Football Study Hall
We now have Bill Connelly’s statistical profiles and they can now be found on a Google Docs page. So please peruse and enjoy.
Texas Tech Offense vs. Oklahoma State Defense
What you’re seeing is a pretty good Oklahoma State offense. Keep in mind that the lower a value is, the better. Generally speaking the offense is very good, but not very explosive. And truthfully, it’s at the top of the bottom half of the NCAA rankings, 67th overall, so that’s not terrible for a freshman quarterback. What the offense has done well is score, put points on the board and be pretty efficient at it. The problem is that the Oklahoma State defense has been very good in those categories as well. The biggest advantage is finishing drives, which essentially how well you score inside the 40, which means that if you get inside the Oklahoma State 40 yard line, you’ll likely score.
Texas Tech Defense vs. Oklahoma State Offense
Avert your eyes! Yeah, it’s as bad as you thought, the defense has not taken a step thus far, explosiveness being the worst thing (i.e. giving up big plays). In my brain, I’m telling myself that it got better against Houston, especially against the run. Those big runs seemed much more limited and now it’s just time for Jah’Shawn Johnson to get healthy and help out that secondary. And the Oklahoma State offense has been very good, darn near elite. Again, they just clobbered Boise State last weekend and the Cowboys have had the opportunity to play their past three games at home, this game will be the 4th. I wonder how they’ll play on the road (unfortunately, they won’t get tested because they’ve got Kansas next).
Other Stats
College Football Analytics: CFA has Oklahoma State 15th overall, while Texas Tech is 45th overall and think that Texas Tech has about a 40% chance in winning the game. Of the games remaining (and this is subject to change) this is the lowest chance of winning (it’s actually 39.9%) with TCU next at 40.9% and Oklahoma after that at 44.7%. And CFA said that Texas Tech had a 50.7% chance of winning last week.
FEI College Football Ratings: Have the Cowboys at 15th overall and Texas Tech 54th overall.
ESPN’s Football Power Index: These stats think a lot of Oklahoma State as well, ranking 11th overall while they also think a lot better of Texas Tech than the other advanced stats folks, 32nd overall.
