A surprising, accidental discovery
I wanted a stronger sense of how well we might be moving the ball, by eliminating garbage time from the stats.
But the shortcut to doing that was, of course, simply deleting fourth quarter stats entirely, rather than going to the added effort of figuring out when the subs came in.
So I looked at numbers by quarter, and was very surprised by these two numbers.
Stanford yards per rush by quarter
1st: 4.82
2nd: 4.21
3rd: 7.17
Wow, I thought. Averaging that for an entire game would make us the nation’s best running team, ahead of second place Baylor’s 6.92 (and posted against a string of the nation’s very worst defenses.)
This prompted me to look at our passing by quarter, and I found this:
1st: 162.8 pass efficiency rating
2nd: 180.3
3rd: 196.8
Another wow, a mere point behind nation-leading Baylor’s 197.8.
I’m not confident that “half time adjustments” aren’t mostly creatures of commentators’ imaginations, a way of finding a narrative for a third quarter that doesn’t resemble the first two. But our staff and QB seem to come up with, and execute, remarkably effective plans for their third quarters.
And that prompted me to check our pass defense numbers, to see if there was any pattern.
1st: 132 PER allowed, 60% completions
2nd: 99, 47%
3rd: 107, 58%
Here, the third quarter doesn’t show a leap, but our pass defense numbersdo show a significant improvement after our nearly average first quarters.
And what these seem to show is either a team that starts slow, then finds a strong rhythm, or a team that adjusts very well to whatever its opponent is doing, and takes over the game—or perhaps something else, including “it’s just worked out this way.” My sense: There may be evidence of excellent scheming and adjusting here.
I wanted a stronger sense of how well we might be moving the ball, by eliminating garbage time from the stats.
But the shortcut to doing that was, of course, simply deleting fourth quarter stats entirely, rather than going to the added effort of figuring out when the subs came in.
So I looked at numbers by quarter, and was very surprised by these two numbers.
Stanford yards per rush by quarter
1st: 4.82
2nd: 4.21
3rd: 7.17
Wow, I thought. Averaging that for an entire game would make us the nation’s best running team, ahead of second place Baylor’s 6.92 (and posted against a string of the nation’s very worst defenses.)
This prompted me to look at our passing by quarter, and I found this:
1st: 162.8 pass efficiency rating
2nd: 180.3
3rd: 196.8
Another wow, a mere point behind nation-leading Baylor’s 197.8.
I’m not confident that “half time adjustments” aren’t mostly creatures of commentators’ imaginations, a way of finding a narrative for a third quarter that doesn’t resemble the first two. But our staff and QB seem to come up with, and execute, remarkably effective plans for their third quarters.
And that prompted me to check our pass defense numbers, to see if there was any pattern.
1st: 132 PER allowed, 60% completions
2nd: 99, 47%
3rd: 107, 58%
Here, the third quarter doesn’t show a leap, but our pass defense numbersdo show a significant improvement after our nearly average first quarters.
And what these seem to show is either a team that starts slow, then finds a strong rhythm, or a team that adjusts very well to whatever its opponent is doing, and takes over the game—or perhaps something else, including “it’s just worked out this way.” My sense: There may be evidence of excellent scheming and adjusting here.
