Analytics, Basic Stats, and Recent Historic Context: The ABC’s of Penn State Football – Week 3: PSU vs. Auburn

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Introduction

Not to be hyperbolic but, in my opinion, Saturday’s game against Auburn was the most dominant and complete performance by a Penn State team under James Franklin. Maybe the score wasn’t as lopsided as 59-0 (2019 Maryland), 51-6 (2018 Pitt), or the 79-0 season-opening laugher against Idaho in 2019. But, against Auburn in “vaunted” Jordan-Hare Stadium with all its supposed magical juju – weird that a nearby barn burning is considered “magic”, but whatever — the Nittany Lions weren’t expected to have a 4-score lead and the luxury of empty the bench in the 4^th Quarter.

There was a lot of talk last week about “SEC speed” and how Penn State has never experienced a home-field advantage like this one, despite Jordan-Hare’s capacity falling well short of 100,000. Well, I was there. And yes, to start the game, the scene was electric. It was absolutely louder than Iowa in 2017/19. Also, it was hot. Could the team from up north hold up in the heat and humidity of a late-Alabama summer? Not only did they hold up but by the end of the 3^rd quarter you heard many more “We Are” chants than “War Eagle, Hey” ones. On both sides of the ball, Penn State dominated this game in several facets, all of which we’ll illustrate with numbers and fun graphs and all the accoutrements you’ve come to expect from The ABC’s of Penn State Football.

Here we go.

Quick Hitters (first seen on Twitter – go follow @PSU_Analytics)

1. First and foremost, to the people of Auburn – thank you for the hospitality. Everyone was incredibly nice. It was a great experience and environment.
2. The offensive line had a really strong game. The big eaters only gave up 3 TFL and 0 sacks to (what is supposed to be) a tough Auburn front-seven. Sean Clifford was never really pressured or hit in the backfield, which hasn’t been the norm in recent years. Things are coming together.
3. Nick Singleton will be a Heisman finalist next year and Kaytron Allen is going to be a tremendous complement to #10. Ja’Juan Seider’s ability to pull multiple high-profile running backs every year is amazing, and this pair may be the best yet.
4. Two defensive players who had been relatively quiet through two weeks finally showed up to the party in a big way. Adisa Isaac – who told reporters he was around 85 percent last Saturday – sure looked to be 100 percent fully healthy vs. Auburn, ending the day with a sack and 3 TFL. And 2021 Turnover Machine Ji’Ayir Brown, who had a slow statistical start to 2022, registered an INT, sack and TFL on Saturday.
5. Jake Pinegar went 7/7 on kicks including a 48-yard field goal when the game was still very much in doubt. After a shaky week against Ohio, this was quite the bounce back for him.
6. On Twitter during the week I asked the Internet what the O/U was for Drew Allar snaps, setting the bar at 0.5. There were people talking about it happening if Clifford got hurt, them having a special Allar package (which makes zero sense by the way), or because Cliff played so bad that they were down. No one – me included, admittedly – would have said Drew Allar was going to play because Penn State was up by 30 points and emptied the stadium. For the next two weeks, I would bet my triple-figure FTB salary (#sickbrag) that he plays a bunch vs. non-conference creampuff Central Michigan and Big Ten dumpster fire Northwestern.

Basic Statistics

Sure, last week’s left-column green sweep in our basic stats table was sweet, but this one feels even sweeter. Sure, the margin in most categories is closer than it was against Ohio and the Tigers nearly matched the Nittany Lions in total yards. If anything, that just goes to show how misleading basic stats can be. The +4 turnover margin for Penn State is tied for the 2^nd best performance under James Franklin (2017-Georgia State was +5; 2016-Purdue and 2014-Rutgers were +4). Penn State somehow won the time-of-possession battle despite running 12 fewer plays than Auburn. And the +2.1 yard-per-play differential is only the 25^th best in James Franklin’s time at Penn State. But, for context, 10 of the 24 better performances were against G5 or FCS teams. The remaining 14 were Big Ten games, the majority coming vs. traditional conference bottom-feeders.

