Two for the Money

The 2008 Irish have out gained 9 of their 10 opponents this season in total offense, while the defense has not given up more than 24 points during regulation in any 1 game. How are the 6-4 Irish not 8-2 or even 9-1? Two reasons explain, with the second being the most important:

The lack of a consistent rushing attack - This will always be a reason why teams struggle. The inability to get 3 yards rushing when you need it - or more directly, the inability to force a defense to respect your ground attack - will cause major issues. Defenses prey on more passes, causing turnovers. Fewer first downs are gained, particularly easier, 3 and 4 yard third down plays late in a game. Here is how we look for the season, through 10 games:

• Total Rushing Offense - Irish rank 84th in the country at 127 yards per game. To get to where I think a Weis offense should be, at a minimum, is about in the top 40 in the country. Right now Louisville ranks #40 in the country with 173 yards per game. Quite simply, we need to improve our rushing attack by 50 yards per game to be approaching "dangerous".



• Total Rushing Yards per carry - The Irish sit at 3.66 ypc for the season. The Irish need to be averaging at least a yard better per carry. But even 4.66 ypc would only yield 166 yards per game (given the same number of carries per game as has occurred - 34.5), which would slot the Irish 46th best in the country. That would be good but not great.
  

Now on to the #1 reason the Irish don't have a better record than 6-4 . . .

Turnovers - The Irish rank 102nd in the country in turnovers, giving up 25. Compare that with Florida, who has given up the 3rd fewest in the country with 10 (through the same number of games). The bad news is that Florida is almost as young on offense as the Irish. The good news is that Florida is most experienced and skilled as the most important turnover position - quarterback. A few game perspectives on how turnovers effected the outcome . . .

• The Pitt game - The Irish played sub-par, particularly on offense in the 2nd half. Pitt is a very solid but not great team. Yet the Irish clearly should have won the game and likely are a better team on their best days. Why? The Irish committed zero turnovers! Just by not turning over the ball, we should have won the football game without an even average performance by the Irish otherwise. If we turn the ball over once or twice, Pitt likely wins in regulation.



• The BC and UNC games - In both road games, the Irish turned the ball over 5 times, while the opponent turned the ball over 0 times. Our offense out gained their offense in both games (472 to 322 in the UNC game, 292 to 246 in the BC game). When you give the other team 7 points on interception returns (7 in both games), and then you follow that up by giving the other team field position inside the 50 yard line twice, you are not going to win football games. Against UNC, one less turnover and the Irish likely win the game. Against BC, it would have taken a reduction of 2 to have a chance. Amazing - we could have reasonably won both games and still had 4 to 0 turnover deficit against UNC and a 3 to 0 against BC.



• Navy - Yes, we actually won this game. Despite the 5 turnovers we had against Navy!! Yes, Navy gave us a turnover, so the margin was only 5-1 against us. Easily add 10 points to our score - if not 14 or 21 - if the Irish simply do not turn the ball over. The game never has a chance to be close with bad officiating and ridiculous onsides kicks.



• Road games turnover margin (5 games) - 19 turnovers by the Irish . . . only 2 by the 5 opponents



• Home games turnover margin (5 games) - 6 turnovers by the Irish . . . 16 by the 5 opponents.



• For the season, the Irish turnover margin of 25 turnovers lost to 18 turnovers gained is not good. 102nd in the country at giving it away, but 63rd in takeaways, despite the lopsided (seemingly backwards) numbers.

Certainly there are other contributing factors to a lesser extent. The playcalling has been bad at times, the inability to generate tackles for a loss on defense is another. But these reasons pale in comparison to the amount of points we have given opponents via turnovers, which are largely related to over-use of the pass resulting from the inability to run the ball.

Any improvement in the Irish win-loss total for the 2009 season will be a direct correlation to improvement in these two areas. Particularly turnovers on the road, which is the most telling stat of anything above. Hopefully the Irish can make a few strides to improvement in the final 3 games.