http://www.sundaymorningqb.com/story/2008/1/6/203748/5887

...figured I might as well post it here too.

TDs: The Runs Batted In of College Football Statistics (Part One)

OFFSEASON PROJECT!  Hey, this is The Boy from Rock M Nation.  Over at RMN, I’ve been playing with the ‘Beyond the Box Score’ idea (calling it that as an ode to the wonderful SBN sabermetrics blog of the same name) as it applies to college football stats.

I’ve been cranking out play-by-plays for 2007 games as fast as possible—as I post for a Mizzou blog, I’ve focused on Big 12 teams, Mizzou opponents, and teams with fellow Heisman finalists—but this is a massive undertaking, and I need some volunteers to enter play-by-play for the games I have yet to enter from the 2007.  They take about 30-45 minutes each, and I’m figuring I’ll need about 6-10 volunteers to finish this stuff in a timely enough fashion to do something about it before the 2008 season starts orbiting everybody’s attention span, so...actually, how about I just show you why I’m doing this?

It’s fair to say that the Bill James Revolution has reshaped the game of baseball over the last 25-30 years (for some franchises, anyway...my Pirates sure haven’t paid any attention).  I’d go into detail about all the different statistics that have come about due to James and his disciples, but I’m going to be honest here—if you don’t know/care about Bill James, then you probably won’t care at all about this post.

The typical statline for a hitter hasn’t changed much over the years.  Chances are, when a guy is at bat, the stats they’ll show on TV are Batting Average / HRs / RBIs.  However, as thousands of words are spent in deciphering baseball stats each year, it’s becoming more and more obvious that those categories—the last one in particular—are pretty worthless in evaluating the quality of a hitter.  Who cares about a .300 batting average if it’s all singles and it’s not complemented by any walks or anything?  Who cares about 25 HRs if you strike out 200 times and don’t ever get on base otherwise?  And who cares about 100 RBIs if it’s complemented by a .225 average and only comes about because the guys in front of you are fantastic hitters?

Alright, it’s time to update the Glossary.  As I said before, my goal is to get more and more people interested in these weird stats that I've been using for the 'Beyond the Box Score' bits.  I will walk through the stats and explain them all in one place...and then link to this post in each future post.

Sniff...last BTBS game wrap-up for quite a while...moment of silence, please.

As always, here is the BTBS glossary (still soon-to-be-updated) and as always, let’s recap the Game Keys from last week’s BTBS preview to see how well (or not so well) I pinpointed what to watch for.

Game Key #1: the Second Quarter.  Across the board, Arkansas is infinitely better in Q2 than the rest of the game.  That leads one to believe that if Mizzou is up at halftime, they’re in very good shape.  If they can weather the storm and get to Q3, their best quarter (for the first 2/3 of the season, anyway), they will be forcing Arkansas out of their comfort zone.  Even in the Hogs’ best game—at LSU—they only managed a 38.7% success rate in the second half (here are that game’s splits...Q1: 25.0%, Q2: 47.4%, Q3: 38.5%, Q4: 38.9%).

Q2 Success Rates: Mizzou 50.0%, Arkansas 25.0%.  It was only 14-0 at halftime, but the flow of the game was established in Q2, it was Mizzou who established it, and it was Arkansas who had blown their best chances to make this a game.

Click 'Full Story' for more.

I almost forgot to do this!  I’ll be en route to Dallas starting Saturday morning, and I’ll post the preview & prediction thread from there, but before I go...it’s time for one last trip down BTBS Lane...

...okay, one last trip down BTBS Lane during the season.  There will be a lot more to come once we hit postseason mode.  But enough talking...

Here’s the (soon to be updated) BTBS Glossary, and here are the stats:

Success Rates by Quarter

ALL PLAYS

Mizzou
Q1: MU 48.8%, Opp 40.9%
Q2: MU 47.7%, Opp 41.9%
Q3: MU 55.9%, Opp 44.9%
Q4: MU 51.9%, Opp 47.7%
TOTAL: MU 51.0%, Opp 44.1% (+6.9%)

Arkansas
Q1: Hogs 41.8%, Opp 32.9%
Q2: Hogs 49.5%, Opp 36.5%
Q3: Hogs 48.4%, Opp 37.5%
Q4: Hogs 44.6%, Opp 41.9%
TOTAL: Hogs 46.4%, Opp 37.6% (+8.8%)

Click 'Full Story' for more.

