Another way to look at the decision to try to increase possessions because of a perceived talent advantage: mathematically.
If you are Team A, and have a talent advantage, your chances of scoring on each possession could be:
Team A: 40% chance at 7 points, 20% chance at 3 points, and 40% chance at 0 points.
Team B: 25% chance at 7 points, 15% chance at 3 points, and 50% chance at 0 points.
If each team got 10 possessions, on average Team A would score 34 points, and Team B would score an average of 22 points.
If each team got 12 possessions, on average Team A would score 40.8 points and Team B would score an average of 26.4 points.
Since more possessions increase the probability for an increased point differential, and thus increase the chances of Team A winning, I think that fact is sensed by those hoping for a faster pace.
This of course assumes other things being equal in impacting the outcome, such as the rest each defense would be getting, and the ability to execute efficiently at an increased tempo.
And this is just for an individual game, it doesn’t factor in how increased plays increase the chances of injuries and thus could decrease the likelihood of winning subsequent games.
But if team A had
10 possessions and team B only got
8 it would be 34 to 18.
That is the part the go faster crowd is missing. It's volume vs efficiency. Law of large numbers vs Risk Mitigation.
Offense does not exist in a vacuum. It isn't liner. You have to play defense and every time you do the other team has a luck component that is waiting to express itself. If you have more skill, you want to suppress luck. The surest way to do that is take time away as you score.
If it was a linear model you could jus go faster, create more volume and eventually win because you score more points per play or possession that they do...BUT football has a clock and rules that require you to give the other team the ball back. Linear thinking ignores that reality.
If you are behind or have the lesser team then you want more possessions so then by all means you want to go faster. You are still constrained but it's your best shot. You need to get lucky. OSU is rarely behind and is almost never the lesser skilled team so it makes complete sense that they would embrace a strategy that aims to create a possession imbalance and get away from a volume approach.
Let's use real numbers this year so we can see this.
2025
Net points per drive
1. IU 2.49
2. OSU 2.26
IU has 10 possessions = 24.9 points
OSU has 8 = 18.08
25-18 = 7 point MOV
Now go faster but keep the possession delta
IU gets 12 possessions = 29.88
OSU gets 10 = 22.6
Same MOV
Both teams go
equally faster (this is what's being proposed here). IU gets their 12 possessions but in so doing give OSU 12
29.88
27.12
This now becomes a 3 point game
Why would the better team (IU in this case) want to do that?
Creating that possession delta is a multiplier of win %...something like a
3x multiplier. It's the superior strategy for the better team. This isn't an opinion thing, it's straight math.
