The Sports Arsenal

League links of interest:

– Keeper’s College Football Ratings “Starters and Stats Lost” spreadsheet has been updated

– Hero Sports’ previews for The Citadel, Chattanooga, East Tennessee State, Furman, Mercer, and Samford (with more to come)

– The College Sports Journal’s preview for VMI, Chattanooga, ETSU, The Citadel, and Western Carolina (with more to come)

– Conference preview from “SoCon John”: Link

– Local columnist from Macon says Mercer is playoff-bound

– Terrell Owens is going to celebrate his Pro Football Hall of Fame induction in Chattanooga instead of Canton

– East Tennessee State signs 10-year marketing/sponsorship/media sales agreement that could be worth up to $15 million

– My analysis (such as it is) of the 2018 SoCon non-conference football slate

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While compiling information for my posts about The Citadel’s 2017 football statistics, I wound up with a spreadsheet that included stats for all the SoCon teams (league games only). I decided that it wouldn’t hurt anybody if I made an additional, SoCon-related post centered around that spreadsheet, with some random thoughts and observations.

Anyway, here it is:

2017 SoCon football statistics

As mentioned, these are conference-only stats for the nine league football teams. I got them from the SoCon’s own website, as this year the conference posted league-only numbers very early in the off-season. For that, I’m grateful.

All I’ve done here is put them on a Google spreadsheet, which was not exactly heavy lifting. I have added a few different categories for offense and defense (and one for the kicking game). There are also tabs for things like attendance, game length, and the coin toss, which I gathered myself (not that it was too hard).

I tried to make it as easy to read as possible, though I’m not sure I completely succeeded in doing so.

Below are a few comments, mostly arbitrary (but not capricious).

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When it came to the coin toss, most of the squads in the league were ready to defer at a moment’s notice.

I mean that literally. Seven of the nine conference teams, on winning the coin toss in a SoCon game, always chose to defer the option to the second half.

As I’ve written before, there is no question that the rise in teams deferring the option can be traced to the influence of Bill Belichick:

Among the many changes to the sport Bill Belichick has generated has been the growing trend of teams deferring after winning the opening coin toss. Gone are the days when teams licked their lips at the chance of opening the game with a scoring drive to take an early lead, as the option to delay that chosen possession until the start of the second half has increasingly become in vogue.

That’s in large part due to the way Belichick and Tom Brady have worked to flip games upside-down by scoring on the final possession of the first half and then scoring on the opening possession of the second half — the “dreaded double score,” as it’s come to be known by every broadcaster. If you can pull it off, it’s effective, and so many opposing coaches have opted to defer when they win the opening coin toss — especially when facing the Patriots.

Of course, you have to be careful that your team captains know what to tell the official after winning the coin toss in case you want to try something different, as Belichick himself learned a couple of years ago.

You also have to make sure they know what to do if the other team wins the coin toss, as Texas found out in 2014:

Texas defensive tackle Desmond Jackson apologized for his role in bungling the coin toss in the Longhorns’ loss to UCLA on Saturday.

UCLA won the toss and deferred its choice to the second half. That meant Texas would have the option of choosing to kick or receive to start the first half. The Longhorns chose to kick, allowing UCLA to choose to start the second half with the ball.

Thus, UCLA received to open both halves, essentially gaining a free possession. That was a big deal, as the Bruins wound up winning the game by three points, 20-17.

Back in the SoCon, Western Carolina and VMI were the league rebels, with both teams electing to receive when winning the coin toss (which each did three times last season).

What I found curious is that they didn’t always do so in non-conference games.

Western Carolina won the coin toss in both of its first two games, against Hawai’i and Davidson, and deferred the option each time. By the time the Catamounts played North Carolina at the end of the season, however, WCU was ready to go on offense, electing to receive in that game.

VMI also deferred after winning the coin toss in its season opener, against Air Force. I was unable to determine the coin toss winner for VMI-Robert Morris, though I suspect the Colonials won and took the ball.

