Plus Territory
Monday, August 1, 2011 at 10:00PM Starting field position is a significant factor for offensive success. The closer a drive starts to the end zone, the more likely it is that the offense will score. On average, college football teams start 14.3 percent of offensive possessions in plus territory (at midfield or on the opponent's side of the 50-yard line). Short field opportunities are most often created by exceptional defensive and special teams play.
In 2010, LSU started 24.3 percent of its offensive possessions in plus territory. On defense, TCU allowed only 3.5 percent of opponent drives to start in plus territory. These were the best percentages in the nation in each category.
:: Scoring by Starting Field Position
:: 2010 Percentage of Offensive Drives Started in Plus Territory
:: 2010 Percentage of Opponent Drives Started in Plus Territory
Reader Comments (3)
Brian, Love your work and excited for the graphically enhanced web site. For the field position graph, can supply a table that shows the expected scoring value from each yard line? It's hard to distinguish between the y-axis values since the scale is a full point.
Looking at the graph, it's also interesting that expected points per yard of starting position isn't linear. What the most crucial 5 yard increments. For all the effort teams put into downing punts inside the 20 yard line, those incremental yards don't appear to be that crucial. Any thoughts?
Good questions and suggestions, Joe. I added a link to the post to a table of data that went into the starting field position graphic. I think your observations are pretty interesting. Though the scoring expectations don't change too dramatically for drives that start inside a team's own 20-yard line, pinning an opponent deep does have an impact on the NEXT possession. I'll have a post about that sometime soon.