Following the Most Important Stat of Football

Oct 11, 2014; Starkville, MS, USA; Mississippi State Bulldogs wide receiver De

I read an interesting piece on the SB Nation site Team Speed Kills. It was written by David Wunderlich. You can find it by clicking here. There is also a video if you would rather just watch it.

Wunderlich is a stats guy, and I like stats. The person who does the best with stats is also at SB Nation. His name is Bill Connelly. I visit Connelly’s site frequently because he looks at stats, but he also tries to make the stats meaningful by comparing them to what he sees.

Wunderlich and Connelly have made me believers in the idea of Success Rate. If you didn’t read his article or watch the video, the concept behind success rate is simple.

• On 1st Down, you want to get 50% of the yards needed for a 1st Down.
• On 2nd Down you want to get 70% of the yards needed for a 1st Down.
• On 3rd Down, you want to get 100% of the yards needed for a 1st Down.

So how did Mississippi State do in 2014 in terms of success rate? According to another site Connelly writes for, the Bulldogs on offense were 10th in the country in Success Rate.

There is a lot to digest in that piece, but the ranking is the most important. How did the Bulldogs rank so high in Success Rate? This is where an average can be helpful.

Getting 8 yards a play on first down is going to lead to a lot more first downs. While average yard per play isn’t as telling as many think it should be, like Wunderlich points out, it’s a pretty useful stat when only looking at first down.

So how did the defense do? Not as bad as you think. If you change the tables to the defensive side of the ball, you’ll see the Bulldogs were 20th. Despite how bad the Bulldogs were supposedly on defense, they were a good team when it came to keeping teams behind the chains.

More telling, the Bulldogs were actually far worse in rushing than they were in passing. How can that be? Simple. Two or three big plays a game in the passing game aren’t nearly as damaging as giving up 5 yards a run on first down consistently or giving up the 2 or 3 yards an offense needs on third down.

Think back to Mississippi State’s three losses. It was the rushing defense that let the Bulldogs down in those games, not the pass coverage. The Bulldogs got burned in the passing game against lots of teams, but they won those games. In those games, the pass coverage had a few breakdowns but throughout the course of the game, they normally made the plays they needed to make. The issue we have as human beings is we simply remember the big plays that make it on SportsCenter. Not the steady consistent plays the secondary made most of the game.

Announcers actually talk about Success Rate a lot in the broadcast, they just don’t call it that. They always talk about staying ahead of the chains, or something similar. We also keep up with similar stats throughout the course of the game. You’ll often see the 3rd down conversion percentage of 3rd down and 5 or less and 3rd down and 6 or more. They’re doing the same thing, just using a different metric.

Completion percentages are great. Yards per carry are great. But if we want to find out just how successful Mississippi State is going to be, follow success rate. My goal this season is to track the success rate the offense has and what the defense gives up. I’m not sure I have the patience to do this all season long, but right here at the beginning of the season, I’m feeling ambitious. If Mississippi State is going to have a lot of success in 2015, they will have to put up similar numbers for success rate as they did in 2014 on offense, and lower the success rate of offenses when they run the ball.

Next: SEC Power Ranking: Week 1