You know how baseball stat nerds decided that batting average wasn’t a very strong indicator of a batter’s performance, so they started looking at OPS (On-base % + slugging avg)?  Well...what if there were a similar measure for football?

What makes OPS so great is that there are a couple different ways to end up with a good measure.  I would consider anything over .800 a pretty decent OPS.  To get there, you could have a great on-base % (.400) with mostly singles power (.400 slugging) or maybe a mediocre on-base % (.325) with solid power-hitting (.475).  Or maybe you’re terrible at getting on-base (.275), but you hit the crap out of the ball when you do (.525).  All those different types of hitters end up with an .800 OPS.

Basically OPS measures efficiency (on-base %) and explosiveness (slugging).  Well, isn’t that basically what my two recent obsessions—success rates and PPP—measure?

What would happen if we combined Success Rates and PPP?  Would that give us the football version of OPS?

We could even call it something catchy, like S&P!

Click 'Full Story' for more.

No depth of analysis for this game will tell you what you didn't already know--the redzone murdered Mizzou.  But I humbly submit the stats nonetheless.  And as always, we'll start with the 'Game Keys' from last week's BTBS Preview.

Game Key #1: Fourth Quarter.  If Mizzou is going to win, it would behoove them to be up more than 1 point heading into Q4 this time around.  No matter which stats you look at, OU's defensive stats are best in the Q4 almost totally across the board.  Q4 was also where the OU defense asserted itself once and for all in Norman on October 13.  If the score is tight heading into the final 15 minutes, the Mizzou offense had better have it's A+ game ready.

OU was up 14 going into the fourth quarter, and...Q4 success rate: OU 52.2%, MU 14.3%.  Ouch.

Game Key #2: OU Rushing Success Rate.  As you'll see below, OU's passing game tends to tail off a bit after Q1, while the running game gets stronger.  Mizzou's ability to defend the run saved them in the first half while the offense was trying to escape Auston English's clutches, but then the efficient power-running of Chris Brown carried OU home in the second half.  The loss of Murray hurts OU, as you'll see in the numbers below, but Brown and Allen Patrick are more than capable of carrying a power-running attack.  That style didn't work well for ATM or KU against Mizzou, and for Mizzou to be sitting pretty, it better not work well for OU either.  If OU's run success rate is over 50%, Mizzou's in trouble.

OU Run Success Rate: 42.5%.  Pretty good job by Mizzou.  The problem was, we sold out to stop the run, leaving Darnell Terrell on an island with Malcolm Kelly and leading to an OU Pass Success Rate of 57.7%.

Click 'Full Story' for more.

Ho hum...another week, another Most Important Game in Mizzou History.  Being that this game is a rematch, it's pretty easy to get stuck viewing this game as a repeat of that one, only with different players healthy.  I've fallen into that trap many times this week.  But it's still good to look at the overall picture to see what we might expect.

As always, let's start with the BCBS Glossary and go from there.  And as always, I'll have Game Keys interspersed throughout.

Success Rates by Quarter

ALL PLAYS

Mizzou
Q1: MU 50.0%, Opp 41.3%
Q2: MU 47.8%, Opp 40.7%
Q3: MU 56.4%, Opp 45.0%
Q4: MU 53.0%, Opp 47.3%
TOTAL: MU 51.8%, Opp 43.7% (+8.1%)

Oklahoma
Q1: OU 49.5%, Opp 35.9%
Q2: OU 54.9%, Opp 37.5%
Q3: OU 48.4%, Opp 40.7%
Q4: OU 42.1%, Opp 31.4%
TOTAL: OU 48.8%, Opp 36.7% (+12.1%)

Last Time
Q1: OU 62.5%, MU 35.7%
Q2: MU 40.0%, OU 37.5%
Q3: MU 61.5%, OU 46.7%
Q4: MU 52.6%, OU 50.0%
TOTAL: MU 49.4%, OU 49.3% (MU +0.1%)

Click 'Full Story' for more...much, much more...

