apaladin wrote: ↑Sun Dec 05, 2021 11:37 am
The Jackal wrote: ↑Sun Dec 05, 2021 8:24 am
apaladin wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 11:35 pm
If you watched the game KSU was the best team. 278 yds rushing and holding ETSU’s vaunted rushing attack to 70. ET had the ball bounce their way at the end. KSU went to the old prevent you from winning defense at the end and it cost them as it usually does. KSU outgained them by 150 yds and ET had 182yds until the last 5 minutes before KSU went to the “prevent” defense and gave up 126 the last 5 minutes. That is on the coaches. 41% of the ETSU total offense came in the last 5 minutes. If you want to believe ET is the better team because of some bad opposing coaching and the ball bouncing ET’s way at the end I am ok with thst.
See previous post about why yards aren't dispositive.
Will you at least admit that it is very unusual for any team to get 6 short fields to work with? 90 yds yielded six scores.So the average scoring drive was 15 yds. Hard to pile up yardage. They also had 2 other drives that totalled 112 yds. So 202 yds. produced 8 scores. Average of 25 yds per drive for 8 scores. Has to be some sort of a record.
My point is that it is fairly common for a team to win a game in which they are outgained in yardage. Furman won two such games this year, and in both instances were the clear better team that day (Citadel and VMI). It literally happens all the time. Sometimes, the gap is just more drastic.
I raise this only because of the frequent collective freakout over "total offense" in a game or season. How many yards we gain. How our "soft" pass defense let a team throw for too many yards.
Total offense is sometimes only very loosely connected to the game's final outcome. Time of possession is a stat that frequently has nothing to do with who wins and loses. There are other data points that ARE closely connected with the final score (turnover margin, for instance). We just ignore those for whatever reason.
Football is a team game. The team is working for a common goal - from play calling, to the decision to go for it on 4th down, to playing zone coverage against a passing offense. The hope is that all three phases will complement one another in furtherance of the ultimate goal of winning.
This is the primary reason why ETSU is good and Samford is not.
ETSU doesn't have the SoCon's best offense. They don't have the SoCon's best defense. In fact, they are the SoCon's
worst team in pass defense.
What do they do well? They don't make a ton of mistakes. They are top two in red zone scoring and defense. They have an insanely high turnover margin (+10). They lead the league in 3rd down conversion rate. They are highly efficient throwing the ball, even though they are not near the best passing team in the league.
Those are data points more closely associated with winning, not whether their pass defense opts for a "soft zone."
So, yes, the Montana game was a statistically unique contest, but it doesn't change the larger point - a lot of the stats that we think matter really don't matter that much.
