Speaking of Analytics

In broad strokes, the studies say you should go for it when needing 3 yards or less on 4th down at any place on the field. Converting one 4th down that leads to a TD creates 7 points. You would need to kick 3 field goals instead of converting one 4th down for that to be the better option. And for every time you punt instead of going for it, you are accepting 0 points instead of the chance at 7.

It’s essentially the lotto effect where you never win a prize if you don’t buy a ticket but if you throw your dollar down, you at least have a chance. Or blackjack where you should play the same way the house does instead of sitting on 14 through 16 because you are afraid of busting.

So you analyze all your (and other teams) past data and determine what the likelihoods are statistically. Let say you traditionally score 50% of the time you at 4th and 2 or less. But you have a 90% chance of scoring a field goal in the same place. In the first case your expected outcome is 3.5 points (7 x 0.5 ignoring the extra point stats), in the second case your expected outcome is 2.7 (3 x 0.9). You should go for the first right? Of course there are situations or scenarios where those percentages are not what they have been when collecting the data. Also, just like with blackjack, you may have a 49% chance of winning by putting everything on black, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get red 10 times in a row and totally lose to Arizona, err I mean the house.

There is that component also but I was just referring to the utility in going for it on fourth down.

Ludwig has been an OC for over 20 years and his patterns are very well established. The other team still has to be able to stop his offense and having a good idea of what he is going to call in any situation is only half the battle. Penn State, Ohio State, Oregon in 2019 and last year, Washington last year.,, those were all teams with better talent that were able to take advantage of his known knowns.

What really makes Ludwig’s offense work is a QB that can bail him out with his legs. The number of times Huntley sidestepped a rush and completed big plays downfield on 3rd and long in 2019 was the key to that season because the play calls were getting blown up. 2021/2022 Rising kept a ton of drives moving that were initially stalled with timely scrambles.

Barnes last year – think of the last drive against SC – and to a limited extent Wilson this year have shown that they are capable of doing it but aren’t able to do it as consistently as Rising or Huntley so the offense bogs down. The play calls haven’t changed over the last 6 years. There’s just been different levels of execution.

And no amount of pleas by the fanbase is going to get Ludwig to change what he does. Every year we complain about poor red zone execution. Every year we complain about how easy it is to diagnose plays based on personnel and formation. These aren’t new issues. They can be overcome with top level QB play. And they can be exposed when only getting above average or worse QB play.