The Citadel won the toss in its first game of the season, versus Newberry, and elected to receive. That is the only other non-conference game from last year that I found in which a SoCon team didn’t follow its standard defer-or-receive decision-making process.

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One thing I was curious about with regards to game length was whether or not instant replay review had an appreciable effect on time.

Last season, Mercer and The Citadel were the only two schools to have review capability. The fact the SoCon is playing conference games under two different sets of rules is beyond annoying, but that’s not my focus here. I’m just evaluating the length of the games.

The Citadel’s away games took on average 2:55 to play. When the Bulldogs played at Johnson Hagood Stadium, with instant replay review, contests took on average 3:06 to complete.

As for Mercer, it had an average home game time of 3:18. The average length for the Bears’ three non-JHS road games was 2:59 (and one of those games, against ETSU, went to overtime).

In terms of time, the games at Five Star Stadium were the longest conference road contests played by VMI, Wofford, and Chattanooga. Also, the second-longest SoCon road games for VMI and Wofford were their respective matchups at The Citadel.

Samford’s game at Mercer was the Birmingham squad’s second-longest league away matchup, in part because SU’s longest road game, at Western Carolina, was delayed in the fourth quarter by lightning.

The differential is rather striking. The league might claim that replay review has little to do with the time difference, and you can surely put some of it down to small sample sizes.

However, some of the reviews were very lengthy, including one in The Citadel’s game against Western Carolina that took much longer than what was stated on the game report. Both the length of the reviews and the accuracy of the game reports are issues that the conference must address.

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Other tidbits on the length of league contests:

• Shortest game: The Citadel at Chattanooga, 2:44
• Longest game: Samford at Western Carolina, 4:10
• Longest game not delayed by lightning: Chattanooga at Mercer, 3:31
• Teams that averaged under three hours per game on the road: VMI, The Citadel
• Teams that averaged over 3:10 per game on the road: Chattanooga, Furman, Samford
• Teams that averaged under three hours per game at home: VMI
• Teams that averaged over 3:10 per game at home: Mercer, Samford, Western Carolina

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I’ve also included a tab for league game attendance. A few quick notes:

• Largest crowd: Wofford at Mercer, 12727
• Smallest crowd: Samford at VMI, 3310
• Largest home crowd variance: Samford, 3523 vs. Chattanooga and 9233 vs. The Citadel
• Smallest home crowd variance: ETSU, 7087 vs. Wofford and 8022 vs. Mercer
• Largest road crowd variance: Samford, 3310 at VMI and 12018 at Western Carolina
• Smallest road crowd variance: The Citadel, 7521 at Chattanooga and 10105 at Furman

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Odds and ends, 2017 SoCon action edition:

– Western Carolina led the league in net rushing if you take sacks out of the equation (as you should). The most important player any league team will have to replace for the upcoming season, in my opinion, is former WCU running back Detrez Newsome.

– Furman quarterbacks were only sacked twice in conference play, despite 142 pass attempts. The Paladins’ 1.4% sack against rate was easily the league’s best. The SoCon average was 6.3%.

– The passes defensed rate in league action was 12.6%. Samford led the conference in PD rate, at 15.8%, slightly ahead of Western Carolina.

– The Citadel led the conference in time of possession (and led FCS in that category as well).

– The kickoff touchback rate in SoCon play was 28.8%, but East Tennessee State’s t-back rate was 72.7%, by far the highest in the conference.

– Wofford’s +10 turnover margin was the best in the league. VMI trailed the field with a -18 margin.

– The average yards per play in conference games was 5.22. The top offense in y/p was Furman (6.68). The best defense in the category was Samford (4.72).

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There are now less than two months to go before the season begins. The first league game takes place on September 1, when The Citadel plays at Wofford.

We’ll be ready.

Filed under: Football | Tagged: Chattanooga, East Tennessee State, Furman, Mercer, Samford, SoCon, The Citadel, VMI, Western Carolina, Wofford |