Thursday, October 05, 2006

A Big Drop in Scoring This Season

Scoring is down this season 10.8% compared to 2005. This statistical goodie comes to us from Marty at cfbstats. In 2005, before rule 3-2-5-e, the average game through Week 5 totaled 52.61 points. In 2006, 46.93 points are being scored. The number of plays have been reduced by 15.97, which is a drop of 9.6%. In the first half, scoring has decreased 8.28%, and second-half scoring has dropped 14%. We are at a loss to explain the second-half figure. Overtime scoring has not been factored in because the clock is not involved in overtime sessions and the numbers are included only for reference. Again, if you use any of this information, please credit cfbstats. Here is the breakdown:

Year......G........Points.....Pts/G
2005......280.....14732.....52.61
2006......312.....14642.....46.93

Year.......G......1H Pts...1H Pts/G...2H Pts...2H Pts/G...OT
2005......280....7504.....26.80.......7043.....25.15.......185
2006......312....7669.....24.58.......6747.....21.63.......226

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Marty is the man. My guess would be, that if you looked at plays/point in the first and second half, they would remain consistent. Since you have less plays in the 2nd half, with teams sitting on the ball, you have less points.

2005 - 3.2 plays/point
2006 - 3.24 plays/point

Anonymous said...

re: 2nd half points being down. Could be attributed to teams winning big in early season OOC games taking their foot off the gas to keep from running up the score on a lessor team. Just a thought.

Anonymous said...

The problem is that in the 2nd half a team that has fallen behind realizes that it doesn't have much time to make up the deficit.

By the start of the 3rd quarter they are already scrapping their game plan and resorting to the desperate passing game that you would normally see halfway throught the 4th quarter.

The better teams know this and get their defenses ready to clamp down and protect the lead.

It's a shame that Television has forced this rule change that ruins the experience for the coaches, fans and players.

I say, get rid of the TV Timeouts!

(Players will also get peeved when NFL scouts don't see as many impressive numbers as before - especially rushing stats.)
.

Anonymous said...

This makes the accomplishments of Garrett Wolfe even more impressive.