Our third week diving into our five box score stats and seeing what we learn. Let's get to it.
In Week 3, here's how teams that executed the following statistics fared on the scoreboard.
- Win the rushing battle: 56-17 (.768)
- Win the passing battle: 47-26 (.644)
- Score first: 55-18 (.753)
- Lead at halftime: 56-11 (.836)
- Win the turnover battle: 29-21 (.580)
- Quinfecta: 11-0 (1.000)
This week brought us, easily, the biggest outlier so far of 2021 in regards to turnovers. Teams that produced more turnovers than their opponent were barely better than a coin flip, checking in below the passing battle, which has been the fifth of our five indicators (107-61, .638). We'll have to monitor how this develops as the season progresses.
Here are our year to date stats:
- Win the rushing battle: 196-45 (.813)
- Win the passing battle: 154-87 (.639)
- Score first: 185-57 (.764)
- Lead at halftime: 193-37 (.839)
- Win the turnover battle: 128-50 (.719)
- Quinfecta: 45-0 (1.000)
Finally, an assortment of #Nuggets I picked up browsing 73 box scores.
-- Louisiana Tech nearly pulled off one of the most unlikely wins of the season. The Bulldogs did score first, but they trailed at halftime, were out-rushed (183-132), out-passed (395-351), and committed a turnover while forcing zero. Had SMU not connected on a 33-yard bank shot Hail Mary, they'd have pulled out the win anyway.
-- Army's is one of the easiest box scores to study. You know they're going to win rushing and lose passing -- except against UConn. The Knights nearly out-passed the Huskies, falling just 109-107. (They won the ground game 397-116.)
-- Cincinnati lost every metric but turnovers and still beat Indiana, 38-24. Same for East Carolina in its 42-38 win over Marshall.
-- If not for Nick Starkel's two second quarter touchdown passes that gave San Jose State a 14-7 halftime lead, the Spartans would've been the first team to lose a quinfecta and win the game. The Spartans were out-rushed 127-56, out-passed 242-235, lost turnovers 2-1 and trailed 7-0 after the first quarter.
-- Texas Tech's run defense has been really, really good so far. The Red Raiders are allowing 1.73 yards per carry and 54.3 per game, fifth in the nation.
-- Memphis was out-gained 468-246 and still beat Mississippi State. The Tigers got some help.