The Five Factors that Win

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Gophergrandpa

Gophergrandpa

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Old article (2014), but very empirical. Factors are well known, but % effect on winning over time is pretty interesting. Long article but worth a read for folks who want to know more about the effect of explosive plays, efficiency, field position starts, etc. One of the author’s conclusions is kind of blunt: field goals inside the red zone equal failure.
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Gophergrandpa said:
Old article (2014), but very empirical. Factors are well known, but % effect on winning over time is pretty interesting. Long article but worth a read for folks who want to know more about the effect of explosive plays, efficiency, field position starts, etc. One of the author’s conclusions is kind of blunt: field goals inside the red zone equal failure.
www.footballstudyhall.com

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Success rate on first down seems to have been a problem this year. Along with explosiveness, field position, and finishing drives.
 


"But over time, I've come to realize that the sport comes down to five basic things, four of which you can mostly control. You make more big plays than your opponent, you stay on schedule, you tilt the field, you finish drives, and you fall on the ball. Explosiveness, efficiency, field position, finishing drives, and turnovers are the five factors to winning football games.

  • If you win the explosiveness battle (using PPP), you win 86 percent of the time. (Big Plays)
  • If you win the efficency battle (using Success Rate), you win 83 percent of the time. (Stay on schedule-No third down and longs)
  • If you win the drive-finishing battle (using points per trip inside the 40), you win 75 percent of the time. (Score TD's in the Red Zone)
  • If you win the field position battle (using average starting field position), you win 72 percent of the time. (Iowa's punter)
  • If you win the turnover battle (using turnover margin), you win 73 percent of the time. (Gang tackle strip the ball out- the ball is the program)
This is from 2013 college football game data. It's very, very similar from year to year."

Nobody told this guy about time of possession?
 
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Pompous Elitist said:
Success rate on first down seems to have been a problem this year. Along with explosiveness, field position, and finishing drives.
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PJ often talks about explosive plays, efficiency on early downs, finishing drives, etc. Compliments Iowa on controlling opponents with field position. He knows the statistical factors. This year’s offense just hasn’t hit the mark too often. There is still time. A good offensive performance with some drives finishing with TDs probably beats iowa. But if all our drives start within our own 10, and all of Iowa’s drives start around midfield, it could be yet another extremely frustrating, low-scoring loss.
 




The Gophers should benefit from the bye week while Iowa had to play a tough game vs. Wisconsin. Iowa comes in really banged up on both offense and defense and this should benefit the Gophers.

Unfortunately, this will be played at Kinnick Stadium where the Gophers have really struggled and Coach Ferentz just owns Fleck in this rivalry. I thought PJ Fleck was outcoached by Ferentz last year, including that TE screen he threw early resulting in a big gain and th Gophers were reluctant to blitz much after that.

The Iowa offense really doesn't scare anyone and they still have a good-but-not- great defense. Their punter is a huge weapon with a team that loves to play a field position game. This would be a really good year for the Gophers to win but there is no way I can put money on it given the history. I think if the Gophers from last year go down there I would feel a lot more confident, but the Gophers have regressed on both offense and defense this year.

This game will go a long ways in determining if we go to a bowl game this year. I hope Fleck and his staff have come up with some good adjustments and- are really motivated to pick up the pig. We really need this one!!!
 

60's Guy said:
"But over time, I've come to realize that the sport comes down to five basic things, four of which you can mostly control. You make more big plays than your opponent, you stay on schedule, you tilt the field, you finish drives, and you fall on the ball. Explosiveness, efficiency, field position, finishing drives, and turnovers are the five factors to winning football games.

  • If you win the explosiveness battle (using PPP), you win 86 percent of the time. (Big Plays)
  • If you win the efficency battle (using Success Rate), you win 83 percent of the time. (Stay on schedule-No third down and longs)
  • If you win the drive-finishing battle (using points per trip inside the 40), you win 75 percent of the time. (Score TD's in the Red Zone)
  • If you win the field position battle (using average starting field position), you win 72 percent of the time. (Iowa's punter)
  • If you win the turnover battle (using turnover margin), you win 73 percent of the time. (Gang tackle strip the ball out- the ball is the program)
This is from 2013 college football game data. It's very, very similar from year to year."

Nobody told this guy about time of possession?
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Ha!!! On Time of Possesion.

Post of the day!

You mean just holding the ball and letting the clock run down prior to snapping it isn’t effective?
 



