Stats and Benchmark Report, Rocket Edition

My view is that this week we can get a lot out of all this.

Starting for BG's offense...I think it magnifies just how ineffective BG's offense was.  Running was weak and passing was actually weaker on a per play basis.  BG was poor on 3rd down, gave up way too many sacks for the number of attempts...BG only redeemed itself by not having any turnovers.  The offensive effort was probably the worst this year with the exception of Wisconsin.  When you can't run the ball but you still have to run the ball 45% of the time...and when the other team is stopping the run while not over-committing men to the box and opening the pass...that's a terrible offensive game.  I felt like BG invested way too many plays in going deep.  I assume they were trying to open the box up, but the result was a lot of missed plays on low percentage passes, especially with that wind.

The UT offense/BG defense had many of the same issues.  In fact, UT's passing offense was not effective at all.  More than 1 in 5 of their attempts resulted in a sack or INT and when you deduct sacks they had about 40 yards passing.  They also fumbled, were just OK on 3rd down, etc.  What they were was good in the red zone and most of all dominant in the run game.  Sack Adjusted, UT averaged 6.9 yards per run and ran the ball on more than two out of 3 plays.  Essentially, when it came to offense there was only one thing that worked for either team, and it was enough for UT to win the game.