Advanced Stats vs Ohio

[TheCusian]

I want to start with just an acknowledgment that stats this early in the season fall victim to "not enough" to draw too many conclusions. By the time we get to ACC play, there will be helpful info where trends (are we a good running team?) really show up. Data this early rests a lot in "how good is the team we just played, actually?"

In this case it's really interesting to see the scores and classic box score type stats of our game vs Rutgers/Temple:

Game	Score	Yards per Play	Yards	Turnover Margin	# of Off Plays
Rutgers vs Temple	61-14	4.56	365	+5	Rutgers 80
Syracuse vs Ohio	29-9	6.18	383	+1	Syracuse 62

Just scanning the scores, you'd probably think Rutgers is pretty good and we're lucky to pull out a win at a MAC school coming off a 1-10 season. If you dug a little deeper you'd probably see that +5 in TOs and think "ahh, I see Rutgers got a pretty good bump due to some turnover luck." They also had more chances to score by running more plays, probably inflated by TOs. Their score is juiced, while ours looks modest.

Game	Score	EPA Play Margin (Rank)	EPA O (Rank)	EPA D (Rank)
Rutgers	61-14	-0.029 (#58)	-0.081 (#72)	-0.035 (#43)
Syracuse	29-9	0.153 (#25)	0.321 (#11)	0.052 (#67)

EPA takes into account the down, distance, yardline, and game state of each play to calculate the added point value of every play. EPA is an explosiveness-weighted measure of success: how often did you provide positive value, and on average, how much positive value did you add? It is analagous, roughly, to woba in baseball. a higher EPA on offense is good, and a lower EPA on defense is good.

If you go by efficiency, we had a far superior day. They were far worse on offense and a bit better on D - and rode their TOs to a win. I think we're in good shape going in to this game.

 

[LeMoyneCuse]

To sort of piggyback off of this, Pena's returns on punts Saturday night haven't been given their due in terms of setting up field position. Special team positives is a better indicator of skill than turnover luck (Lutz fumbling so grandly that it was basically a pass to himself as a prime example).

Thanks for posting this - didn't realize Rutgers was so pedestrian on O.

 

[upperdeck]

stats are hard to quantify.. you can get 5 like Rutgers did and it blows everything up.. Some TOs you cause by good D and others are just gifted. Make the D earn every on offense and force the Offense into mistakes on D.. Thats about all you can control and after that they happen or they dont.

 

[syrBossHogg]

Nice post, I feel good about the matchup as well. Week 2 has been an achilles heel under Dino (2016 Lville, 2017 Mid Tenn, 2019 Maryland, 2020 Pitt) so hopefully they'll play better than they did against Ohio

 

[Apdaly]

I want to start with just an acknowledgment that stats this early in the season fall victim to "not enough" to draw too many conclusions. By the time we get to ACC play, there will be helpful info where trends (are we a good running team?) really show up. Data this early rests a lot in "how good is the team we just played, actually?"

In this case it's really interesting to see the scores and classic box score type stats of our game vs Rutgers/Temple:

Game	Score	Yards per Play	Yards	Turnover Margin	# of Off Plays
Rutgers vs Temple	61-14	4.56	365	+5	Rutgers 80
Syracuse vs Ohio	29-9	6.18	383	+1	Syracuse 62

Just scanning the scores, you'd probably think Rutgers is pretty good and we're lucky to pull out a win at a MAC school coming off a 1-10 season. If you dug a little deeper you'd probably see that +5 in TOs and think "ahh, I see Rutgers got a pretty good bump due to some turnover luck." They also had more chances to score by running more plays, probably inflated by TOs. Their score is juiced, while ours looks modest.

Game	Score	EPA Play Margin (Rank)	EPA O (Rank)	EPA D (Rank)
Rutgers	61-14	-0.029 (#58)	-0.081 (#72)	-0.035 (#43)
Syracuse	29-9	0.153 (#25)	0.321 (#11)	0.052 (#67)

If you go by efficiency, we had a far superior day. They were far worse on offense and a bit better on D - and rode their TOs to a win. I think we're in good shape going in to this game.

Inject this data right into my veins! Type of analysis I live for!

 

[Keger03]

Nice post, I feel good about the matchup as well. Week 2 has been an achilles heel under Dino (2016 Lville, 2017 Mid Tenn, 2019 Maryland, 2020 Pitt) so hopefully they'll play better than they did against Ohio

I felt good until you brought that stat up. lol

 

[LeMoyneCuse]

I felt good until you brought that stat up. lol

Fortunately, we're not wishing on a monkey's paw for Game Day this year.