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Official Statistical Analysis Thread

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Team__________________Point Differential per Game
Ohio St. (Big Ten)____44.50
Wisconsin (Big Ten)___43.67
Maryland (Big Ten)____39.67
Alabama (SEC)_________39.25
Penn St. (Big Ten)____37.00
Oklahoma (Big 12)_____36.00
Navy (AAC)____________35.00
LSU (SEC)_____________34.50
Georgia (SEC)_________32.75
Clemson (ACC)_________32.25
 
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Chase Young (Playing about 1/2 of each game): 7 sacks - 52 yards
OSU Opponents (For all of each game, all qbs): 7 sacks - 29 yards

I've no intention of poring through participation reports (assuming I could find them), but I did look at the top 50 in sacks nationally, and the only player in that top 50 who has not played in a close game or a loss is Chase Young. So it seems unlikely that there are very many others in the top 50 who have played as few snaps as Chase has played.

To put it another way, Chase is tied for the lead in the country; and has very likely played fewer snaps than anyone who is within 1 sack per game of his production.

And he's about to play a game where the guards are going to need help going against Devon Hamilton and company.

My advice to Martinez: ALWAYS know which side Chase is on, and WHEN you get flushed, go the other way. You might last a few extra hundredths of a second against Cooper.
 
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Comparing OSU to UN...

Offenses faced
#56 Colorado
#59 Indiana
#86 FAU
#89 Illinois
#95 Cincinnati
#110 Northern Illinois
#117 South Alabam
#130 Miami of Ohio

So neither defense has been tested all that much but overall very very similarly tested. Ohio State is slightly more tested overall. With that said Ohio State is ranked #2 in total defense where as despite being untested UN comes in at #56.

Defenses Faced
#26 Indiana
#34 Cincinnati
#73 Northern Illinois
#77 South Alabama
#83 Illinois
#106 FAU
#107 Miami of Ohio
#117 Colorado

Ohio State comes in at #14 and UN comes in at #25 in total offense. So despite facing by far the two best defenses OSU still comes in 11 spots higher than UN. To note is OSU is #3 in scoring offense and UN is tied for #29. That sort of shows that OSU has trashed the opponents they've played and then coasted late in the games.

Overall OSUs offense has had two very nice challenges but still put up 49 and 51 points respectively. Where as UN will be facing a top 70 defense for the first time this weekend.

To me this tells me OSU will not be shocked by anything UN does on defense but the same cannot be said for UN.

Where this game really turns for me is the red zone success of UN on offense compared to our Defense.

UN comes in ranked #118 in red zone offense and OSU comes in at #3 in red zone defense. Why is this so important? UN doesn't have a field goal kicker so they have to score TDs.

They're ranked #118 in red zone offense and they haven't faced a top 70 defense yet. Success in the red zone seems unlikely if they're forced to constantly go for TDs.

I just don't see how UN can win this game but sometimes the numbers mean Jack shit. We'll see but the numbers point to a fairly comfortable win.
 
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DSA-LITE

Ohio State vs Everyone-Else-Our-Opponents-Played

Florida Atlantic: The week after they played Ohio State, they no-showed vs UCF and scored 7 points less and allowed an extra field goal.
River Fredo: Scored at least 24 points against everyone else. Zero vs Silver Bullets. Allowed 24 max to anyone else (also UCF as it turns out). Buckeyes got double that.
Indi-Fredo-Corn: Ohio State scored more than anyone else and allowed less than anyone else
Sparty: Buckeyes scored more than anyone else. ASU allowed a field goal less. Anyone who saw both games could easily say that the Spartan offense played much better against Ohio State than against ASU.

To recap in tabular form:

Opponent___________OSU OFFENSE SCORED___OSU DEFENSE ALLOWED
FAU:___________________2nd Most______________2nd Least_____
Cin:______________________Most_________________Least_______
Ind:______________________Most_________________Least_______
Mia:______________________Most_________________Least_______
Neb:______________________Most_________________Least_______
MSU:______________________Most_______________2nd Least_____

To give this some context...

I used to gaze through my huge Excel Workbook that contained DSA and look for interesting tidbits to post. One of the weird things that I kept coming across is that, no matter how good an Ohio State team seemed to be, they would score the most or allow the least vs an individual opponent only a few times a season. This year, they're doing it most of the time and are within one score either way when their performance isn't at the top of the list.

