Last Wyoming Point

One last point on Wyoming.  I listened to the Coach, and he said one thing I found pretty interesting, which was that he essentially views all turnovers as preventable.  Jim Schwartz has actually said that he thinks fumbles are random events and you do occasionally see a great play on an interception, but Coach says at some level they are a failure of ball security.

I see his point.  Even those crazy interceptions off the WRs hands are sometimes on the WR (should have caught the ball).  I didn't see any of the INTs out there that were great defensive plays.  So, in general, they should never happen.

I looked at the data for the MAC last year, analyzing turnovers as a percentage of offensive plays,

What does this tell us.  Essentially, a couple of things.

First, NIU had 3.5 times fewer turnovers than Ball State.

Second, we are dealing with really small numbers....it will be hard to know if defensive skill--or plain luck--are having much influence.

Third, what we never get is a measure of plays that should have been turnovers....dropped INTs or fumbles that go through someone's hands.

Still, it is clear that good teams took care of the ball much better than bad teams, who populate the +4% territory.

For the Wyoming game, even with 88 plays, BG turned the ball over on 6.8% of its plays.