Mississippi State football: 3rd down conversion stats

It’s time for The Numbers Game: in this edition we look at Mississippi State’s 3rd down conversion rate.

Against LSU, Mississippi State converted just one third down in 14 chances (7%). That’s really, really bad.

For the year, MSU is currently sitting dead last in the SEC and 123rd in the country at a meager 24%. The Bulldogs have converted just nine through three games.

There have been three years when Dan Mullen’s offense was good on 3rd down conversions: 2010, 2014 and 2015. Not surprisingly, those are the years with 9+ wins.

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In 2009, 2012 and 2013, State was 10th in the SEC or worse. In 2011 they finished 7th out of 12.

As I see it, the common denominator of a poor 3rd down conversion rate in a Dan Mullen offense is “balance”. Dak Prescott, however, renders that notion null and void.

Balance is equally splitting your plays between run and pass. Mullen likes to be 50/50, but I don’t think that works for this Mississippi State team. The years that MSU was the worst on 3rd down conversions were in when Tyson Lee and Tyler Russell were the primary quarterbacks. The year State was the best on 3rd downs – even better than 2014 – was 2010 with Chris Relf.

It’s time to go back to the “Relffense”. That means running the football.

Here is the percentage of running plays in SEC games during the 2010 season:

Auburn: 49%
LSU: 71%
Georgia: 74%
Florida: 84%
Kentucky: 74%
Alabama: 68%
Arkansas: 70%
Ole Miss: 71%

Ever since the 2010 season Mullen has been much closer to 50/50. The only game where he got back into the 70th percentile was the 2011 Egg Bowl.

Pound the football. Of course, pound it with big, bruising backs. You know – Ashton Shumpert, Aeries Williams and the lost children: Dontavian Lee, Alec Murphy and Nick Gibson. All of them over 210 pounds and highly recruited.