(As always, consult the BTBS Glossary for all your BTBS needs.)
So I listed 8 GAME KEY's in Thursday's BTBS Preview. Let's review and see who had the upper hand.
GAME KEY #1: Colorado needs to score first. Do whatever it takes to do so. If you win the toss, elect to receive and take your chances. If you kick off, think about an on-side kick (and no, I don't seriously think they would do this). They need something to go their way early do keep Mizzou from establishing themselves early. Only once all year has Mizzou failed to score first. They won that game, but barely.
Granted, it was as much by Mizzou's doing as Colorado's, but the Buffs did indeed strike first, with Byron Ellis plunging in for a TD after George Hypolite's pinballed INT. Advantage: Colorado.
GAME KEY #2: Everything I just said? It goes double for the third quarter. Save a trick play for the first possession of the second half...maybe two.
Q3 Score: MU 17, CU 0. Q3 Success Rate: MU 43.5%, CU 33.3%. Advantage: Mizzou.
Click 'Full Story' for more.
GAME KEY #3: Mizzou 3rd downs are going to be huge. They're a strength for both teams. If CU comes out on top in this battle early, it could be telling.
Mizzou Third down success rate: 58.8%. Advantage: Mizzou.
GAME KEY #4: Hugh Charles is by far the Buffs' biggest threat. Make him dance and don't allow him in the open field.
Hugh Charles success rate: 35.7% (5-for-14). Hugh Charles PPP: 0.16 (season avg: 0.35). Advantage: Mizzou.
GAME KEY #5: Don't sleep on Tyson DeVree, Riar Geer, and the Colorado TE's. They catch about one of every five Cody Hawkins passes, and they're really the big-play/sneak-attack threat. DeVree is putting up Daniel Graham like numbers (in proficiency, anyway...not overall quantity), and they could easily take advantage of an inexperienced safety if given the opportunity.
CU TEs: 3 catches, 0.91 EqPts, 33.3% success rate. Advantage: Mizzou.
Game Key #6: If Mizzou can get pressure on Cody Hawkins, bad things will happen.
2 sacks, 2 forced fumbles, 17.6% success rate on 3rd downs. Advantage: Mizzou.
Game Key #7: Jordan Dizon's success rate. You know he'll get his tackles. Let's just try to make sure that most of them come after 7- or 12-yard gains...not 2-yarders.
Dizon: 7 tackles, 4 successful (57.1%...season average: 66.7%). Advantage: Mizzou.
Game Key #8: Rucker is important for two reasons: 1) in theory, he'll be matched up a lot with them when he lines up wide, and his (and Chase Coffman's) ability to catch the ball, draw the LBs out wide, and maybe draw some double-teams, will be key; 2) Rucker is also the de facto fullback in run situations, and his ability to get a hat on Dizon Et Al and clear some space for Temple/Jackson/Washington could make the difference between a neck-and-neck game and a blowout.
Coffman & Rucker: 10 catches, 12.01 EqPts (1.20 PPP), 80% success rate, 4 TDs. Granted, Rucker had some butterfinger problems, and CU was relatively successful against the run (early, at least), but...4 TD's? Yeah, Advantage: Mizzou.
So when one team has the advantage in 7 of 8 Game Keys, I'm pretty sure you can tell who won the game.
On to the stats!
Success Rate by Quarter
ALL PLAYS
Q1: Colorado 33.3%, Missouri 30.0%
Q2: Missouri 40.7%, Colorado 7.7%
Q3: Missouri 43.5%, Colorado 33.3%
Q4: Missouri 76.5%, Colorado 22.2%
TOTAL: Missouri 46.0%, Colorado 25.9%
So much for taking the foot off the accelerator with a big lead. And...7.7%?? That's amazing. They had one successful play in the second quarter.
CLOSE GAME ONLY
Q1: Colorado 33.3%, Missouri 30.0%
Q2: Missouri 42.3%, Colorado 10.0%
Q3: N/A
Q4: N/A
TOTAL: Missouri 37.0%, Colorado 25.8%
As with completion rates, the more you go deep, the worse your success rate is probably going to be. Doesn't matter, though, if you complete some of those deep balls, which Missouri obviously did in droves...you'll see the product of that in the PPP data below.
