Behind The Numbers: Week 3 FCS Football Review

Our Behind The Numbers series continues to roll 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 3.

Quick Hits:

No. 2 South Dakota State 27, No. 9 Youngstown State 20

We talked about the importance of South Dakota State's rushing attack against Youngstown State's run defense. The Jackrabbits took full advantage with a 55.8% rushing success rate, one of the highest in the country for Week 4. South Dakota State was not very explosive, but they didn't need to be.

They remained in full control of the game, behind 238 rushing yards from Josiah Johnson. We highlighted the lack of explosive runs last season. Johnson only had 1 run of 15+ yards last season, but had 4 in Saturday's win over Youngstown State. That's a great recipe to follow while Chase Mason is sidelined with an injury.

No. 14 Austin Peay 38, No. 17 West Florida 16

The closest down-to-down matchup in Week 4 was Austin Peay and West Florida. The Govs had a success rate of 34.9%, while the Argos finished with a 33.3% success rate. The defenses largely dominated this game, but Austin Peay still won 38-16. There are a few reasons for this.

First of all, after dominating the turnover battle early in the year, UWF had it go the other way this weekend with 3 turnovers (2 INTs, 1 fumble), while Austin Peay didn't turn it over at all. This included a pick-six from Justin Wimpye, which essentially slammed the door on any potential comeback.

The other big difference was explosive plays. We've talked about how good UWF's defense has been down-to-down, but they ranked 106th nationally in explosives allowed. UWF racked up 11 TFLs, 2 sacks, and only allowed roughly 20 "successful" plays, but nearly a third of those plays went for 18+ yards, including four plays that gained over 40 yards.

No. 1 Montana State 35, Central Connecticut State 30

Montana State put up dominant numbers offensively with a 52% success rate. Outside of a few turnovers, the Bobcats had an excellent day offensively. The problem for them was defense. This was easily their worst defensive effort of the season. Over their first three games, the Bobcats held opponents to a 30% success rate, but CCSU finished with a 44.8% success rate on Saturday. I'm willing to chalk this one up to poor effort, but it's a trend that we don't want to see continue into conference play.

Stony Brook 56, No. 8 Rhode Island 24

One other dominant performance that should be discussed is what Stony Brook did to Rhode Island. The Seawolves absolutely dominated what was the best defense in the CAA last season. They put up stellar offensive numbers across the board, especially on the ground with a 55.8% rushing success rate.

The Seawolves had 321 rushing yards, but it wasn't skewed by a couple of long runs. They consistently moved the ball, finishing with 10 runs of 10+ yards against the Rams. After the first drive of the game, Stony Brook would score touchdowns on 8 of their next 10 drives.

Who Were The Most Dominant Teams In Week 3?

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.

Western Illinois (Net SR: 36.8%)
UC Davis (Net SR: 29.7%)
Penn (Net SR: 25.6%)
Stephen F. Austin (Net SR: 24.3%)
Indiana State (Net SR: 23.8%)
Campbell (Net SR: 23.3%)
Illinois State (Net SR: 21.9%)

Many of these results were blowouts and are fairly straightforward to analyze. Instead, I will highlight 1-2 things for each of these teams that deserve to be mentioned. Western Illinois took advantage of one of the worst teams in the subdivision, which led to a massive performance from quarterback Kennedy McGill. He finished with 345 total yards and 5 total TDs.

Stephen F. Austin had the biggest game of this group against Prairie View A&M. The defense was dominant again, holding PVAMU to a 26% success rate. The Lumberjacks also finished with a 26% stuff rate, along with 10 TFLs and 5 sacks. Prairie View A&M only had 45 total yards on their first seven drives.

UC Davis continues to churn out some of the best offensive performances in the FCS on an efficiency basis. The Aggies have been very well-rounded, posting excellent numbers in nearly every area. The competition will take a big step up with Montana coming to town in Week 4. Penn only won 20-7, but the numbers suggest that this game shouldn't have been this close. It was a dominant defensive performance, holding Bucknell to 124 total yards and only 2.5 yards per play.

Indiana State and Campbell posted impressive offensive performances, including another stellar performance from Campbell quarterback Kamden Sixkiller. He's thrown for at least 330 yards against every FCS team he has played this year. The Camels have tough games against Stony Brook and Monmouth remaining, but only play one team that currently sits above .500 (Elon).

Illinois State played another overmatched opponent and rolled to a 49-13 win over Eastern Illinois. However, this was the best passing performance of the year for the Redbirds. All three quarterbacks played well, going a combined 25-of-33 for 330 passing yards and 3 passing TDs. Illinois State had the 2nd-best passing success rate of the weekend at 64.7%.

Which Week 3 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.

Monmouth 28, UAlbany 20 (UAlbany 46.5%, Monmouth 37%)
Southeastern Louisiana 38, Louisiana-Monroe 35 (ULM 51.9%, SLU 42.9%)
Abilene Christian 41, Idaho 39 (Idaho 51.5%, ACU 45.5%)

The most notable game here was a CAA battle between Monmouth and UAlbany that could have some big conference implications after Rhode Island's loss. Monmouth was not very efficient down-to-down, but had a big defensive touchdown and generated some explosive plays through the air. Tra Neal and Gavin Nelson had 4 receptions of 20+ yards, including two TDs of 46+ yards.

Southeastern Louisiana pulled off an FBS upset despite a fairly pedestrian offensive performance. The Lions only had 279 total yards of offense, but were able to step up in key moments. They also had a 78-yard punt return from Dkhai Joseph and an 11-yard defensive touchdown from Richard McKneely. Defensively, they finished with 4 sacks and 8 TFLs, plus made a 4th-down stop to seal the game.

Abilene Christian and Idaho played a crazy game between two desperate 0-3 teams. The Vandals left this game disappointed after Joshua Wood and this passing attack were elite, throwing for over 330 yards on 9.5 yards per attempt. The Vandals really lost this game in a tough 4th quarter sequence. The Wildcats recovered a fumble deep in Idaho territory, which turned into a defensive touchdown. On the next possession, Idaho decided to attempt a 4th-and-3 from their own 37-yard line with nine minutes remaining, and they failed to convert. Tucker Parks connected with Deonte Dean for a 37-yard touchdown on the next play.

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