Fun Fact: Against Fredo, Ohio State scored more than the 2nd and 3rd highest scoring other-opponents combined (Iowa and River Fredo)
 
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DSA for Ohio State-Northwestern

With both teams taking the week off before the Friday night game, all of the numbers necessary for DSA are in. First, a quick reminder about DSA. The numbers are just ratios. Ohio State's Differential Rushing Offense (DRO) is 2.32, which means they gain 2.32 yards against their opponents for every yard gained by teams wearing NOT scarlet & gray. All games against FCS teams are discarded.

Raw DSA: Comparing the Ratios

Offense:

TEAM___________DRO_____DYPCo_____DPO_____DYPAo_____DPEo_____DTO_____DYPPo_____DSO__
Ohio State____2.320____1.801____1.159____1.440____1.630____1.588____1.500_____2.195
Northwestern__1.162____0.917____0.615____0.600____0.596____0.815____0.709_____0.578

DRO: Differential Rushing Offense
DYPCo: Diff. YPC offense
DPO: Differential Passing Offense
DYPAo: Diff. YPA offense
DPEo: Diff. Passing Efficiency Offense
DTO: Differential Total Offense
DSO: Differential Scoring Offense

Based on these numbers, Ohio State is twice as good at running the ball, more than 2.5 times as efficient at throwing the ball, and more than 3 times as good at scoring.

Defense:


TEAM___________DRD_____DYPCd_____DPD_____DYPAd_____DPEd_____DTD_____DYPPd_____DSD__
Ohio State____0.531____0.619____0.664____0.683____0.651____0.610____0.674_____0.291
Northwestern__0.823____0.842____0.753____0.873____0.927____0.783____0.846_____0.679

Headings mean the same as for offense.

Ohio State has the better numbers in every category. Northwestern is closest in the number that I previously found to have the smallest correlation to winning percentage among defensive numbers: Differential Passing Defense.

Composite Numbers:

If we take DSO and divide it by DSD, we get DSC - Differential Scoring Composite.
Same thing with yardage: DTO/DTD = DYC - Differential Yardage Composite.

TEAM___________DSC_____DYC__
Ohio State____7.529____2.603
Northwestern__0.738____1.040

DSC is always highest when conference play has just begun. The numbers for elite teams are always lower, later in the year when conference play has more of your opponents' schedules filled with competent teams.

BUT...

It's been a long time, and my memory isn't what it used to be, but I don't remember EVER seeing a DSC number that high, not ever. That's higher than LSU's DSC before Auburn chop-blocked Glen Dorsey. This is literally, objectively, the most dominant team that DSA has ever analyzed, as far as I can recall. I also don't remember ever seeing a game where one team's DSC was literally more than 10 times the other team's DSC. Unreal.

EDIT: Wisconsin has a higher DSC right now, but as I detail below, I think Wisconsin's DSC number is not nearly as resilient as Ohio State's, mostly because they've proven brittle in the past; bullies early in the year, punching bags late.

The fact that Northwestern appears to be slightly better than average with respect to yards, but is dreadful with respect to points, suggests that they have poor efficiency numbers. And they do... YPP means yards per point.

TEAM___________YPPo_____YPPd__
Ohio State____10.834____26.491
Northwestern__20.333____16.101

So yeah, pretty much what you'd expect. Northwestern needs to gain almost twice as many yards per point scored as the Buckeyes. The Silver Bullets are also more efficient than their purple counterparts.

DSA Score Prediction:

DSA can be used to make a pair of score predictions. I usually don't put much stock in it this early in the season, but here the numbers are anyway.

Ohio State: 33-43 points
Northwestern: 4-5 points

So about a field goal for Northwestern, maybe two if the Buckeyes empty the bench late. Five to six touchdowns for the good guys.

 
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Comparison of the Top 3 B1G Teams
Sorry Iowa, we saw that game; you're not in the discussion

Wisconsin is better than you think, but IMHO they're nowhere near what DSA makes them out to be right now.


TEAM______DRO_____DPE_____DSO_____DRD_____DPEd_____DSD_____DSC
OSU______2.320___1.630___2.195___0.531___0.651____0.291___7.529
Wisc_____1.787___1.242___1.968___0.291___0.621____0.226___8.689
PSU______1.332___1.316___1.489___0.388___0.859____0.255___5.848

Wisconsin's numbers on defense are spectacular, no doubt about it. And you can't dismiss it entirely by saying they've played no one. Dozens of teams have played hundreds of seasons in the past 7 years; none of them has posted 3 shut-outs in their first 5 games like the Badgers have done. It might be more impressive against a better schedule, but if it were easy against a crap schedule it would happen a lot more often.

So yes, Wisconsin's defense is legit. Probably the best they've ever had. Congratulations, Badgers.