Gophergrandpa said:
PJ often talks about explosive plays, efficiency on early downs, finishing drives, etc. Compliments Iowa on controlling opponents with field position. He knows the statistical factors. This year’s offense just hasn’t hit the mark too often. There is still time. A good offensive performance with some drives finishing with TDs probably beats iowa. But if all our drives start within our own 10, and all of Iowa’s drives start around midfield, it could be yet another extremely frustrating, low-scoring loss.
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It is misleading to say winning, for example, big plays gives you a high percentage chance of winning. If the opponent wins the other four categories, who wins the game?
 


Dakota2 said:
It is misleading to say winning, for example, big plays gives you a high percentage chance of winning. If the opponent wins the other four categories, who wins the game?
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It isn’t misleading. This is from a broad range statistical study of college football games. It is an observed statistical fact that generating multiple explosive plays on offense correlates highly with winning. Failing to get explosive plays on offense correlates highly with losing. Neither is a 100% proposition, of course: a team certainly can generate explosive plays and lose. But there is a 70%+ correlation between winning the battle of explosive plays and winning the game. PJ knows this data and talks often about getting more explosive plays. PJ knowns that if our passing game could generate explosive plays to compliment our very good running attack we’d be a more successful team—as the 2019 team was.
 

Gophergrandpa said:
It isn’t misleading. This is from a broad range statistical study of college football games. It is an observed statistical fact that generating multiple explosive plays on offense correlates highly with winning. Failing to get explosive plays on offense correlates highly with losing. Neither is a 100% proposition, of course: a team certainly can generate explosive plays and lose. But there is a 70%+ correlation between winning the battle of explosive plays and winning the game. PJ knows this data and talks often about getting more explosive plays. PJ knowns that if our passing game could generate explosive plays to compliment our very good running attack we’d be a more successful team—as the 2019 team was.
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Common sense says otherwise. If you have two more “big “ plays but two more turnovers, you might not win.

It’s silly to say one team has an 80% chance of winning because of X and the other team has 80% chance because they did Y. If stats say both have an 80% chance of winning how will you determine a loser? Coin flip?
 



Dakota2 said:
Common sense says otherwise. If you have two more “big “ plays but two more turnovers, you might not win.

It’s silly to say one team has an 80% chance of winning because of X and the other team has 80% chance because they did Y. If stats say both have an 80% chance of winning how will you determine a loser? Coin flip?
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The scoreboard for the game determines the winner in each instance, at least for the purposes of this statistical study.
 

Gophergrandpa said:
The scoreboard for the game determines the winner in each instance, at least for the purposes of this statistical study.
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Well of course, if both teams have an 80% chance of winning somebody has to win.
 

Dakota2 said:
Well of course, if both teams have an 80% chance of winning somebody has to win.
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If both teams are at 80% chance of winning on separate, independent factors, I would say it is a push statistically. 50:50 aggregate likelihood for each team.
 

Dakota2 said:
Common sense says otherwise. If you have two more “big “ plays but two more turnovers, you might not win.

It’s silly to say one team has an 80% chance of winning because of X and the other team has 80% chance because they did Y. If stats say both have an 80% chance of winning how will you determine a loser? Coin flip?
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That's not how this works. Just like if you take two teams with a 70% winning percentage, they wouldn't each have a 70% chance of winning a game between the two of them.
 

someone told me that if you get a pick 6, you win the game 95% of the time. I have no idea if thats true or not but seems to check out for the teams that have beat us this year.
 

Gophergrandpa said:
If both teams are at 80% chance of winning on separate, independent factors, I would say it is a push statistically. 50:50 aggregate likelihood for each team.
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Not that it matters much but the thrust of your posts has been that one team’s stats can give a high probability of winning in a vacuum. That’s simply not Both team’s’ performance must be weighed to understand the result.
Gophergrandpa said:
If both teams are at 80% chance of winning on separate, independent factors, I would say it is a push statistically. 50:50 aggregate likelihood for each team.
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So in other words you do not have an 80% chance of winning if you have more big plays or win turnovers.
 

TurfGopher said:
someone told me that if you get a pick 6, you win the game 95% of the time. I have no idea if thats true or not but seems to check out for the teams that have beat us this year.
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Defies logic. You can get a pick six but also lose two fumbles inside your own 20 and very possibly not win.
 

