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Study Hall: Northwestern 28, Nebraska 25

By Bill C.
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Taylor Martinez had one of his best passing days and was great on passing downs, Nebraska ran almost 60 percent of their plays in Northwestern territory, the Huskers won the turnover battle ... and they lost, at home, to Northwestern. Football is a weird game sometimes.

Northwestern 28, Nebraska 25
Nebraska NW'ern Nebraska NW'ern
Close % 100.0% STANDARD DOWNS
Field Position % 56.9% 42.3% Success Rate 49.0% 52.6%
Leverage % 68.1% 73.1% PPP 0.24 0.33
S&P 0.729 0.857
TOTAL
EqPts 22.4 25.5 PASSING DOWNS
Close Success Rate 48.6% 50.0% Success Rate 47.8% 42.9%
Close PPP 0.31 0.33 PPP 0.46 0.32
Close S&P 0.797 0.827 S&P 0.941 0.745
RUSHING TURNOVERS
EqPts 6.6 13.7 Number 2 3
Close Success Rate 38.2% 47.2% Turnover Pts 10.9 15.2
Close PPP 0.19 0.26 Turnover Pts Margin +4.3 -4.3
Close S&P 0.576 0.730
Line Yards/carry 2.46 3.03 Q1 S&P 0.521 0.889
Q2 S&P 0.679 0.168
PASSING Q3 S&P 0.870 0.890
EqPts 15.8 11.8 Q4 S&P 1.007 1.321
Close Success Rate 57.9% 56.0%
Close PPP 0.42 0.47 1st Down S&P 0.671 0.610
Close S&P 0.994 1.032 2nd Down S&P 0.738 0.932
SD/PD Sack Rate 5.0% / 0.0% 0.0% / 8.3% 3rd Down S&P 1.116 1.150
Projected Pt. Margin: Nebraska +1.2 | Actual Pt. Margin: Northwestern +3

Quick glossary (complete with national averages) after the jump.

A Quick Glossary

F/+ Rankings: The official rankings for the college portion of Football Outsiders. They combine my own S&P+ rankings (based on play-by-play data) with Brian Fremeau's drives-based FEI rankings.

Field Position %: The percentage of a team's plays run in their opponent's field position. National average: 43%.

Leverage Rate: A team's ratio of standard downs to passing downs. National average: 68%. Anything over 68% means a team did a good job of avoiding being leveraged into passing downs.

Passing Downs: Second-and-7 or more, third-and-5 or more.

PPP: An explosiveness measure derived from determining the point value of every yard line (based on the expected number of points an offense could expect to score from that yard line) and, therefore, every play of a given game. National average: 0.32.

S&P: Think of this as an OPS (the "On-Base Plus Slugging" baseball measure) for football. The 'S' stands for success rate. The 'P' stands for PPP, an explosiveness measure that stands for EqPts Per Play. S&P is measured for all non-garbage time plays in a given college football game. Plays are counted within the following criteria: when the score is within 28 points in the first quarter, within 24 points in the second quarter, within 21 points in the third quarter, and within 16 points (i.e. two possession) in the fourth quarter. For more about this measure, visit the main S&P+ page at Football Outsiders. National average: 0.747. Standard downs S&P average: 0.787. Passing downs S&P average: 0.636.

Standard Downs: First downs, second-and-6 or less, third-and-4 or less.

Success Rate: A common Football Outsiders tool used to measure efficiency by determining whether every play of a given game was successful or not. The terms of success in college football: 50 percent of necessary yardage on first down, 70 percent on second down, and 100 percent on third and fourth down. National Average: 42%.

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