We know, however, that Ohio State's offense is extremely resilient. They played a good defense and absolutely shredded them before shifting into a lower gear to kill clock. It is reasonable, based on what we've seen, to believe that their stats will not diminish as they get into the meat of the schedule.

What do we know about Wisconsin? Not much. We know that their offense throws the ball downfield precious little. They have a high completion percentage, but their yards per completion are barely over ten. Based on past years and current talent, it seems reasonable to surmise that when forced to throw the ball downfield, especially against a fast backfield, they will struggle to do so. Similarly their defense has not been stressed by teams with a reasonable ability to throw deep. More importantly, it is not at all clear what will happen to the Badger defense when they face a quarterback who is a significant running threat (a real one, not one with 38 yards on 31 carries that the DFBIA calls a running threat). None of the Badger opponents thus far have a qb who averages 4 yards a carry or 30 yards a game. Fields gets almost 5 yards a carry and 50 yards a game, and that includes his sack numbers.

It is doubtful that we will learn much about the Badger defense until they come to Columbus. Their offense, on the other hand, might be exposed by the Spartans if they are truly unable to throw the ball deep (or the Spartans might get runover while recovering from the beating they just took).

Conclusion: Both Wisconsin and Penn State are good football teams that would post respectable records in ANY conference. To suggest otherwise flies in the face of the facts. They may not really pose a threat to the 2019 Buckeyes, but that says more about the Buckeyes than it does about the Badgers and Pedsters. Don't diminish this Buckeye team by dismissing their competition.
 
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I was starting to become impressed with what PSU has done and where they are in many categories relative to us - then I took another look at their schedule.

Every team PSU has faced has a losing record - except Pitt, who took them to the wire.

Every team OSU has faced has a winning record - except Miami. Why a MAC school would schedule OSU, Cincy and Iowa is beyond me - but they did.

Still, if you factor out games against OSU, our six opponents have lost a total of six games.
 
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Nothing in the same galaxy as DBB's analysis, but the NCAA stats page has a couple good "miscellaneous reports", one of which is "Toughest Schedule" which has three sortable rankings:
  • W/L pct of team you've played so far (Past Opposition)
  • W/L pct of team left on your schedule (Future Opposition)
  • W/L pct of everyone of your schedule (Cumulative Opposition)
Some opposing fans whine about how easy Ohio State's schedule appears to them, but as of this moment we stand #7 in both Past Opposition winning percentage (composite record of 20-6-0 for a winning percentage of .769) and in Cumulative Opposition percentage (composite record of 39-17-0 for a winning percentage of .696). However, we are ranked #47 in Future Opposition winning percentage (19-11-0 for a winning percentage of .633).
 
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In the post above I said that I don’t believe that Wisconsin’s numbers will hold up as the season goes on. To back that up with numbers, I’d have to do DSA for everyone, and I don’t have anything like that kind of spare time these days. But if you go through how they compiled their numbers game by game, the need for adding “resilience” to DSA becomes clear, and some cracks start to show in the Badger facade.

First game was the shut out of USF. A cursory examination of USF shows that they are a bad offense that started slow this year. The Bulls’ second game was against a bad Georgia Tech defense and they managed only 10 points. After a FCS game to gain confidence they scored more points against SMU, an objectively better defense than Georgia Tech. Also: I saw that game. South Florida would have had a hard time scoring on air that night.

Game one conclusion: Wiscy caught a break getting a first-game opponent that stumbled out of the gate.

Second and third games were against teams from that state up north, both of them very brittle... no resilience at all. CMU averages over 40 points a game against teams that rank 109 or worse in scoring defense and against anyone with a pulse they score touchdowns ONLY in the 4th quarter with the game decided or not at all; this includes against Western TSUN. Similarly, TTUN rolls against Rutgers, but scores 10 vs Iowa and 14 in regulation against both Wiscy and Army.

Their Fourth and Fifth opponents weren’t so much brittle on offense as they are just bloody awful. Northwestern’s only games against passable defenses resulted in touchdowns only when the game was decided (sound familiar?). Kent State got lucky on a 53 yard 2nd quarter pass against a blown coverage by fraudulent Auburn, which was their only non-4th-qtr touchdown against a decent opponent.

There were only two differences between Wisconsin and the other competent defenses their opponents played:
  1. Other decent defenses gave up garbage-time scores against most of the offenses above; Wisconsin didn’t.
  2. Wisconsin gave up more points to Northwestern than anyone but UNLV.

I’m not suggesting Wisconsin is bad... not at all. But they aren’t close to what raw DSA makes them out to be, at least not on defense.
 
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