Let’s Talk About Stats: Texas Longhorns vs. Texas Tech Red Raiders

Photo via Kimberly Vardeman @ Flickr

All stats can be found via CFB Stats and Football Study Hall.

Traditional Stats

traditional-stats-utTexas’ offense has improved dramatically over the course of the year, but it seems like it is in large part due to the play of Foreman, who has literally carried this team. Granted, lots of credit goes to that offensive line for Texas which is also doing a terrific job.

The Baylor-style of offense has certainly arrived at Texas, with a bit yards per attempt average for pass palys, but they haven’t quite figured out the efficiency part of it. I’m guessing that they are completing a ton of big throws, but it’s the small stuff that gets problematic, hence the rough third down conversion rates for the offense.

The red zone offense is an improvement for them I think, but the big difference is that they are only scoring touchdowns on 60% of their red zone opportunities. Compare that with Texas Tech, who are scoring on 75% of those same red zone chances. Texas only has 21 touchdowns, compared to 40 for Texas Tech.

The defenses aren’t great, Texas Tech’s is certianly worse. The yards per attempt given up is certainly alarming and it’s what got Vance Bedford essentially demoted. Even though statistically, Texas hasn’t played well defensively, I’ll be very interested to see if they try to imploy similar techniques to TCU and West Virginia.

Advanced Stats

advanced-stats-utThe advanced numbers seem to confirm that Texas Tech has an elite offense and Texas’ offense is very good, while Texas Tech has improved their numbers as a result of TCU from last week, it’s still pretty terrible, and Texas is in the bottom half of defenses.

Texas Tech’s offense did take a bit of a hit last week, but I’ll take the win over continued offensive success any day of the week. The rushing IsoPPP should improve if Ward continues to get good looks, but think about how many times Texas Tech has broken off a huge running play? You might have to go back to last year and it makes you appreciate DeAndre Washington all that much more.

The defensive numbers did see an increase in production, but it will take more than just one game for those numbers to creep up even more. Texas is okay and I would have thought that they’d be better stopping the run, but they aren’t. They are okay limiting big runs, but they can be susceptible to giving up running plays. The passing numbers on defense do confirm that they they’ll give up big passing plays and the short stuff too.

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