Behind The Numbers: Week 1 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 1.

Quick Hits:

The Tennessee Tech offense struggled with consistency again, posting a 34.4% success rate. The Golden Eagles have been particularly ineffective throwing the ball in the intermediate. On throws of 10-19 yards in the air, Jax Leatherwood went 3-of-8 for only 45 passing yards. It's worth noting that Leatherwood was under a lot of pressure again, nearly 40% of his dropbacks. This offense has a ton of talent at wide receiver; Leatherwood has a huge arm, but the Golden Eagles just aren't executing very well. Fortunately, Tennessee Tech held Chattanooga to a 10% passing success rate and has the best passing defense in the country right now.

Illinois State posted one of the best defensive performances of the week, holding Western Illinois to a 25.7% success rate. The Leathernecks were held to 52 rushing yards and 2.3 yards per carry. On the other side, Illinois State posted an average 41.5% success rate and averaged 6 yards per play. Right now, the Redbirds have a dominant defense, but the offense just isn't there yet.

West Florida dominated Central Arkansas in a 42-14 win on the road. Despite the score, both teams had a similar success rate down-to-down, 44% and 42% success rate, respectively. Why was this game a blowout? Central Arkansas turned the ball over four straight times (2 Fumbles, a turnover on downs, and an INT) from the end of the 2nd quarter into the start of the 3rd quarter. Three turnovers happened inside UCA territory, which helped the score balloon from 14-7 to 35-7 in that span. Also, Ty'Ray Davis lit up the UCA defense with throws of 42, 41, 38, and 35 yards.

Eastern Washington and South Dakota had excellent offensive numbers. EWU finished with a 53% success rate against Weber State, while South Dakota posted a 47% success rate in a win over Northern Colorado.

Who Were The Most Dominant Teams In Week 1?

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.

Lehigh (Net SR: 38.2%)
North Dakota (Net SR: 34.4%)
UT Martin (Net SR: 32.1%)
Elon (Net SR: 31.4%)
Montana State (Net SR: 27.6%)
Montana (Net SR: 27.3%)
UC Davis (Net SR: 24.1%)

Last week, it was the Luke Yoder show for Lehigh, but this week, the Mountain Hawks showed off Hayden Johnson and the passing attack in a 45-14 win over Georgetown. They posted an unreal 83% success rate on passing plays. Johnson was 16-of-19 for 271 passing yards and averaged 17 yards per completion. The offense averaged 7.8 yards per play.

North Dakota had the most dominant offense in the country in Week 1. The Fighting Hawks had a 65% success rate before garbage time. They were equally effective running and throwing the ball. In the first half, they scored on every drive except for a couple of turnovers, rolling up 359 yards on only 40 plays, which is an astounding 8.97 yards per play.

Elon and UT Martin likely played two of the worst teams in the FCS: Davidson and Chicago State. Their defenses dominated, holding these two opponents to 24.1% and 20.4% success rates in blowout wins.

Montana, Montana State, and UC Davis all dominated Pioneer League teams, finishing with Top 12 offensive performances. All these teams posted above a 50% success rate, finding success on the ground and through the air. Montana's performance caught my eye because the Griz were consistent offensively, but struggled to find any explosive plays. Their longest run was 13 yards and they only had two passes over 20 yards. On the positive side, Montana finished with a Stuff-Rate of 50% and recorded 8 TFLs.

Which Week 1 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.

William & Mary 22, Delaware State 15 (DSU 40.8%, W&M 26.8%)
Idaho State 29, Utah State 17 (USU 42.7%, ISU 35.4%)
Tarleton State 20, Bowling Green 13 (BG 39.4%, Tarleton 39%)
Wofford 17, Gardner-Webb 13 (GWU 37.3%, Wofford 33.3%)

We didn't have many games that were true outliers this weekend. The two most notable games were FBS upsets by Idaho State and Tarleton State. The Bengals won this game despite a below-average offensive performance. Idaho State struggled to finish drives, settling for field goals 4 times inside Utah State's 26-yard line. On the other side, the defense came up huge in the biggest moments. The Bengals stopped 4 drives in their own territory with either an interception or a 4th-down stop. They also held Utah State to a 25% success rate on short-yardage plays.

Tarleton State and Bowling Green both had subpar offensive days from a down-to-down perspective. The clear difference was explosive plays, where Tarleton State averaged an incredible 8.1 yards per play for a 39% success rate, while Bowling Green only averaged 5.5 yards per play. Tylan Hines was the biggest part of this, finishing with 250 rushing yards on 9.6 yards per carry.

William & Mary shows up in this section for the second consecutive week. The Tribe were not very good down-to-down offensively, averaging only 3.5 yards per play, but they continue to find ways to get the win. This week, it was 6 turnovers by Delaware State that completely changed the outcome of this game.

Wofford played an ugly game against Gardner-Webb, but did just enough to get the final stop to win the game. They excelled along the defensive line, finding ways to create havoc and negative plays. The Terriers stopped the Runnin' Bulldogs at or behind the LOS on 40% of their rushing attempts. Nine different Wofford players combined for 8 TFLs on Saturday.

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