The 1920s called, they want their play style back.
There are many ways that an offense can move the ball but, for my money, the most entertaining is moving at a fast tempo and throwing the ball a lot. It’s fun, it’s exciting, it puts up big points, and its what led Mizzou to unprecedented success in the late 2000’s. That will always be my preference.
But I can also appreciate other styles of offense, especially when executed well. And, against Mississippi State, Mizzou went full Cro-Magnon and beat the Bulldogs over the head with a battery of run plays.
It is oddly satisfying to watch an offense hand it off 50+ times with no issue. To make it so clear that they’re going to either run left or right and the defense still can’t get them off the field. And I’m sure it was cathartic for Missouri’s five offensive linemen to punish Mississippi State’s defensive front over and over again without fail.
It was a good ol’ fashioned whompin’. Like a molasses leak consuming a town. A whale devouring thousands of lifeforms by simply swimming with its mouth open. A supermassive black hole devouring a star. It ain’t fast and it ain’t pretty but it is inevitable. And it was very funny to watch Bulldog defenders be incapable of doing anything about it.
Missouri ran the ball two more times than Mississippi State had total plays. The ball was in Missouri’s possession for 70% of the time. Mizzou had the ball for more time on their first drive of the second half (8:46) than Mississippi State had in the entire second half (3:38).
Mizzou saw all the fancy explosives that Mississippi State could do and said “nah f*** that” and refused to let them do it.
It was the football equivalent of this:
And the best part? It worked.
Here’s the advanced box score:
This game played out almost exactly as a paper analysis would tell you it would go, only to the extremes. Mississippi State was fast and explosive, but they were so frequently explosive that they also managed to become very efficient thanks to super high success rates that came with it. Missouri, on the flip side, went super slow and focused on their efficiency plays so much that they almost became inefficient with their success rates. The trick, then, was that Missouri was able to connect on strategic explosive plays and outperform the Bulldogs in 3rd-down that it allowed them to hold the ball for almost the entire second half. In the end, if an explosive offense doesn’t have the ball, they can’t score.
Once again…football is easy!
When Missouri Has the Ball
Is this the first game where there is a zero chance a Missouri fan quipped “they need to run the ball more”? I feel like that should be the case anyway. As I mentioned previously, Missouri almost became inefficient by handing the ball off to Nate Noel 25 times while hoping he could break a few big ones (a 36% success rate with a mere 2.4 highlight yards per opportunity is nearly the exact definition of inefficient). Luckily, three other guys also carried the ball effectively and all that running allowed Mizzou’s 5-star receivers to have a much easier time snagging passes for big plays.
Run The Dang Ball
Mmm. Yes. Yes they did. And while they didn’t crest my goal of 50% success rate on the ground they came close with a 46.2% success rate.
Winner: Mississippi State
Throw For Funsies
Missouri finished the day with a 60% success rate throwing the ball, their best passing success rate since a 56% against FCS foe Murray State.
Winner: Missouri
Finish Your Dang Drives
I set the goal at 7 opportunities at 4.5 points which equals 32 points and Mizzou finished with 39 thanks to 8 opportunities and 4.9 points per opportunity.
Winner: Missouri
When Mississippi State Has the Ball
Mississippi State ran 50 plays on the day. Of those, six (6) qualified as an explosive play (either a 12+ yard run or 16+ yard pass). Those six plays accounted for 182 yards, or 53.8% of their total yardage on the day. The other 44 contributed 156 yards. To put it another way:
- Yards Per Play of MSU’s Explosive Plays: 30.3
- Yards Per Play of MSU’s Other Plays: 3.5
HAVOC
I was looking for a final tally of a 25% havoc rate but thanks to 5 havoc plays over 50 total plays, Mizzou barely managed half of that. However, it turns out not having to play defense is much more effective than having to create havoc!
Winner: Mississippi State
Limit The Points
Even while being quite bad MSU’s offense was pretty good at maximizing their scoring opportunities so the goal was to limit them to 8 scoring opportunities, and at least 3.5 per opportunity (or 28 points). MSU finished with 6 and 3.3 respectively.
Winner: Missouri
The Little Things
The Little Things are important and this was a great game to demonstrate that! Both sides had nearly identical yards per play despite the play/time of possession disadvantage. But while MSU’s special teams held an advantage and their offense benefited from an average +6 in field position, Mizzou didn’t turn the ball over and executed in 3rd-down situations much more reliably. Pairing a “10.6 yards averaged on 1st-down” with a 2-10 performance on 3rd-down with an average of 5.8 yards tells you just how effective MSU’s explosive plays were.
On the demerit front, there weren’t any drops that I tracked and only 11 penalties called for the entire game. Obviously the block in the back penalty was absolutely devastating for one of the more impressive Mizzou plays of all time but, other than that, pretty good outing overall.
Extra Points
- In this week’s “fun with small sample sizes moment”…Mississippi State’s success rate by quarter would most likely tell a story of a team that got out to a big lead thanks to a fast start and then leaned on a team that finally started putting it together once the game situation favored the Bulldogs. Instead, it’s the story of an offense that ran a ton of successful plays in the 1st half before running eleven total plays in the 2nd.
- Earlier I showed you just how much MSU’s six explosive plays accounted for their total yardage and, here, you can see exactly when those plays happened: 1st down. Mississippi State’s 250 yards accrued on 1st down accounted for 73.9% of their total yards. And then on 13 3rd- and 4th-down plays they managed 24 yards. Total. But this isn’t the weirdest chart! No, that comes up next.
Look at it. Look at this f***ing chart. 120 yards in the 3rd quarter for MSU! Followed up with 14 in the 4th! Wild! If you break down their yards per play by quarter you get…
- 1st – 4.78
- 2nd – 5.87
- 3rd – 24.0
- 4th – 2.3
Meanwhile, Mizzou was right around 5 yards per play in every quarter except the 2nd. Again, it’s not a pretty way to play offense but damn if it didn’t work here.
- Nate Noel returns to the top of the leader board in 1st downs created, while Cook -> Wease and Burden was tied for 2nd as most effective means of 1st down generation.
Conclusion
One more game to go. One more time to enjoy Brady Cook and Luther Burden and Johnny Walker and all the other stars play on this team at home. Finish strong, beat the pigs, get that rock, win 9 games!