Behind The Numbers: Week 2 FCS Football Review

Our Behind The Numbers series is now back in full swing here at FCS Football Central.

Each week, we will highlight a couple of marquee national matchups, using success rate to get a deeper look than what the final score may tell you about what really happened in the game. We will take a look at the most dominant teams of the week, which teams outplayed their opponent but made too many mistakes to win the game, and which teams got outplayed but still escaped with a win.

Success rate takes out a lot of the underlying factors of a game and strictly tells you how well a team played down-to-down. While outliers can swing an individual game, success rate can be a better indicator of what future performance will be. A play is "successful" if 50% of the yards needed are gained on first down, 70% are gained on second down, and 100% are gained on third or fourth down.

The Average Success Rate for a college football program is about 40%, while closer to 50% is considered excellent, and anything under 30% is deemed poor.

We take a look behind the numbers from this weekend's FCS action in Week 2.

Quick Hits:

SEMO fell to Southern Illinois after the return of quarterback DJ Williams. The Salukis held SEMO in check for most of the game, holding the Redhawks to a 30% success rate. The problem was that they allowed explosive plays that kept SEMO in it until late. Southern Illinois wasn't great offensively, down-to-down with a 36% success rate.

Tennessee Tech had its best offensive performance of the season against Samford. The Golden Eagles finally cracked a 50% success rate, finishing as the 5th-most explosive team in the country in Week 2.

Another week, another dominant North Dakota offensive performance, finishing with a success rate of nearly 60%. The Fighting Hawks will have a much tougher test this week against Nebraska.

Stephen F. Austin got an elite performance from its front seven with 10 TFLs against Abilene Christian. The Lumberjacks posted a 41% stuff rate (Tackles at or behind the LOS) against the Wildcats, holding them to 1.4 yards per carry.

Who Were The Most Dominant Teams In Week 2?

In this section, we will highlight the teams that were the most dominant in success-rate margin (OFF SR-DEF SR). This will highlight which teams truly dominated, even if the final score hides what really happened. Games against non-Division I opponents were excluded.

South Dakota State (Net SR: 41.3%)
Austin Peay (Net SR: 35.4%)
Youngstown State (Net SR: 31.7%)
Lehigh (Net SR: 24.8%)
UAlbany (Net SR: 18%)
South Dakota (Net SR: 17.5%)

South Dakota State was solid offensively against New Haven, but what made this performance so dominant was their defense. In the first six "non-garbage time" drives, SDSU held New Haven to a 13% success rate, by far the most dominant defensive performance of the week. After New Haven had 43 yards on its first drive, they compiled a combined 21 yards on their next eight drives. The Jackrabbits face a much more difficult task next week with Beau Brungard and all his weapons.

Speaking of Youngstown State, the Penguins had an opposite performance, in which their offense dominated the game. Youngstown State had an astounding 70.6% success rate, which is the best in the country. Specifically, the Penguins had an 84% success rate on passing plays. That's an impossible level of efficiency for this passing game. There was almost no flaw in this offensive performance, as the Penguins were one of the most explosive teams in the entire country as well.

Austin Peay has obliterated teams with explosive plays throughout the season. The Govs had five runs of 25 or more yards, along with nine completions of 23 or more yards. Quarterback Chris Parson has been on fire, but keep an eye on freshman wide receiver Denver Harper. Harper has 7 receptions for 256 receiving yards, which means he's averaging an insane 36.6 yards per reception.

In a Patriot League showdown, Lehigh showed William & Mary that there are levels to this. We have highlighted two weeks in a row that W&M, despite winning twice, had been outplayed down to down in both of their wins. That showed up in a big way this week, in which Luke Yoder and Lehigh's rushing attack shredded this defense. Lehigh had an elite 56% success rate. The Mountain Hawks had 338 rushing yards on 7.5 yards per carry from just their running backs. As an offense, they averaged 9.4 yards per play in the first half.

