Bill Connelly — the college football expert for Football Outsiders — has a new SBN Blog, Football Study Hall; such a fact is high on the list of self-recommending things. The idea for the site is to provide a one-stop shop for advanced stats for college football, with a bit more of a fan-flavor than some of the other “stat heavy” sites out there. And Bill’s already got some good stuff up:
Success Rate: A common Football Outsiders tool used to measure efficiency by determining whether every play of a given game was successful or not. The terms of success in college football: 50 percent of necessary yardage on first down, 70 percent on second down, and 100 percent on third and fourth down.
The idea behind Success Rate is simple: every play is deemed successful or unsuccessful based on down, distance and yardage gained. Plays on first, second and third downs (and fourth, for that matter) all have as close to the same success rate as possible (between 40% and 45%).
To see what Success Rate tells us, exactly, let’s have a look at it in action. Two notes before moving forward:
1. Any reference to Success Rates as it pertains to rankings eliminates garbage time plays. Rankings are derived from plays that took place while the game was “close”: within 28 points in the first quarter, 24 in the second, 21 in the third, or 16 in the fourth.
2. As a frame of reference, the average success rate for FBS teams from 2005-10 was 41.6%. . . .
Ten Best Single-Season Success Rates, 2005-10
1. Hawaii (2006): 60.8%
2. Texas Tech (2008): 56.1%
3. Wisconsin (2010): 55.3%
4. Oklahoma (2008): 55.2%
5. Florida (2007): 55.0%
6. BYU (2008): 54.8%
7. Missouri (2008): 54.7%
8. USC (2005): 54.1%
9. Boise State (2010): 54.0%
10. Texas (2008): 54.0%One of my favorite things about college football is how there are so many different ways to move the chains. Seeing a team like Wisconsin or Navy on the list above would be no surprise — they’re the prototypical grind-it-out, three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust teams. But while Wisconsin locked down the three-spot, a run-and-shoot offense took the top ranking, while spread teams filled out most of the Top 10. Invention in college football derives from trying to find different ways to gain five yards, and in college football, there are many, many different ways.
(Speaking of invention … it really is incredible to see just how far ahead of the curve the Big 12 was when it came to the spread. Of the top ten teams above, four were from the 2008 Big 12 alone. That was truly the perfect confluence of innovation and skill position experience.)
Call it the Mike Leach effect, but he’s right that: other than a few other elite offenses and talent laden Florida and USC squads, the Big 12 had the brightest offenses of the decade. In any event, head over to Bill’s new spot.