Oklahoma 48, Louisiana Tech 16: Modified Box Score
Sterling Shepard hauls in a nice grab in OU's 48-16 win over Louisiana Tech. (Image courtesy: dallasnews.com)
In his excellent book Football Study Hall, which you should purchase immediately if you haven't done so already, our buddy and stats guru Bill Connelly of SBNation details a modified version of a box score for college football. The objective is to provide a more robust picture of what happened in a game than what we see now. I'm going to try to construct one for every Oklahoma game this season, while providing a little analysis along the way.
Notes and observations:
*Allowing just 2.33 yards per rushing attempt is a good sign for a defense that struggled at times to stop the run last year. For comparison's sake, Tech averaged 4.89 yards per carry a year ago.
*One thing that sticks out is that Tech recovered all four fumbles committed by both sides in this game. In other words, the final margin could have been much worse.
*OU's most underrated weapon: kickoff specialist Nick Hogsdon. By consistently generating touchbacks, he really limits the ability of opponents to enhance their starting field position. In this case, we see that the Bulldogs began drives after kickoffs on their own 25 on average.
*Four for four on fourth-down conversions. Fortune favors the bold.