0 Touchdowns in 20 out of 48 quarters this season
I tried drinking my memory of this game away. That didn't work. I tried taking a nap, and that didn't work either. So as my guests and family left me to sulk alone, I got to thinking how many quarters we've been held without a touchdown this year. It's not pretty.
We have played a total of 48 quarters this season.
in 20 of those 48 quarters (41.6%), we have not scored a touchdown. In 13 of those 48 (27%), we were held completely scoreless.
Here's a breakdown the quarters which we were held without a touchdown. (To clarify the table, if the box is blank, we scored at least one touchdown).
game | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 |
Bama | 0 | 0 | ||
Air Force | 3 | |||
UMass | ||||
ND | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 |
Purdue | 3 | |||
Illinois | ||||
MSU | 0 | 0 | 6 | 6 |
Nebraska | 0 | 0 | 6 | 3 |
Minnesota | 0 | |||
NW | ||||
Iowa | 0 | |||
Ohio | 0 | 0 | ||
As a comparison, in 2011 we went 13 qtrs (out of 52) without scoring a TD (25%). In 8 of the 52 quarters we were held scoreless (15.38%).
I'm not inclined to find out how this stat stacks up against other teams in the Big 10 and beyond, but I'm guessing that not many championship caliber teams are held scoreless in 27% of the quarters they play.
I'll go crack another Shiner.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:00 PM ^
Stop. Just stop.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:03 PM ^
It is possible to discuss the not-so-rosy aspects of our team without it being a flamefest. I understand there's not a thing any of us can do, but then what's the purpose of having a blog or message board if we can't at talk about it?
November 24th, 2012 at 6:06 PM ^
Not today it isn't. Look around, dude.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:13 PM ^
LOL you made my day telling someone on a blog to "look around, dude"
November 24th, 2012 at 6:15 PM ^
November 24th, 2012 at 6:01 PM ^
I feel like I need to be wearing safety goggles before i take a look at that chart. Good Lord, that's disturbing.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:02 PM ^
November 24th, 2012 at 6:05 PM ^
I am not one of those people calling for Borges' head. I want us to get better. I think Borges can create a dynamic offense, but we weren't very dynamic this season.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:08 PM ^
November 24th, 2012 at 6:25 PM ^
November 24th, 2012 at 6:47 PM ^
November 24th, 2012 at 6:10 PM ^
November 24th, 2012 at 8:23 PM ^
Adrian Arrington is available.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:03 PM ^
That's going to happen when your interior OL doesn't know the difference between a DL and air
November 24th, 2012 at 6:07 PM ^
We won 5 of those 9 games.
Throw out the Nebraska game due to obvious reasons, and the 3 games we lost were against teams ranked in the top 5. Is it possible that they were simply better than us?
This is of course a completley fruitless exercise. Plenty of other teams don't score TDs for whole quarters quite frequently.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:09 PM ^
If I was more ambitious, I'd look that stat up. But I'm not.
I'd like to know how many teams in the top 25 were held scoreless in 27% of the quarters they played.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:11 PM ^
I don't know that stat, but I do know off the top of my head that we average more points per game than teams like Florida and Notre Dame.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:23 PM ^
On the surface that's ok, but when you dig a little deeper, you realize that the bulk of those points came against UMass, Purdue, Illinois, Minnesota, Northwestern, and Iowa.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:39 PM ^
Just as on the surface not scoring any TDs in a quarter seems bad, but if you kick 2 or 3 field goals, you haven't necessarily had an unsucessful quarter offensively.
It also completely ignores turnovers (something we've had a real problem with), which are almost always the fault of the offensive players, not the coordinator.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:56 PM ^
The bulk of ND's points came against Navy, Pitt, BC, Miami and Wake. The bulk of Florida's points came against Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, UL-Lafayette and Jacksonville State.
Is there a point in here somewhere?
November 24th, 2012 at 6:07 PM ^
November 24th, 2012 at 6:11 PM ^
After hearing last night how RR wants to score a certain number of first downs per game, and after they pointed out on the broadcast today at the half how most of our yardage came on two plays, I looked at our first down totals over the past couple years. The stats are even more depressing than our regression in total offense (yardage):
2010: 22nd in country in first downs/game
2011: 50th in country in first downs/game
2012: 93th in country in first downs/game
Al Borges is our new Greg Robinson.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:59 PM ^
It's a characteristic of Borges's offenses, including his most successful offenses, that they create a higher percentage of big plays than is typical and produce fewer first downs than other comparably productive offenses.
If your goal as a football team is to maximize your advantage in first downs, Al Borges is not a good choice as an offensive coordinator. I'm sure Borges's supporters and probably even Borges himself would agree with you on that point.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:10 PM ^
November 24th, 2012 at 6:11 PM ^
November 24th, 2012 at 6:12 PM ^
November 24th, 2012 at 6:13 PM ^
When we played Alabama, we were beaten by a better team.
Now, can we talk about the other games we have played, and what Borges, Funk, et al. have done with this offense? Thanks.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:12 PM ^
and 0 in the second half you got wildly outcoached.... How else can you justify the exact same set of players producing vastly different results. Meyer and his staff adjusted, Hoke and Borges clearly did not.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:14 PM ^
November 24th, 2012 at 6:26 PM ^
November 24th, 2012 at 6:47 PM ^
November 24th, 2012 at 6:57 PM ^
November 24th, 2012 at 7:22 PM ^
He's been here 2 years. I think you're jumping the gun.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:32 PM ^
November 24th, 2012 at 6:50 PM ^
November 24th, 2012 at 6:15 PM ^
November 24th, 2012 at 6:51 PM ^
November 24th, 2012 at 6:31 PM ^
Alabama and Notre Dame, going into this week, were tied at #1 in scoring defense.
Also note MSU's defense is at #10.
http://web1.ncaa.org/mfb/natlRank.jsp?year=2012&div=B&rpt=IA_teamscorde…
I'm throwing out Nebraska because, well, Bellomy.
[edit: Also you should toss out the 4th quarter of Iowa, because that game was over in the 3rd.]
November 24th, 2012 at 6:41 PM ^
November 25th, 2012 at 11:56 AM ^
but 12 of those 20 qtrs of zero TD's were against the #1 #2 and #10 ranked defenses in the country. only 2 teams scored more against alabama than we did. in fact they allowed only 12 TD's all year and michigan accounted for 2 of them.
on top of that, despite not scoring a td in those three games, we won one of them and we were one TD away from notre dame.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:30 PM ^
succeed in taking full advantage of Denard. I just don't know what happened in the second half today--on a series of key possessions in the second half, anway. Brain fart city, and then Denard off the field, in the last regular season game of his career after providing our entire running game through the first three quarters. I guess the answer is that they don't think he can block for Devin.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:38 PM ^
November 24th, 2012 at 7:00 PM ^
I did a quick search of ranked teams that we've played.
Notre Dame
20 quarters without a TD / 11 without any points (25% but they still have a game tonight)
Bama
13 quarters without a TD / 8 without any points (16.6%)
Nebraska
16 without a TD / 6 without any points (12.5%)
Ohio State
13 without a td / 11 without any points (22.91%)
November 24th, 2012 at 7:13 PM ^
Where would this group be if not for Mattison's work with the defense? Nevermind, please don't answer that