Offensively, the balance of production between run-and-pass was inspiring. In 2021, under Mike Yurcich, Penn State offense averaged a pass/run yardage split of 71%/29%, which is obviously incredibly lopsided and highlights the Lions’ season-long struggle to run the ball, Ball State and Indiana being the lone exceptions. So far in 2022 that pass/run ratio is down to 61%/39%. Progress.

On defense, the turnover number is huge but so is the rush yard-per-attempt number of 3.3. The Nittany Lions defense generated pressure all game, which directly led to several of those turnovers. They were absolutely relentless — Manny Diaz defense at its finest. The rushing yards allowed number (3.3) in a vacuum isn’t “great” — just the 53^rd best Penn State performance since 2014. But – as always – context matters. In 2021 the same Auburn running backs, with the same offensive scheme, ran for 182 yards on 40 carries (4.6 RYPA). This year, they racked up 119 yards on 36 carries for the 3.3 RYPA. With Auburn being a one-dimensional offense (at best), Penn State’s defense shut that dimension down, forcing the Tigers to pass – something they don’t do very well. Great work by the defense here.

Advanced Stats – Red Zone and Explosivity

This week, we’re going to dig into Red Zone Scoring Efficiency and Explosive Scoring. For the Red Zone, we’re charting the average number of points scored per RZ trip. For Explosive Scoring, we’re calculating Touchdowns Scored from Outside the Red Zone (TORZ), which is a fortheblogy.com statistical creation. We get TORZ by taking a team’s total touchdowns, subtracting those TD plays that started inside the 20, then multiplying by 7. It is on a per game basis. So, if a team allowed 20 total TDs and 10 RZ TDs over 5 games, they’d be allowing 14 TORZ.

We’ll start with the Penn State defense this week and specifically their RZ scoring prevention, which came up huge against Auburn. FBS defenses allow, on average, 4.9 PPRZA since 2009. Anything lower than 4.5 is the top-quartile of performance. Penn State’s 2021 performance was historically good and ranks 14^th overall amongst all FBS teams from 2009-2021. Before 2021, the Lions were usually around average in this metric. So far in 2022, Penn State is having a strong performance again with 4.0 PPRZA allowed. Penn State’s RZ stand on Auburn’s first possession on Saturday, after James Franklin’s failed 4^th and 1 deision placed the Tigers on a half a field was critical. These are momentum killers for the opposing team. On the drive back to Atlanta, listening to the post-game radio show, Auburn players talked about how only getting an FG on their first drive and then giving up a TD on the ensuing drive crushed their early momentum.

Not only is the Penn State defense standing tall when it comes to Red Zone scoring, but they’re not giving up a ton of long scores, either. The FBS Defensive TORZ average is about 9.0 (i.e. slightly over 1 TD allowed from outside the RZ by a defense per game). A top-25% would be better than 6.4 TORZ and the 2.9 that Penn State had in 2021 ranks 39^th since 2009 (out of 1641 total FBS teams).

2022 Penn State currently sits at 4.7 Defensive TORZ.

If Penn State somehow finished 2022 with a 4.7 D-TORZ number, the Lions would likely finish in the Top 15 of all FBS teams in this metric. So, so far, so good.

Offensively things are just as good and maybe better. Below is Penn State’s PPRZA for each year from 2009 to 2022. The Nittany Lions have scored TDs in 9 of 11 Red Zone Attempts this season and FGs in the other 2. Do the math…that’s 6.3 PPRZA, which is T-14^th nationally right now. We have to expect some regression in this stat as the season progresses, but again, so far, so good. The Lions are making the most of their Red Zone opportunities.

But… not only is Penn State doing a great job scoring from inside of 20 yards, they’re explosive as hell beyond the Red Zone. The Lions’ currently are averaging 16.3 TORZ/game. As you can see below, this is higher than even the 2016-2017 teams that were the most explosive Penn State offenses since 1994.

This team is putting it all together in multiple advanced statistical categories, not just TORZ and Red Zone Scoring. As Parker Washington said post game, “the sky’s the limit with this team.” After Saturday, they sure made me a believer.