Success Rate by Down
1st: Missouri 43.6%, Colorado 31.8%
2nd: Missouri 41.9%, Colorado 26.3%
3rd: Missouri 58.8%, Colorado 17.6%
4th: N/A
TOTAL: Missouri 46.0%, Colorado 25.9%
QB Success Rate
We're looking at all plays here, not just Close Game Only plays as normal.
Missouri
CHASE DANIEL: 42.1%
-- Run: 40.0%
-- Pass: 43.5%
CHASE PATTON: 100.0%
-- Run: 100.0%
-- Pass: 100.0%
TOTAL: 47.6%
-- Run: 51.4%
-- Pass: 44.7%
Colorado
CODY HAWKINS: 27.1%
-- Run: 31.8%
-- Pass: 23.1%
NICK NELSON: 20.0%
-- Run: 33.3%
-- Pass: 0.0%
TOTAL: 25.9%
-- Run: 32.1%
-- Pass: 20.0%
Run Success Rates and Points Per Play
Mizzou
Derrick Washington: 7 carries, 5.26 points, 0.75 PPP, 71.4% success rate
Tony Temple: 10 carries, 3.53 points, 0.35 PPP, 30.0%
Chase Daniel: 5 carries, 1.92 points, 0.38 PPP, 40.0%
Marcus Woods: 5 carries, 1.64 points, 0.33 PPP, 100.0%
Jimmy Jackson: 4 carries, 1.08 points, 0.27 PPP, 50.0%
Jeremy Maclin: 4 carries, 0.63 points, 0.16 PPP, 25.0%
Martin Rucker: 1 carry, 0.18 points, 0.18 PPP, 100.0%
Danario Alexander: 1 carry, 0.08 points, 0.08 PPP, 0.0%
TOTAL: 37 carries, 14.32 points, 0.39 PPP, 51.4%
Colorado
Hugh Charles: 14 carries, 2.19 points, 0.16 PPP, 35.7%
Byron Ellis: 1 carry, 1.80 points, 1.80 PPP, 100.0%
Cody Hawkins: 3 carries, 0.28 points, 0.09 PPP, 0.0%
Josh Smith: 3 carries, 0.28 points, 0.09 PPP, 33.3%
Demetrius Sumler: 3 carries, 0.27 points, 0.09 PPP, 33.3%
Brian Lockridge: 3 carries, 0.19 points, 0.06 PPP, 33.3%
Nick Nelson: 1 carry, 0.00 points, 0.00 PPP, 0.0%
TOTAL: 28 carries, 5.01 points, 0.18 PPP, 32.1%
Receiver Success Rates and Points Per Play
Mizzou
Chase Coffman: 4 catches, 8.82 points, 2.21 PPP, 75.0%
Jeremy Maclin: 7 catches, 7.57 points, 1.08 PPP, 71.4%
Will Franklin: 2 catches, 5.63 points, 2.82 PPP, 100.0%
Jared Perry: 2 catches, 3.74 points, 1.87 PPP, 100.0%
Martin Rucker: 6 catches, 3.19 points, 0.53 PPP, 83.3%
Danario Alexander: 3 catches, 2.66 points, 0.89 PPP, 66.7%
Earl Goldsmith: 1 catch, 0.43 points, 0.43 PPP, 0.0%
Derrick Washington: 1 catch, 0.32 points, 0.32 PPP, 100.0%
Tommy Saunders: 1 catch, 0.07 points, 0.07 PPP, 100.0%
TOTAL: 27 catches, 32.43 points, 1.20 PPP, 77.8%
Anything over 1.00 PPP is super-explosive. For the season, the highest PPP average for Mizzou was Will Franklin's 0.95. The fact that four Tigers went over 1.0 PPP, and the team as a whole averaged 1.2 PPP tells you everything you need to know about how the Tigers play against a Cover-1 scheme.
Colorado
Dusty "Ed" Sprague: 4 catches, 2.28 points, 0.57 PPP, 100.0%
Patrick Williams: 2 catches, 0.96 points, 0.48 PPP, 50.0%
Riar Geer: 1 catch, 0.35 points, 0.35 PPP, 100.0%
Tyson DeVree: 1 catch, 0.32 points, 0.32 PPP, 0.0%
Byron Ellis: 3 catches, 0.31 points, 0.10 PPP, 0.0%
Joe Sanders: 1 catch, 0.24 points, 0.24 PPP, 0.0%
Scotty McKnight: 1 catch, 0.19 points, 0.19 PPP, 0.0%
Hugh Charles: 1 catch, 0.05 points, 0.05 PPP, 0.0%
TOTAL: 14 catches, 4.70 points, 0.34 PPP, 42.9%
Not sure I've ever seen a team's Receiver Success Rate under 50%. Mizzou forced bad passes and covered the passes well, but even when CU caught the ball, they were almost always tackled immediately.
