national champs baby
Keeping The Drive Alive: Converting In The Big Ten In 2012
“KEEPING THE DRIVE ALIVE”
A slow time on the board is a good time to post some summary information on how successful the Big Ten was as a conference in converting third and fourth downs and to discuss the relative success of individual teams as well.
Overall, the Big Ten lined up for third down 2,139 times and converted 856 of those downs for a conference success rate of 40.02%. The best team was actually Michigan, converting 51.3% of its third downs, followed by Northwestern and Penn State at 45.2% and 43.08% respectively. The worst teams in the conference include, in no particular order, Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa, all of them sitting in the 34% to 36% range.
The conference went for it on 4thdown 205 times this season and managed to get a fresh set of down on 111 of these occasions, making for an overall success rate of 54.15% for the Big Ten. Penn State, Purdue and Wisconsin were the most successful teams in this regard, converting well over half of their 4thdown attempts. Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois were the least successful teams on 4thdown, with Iowa attempting to convert twenty times and only making it on seven attempts.
The average Big Ten team attempted 178 conversions on third down and was successful 71 times. On fourth down, the average team went for it 17 times and converted 9 of them. The median values were similar actually, indicating 178 attempts to 75 successes on third down, and 15 attempts to 7 successes on fourth down.
How good was the Big Ten then in this regard? It might be worth mentioning that, if the conference were in fact a team, it would have bested Southern Methodist for a solid 62ndplace in the rankings among Division I programs (point of trivia – the worst individual team at converting third down was Boston College at 28%). On fourth down, the “conference as a team” fared somewhat better, as in this scenario, we would be in 53rdplace, slightly better than Air Force (by about 0.1%).
Below are links to the tables for third and fourth down conversions for the season as well as relative success among individual conference members.
When it comes to looking at conference statistics sometimes...
December 11th, 2012 at 11:40 AM | 
It didn't feel like Mich led
It didn't feel like Mich led
December 11th, 2012 at 3:07 PM |
Curiously, we also had the
Curiously, we also had the
Curiously, we also had the smallest number of 3rd downs. I wonder if that's because of more turnovers.
"The straightest line from A to B is straight: From A to B"
"When you have Denard Robinson, you can have everything"
~George Walden
December 12th, 2012 at 7:45 AM |
It looks like it has to do
It looks like it has to do
It looks like it has to do with turnovers, tempo and defensive strategy. Borges shouldn't be credited for rate though clearly. Like the 2nd half of Ohio it looks like missed opportunity on the coaches part. Particularly in bigger games there are execution misses.
December 11th, 2012 at 11:41 AM |
PSU
PSU
Anyone else notice PSU (O'Brien) went for it on 4th A LOT. 10 times more than anyone else and that's 40% more! I wonder if that comes from Belichick. I think he's known as a gambler.
Those who stay will be champions
December 11th, 2012 at 11:49 AM |
Probably Not
Probably Not
More likely comes from having an unreliable walk-on kicker who burned them early in the season.
December 13th, 2012 at 2:30 AM |
Perhaps it comes
Perhaps it comes
from having nothin to lose. His team could not go to a bowl. One could argue he has greater job security than any other coach in the country. Why the hell not go for it?
If an OSU fan divorces his wife are they still brother and sister?
It didn't feel like Mich led in conversion rate but I guess we did. I would like to the QB breakdown. I bet it is the same. Good for Borges.