November Nerves

It’s not uncommon in the world of sports to see a “must-win” team lay a humongous egg when pressure gets to them late in a season. They take an inferior opponent too lightly. Suddenly they’re in a dogfight against a dog that wasn’t supposed to be live.

The new Final Four format in college football put a couple of highly regarded teams under pressure last week…leading to embarrassing results.

#4 TCU (-29) barely beat Kansas 34-30

#6 Arizona State (-9) lost to Oregon State 35-27

Those were the selection committee’s rankings at kickoff. TCU needed to hold onto the fourth and final spot in the brackets with a strong close to the season. Arizona State needed a strong finish to have any shot of climbing the ladder. The “sweat” games were supposed to come later! TCU visits improving Texas on Thanksgiving Night. Arizona State still has Arizona ahead, and the Pac 12 Championship game with Oregon was waiting down the road if the Sun Devils kept winning.

Missing market expectations by 25 and 17 points is bad enough. But, the in-game stats show that we’re not talking about roster dominance that was trumped by fluky turnovers or special teams’ plays. TCU and ASU really were as shaky as the final scores made it seem.

• TCU only outgained hapless Kansas 463-418. Yards-per-play was a timid 6.4 to 5.6. This was a dominant team facing a doormat…and the doormat almost won scoreboard with a competitive performance at the point of attack. Again, TCU was favored by four touchdowns!

• Arizona State was crushed in yardage 498-367, and at the point of attack to the tune of 7.1 to 4.9 yards-per-play. Apparently the players that beat Notre Dame stayed home and the junior varsity flew to Corvallis. You can’t dream of beating Oregon if Oregon State is outgaining you 7.1 to 4.9!

It’s important for handicappers to remember that many teams change their approach when a case of “November nerves” rears its ugly head. This keeps them from playing to the form expressed by Power Ratings or season-to-date computer ratings. Most notable among the changes are:

• Offenses will get more conservative to avoid committing turnovers. This leads to less scoring and yardage production, and an increase in punts and field goal attempts.

• Defenses will get more passive up front. They tend to sit back to avoid allowing the big play.

Put those together, and you get a high priced favorite in a must-win game punting or settling for field goals when they used to drive the field for touchdowns…and the big opposing underdog driving the field for points and yardage because nobody’s putting any pressure on their quarterback.

So, KANSAS (!!!) gets to 30 points and 400+ yards against what was supposed to be a strong Final Four candidate. And, Oregon State almost makes it to 500 yards with a big stat win over a supposedly explosive sleeper.

Keep an eye on this reality as other teams move into the spotlight in the remaining weeks of the regular season (and possibly in a few conference championship games). Once they appear on the scene, “November nerves” are contagious.

Some misleading scores from last Saturday…

• Ohio State was much more dominant than its 31-24 final score against Minnesota made it seem. The Buckeyes won total yardage 489-303, yards-per-play 7.8 to 4.7, and third down conversions 69% to 36%. If not for that early season loss to Virginia Tech, the Buckeye bandwagon would be extremely crowded right now.

• Appalachian State was much more dominant than its 37-32 final score against Arkansas State made it seem. And, that was already a surprising result for a two-touchdown underdog! Appalachian State won total yardage 549-314, yards-per-play 6.5 to 5.3, and third down conversions 47% to 0% (0 of 11 for the home favorite). Arkansas State stayed close because of a punt return TD, and offensive TD drives of 10 and 31 yards.

• Arizona may have been suffering a case of nerves too, even though they were only #14 in the rankings at kickoff. The Wildcats survived Washington 27-26 despite getting outgained 504-375, outrushed 245-133, out-converted 59% to 20% on third downs, and outgained on a per-play basis 5.6 to 4.7. Arizona was a 9-point home favorite and was fortunate to win.

• Hawaii’s 13-0 shutout of San Jose State was one of the oddest games of the year. You don’t see many shutouts in conference play in college football. And, it’s really hard to pull off when the scoreless team gained 462 yards! How did San Jose State avoid the scoreboard?

3 turnovers

3 additional “virtual” turnovers on failed fourth down conversions

3 missed field goals

San Jose State lost despite winning yardage 462-240, rushing yardage 157-90, and third down conversions 63% to 33%.

• Memphis beat Tulane 38-7, but was nowhere near as dominant as that score made it seem. It’s easy to look past this one because Memphis was “supposed” to win easily. The Tigers were outgained 351-334, and only converted 2 of 14 third downs on the day. Two of their touchdowns were interception returns on defense. They were the better team on a per-play basis, winning that category 5.1 to 4.0. Be careful rewarding Memphis too much for this score. They weren’t nearly as sharp as “38-7” makes it look.

See you again next Wednesday.

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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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