A lot has been made of the discrepancy in T.O.P. (only 22:38 minutes of possession Friday) and I thought I'd dig in a little by re-watching the game and categorizing our possessions...
Interesting that WMU ran 17 more plays than us (73 vs. 56), but we had 20 first downs to their 19. Of their 17 extra plays, they had 11 more 3rd & 4th downs than we had. They needed more plays (and time) to earn extra downs and they were much less efficient in turning those extra downs into points. If you divide TOP by number of plays, they consumed 31 seconds per play to our 24. How could they consume more seconds per play? they could run the ball more, they could have more pass completions or something else (I'll talk about this later)... They had 7 more runs than us, but not by choice as a net 6 of that differential in "runs" were sacks. They had 9 more completions than us (on only 12 more attempts). Those completions were not only good for the time those plays consumed, but the opportunity to consume more time by moving the chains.
WMU ate more clock because they were more efficient with their passing completion and the "something else" referred to above. That something else is tempo between plays. As I categorized our possessions, I don't think our issue is as much about "all or nothing" play calling as it is about a tough night for our QB and the use of up-tempo pacing that leaves a lot of unused seconds on the clock for the other team.
Let's look at whether our playcalling was "all or nothing"... We had a balanced night consisting of 28 runs, 25 passes and 5 impromptu scrambles. Let's look within each category...
Runs (28) - 7 resulted in clock stoppages (4 first downs, 1 called time out afterward, Berger's TD and Berger's "fumble") and 21 ate clock.
Passes (25) - 12 had patterns where the ball was in the air for <10 yards, 13 had the ball in the air for >= 10 yards
If your wondering what my QB errors/inaccuracies are, here they are:
Thorne will have better nights and cutting down mistakes will lengthen drives & T.O.P.
Tempo is definitely a factor - We like to accelerate the pace between plays in certain situations and it definitely cuts into our T.O.P. (more than playcalling, in my opinion). It puts opposing defenses on their back foot, but is it worth it? It makes for quicker scoring drives (both on the real clock & game clock) and it may also be driving some of the unforced errors we saw in our QB's short game.
Interesting that WMU ran 17 more plays than us (73 vs. 56), but we had 20 first downs to their 19. Of their 17 extra plays, they had 11 more 3rd & 4th downs than we had. They needed more plays (and time) to earn extra downs and they were much less efficient in turning those extra downs into points. If you divide TOP by number of plays, they consumed 31 seconds per play to our 24. How could they consume more seconds per play? they could run the ball more, they could have more pass completions or something else (I'll talk about this later)... They had 7 more runs than us, but not by choice as a net 6 of that differential in "runs" were sacks. They had 9 more completions than us (on only 12 more attempts). Those completions were not only good for the time those plays consumed, but the opportunity to consume more time by moving the chains.
WMU ate more clock because they were more efficient with their passing completion and the "something else" referred to above. That something else is tempo between plays. As I categorized our possessions, I don't think our issue is as much about "all or nothing" play calling as it is about a tough night for our QB and the use of up-tempo pacing that leaves a lot of unused seconds on the clock for the other team.
Let's look at whether our playcalling was "all or nothing"... We had a balanced night consisting of 28 runs, 25 passes and 5 impromptu scrambles. Let's look within each category...
Runs (28) - 7 resulted in clock stoppages (4 first downs, 1 called time out afterward, Berger's TD and Berger's "fumble") and 21 ate clock.
Passes (25) - 12 had patterns where the ball was in the air for <10 yards, 13 had the ball in the air for >= 10 yards
Short Passes (12)
Short, over the middle (5) - 3 were incomplete due to inaccurate QB play and 2 resulted in a running clock.
Short, wide patterns (7) - 2 were incomplete (1 due to QB error), 2 resulted in first downs, 1 TD (Bernard) and 2 ate clock
Long Passes (13)
Long, over the middle (1) - TD to Mosley
Long, wide patterns (12) - 6 were incomplete (3 due to QB error), 2 resulted in first downs, 2 drew PI, 2 TDs (Barker & Coleman on an audible)
Scrambles (5) - 2 first downs, 1 out of bounds, 1 resulting in an INT and 1 sack/clock eater.If your wondering what my QB errors/inaccuracies are, here they are:
- first play of the game: threw high to Hunt (TE screen)
- 2nd drive, 2nd & 10: overthrew an open Reed deep (37 yds) downfield
- 2nd drive, 3nd & 10: missed Mosley over the middle, threw late & low to Barker
- 4th drive, 1st & 10: missed a wide open Coleman wide & out of bounds (27 yds downfield)... drive still resulted in a TD
- 6th drive, 3rd & 6: missed Coleman high crossing 5 yards downfield
- 2nd drive of 2H, 3rd & 11: missed an open Colemen high 19 yards downfield (next play was the missed FG)
- Last drive of Q3, 3rd & 7: threw screen pass behind Berger
Thorne will have better nights and cutting down mistakes will lengthen drives & T.O.P.
Tempo is definitely a factor - We like to accelerate the pace between plays in certain situations and it definitely cuts into our T.O.P. (more than playcalling, in my opinion). It puts opposing defenses on their back foot, but is it worth it? It makes for quicker scoring drives (both on the real clock & game clock) and it may also be driving some of the unforced errors we saw in our QB's short game.
