Oklahoma football: Three measures that reveal much about OU’s 2017 success
By Chip Rouse
Over the course of an Oklahoma football season, there are numerous statistical measures beyond merely wins and losses to gauge a team’s performance and progress throughout the season.
We all know about and regularly follow the conventional football stat facts you find in the box scores, like total offense and defense, rushing and passing yards and turnovers. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more beneath the surface that is even more revealing.
Most fans are quite satisfied just knowing the final score and a few telling numbers that led to the end result. Stat heads, on the other hand, don’t feel that have the full story until they have turned over every rock and examined all the variables.
Athlon Sports, in the Big 12 edition of its 2018 college football preview magazine (and presumably its other regional editions), identifies five statistical categories — a grouping of telltale stats the Athlon editors are calling the “Five Factors” — that offer a little deeper dive into what went right or wrong in a game or over an entire season.
In this particular case, Athlon uses the data, broken down into five separate statistical areas (field position, efficiency, explosiveness, finishing drives and turnovers) to peel off a couple more layers in analyzing why the 2017 Big 12 football season turned out the way it did.
This is how Athlon explains what the Five Factors represent: “They are interrelated and are more descriptive than prescriptive, but they are wonderfully useful in examining what went wrong for a team in the previous season.”
Oklahoma excelled, not just among Big 12 teams but on a national scale, in three of the five factors. The Sooners were No. 1 in the Big 12 and led all FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) teams in what Athlon terms “efficiency.” That is: Staying on schedule on offensive possessions by making first downs and moving the chains. Oklahoma was successful last season in 53.2 percent of its offensive possessions in making one or more first downs, according to the Athlon.
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Despite its much maligned defense a year ago, OU also led the Big 12 and ranked No. 7 nationally, in keeping its opponents off schedule and preventing first downs.
With all the offensive firepower the Sooners possessed last season, it’s not really a surprise to see Oklahoma leading the parade in the “explosiveness” category. The Sooners, with their big-play capability and playmakers all over the field, were the best in the country in offensive yards gained per play (8.3).
“Finishing drives” was another area of OU excellence among Athlon’s Five Factors. Unlike the traditional measure of how effective a team is in scoring points when inside the Red Zone (inside an opponent’s 20-yard line), Athlon tightened down the measure, looking at the success rate of scoring touchdowns (and not just settling for field goals) from inside the opponent’s 40-yard line.
Oklahoma averaged 5.2 points last season every time it reached the opponent’s 40-yard line. That was the top mark in the Big 12 and ranked seventh among FBS teams, according to Athlon’s data base.
Looking at these additional measures of success, it is easy to see why Oklahoma dominated the Big 12 last season in winning its third consecutive conference championship, and came within one win of playing for an eighth national championship.