Combing College Boxscores for Misleading Finals, Provocative Statements

Now that the regular season has arrived, we’ll be devoting the bulk of time and space in this midweek “stat” feature toward developments gleaned from boxscores. Some weeks, that will mean we’ll focus in depth on a misleading final score that painted a very inaccurate picture of what happened on the field. Other times we’ll isolate red flags that seem to be making big announcements about what lies ahead.

Ideally, this will serve as a solid transition point from what happened last week toward what’s likely to happen this week and beyond.

With that in mind, let’s start off this edition with a few misleading final scores from the opening week of 2014 college football action.

Misleading Final Scores Week # 1

• Penn State earned a dramatic 26-24 victory over Central Florida this past Saturday morning in a game played in Ireland. Many of you watched “Breakfast from Dublin,” or at least the fourth quarter after you realized it was a very early start! Highlight shows throughout the rest of the day tended to focus on the back-and-forth nature of the fourth quarter, and Penn State’s first win under new head coach James Franklin.

Lost in the shuffle:

Penn State outgained UCF by a stunning 511-246 margin as an underdog

Penn State held UCF to 24 rushing yards on 0.8 yards-per-carry

Penn State QB Christian Hackenburg threw for 454 yards on 9.7 yards-per-attempt

Penn State was much more impressive than the final score and subsequent highlight packages would have had you believe. Turnovers could continue to be an issue with a pass-heavy offense (the game was close because PSU lost the turnover category 3-1). But handicappers need to be aware of that 511-246 stat slaughter moving forward. (Penn State is -14.5 this week vs. Akron, as early money has faded the Nittany Lions on the “jet lag” theory. Central Florida is off until September 13 at Missouri)

• Louisiana Monroe rallied from behind to get past Wake Forest 17-10 last Thursday. Those backing Monroe had to sweat most of the night. But, their bleak assessment for Wake Forest was largely correct.

Monroe outgained Wake Forest 352-94

Monroe outrushed Wake Forest 163 to negative 3

Wake Forest’s only TD came on a blocked punt return

It was a miracle that Wake Forest was in the game as late as they were. The Demon Deacons will be in big trouble this year when facing opponents better than Monroe. They’re on the “extra game” board this week at home against Gardner Webb. Road games against the defenses of Utah State and Louisville loom later in the month. Louisiana Monroe is currently -14 at home against an Idaho team that will be a week behind in game-readiness because of their weather-induced postponement at Florida.

• Temple and Texas-San Antonio scored blowout victories as underdogs last week, over Vanderbilt and Houston (by scores of 37-7 and 27-7 respectively). The magnitude of those blowouts was greatly influenced by turnover differential though. The dogs did play well enough to earn clean victories based on their yardage advantages (Temple outgained Vandy 352-278, while UTSA outgained Houston 267-208). But the games were slaughters because:

Vanderbilt lost the ball SEVEN times, setting up 30 relatively cheap points for Temple

Houston lost the ball SIX times, setting up 13 relatively cheap points for UTSA

I keep track of “drive points” by hand, which I define as those scored on offensive drives of 60 yards or more. Temple won “drive points” by only a 7-0 margin over Vandy, while Houston was tied with UTSA at 7-7.

Temple and UTSA aren’t unlikely to enjoy such friendly turnover fortune when they face Navy and Arizona this week (Temple is +3 as a home dog, UTSA is +7 as a home dog). Vandy and Houston have legitimate offensive concerns they need to fix. But turnover debacles of that magnitude are less likely down the road. Vandy has an immediate test this week as a 20-point home underdog vs. Ole Miss. Houston scrimmages with Grambling this week before a very tough road game at BYU on September 11.

Focusing on Offense

Focusing now on some “statement” performances by offenses. Handicappers obviously have to be careful about overreacting to opening week boxscores. It’s very easy for teams to create illusions of greatness by running up the stats on an opening week cupcake. Memphis gained 545 yards in a 63-0 rout of Austin Peay. We just don’t know what that means until the Tigers play a real team. There are more than a dozen examples like that from last week’s squash matches.

BUT…when teams run up the stats against opponents who weren’t supposed to be pushovers, that’s much more likely to mean something.

Some quick examples:

• Texas A&M gained 680 yards as a double digit underdog on the road at South Carolina. You just can’t luck your way into doing that. You can luck your way into big victory margins with some turnover breaks. You can luck your way into an upset if the favorite makes a few miscues. You can’t luck your way to 680 yards on the road in the SEC against a top 20 caliber team. An easy September awaits the Aggies (Lamar, Rice, at SMU, Arkansas in Arlington). For now, the evidence suggests A&M will be able to score additional meaningful wins when the schedule toughens up in October and November.

• Western Kentucky gained 702 yards and scored 59 points as an underdog to a Bowling Green team that’s one of the favorites to win the MAC. That was off the charts in terms of expectations. The market had projected a score in the vicinity of 36-29 for Bowling Green. Western Kentucky more than doubled their scoring estimate. And, believe if it or not, all 59 points came on drives of 60 yards or more! No cheap points here. The Hilltoppers are +6 at Illinois Saturday. That, by the way, is an Illini team that trailed Youngstown State at home this past Saturday entering the fourth quarter.

• USC gained 702 yards and scored 45 points on drives of 60 yards or more against a Fresno State team that’s likely to play in a bowl this year. Yes, Fresno was nearly a three-TD underdog. But, the market’s projected score was about 38-20. USC was supposed to score about 38 for the game, yet managed 45 “drive points” and more than 700 yards. That may be why early money has moved the Trojans from +4 at Stanford this Saturday down to +2.5.

There are a couple of other games of note where handicappers should at least acknowledge high yardage totals. Against admittedly vulnerable defenses, Arizona gained 787 yards against UNLV in a 58-13 win, and Nebraska made it to 784 yards in their “Pelini Pride” pulverization of Florida Atlantic. Neither team in the 780-club turned the ball over. Maybe there’s some air in those numbers. But, you can’t “luck” your way to 780-plus yards with 0 turnovers. Clean, high volume execution. We’ve already noted that Arizona visits UTSA this week. Nebraska has a tune-up this week against McNeese State before visiting the Fresno State defense that just got ravaged by USC.

See you again next week.

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Jeff Fogle is a freelance writer living in Austin, Texas. He writes about college and pro football, college and pro basketball, and MLB on his blog StatIntelligence. You can follow Jeff on Twitter @JeffFogle.

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