In Reply to: The era of Big O is over (womp womp) posted by ClockBlocker on September 02, 2025 at 10:13:16
Indeed, all the major offensive measures are down compared to where they were this time last year. In Week 1 of last season, in FBS vs. FBS games, teams averaged 2.11 points per drive and 5.52 yards per play; this year it was 1.9 points per drive and 5.4 yards per play. Efficiency numbers actually improved -- success rate rose from 40.6% to 41.2%, completion rate rose from 61.0% to 61.3%, sack rates fell from 6.0% to 5.1% and overall turnover rates improved slightly from 2.0% to 1.7%.So what's the problem? Big plays vanished: The percentage of completions gaining at least 20 yards fell from 16.3% to 14.7%, and despite the uptick in completion rate (and the downtick in sacks), average yards per dropback fell from 6.4 to 6.0. You know how pro defenses adapted to force Patrick Mahomes to settle for checkdown after checkdown because they were basically forming an umbrella at the back? It appears college defenses are doing the same thing. They're forcing quarterbacks -- who, on average, are less experienced than in recent years -- to dink and dunk and score points before making a crippling error or coming up short on third down. It's working.
Somehow, scoring plummeted in Week 1 even as coaches got much more aggressive on fourth down. Or perhaps because of it. Teams went for it on fourth down in opposition territory 44.0% of the time in Week 1 (again, looking only at FBS vs. FBS games), up from 33.1% in Week 1 last year. And despite this increase, fourth-down conversion rates also went up, from 49.6% to 54.7%.
Coaches increasingly understand when going for it is to their advantage, but might that be further tamping down their willingness to take shots downfield, since it's now more OK to come up just short of the line to gain and utilize fourth downs? "Nerds ruined college football" is quite the overreaction, especially coming from a nerd, but consider that food for thought as we advance further into the season.
At one point Saturday, the Under was 17-3 for the weekend; it ended up 29-14 (67.4%), a solid improvement over last year's 26-16 (61.9%) in Week 1. Offenses eventually picked up steam a bit in 2024, and they probably will this season too. But damn, were points hard to come by this weekend.