Behind The Numbers: Week 6 FCS Football Review

Our Behind The Numbers series remains 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 football action in Week 6.

Quick Hits:

Northern Arizona-Montana was one of the most entertaining games of the season. Both teams posted an offensive success rate of over 55%, which are two of the best performances of the weekend. Neither team had a ton of explosive plays, but they just consistently moved the ball and put the ball in the end zone.

NAU quarterback Ty Pennington will deservedly get much of the credit for a gritty performance. He finished with 6 total TDs, including 4 rushing TDs and a receiving TD. However, the NAU offensive line and receivers should get a ton of credit as well. Montana blitzed on 46% of Pennington's dropbacks, but it really didn't impact his play. He was able to go 12-of-18 for 149 yards on blitzes with plenty of time to throw.

We highlighted the importance of tackling for the Griz, but it ended up being one of the biggest issues for Montana's defense. Northern Arizona's wide receivers made Montana defenders miss in open space all game long. Montana had 19 missed tackles, including 4 from Peyton Wing and a combined six from the secondary.

South Dakota had another elite performance inside the DakotaDome, finishing with an offensive efficiency of 51.8% and had an insane 63.6% success rate on passing plays alone. Charles Pierre Jr. continued to look like he's all the way back, posting 138 yards on only 15 carries. He also averaged over 5 yards after contact per carry.

While the rain was an impediment early, the Tarleton State-Austin Peay game did eventually become the offensive game we expected, with two of the Top 3 offenses on full display. The Texans were excellent with a 48% success rate, while Austin Peay took a little time to get going with only a 40% success rate.

Tarleton State cranked up the pressure on Saturday, blitzing Chris Parson on 42% of his dropbacks and pressuring him 43% of the time after routinely having a pressure rate of under 20% this season. One big key of this game was limiting explosive plays from Austin Peay's offense, which is something that Tarleton State was able to do. They didn't allow any explosive runs and only allowed three explosive plays through the air.

Who Were The Most Dominant Teams In Week 6?

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.

Youngstown State (Net SR: 36.7%)
SEMO (Net SR: 35.8%)
St. Thomas (Net SR: 32.4%)
Yale (Net SR: 23.5%)
Chattanooga (Net SR: 12.3%)
Harvard (Net SR: 10.3%)

Youngstown State got back to its dominant offensive ways this weekend. Jaden Gilbert had his best game of the season, rushing for 163 yards on only 15 carries. It was only his second game with over 100 rushing yards in the past two seasons and his first this year.

SEMO makes this list despite a fairly competitive 38-27 win over Lindenwood. The Lions did get a defensive touchdown in this game, but it never felt like the Redhawks were ever threatened or would lose this game. It appears that SEMO is currently the best team in the OVC.

Yale built on some momentum from last week with a really nice dominant win over Dartmouth, which had looked to be one of the better teams in the Ivy League. Dante Reno is averaging over 300 passing yards per game with 11 TDs and only 1 INT. He's being helped by one of the best receiving duos in the country. In only four games, Jaxton Santiago has 539 receiving yards and 7 TDs, while Lucius Anderson has added 405 receiving yards and 2 TDs.

Chattanooga sneaks into this top group despite only finishing with 255 total yards on 4.0 yards per play. It was the defense that completely suffocated Samford's offense, holding the Bulldogs to 137 total yards on 2.7 yards per carry. Kevin Lalin continues to thrive for the Mocs, rushing for a team-high 156 yards on 28 carries.

Which Week 6 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.

Florida A&M 28, Alabama State 27 (ASU 50.6%, FAMU 30.2%)
UTRGV 13, Southeastern Louisiana 3 (SLU 50%, UTRGV 35%)
Northern Iowa 24, North Dakota 17 (UND 40.9%, UNI 28.3%)
Lamar 38, Incarnate Word 35 (UIW 44.8%, Lamar 33.8%)

After a few weeks of no outliers, we got some really good ones this past weekend. Let's start with Alabama State. The Hornets shot themselves in the foot on multiple offensive drives, including three missed field goals, a turnover on downs at midfield, and two turnovers. It's not a good recipe for success.

None of that compares to what Southeastern Louisiana did in a loss to UTRGV. The Lions had a 50% success rate and somehow only scored 3 points. They had eight drives, only punting once, but they missed two field goals, had three INTs, and turned it over on downs at the UTRGV 26-yard line. It was a very frustrating performance for the Lions in a crucial conference matchup.

One of the biggest stories of the weekend was Northern Iowa pulling off an upset over North Dakota despite only having 144 total yards. After their first scoring drive, UNI's longest drive for the whole game was only 28 yards. North Dakota found a way to bail the Panthers out by being even worse offensively in every key moment of the game. The Fighting Hawks had five turnovers, went 1-of-4 on 4th down, and averaged a terrible 4.1 yards per pass.

Another week, another game in which Incarnate Word performs better down to down than their opponent, but finds a way to lose the game. This week was less about them getting unlucky and more about Lamar's ability to produce explosive plays. In particular, two runs of 57 and 62 yards by Jojo Uga and Parker Jenkins. If you remove those two plays, UIW held Lamar to 3.5 yards per carry for the game.

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