Last Thoughts: Havoc & Offensive Success Rates
by Payton Guthrie & Davis Dunkleberger
Welcome to Last Thoughts, a weekly article featuring insights from Payton Guthrie & Davis Dunkleberger on the Oklahoma Sooners’ upcoming opponents and other interesting thoughts about the Oklahoma football team.
For this week’s article, Payton & Davis compare the Havoc Rates and Offensive Success Rate between the Oklahoma Sooners and the Tulane Green Wave.
Davis created the bar chart to compare the two opponents in terms of Havoc Rate in the secondary and along the defensive front seven*.
What stands out immediately for Oklahoma is the the doubled rate of Havoc for the DBs in comparison to Tulane. If Jackson Arnold is to make some hay in the stat sheet then Tulane seems to be a prime candidate for Oklahoma wide receivers to find some space against the Green Wave.
On the flip side, the Tulane front seven, led by Aden Huntington & Patrick Jenkins, will be a hard test for the embattled Oklahoma offensive line. The game will turn on which team is able to capitalize or mitigate the terms of the engagement along this front.
*The Tulane numbers are heavily skewed by their week one opponent
Next up Davis broke down the Success Rate of each offense by Rushing Plays, Passing Plays, Standard Downs and All Plays.
Even though Tulane is starting Darian Mensah, (RS) Freshman, the Green Wave offense creates most of its success through the passing game by utilizing Mario Williams. Of Darian’s total 537 passing yards 46% of those yards come from Mario Williams. This gives Oklahoma a clear plan of attack for the game this weekend.
The main issue with Oklahoma’s offense (pretend the offensive line doesn’t exist for a moment) falling behind on Standard Downs after poor performances on 1st & 2nd downs. The Sooners offense isn’t able to overcome being behind schedule. The best option Oklahoma will have to win the game and cover the spread is to perform better on 1st & 2nd down and pushing the Tulane defense line on rushing plays.
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