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 ^
I looked around. All I saw was my basement with FSU-Florida game on the screen. Yes go on.
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 ^
Lets say Borges does get fired. Who should/could we hire. I take anyone with a brain.
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 ^
We won't get better with Borges at OC. We need someone who can manage a dual threat QB with Pro-style aspects.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:25 PM ^
Why do we need that? I, for one, welcome our prostyle offense overlords.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:47 PM ^
Because we have Devin Gardner for possibly 2 more years, and a great young D. We could win a National Title that's why.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:10 PM ^
It would be Jay Gruden or anyone that doesn't keep running up the middle, when it obviously isn't working.........
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 ^
I am tired of people defending him because he sucks. OSU couldn't stop Denard on the outside and so he decided to stop doing that in the second half. Too many times he sticks to shit that doesn't work (Rawls and Denard up the middle and middle screens) and stopped the things that does work (WR screens, Denard on the outside anything that involves a rollout).
He does great calling plays against Minnesota and Illinois but he fucking sucks against real competition. I blame that moron for me having to deal with all of these morons in cbus, instead of me quietly celebrating with class....
FUCK
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 ^
For once how bout people just show some class and accept we were beaten by a better team.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:11 PM ^
They were not better, for damn sure.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:12 PM ^
Alabama game but not this one, we were just out coached.
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 ^
He's been outcoached in every game where he didnt have a decided talent advantage except nebraska last year.
Last year: nd, msu, osu, va tech
This year, bama, nd, msu, nebraska, msu, osu.
This team could easily be 6-6 after a 9-4 season the year before if not for some miracle plays.
We have Les Miles as our coach without the SEC blindeye recruiting, oklahoma st in the early 2000s
November 24th, 2012 at 6:26 PM ^
Hoke was not outcoached in all of those. I discount any games inwhich we won, especially MSU this year. So that leaves 2011 MSU,Bama, ND, Neb, OSU. I'm throwing out ND because I put a lot on Denard for that. Also not sure about MSU last year..we were in that until Denard threw the pick .
November 24th, 2012 at 6:47 PM ^
Beaten a top 25 team twice, in ten years coaching.
How can you not include games we miraculously won? Throwing a prayer to gallon or roundtree isnt coaching or scheme. Being shutout by msu is coaching.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:57 PM ^
Though I would say you could have been evenly coached. If you lose, you could have coached an even game combined with being out-talented or out coached. And no, the prayer throws aren't the coaching, keeping his team in position to throw the prayer is.
edit: when did MSU shut us out? I remember scoring.
November 24th, 2012 at 7:22 PM ^
He coached at Ball St and SDSU. Do you really expect those teams to beat a Top 15 team?
He's been here 2 years. I think you're jumping the gun.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:32 PM ^
Yeah, no, you're right. All I remember saying before last year was how we're so much more talented than our opponents and we should go 11-2. Are you crazy?! Yeah, let's run out of town the guy who's come in and turned us from a laughingstock into a B1G title contender, BCS bowl game champ and a recruiting powerhouse. Please take a minute to evaluate your statements.
November 24th, 2012 at 6:50 PM ^
Right now he looks like Weis. Easy schedule year 1, gets into BCS due to program name, recruits well, gets outcoached.
Hope I am wrong
November 24th, 2012 at 6:15 PM ^
Can someone post some gifs of Denard, Rawls and Smith running up the middle?
November 24th, 2012 at 6:51 PM ^
completely unrelated, but i'd like a gif of clark leveling miller.
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 ^
Hoke was completely illprepared for Denard not to play. If that's not coaching, I don't know what is.
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 ^
Our offense has regressed significantly, despite star power. This falls squarely on the coaches shoulders.
Hopefully we have a new OC before our outback or gator bowl.
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 ^
Thank you, Scoreless Al Borges.
Where would this group be if not for Mattison's work with the defense? Nevermind, please don't answer that