Study Hall: Texas 17, BYU 16

Time to kick off the Week 2 reviews...

Five Thoughts

1. For the game itself, clearly Texas' offense still wasn't too hot. But looking at the per-quarter splits, you see that the 'Horns figured some things out after halftime. Rotating between quarterbacks Case McCoy and David Ash, UT made their move in the third quarter, then completely and totally shut down the BYU offense in the fourth. As Mack Brown put it, they've twice entered the fourth quarter with the game in question this year, and both times they've dominated. Granted, at the very least, Rice should not have been in question after the first quarter, but ... baby steps.
   
   
2. Passing downs were a defensive specialty for Texas last season, and they remain so thus far in 2011. Manny Diaz was brought in, in part, to shore up the standard downs side of the equation, and in completely denying BYU any big-play opportunities, they did pretty well there too.
   
   
3. The Texas front four, in particular, was impressive. BYU's got a mean running game -- as Diaz himself said last week, "They've got fullbacks that want to block your soul" -- and it just went nowhere.
   
   
4. D.J. Monroe broke a nice run or two (for the game: three carries, 40 yards), but the UT run game still needs work. Malcolm Brown ground out 68 yards in 14 carries (4.9), which isn't bad against BYU ... but it isn't amazing either. No matter who the quarterback is, if UT can cross the national average of 68% on Leverage Rates (the ratio of standard downs to all plays) and keep their young QBs out of passing downs, they'll begin to click.
   
   
5. Jake Heaps was able to stay semi-efficient with the BYU passing game ... right up until BYU was forced to make some plays downfield. They couldn't do it.

Quick glossary after the jump.

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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.

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.

S&P+: Think of this as an OPS (the "On-Base Plus Slugging" baseball measure) for football. The 'S' stands for success rates, a common Football Outsiders efficiency measure that basically serves as on-base percentage. The 'P' stands for PPP+, an explosiveness measure that stands for EqPts Per Play. The "+" means it has been adjusted for the level of opponent, obviously a key to any good measure in college football. 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.

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.