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Study Hall: Alabama 25, Mississippi State 20

Marvin Gentry-USA TODAY Sports

From Matt Mills:

Alabama 25, Mississippi State 20

Confused? Visit the Advanced Stats glossary here.

Basics Alabama Mississippi State Nat'l Avg
Total Plays 63 88
Close Rate (non-garbage time) 100.0%
Avg Starting FP 34.5 21.8 29.9
Possessions 13 13
Scoring Opportunities*
7 6
Points Per Opportunity 3.43 3.33 4.67
Leverage Rate** 66.7% 71.6% 68.2%
Close S&P*** 0.507 0.473 0.505
* 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 (0.8*Success Rate) + (0.2*IsoPPP)
EqPts (what's this?) Alabama Mississippi State
Total 23.0 24.2
Rushing 9.7 7.2
Passing 13.4 17.0
Success Rate (what's this?) Alabama Mississippi State Nat'l Avg
All (close) 41.3% 43.2% 41.8%
Rushing (close) 45.2% 38.5% 43.4%
Passing (close) 37.5% 46.9% 40.2%
Standard Downs 50.0% 47.6% 47.1%
Passing Downs 23.8% 32.0% 30.5%
IsoPPP (what's this?) Alabama Mississippi State Nat'l Avg
All (close) 0.89 0.64 0.85
Rushing (close) 0.69 0.48 0.74
Passing (close) 1.11 0.74 0.98
Standard Downs 0.89 0.62 0.77
Passing Downs 0.86 0.69 1.14
Line Stats Alabama Mississippi State Nat'l Avg
Line Yards/Carry (what's this?) 3.28 2.56 2.92
Std. Downs Sack Rt. 0.0% 2.9% 4.7%
Pass. Downs Sack Rt. 6.3% 0.0% 7.5%
Turnovers Alabama Mississippi State
Turnovers 0 3
Turnover Points (what's this?) 0.0 12.4
Turnover Margin Alabama +3
Exp. TO Margin Alabama +1.32
TO Luck (Margin vs. Exp. Margin) Alabama +1.68
TO Points Margin Alabama +12.4 points
Situational Alabama Mississippi State
Q1 S&P 0.425 0.399
Q2 S&P 0.815 0.379
Q3 S&P 0.337 0.522
Q4 S&P 0.482 0.560
1st Down S&P 0.606 0.465
2nd Down S&P 0.392 0.498
3rd Down S&P 0.448 0.320
Projected Scoring Margin: Alabama by 11.2
Actual Scoring Margin: Alabama by 5

Early leads/deficits create confusing stats sometimes. Alabama scored on three of seven first-half possessions (pretty good against a top-10 defense) and got a safety to build a 19-0 lead. The Tide then ceased being effective offensively until MSU cut it to 19-13, then drove straight down and scored again when they needed to. So MSU ends up with more yards and EqPts and a whole lot more snaps, and it looks like Alabama a bit lucky to win because of turnovers ... only, your brain maybe doesn't look at it like that because Bama was up so big early on and it never felt like the game was actually in doubt.

Regardless, it would probably behoove Alabama to try to have an all-around great offense in quarters other than the second. The offense generated in Q2 was enough to win both the LSU and MSU games, but Q3 in both instances was pretty ugly, and Q4 was just good enough.