I almost feel bad for posting this and knocking ZouDave's highlight video further down the page...almost.  But really, who needs to watch exciting video when they can look at a bunch of numbers???  That's what I thought!

(When in doubt, consult the BTBS glossary.)

As I've been doing recently, before we get to the numbers let's take a look back at the "Game Keys" from last week's BTBS preview...

GAME KEY #1: Third quarter.  That's right, I skipped Q1 and Q2 for once...anything could happen there.  But chances are the game will still be up for grabs come the second half, and the numbers all say something different for Q3.

Nailed it.  Mizzou was up 14-0 at half, but it was the third quarter that defined the game.  Mizzou quickly went up 21-0, and KU had to abandon the run.  Oh, and...

Q3 Success Rate: MU 81.0%, KU 47.4%.  Bingo.

Click 'Full Story' for more...

So it's Thanksgiving weekend, and I haven't been on a computer quite as much...but the other reason this preview is a bit late is that at this point I can break this info out into a ridiculous amount of categories, and it's a bit of extra work determining what's actually important and interesting and what's not.  Yes, I can tell you who holds the advantage when it comes to second-quarter passing downs in the redzone, but that's not exactly vital information.  But let's just get started and see what happens...

Success Rates by Quarter

Because I'm including so damn many of these, I'm going to boldface the more interesting stats as they come about...

ALL PLAYS

Mizzou
Q1: MU 50.5%, Opp 42.6%
Q2: MU 48.0%, Opp 41.5%
Q3: MU 54.1%, Opp 44.8%
Q4: MU 55.8%, Opp 45.8%
TOTAL: MU 52.0%, Opp 43.7% (+8.3%)

Kansas
Q1: KU 46.9%, Opp 32.6%
Q2: KU 51.9%, Opp 35.1%
Q3: KU 58.5%, Opp 29.7%
Q4: KU 45.2%, Opp 37.2%
TOTAL: KU 50.7%, Opp 33.7% (+17.0%)

cough cough STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE cough cough

CLOSE GAMES ONLY

Mizzou
Q1: MU 50.5%, Opp 42.6%
Q2: MU 49.1%, Opp 38.7%
Q3: MU 60.0%, Opp 45.5%
Q4: MU 48.6%, Opp 44.3%
TOTAL: MU 51.6%, Opp 42.3% (+9.3%)

Kansas
Q1: KU 46.9%, Opp 32.6%
Q2: KU 54.7%, Opp 37.5%
Q3: KU 65.0%, Opp 34.0%
Q4: KU 37.5%, Opp 37.0%
TOTAL: KU 50.2%, Opp 35.0% (+15.2%)

CONFERENCE GAMES ONLY

Mizzou
Q1: MU 51.5%, Opp 44.9%
Q2: MU 47.2%, Opp 38.2%
Q3: MU 55.0%, Opp 40.0%
Q4: MU 60.2%, Opp 44.4%
TOTAL: MU 53.3%, Opp 41.7% (+11.6%)

Kansas
Q1: KU 40.3%, Opp 38.1%
Q2: KU 55.2%, Opp 41.4%
Q3: KU 55.7%, Opp 34.4%
Q4: KU 44.1%, Opp 37.8%
TOTAL: KU 49.0%, Opp 38.0% (+11.0%)

Click 'Full Story' for the interesting stuff.

There's a whole mess of good stuff here.  First of all, I'd like to point out that the EqPts formula I've mentioned from time to time absolutely nailed last week's games (scroll to the end...apparently the formula is so good, that it predicted Sam Bradford's injury).  It predicted MU by 17 (bingo), Tech by 4 (Tech won by 7), KU by 23 (KU won by 38...but I beat the spread!), and OSU by 23 (OSU won by 31...again, a nice cover).  So you have absolutely no reason whatsoever to even remotely doubt my numbers.  Are you listening, Beef??  That's what I thought.

