Call this “Looking In your ‘Eers”
At first, I wasn’t planning on doing one of these for WVU. Pretty much all of their season long starts are nigh identical to ISU’s, it’s obvious that Neal Brown is a good coach. My only caveat would have been that the Mountaineers have yet to play either ISU or OU, two games that would likely shift the footprint of those statistics.
Then I happened to shift over to “conference only” stats, which offered a distinctly different picture. Turns out that when you subtract their 56-10 shellacking of Eastern Kentucky, it makes a difference. Yes, that WVU defense is still formidable (see reference to ISU and OU above), but the offense plummets.
Suddenly, WVU is a mere 8th in the conference in scoring offense, on a par with KState. The Mountaineers are at 25.6 ppg, while ISU is at 35.5 in conference play.
In Total Yardage, WVU still manages a respectable 416.7 ypg (again, sans facing ISU or OU’s defenses), while ISU is at 453.9 ypg.
The key difference is in a rushing game they seem proud of, where a Leddie Brown-led attack is only 8th in the conference at 132.3 ypg, and 3.6 ypc. Correspondingly, ISU averages 200.6 ypg rushing, and 5.6 ypc.
Jon Heacock must be salivating. Shut down a modest running game, and you can do all sorts of things defensively.
To be fair, in the passing game WVU is averaging 284.4 ypg to ISU’s 253.3, but I think that’s balanced by ISU’s 152.7 passing efficiency rating, to WVU’s more modest 133.7.
I’ll point out that passing defense has been this ISU team’s Achilles heel.
To complement those stats, I’d add that ISU is still in first place in the conference in sacks allowed at 9 in conference play, while WVU has allowed a more modest 15 (in one fewer game).
The very last stat that caught my eye, that wasn’t fairly even across the board, was in penalties committed. ISU continues to lead the conference in that category with the fewest (43 in 8 games), but WVU is right behind Texas at 9th for the most allowed (60 in 7).
Should be an interesting game. Go Cyclones!
big12sports.com
At first, I wasn’t planning on doing one of these for WVU. Pretty much all of their season long starts are nigh identical to ISU’s, it’s obvious that Neal Brown is a good coach. My only caveat would have been that the Mountaineers have yet to play either ISU or OU, two games that would likely shift the footprint of those statistics.
Then I happened to shift over to “conference only” stats, which offered a distinctly different picture. Turns out that when you subtract their 56-10 shellacking of Eastern Kentucky, it makes a difference. Yes, that WVU defense is still formidable (see reference to ISU and OU above), but the offense plummets.
Suddenly, WVU is a mere 8th in the conference in scoring offense, on a par with KState. The Mountaineers are at 25.6 ppg, while ISU is at 35.5 in conference play.
In Total Yardage, WVU still manages a respectable 416.7 ypg (again, sans facing ISU or OU’s defenses), while ISU is at 453.9 ypg.
The key difference is in a rushing game they seem proud of, where a Leddie Brown-led attack is only 8th in the conference at 132.3 ypg, and 3.6 ypc. Correspondingly, ISU averages 200.6 ypg rushing, and 5.6 ypc.
Jon Heacock must be salivating. Shut down a modest running game, and you can do all sorts of things defensively.
To be fair, in the passing game WVU is averaging 284.4 ypg to ISU’s 253.3, but I think that’s balanced by ISU’s 152.7 passing efficiency rating, to WVU’s more modest 133.7.
I’ll point out that passing defense has been this ISU team’s Achilles heel.
To complement those stats, I’d add that ISU is still in first place in the conference in sacks allowed at 9 in conference play, while WVU has allowed a more modest 15 (in one fewer game).
The very last stat that caught my eye, that wasn’t fairly even across the board, was in penalties committed. ISU continues to lead the conference in that category with the fewest (43 in 8 games), but WVU is right behind Texas at 9th for the most allowed (60 in 7).
Should be an interesting game. Go Cyclones!
Big 12 Conference
The official 2020 Football cumulative statistics for Big 12 Conference
