

Edit: I was way off on my guess. Standard deviation of about 14.4 yards per play. There's enough inconsistency that if we can stop the big plays we can take their average ypp down to 3 or 4.

 

[TXDawg.sixpack]

4 turnovers, most of them in the red zone. We should have won that game going away.