Anyhoo...

(BTBS GLOSSARY)

...let's take a look at last week's Game Keys.

Game Key #1: First Quarter.  It's a no-brainer to say that Q1 is important, but...well, it is.  And here's why: neither team has done a solid job of establishing itself in Q1 recently (i.e. in November).  Mizzou treads water, while K-State just gets blown out of said water.  As you'll see below in the Home/Road splits, KSU has done a good job of dictating the tempo and taking control early at home, but it's yet to be seen just how much the debacle of the last two weeks (both road games) will affect them.  They can't let this game get away from them early.

Q1 Success Rate: KSU 47.6%, Mizzou 35.7%.  One bullet dodged for K-State.

Click 'Full Story' for more.

It's that time of week...time for me to stop ignoring that we have a game this weekend.  As I said earlier this week, I wish I could just fast forward to next Saturday afternoon...pretend this game is past us.  To some degree, each of the last four games has been called a "trap game".  Texas Tech because we were coming off the OU loss.  Iowa State because we were getting hyped and they had played OU well.  Colorado because it was a November road test.  ATM because we were looking ahead to KU.  Now comes the only true 'trap game' of the bunch--a trip to a place where we haven't won since I was in fifth grade.  Now, I don't believe that any of the last nine (it's nine, right?) losses in Manhattan mean anything to this team or this moment.  However...I just have a lot of bad memories of the place, and while I think we'll win, until we actually do win, there will be at least a smidge of doubt/worry.

All that said...on to the stats!  Here's the BTBS Glossary (which, as you'll see below, needs to be updated slightly now).

Success Rate by Quarter

ALL PLAYS

Mizzou
Q1: MU 51.5%, Opp 41.9%
Q2: MU 48.1%, Opp 41.5%
Q3: MU 54.3%, Opp 45.9%
Q4: MU 55.6%, Opp 46.2%
TOTAL: MU 52.4%, Opp 44.0%

Kansas State
Q1: KSU 49.5%, Opp 36.2%
Q2: Opp 42.3%, KSU 36.2%
Q3: KSU 53.1%, Opp 41.5%
Q4: KSU 46.2%, Opp 38.1%
TOTAL: KSU 46.3%, Opp 39.8%

Click 'Full Story' for more.  Don't be scared.

Before we get to the numbers, let us once again look at last week's 'Game Keys' to see what it tells us about a) how the game played out and b) how good I am at identifying keys to the game (lol).

As always, here's the BTBS glossary.

Game Key #1: 1st Quarter.  Q1 is a strength for both teams (MU-CU game aside).  In conference play, Mizzou holds a 55%-45% success rate advantage over their opponents, while ATM holds a 49%-41% advantage.  ATM must not fall behind much in this game, and obviously Q1 play will dictate what kind of game this is.

Q1 Success Rate: Mizzou 50.0%, ATM 41.2%.  Thanks to the bad punt snap and a couple stalled drives, the score was only 7-2 Mizzou after Q1, which allowed ATM to avoid going into panic mode somewhat.

Game Key #2: 3rd Quarter.  Q1 might define how the game will play out, but Q3 will be where Mizzou makes its move.  They hold a sickening 58%-35% Q3 success rate advantage in conference play, while ATM is at a disadvantage (50%-46%).  ATM had better figure make some really strong adjustments...otherwise the game will be over before Q4, and Q4's where ATM might hold a distinct advantage of its own.

Everything that could go wrong for Mizzou, did go wrong in Q3.  Never mind the success rates (ATM 65.2%, MU 45.5%), from the deflected Goodson completion to the pass interference no-call, Q3 was a complete debacle for Mizzou.  The fact that they bounced back the way they did offensively in Q4 (success rates: Mizzou 76.0%, ATM 53.8%) was phenomenal to see...once it was over, and Mizzou had won, anyway.

Click 'Full Story' for more.