Line Yards and Sack Rates
Missouri
Line Yards: 40 carries, 113.8 line yards, 2.85/carry
1st-2nd Down Sack Rate: 31 pass attempts, 2 sacks (6.5%)
3rd-4th Down Sack Rate: 16 pass attempts, 0 sacks (0.0%)
Colorado
Line Yards: 28 carries, 73.2 line yards, 2.61/carry
1st-2nd Down Sack Rate: 17 pass attempts, 0 sacks (0.0%)
3rd-4th Down Sack Rate: 13 pass attempts, 2 sacks (15.4%)
Defensive Success Rates
Defensive Line
Tommy Chavis: 3.0 tackles, 2.5 successful (83.3%)
Stryker Sulak: 2.0 tackles, 1.5 successful (75.0%)
Jaron Baston: 1.0 tackles, 1.0 successful (100.0%)
Charles Gaines: 1.0 tackles, 1.0 successful (100.0%)
Ziggy Hood: 1.0 tackles, 1.0 successful (100.0%)
Jaysen Corbett: 2.0 tackles, 1.0 successful (50.0%)
John Stull: 1.0 tackles, 0.5 successful (50.0%)
TOTAL: 11.0 tackles, 8.5 successful (77.3%)
Linebackers
Brock Christopher: 2.5 tackles, 2.5 successful (100.0%)
Sean Weatherspoon: 3.0 tackles, 2.5 successful (83.3%)
Van Alexander: 3.5 tackles, 2.0 successful (57.1%)
Connell Davis: 1.0 tackles, 1.0 successful (100.0%)
Steve Redmond: 0.5 tackles, 0.0 successful (0.0%)
TOTAL: 10.5 tackles, 8.0 successful (76.2%)
Nice bounce-back week from the LBs after a couple of mediocre games. What they lacked in quantity (they made fewer combined plays than the D-Line did, though that says more about the DL than the LBs), they made up for in quality.
Defensive Backs
William Moore: 7.0 tackles, 5.0 successful (71.4%)
Carl Gettis: 7.0 tackles, 4.0 successful (57.1%)
Justin Garrett: 3.0 tackles, 1.5 successful (50.0%)
Darnell Terrell: 1.0 tackles, 1.0 successful (100.0%)
Castine Bridges: 1.5 tackles, 0.0 successful (0.0%)
Del Howard: 1.0 tackles, 0.0 successful (0.0%)
TOTAL: 20.5 tackles, 11.5 successful (56.1%)
Lost amid the deserved acclaim for William Moore is the game that Carl Gettis had. CBs aren't supposed to have 57% success rates, and the secondary as a whole isn't supposed to be at 56%. Ridiculous game from this unit.
% of plays made by...
Defensive Line: 11.0 of 42.0 (26.2%)
Linebackers: 10.5 of 42.0 (25.0%)
Defensive Backs: 20.5 of 42.0 (48.8%)
Turnover Costliness
Mizzou1: Hypolite Interception: 3.72 points
Colorado1: Chavis forces fumble, Williams recovers: 2.52
Colorado2: William Moore INT (tipped by 'Spoon): 2.52
Colorado3: Alexander forces fumble, 'Spoon recovers: 2.36
TOTAL
Mizzou: 1 turnover, 3.72 points
Colorado: 3 turnovers, 7.40 points (2.47 average)
Splitting the turnovers up, you get a point distribution of something like this:
Sean Weatherspoon: 2.44
William Moore: 1.26
Tommy Chavis: 1.26
Lorenzo Williams: 1.26
Van Alexander: 1.18
Statistical MVPs
Offense: You score 3 TD's (each with an increasing degree of difficulty), average 2.2 points per reception, and make a perfect pitch on the hook-and-ladder, and you're Rock M Nation's Offensive MVP, Chase Coffman.
Defense: William Moore had 5.0 successful plays and 1.26 points' worth of turnovers. That's pretty hard to match, though Sean Weatherspoon (2.5 successful plays, 2.44 turnover points) tried.