OSU Offense, Defense Have Both Been Average Against FBS Opponents

Ah points per drive, my old friend. The best measure of the health of an offense or defense in college football. Did you get stops on defense? Did you score points on offense? That’s all that really matters, right?

My usual spot for getting points per drive numbers, the great BCF Toys, has not posted PPD numbers so far this season so I took things into my own hands without OKC Dave’s help (which is usually not a great idea). I charted every drive that wasn’t a kneel down from the first three games to get some numbers for points per drive allowed and scored for Glenn Spencer’s defense and Mike Yurcich’s offense.

Some notes:

• The BCF Toys PPD throws out garbage time drives … I did not.

• I counted defensive TDs which lowered the PPD on both sides (good for OSU defense, bad for OSU offense) … this seems like a fair way to do it. If you get or give up a bunch of pick-sixes, those should count positively for a defense and negatively for an offense.

• I counted TDs worth seven and FGs worth three.

• I did nothing with special teams so the fumbled punt return by Madre Harper in Week 1 does not show up anywhere. That’s not offense or defense. It’s actually a punt for the offense. Or that’s how I scored it.

Here is a look at OSU’s numbers.

Defense

• 45 drives faced
• 9 TDs allowed
• 2 FGs allowed
• 26 punts forced
• 1 TD scored (Ramon!)
• PPD: 1.37
• PPD vs. FBS opponents: 2.06

This 1.37 overall number would rank in the top 15 in the country based on last year’s numbers. Of course you also don’t get to play SE Louisiana once every three games. The FBS-only number would have ranked No. 61 in the country last year.

Offense

• 43 drives
• 15 TDs
• 5 FGs
• 16 punts
• 1 TD given up (Mason!)
• PPD: 2.63
• PPD vs. FBS opponents: 2.16

The overall number would rank around No. 30 in the country based on last year’s numbers. The FBS-only number would have ranked No. 60. So you can see the offense and defense, at least against Power 5 opponents, have been quite similar (and very average) so far.

If you want to even be competitive in Big 12 play, that offensive number needs to be north of 2.5. Last year OSU ranked No. 23 in points per drive (2.70) and No. 73 in points per drive on defense (2.24).

This is a fairly small sample size, though, that will get more robust as the season wears on. I plan on updating it throughout the year. You can look at the raw data here.