Study Hall: Louisville 28, Syracuse 6

Louisville 28, Syracuse 6

Confused? Visit the Advanced Stats glossary here.

Basics	Louisville	Syracuse	Nat'l Avg
Total Plays	70	65
Close Rate (non-garbage time)	85.9%
Avg Starting FP	38.9	24.2	29.7
Possessions	14	14
Scoring Opportunities*	7	2
Points Per Opportunity	3.43	3.00	4.69
Leverage Rate**	51.4%	61.5%	68.4%
Close S&P;***	0.492	0.400	0.508
* A scoring opportunity occurs when an offense gets a first down inside the opponent's 40 (or scores from outside the 40). Leverage Rate = Standard Downs / (Standard Downs + Passing Downs) * When using IsoPPP, the S&P; formula is (0.8Success Rate) + (0.2IsoPPP)

EqPts (what's this?)	Louisville	Syracuse
Total	22.2	14.1
Rushing	12.8	2.8
Passing	9.4	11.4

Success Rate (what's this?)	Louisville	Syracuse	Nat'l Avg
All (close)	40.0%	28.6%	42.2%
Rushing (close)	38.9%	38.1%	43.6%
Passing (close)	41.7%	22.9%	40.7%
Standard Downs	47.2%	35.0%	47.5%
Passing Downs	29.2%	12.5%	30.7%

IsoPPP (what's this?)	Louisville	Syracuse	Nat'l Avg
All (close)	0.86	0.86	0.85
Rushing (close)	0.80	0.34	0.73
Passing (close)	0.94	1.37	0.99
Standard Downs	0.70	0.65	0.77
Passing Downs	1.26	2.34	1.14

Line Stats	Louisville	Syracuse	Nat'l Avg
Line Yards/Carry (what's this?)	3.34	2.39	2.93
Std. Downs Sack Rt.	0.0%	4.4%	4.7%
Pass. Downs Sack Rt.	23.1%	0.0%	7.3%

Turnovers	Louisville	Syracuse
Turnovers	2	2
Turnover Points (what's this?)	7.3	8.3
Turnover Margin	+0
Exp. TO Margin	Syracuse +0.14
TO Luck (Margin vs. Exp. Margin)	Louisville +0.14
TO Points Margin	Louisville +1.0 points

Situational	Louisville	Syracuse
Q1 S&P;	0.578	0.433
Q2 S&P;	0.322	0.415
Q3 S&P;	0.514	0.472
Q4 S&P;	0.493	0.234
1st Down S&P;	0.452	0.360
2nd Down S&P;	0.472	0.426
3rd Down S&P;	0.552	0.442

Projected Scoring Margin: Louisville by 9.1
Actual Scoring Margin: Louisville by 22

Strange game. Well, I guess any game with two safeties is weird. Still. If Louisville could have actually taken advantage of scoring opportunities, they wouldn't have had to wait until the fourth quarter to pull away. But if Syracuse had been just a little bit better through the air (particularly on passing downs) -- "below average" instead of "train wreck" -- the Orange could have stuck around even longer.

In the end, Louisville proved one specific thing: it's a lot easier to start a freshman quarterback and get away with it when your defense is really good.