Here’s how the advanced stats viewed Missouri’s offense.
During the season I did a statistical breakdown of both the offense and the defense as they headed into each bye week. You can read the 2nd Bye Week installment here.
I figured it would be a good idea to go ahead and show you what the final product look like now that the season has been wrapped up for a couple of weeks and all data has been processed.
Today is the offense. Later is the defense. Here we go!
Overall the offense ranked 24th, with the 43rd best success rate in the country, 6th-best havoc rate allowed, and a Top 25 turnover margin. The big difference between the ‘24 offense and the ‘23 offense was that ‘24 was one of the worst explosive play units in the country (131st) while the ‘23 offense was, noticeably, one of the best (19th). In basketball terms the ‘23 offense was one who could hit their 3-pointers and the ‘24 offense could not.
The ‘24 rushing offense ended up being better overall the the ‘23 version, albeit with a way worse explosive rate. However, if an explosive play were going to happen, it was going to happen via the ground game. Ranking in the Top 10 of stuff rate allowed was not something that I anticipated seeing but is a welcome medal to hang on the chest of Brandon Jones and his offensive line.
This was the key to the regression from ‘23 to ‘24. To wit, here’s how each element changed from ‘23 to ‘24:
- Passing Success Rate: 48.4% (13th) -> 40.7% (79th)
- Passing Explosiveness: 0.32 (37th) -> 0.14 (96th)
- Completion Rate: 66.1% (22nd) -> 61.9% (61st)
- Sack Rate: 6.1% (73rd) -> 5.7% (66th)
Other than sack rate, this was not a great development, especially given the fact that so many receivers from the ‘23 squad returned for ‘24, as well as the quarterback. We may never know exactly why the passing game took such a down turn but that was the difference between one of the best offenses in the country for one year turning into a merely good offense in the next year.
The lone surprise here is a nasty sack rate allowed on standard downs. Everything else is, essentially, right in line with the overall offensive performance. And, yes, all of it worse than the ‘23 offense.
The interesting thing from this data set is that the ‘24 team seemed to be painfully aware that the passing game was not the best option, and ended up running 4% more in passing down situations than they did in ‘23. The ‘24 offense also did a decent job of generating an explosive play in these situations…but it still was not nearly reliable enough to keep the chains moving.
Interesting fact here: the performance above for the ‘24 team is eerily close to what the ‘23 team finished with, only the rankings compared to the rest of the country were worse. The difference, though, is that Mizzou’s EPA/play went into the tank to finish 50th nationally and marginal efficiency flipped from +2% in ‘23 to -2% in ‘24. Nothing dramatically bad but certainly noticeable.
The superpower of the entire ‘24 squad was “executing on 3rd downs”, as both the offense and defense excelled in these situations. Mizzou’s offense managed to keep most of their 3rd-down attempts under 7 yards and had some great success in converting those specifically, finishing with an overall ranking of 16th thanks to a 46.1% 3rd-down success rate.
Overall the offense did fairly well in red zone situations, but as mentioned during the year, Kirby Moore’s play calling stunk out loud in between opponents’ 21 and 30-yard lines. In ‘23, Mizzou’s offense ranked 5th in the nation between those 10 yards. It makes a difference!
For what its worth, Missouri was a Top 10 offense between the 11 and 20 yard lines, while the ‘23 version ranked 56th. So it wasn’t all bad.
Next time, we take a look at the defense!