Alright so I think we can all agree that the 2013 offense wasn't as good as 2012's. We lost K-State EMAW legend Chris Harper and Heisman finalist Quarterback Collin Klein. On the other hand: Tyler Lockett. So let's break down these numbers together, goEMAW.com members!
First, let's start with the raw numbers. 2013 Cats had 408.6
yards per game, which put us at 64th in the country. 2012 Cats had 392.9.
But yards per game is kids stuff. Let's check out our
pace just so we have some context. In short, our offense went really slow. Again. We ran 66.5 plays per game, 114th highest, in 2013. The 2012 cats ran 65.5 plays per game, which ranked 118th last year. A slight increase, but nothing earth shattering.
If we combine the two categories above, we can see our
yards per play and get at our
efficiency. 2013 Cats earned 6.1 yards per play. Wow. That's actually really good. That puts us at 26th in the country and 2nd in the Big 12 (behind Baylor and their uber crazy 7.5 yards per play). It's also higher than the 2012 Cats, who had 6.0 yards per play.
OK, so 2013 Cats ran more plays
and earned more yards per play than 2012 Cats. So far so good.
But let's talk
points:
- 2013 Cats offense scored 31.5 points per game, which is good (31st in the country; 4th in the Big 12 behind Baylor, OSU and Tech). When you factor in our pace, it's even more impressive: 0.52 points per play (13th in the country, 3rd in the Big 12 behind Baylor and OSU).
- Compare this with the 2012 offense, which ran at a similar pace and had fewer yards per game than 2013 offense 37.8 13th in the country. That's crazy, especially since earlier I said only 7 offenses in the country ran fewer plays than us last year. Factoring in our 2012's offense slow pace translates to a super high .519 points per play (3rd in the country).
DATA NOTE: 2013 Florida State's points per play is 0.764.
x1000. They're good.
OK so our offense had more yards per play, but fewer points per play. What accounts for this? Probably either 3rd down percentage or turnovers. Let's get into the third down stuff first:
- 2013 Cats had 12.8 third downs per game (111th most). That's very few, which is to be expected given our pace. Last year's was 12.2. (120th).
- 2013 Cats converted third downs at a rate of 49.65%. WOW! Really good! That ranks 13th in the country and 1st in the Big 12! Kiss our butts, Baylor (47.1%; 19th)! 2012 Cats were really good at this too, 51.02% (6th).
Alright, so if 3rd down percentage doesn't really explain the difference, it must be turnovers.
Oh my. It's definitely turnovers. 2013 Cats turned it over 2 times per game. That's 95th in the country and 8th in the Big 12. This number is made even worse by our really slow pace. I couldn't find any pace-related turnover stats, but let me put it this way, if only 10 teams in the country run fewer plays than us, but have the 30th most turnovers, that means we have a
crazy high number of turnovers per play. Yeesh.
By comparison, the 2012 Cats averaged only 1 turnover per game. Only 3 teams had fewer turnovers last year.
So what was the deal? Has to be Waters' interceptions, right?
2013 Cats threw 1 int per game (tied with 11 teams at 78th fewest). That's pretty bad. It's magnified by our slow pace. K-State's INT% was 4.28%. Compared that to the 2012 Cats who threw 0.8 INTs (3.14%) per game. For every 4 interceptions the 2012 offense threw, the 2013 offense threw 5.
Hmm. So the 2012 Cats actually threw a lot of interceptions given its pace too. 2013 is worse, for sure, but it still doesn't really explain the difference. After all, K-State
double its turnovers this year compared to last. Must be fumbles.
Fumbles: The 2013 Cats had 1.5 fumbles per game (80th fewest) Uh oh. I see where this is going. We cannot fumble it that much given our pace. The 2012 Cats had 0.8 per game (8th fewest).
-Of those 1.5 fumbles per game, the 2013 Cats only recovered 35.3% of them (99th FR%), which translated to about 1 fumble lost per game. The 2012 Cats recovered 70% (4th) and given that they had so few fumbles per game anyways, it means that the Cats only lost 0.2 fumbles per game (
). For every fumble the 2012 offense lost, the 2013 offense lost 5.
The biggest difference between the 2012 offense and the 2013 offense is fumbles lost. Had we held onto the ball more, or recovered it more when we did drop it, the 2013 offense would've been really good. INTs were a problem, but only slightly moreso than 2012. But even so, the 2013 offense was pretty good. It ran at a snail's pace, but gobbled up a pretty good amount of yards per play and moved the chains at a good rate on third down.
"Data"Lew 12, signing out!
