Falcons in the Red Zone

I was a little surprised to see how effective Bowling Green has actually been in the red zone this season.  I ran across this when I was doing the 25 questions about Miami post.  I kind of had the impression we can not be especially good, but in fact, the opposite is true.

Based on the traditional measure, BG is 3rd in the MAC.  We have scored on 81.5% of our trips.  That's 22 out of 27, and only 2 of the five misses are drives that ended on offensive plays--the other 3 were missed FGs.

Even more importantly, 17 of those 22 scores are TDs.  In fact, on the progressive and morally correct measure--points per trip--BG is actually second in the MAC.  BG is getting 4.89 points per red zone trip.

Now, a couple caveats.  The NCAA average is 4.88 points per trip, so BG is second in a MAC with some poor red zone teams.  (Conference only stats might show a different result).  And, BG is getting only 3 red zone trips per game, which is a measure of overall offense.  The NCAA average is 3.79 trips per game.