South Dakota had another all-around excellent game against Eastern Washington. The Yotes were great in every statistical category outside of a couple of explosive plays from Nate Bell. Charles Pierre Jr. had his best day since returning from injury, rushing for 159 yards on 16 touches. On average, every time he touched the ball, the Yotes got 10 yards. One thing to keep an eye on. The Yotes lacked a pass rush last season, but that's not the case this year. South Dakota generated a 33% pressure rate and had five sacks. This is the same team that only finished with 18 sacks all of last season.

We need to keep track of UAlbany as we search for the second-best team in the CAA. The Great Danes are about a play away from being undefeated with an FBS win, and they totally dominated this weekend. The passing game finally looked much better, which could lead to this being a more well-rounded team.

Which Week 2 Games Conflicted With Success Rate?

Each week, this section will highlight teams that won the success rate battle but still lost the game. They outperformed their opponent down-to-down, but lost because of turnovers, penalties, special teams, or explosive plays.

Southeastern Louisiana 30, North Alabama 25 (UNA 56.3%, SLU 37.5%)
Northern Arizona 38, Incarnate Word 28 (UIW 54.2%, NAU 42.9%)
Rhode Island 31, Elon 10 (Elon 35.8%, URI 30.9%)
Furman 20, Mercer 13 (Mercer 31.6%, Furman 27.3%)
Montana 35, Utah Tech 14 (Utah Tech 45%, Montana 42.4%)

This was a crazy week for results that conflicted with down-to-down success. North Alabama somehow put up an outstanding 56.3% success rate, but only scored 25 points. There were a few reasons why UNA lost this game. They turned it over twice in Southeastern Louisiana territory, missed a field goal, and executed terribly in key situations. The Lions were 3-of-12 on third down and finished with 11 penalties. UNA outplayed SLU for a majority of the game, but SLU won the game in key moments.

Incarnate Word has no idea how it left Arizona this weekend with only 28 points scored. UIW amassed 606 total yards compared to 333 yards for Northern Arizona. UIW only punted twice, while NAU punted seven times and finished 2-of-12 on third down.

Despite all of that, the Cardinals still lost by double digits. Most of this came down to 3 interceptions and 3 fumbles, two of which came in NAU territory, and two of which led directly to NAU touchdowns. Add that to the missed field goal from the 5-yard line, and you get this insane result. While it's incredibly frustrating to lose this game, the Cardinals are going to be a problem for teams in the Southland, while NAU is going to need to get it together before conference play starts.

We won't spend much time on Furman-Mercer, but just know that this was a terrible offensive game with a ton of mistakes and turnovers. The Paladins just found a way to come out on top in a very sloppy, inefficient game. They sealed the game with a 47-yard touchdown run from Ben Croasdale.

I can already hear the outrage from Rhode Island and Montana fans, especially after 21-point wins. I get it, but the data shows that both of these teams got outplayed on a down-to-down basis by Elon and Utah Tech. Now, that doesn't mean they deserved to lose or anything like that, but it does highlight how inconsistent both teams were.

Rhode Island only had 286 yards of total offense on 4.2 yards per play. The Rams couldn't really run the ball, while the passing game didn't click until late in the game. They only had 69 yards in the whole first half, 33 of which came in the last 43 seconds. They were 3-and-out on their first five drives. The offense looked better in the second half, but the Rams finished the game with only two real touchdown drives. The big scoring margin really came down to Elon's five turnovers, which means Rhode Island's offense is going to need to be better moving forward.

Now let's head over to Missoula, where Montana had a very average day offensively. They were solid, but the key was that they were able to break a few well-timed explosive plays. The Griz weren't great on third down, going 5-of-14, plus were unable to convert on a 4th-down attempt from the Utah Tech 14-yard line.

More of the issues came defensively, where Utah Tech showed an ability to actually move the football. Utah Tech fumbled twice in Montana territory, including once on the 2-yard line, and missed two field goals. The expected points for Utah Tech were probably closer to 24, but the Trailblazers didn't capitalize on those opportunities. Since this game was never actually in doubt, I wouldn't overreact to this performance, but Montana needs to execute better in the coming weeks.

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