"You want to eat up chunks of yardage with big plays, because big plays mean both points and fewer opportunities to make mistakes."
I'm sure that the stats in the article are "accurate." Some need to be placed in context, but overall I agree. I really agree with the above statement. Winning teams tend to have people who can score "easy" touchdowns. Long, grind it out drives are disheartening to defenses, but they just don't happen that often because there is eventually going to be a penalty, turnover or mistake (e.g., dropped pass) on those drives 10+ play drives. And we all know that we are not an explosive team this year. Out current team reminds me of Gutey's last couple of squads. After Darrell Thompson was injured or moved on we had no one to provide that explosiveness. It then put tremendous pressure on Marquel Fleetwood to not make mistakes, which IMHO opinion makes things worse. I while back someone wrote on here that we need a "breakaway" running back and need to recruit one (it may have been a joke, but I don't think so). I'm sure that the coaches already knew that. I'm sure that they would also have liked a big play wide receiver. Without either of those, an offense's effectiveness is severely limited. I'm hoping for either one of the above described position players soon emerges or is recruited. Go Gophers!
 

denguegopher said:
"You want to eat up chunks of yardage with big plays, because big plays mean both points and fewer opportunities to make mistakes."
I'm sure that the stats in the article are "accurate." Some need to be placed in context, but overall I agree. I really agree with the above statement. Winning teams tend to have people who can score "easy" touchdowns. Long, grind it out drives are disheartening to defenses, but they just don't happen that often because there is eventually going to be a penalty, turnover or mistake (e.g., dropped pass) on those drives 10+ play drives. And we all know that we are not an explosive team this year. Out current team reminds me of Gutey's last couple of squads. After Darrell Thompson was injured or moved on we had no one to provide that explosiveness. It then put tremendous pressure on Marquel Fleetwood to not make mistakes, which IMHO opinion makes things worse. I while back someone wrote on here that we need a "breakaway" running back and need to recruit one (it may have been a joke, but I don't think so). I'm sure that the coaches already knew that. I'm sure that they would also have liked a big play wide receiver. Without either of those, an offense's effectiveness is severely limited. I'm hoping for either one of the above described position players soon emerges or is recruited. Go Gophers!
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For what it is worth, Iowa’s defensive strategy is to prevent explosive plays and force good teams into long, arduous drives. Theory is that an offense is more likely to make a drive-killing mistake (inefficient plays, holding penalty, turnover, etc.) if the offense must plod downfield using a dozen plays (each with risks of failure) versus 3 or 4 plays to span the field.
 

Dakota2 said:
Not that it matters much but the thrust of your posts has been that one team’s stats can give a high probability of winning in a vacuum. That’s simply not Both team’s’ performance must be weighed to understand the result.

So in other words you do not have an 80% chance of winning if you have more big plays or win turnovers.
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80% all other things being equal. It is a factor confers a big advantage. It isn’t outcome determinative, but, statistically, it confers an advantage. If you don’t believe explosive plays increase materially a team’s likelihood of winning, that’s fine. I don’t care. Fleck believes it. Rossi on defense believes it. Virtually every HC in America believes it. But you remain unconvinced. That’s fine.
 

I haven’t seen a jet sweep or a lot of plays stretching the field from side to side. Spread the Hawkeye defense out and get BSF in the game plan down the middle
 

Gophergrandpa said:
80% all other things being equal. It is a factor confers a big advantage. It isn’t outcome determinative, but, statistically, it confers an advantage. If you don’t believe explosive plays increase materially a team’s likelihood of winning, that’s fine. I don’t care. Fleck believes it. Rossi on defense believes it. Virtually every HC in America believes it. But you remain unconvinced. That’s fine.
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If you had said in your first post that the stat works if all other things are equal there would have been no further discussion. All I have said repeatedly is that you can’t look at one of the five factors in a vacuum and assume all other things are equal. They seldom are.
 

Dakota2 said:
If you had said in your first post that the stat works if all other things are equal there would have been no further discussion. All I have said repeatedly is that you can’t look at one of the five factors in a vacuum and assume all other things are equal. They seldom are.
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I posted an article that presented a detailed statistical analysis of factors and outcomes in hundreds a college football games. I let the article do the talking. You disagree with the statistical analysis in the article. I get it. You don’t believe that teams who have an explosive play advantage win 70% of the time, even though all other factors were at play in each and every one of the hundreds of games studied. I offered a study; you don’t believe the statistical evidence or the study’s conclusions. OK. Fine. Believe what you want. Believe that explosive plays on offense have no bearing on the outcome of the game. I don’t care.
 

Gophergrandpa said:
I posted an article that presented a detailed statistical analysis of factors and outcomes in hundreds a college football games. I let the article do the talking. You disagree with the statistical analysis in the article. I get it. You don’t believe that teams who have an explosive play advantage win 70% of the time, even though all other factors were at play in each and every one of the hundreds of games studied. I offered a study; you don’t believe the statistical evidence or the study’s conclusions. OK. Fine. Believe what you want. Believe that explosive plays on offense have no bearing on the outcome of the game. I don’t care.
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Of course I believe explosive plays help you win unless you fumble five times. And I don’t need a study of statistics to understand how football games are won or lost.
 

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