Where OSU’s Offense and Defense Ranked This Season (And How it Compares to Season’s Past)

With only a handful of mostly meaningless bowl games left (and, oh yeah, the national championship game), the sample size for the 2022 football season is 99.9% complete. So how did OSU fare on both sides of the ball coming out of a disappointing season?

I crunched the numbers (OK, I googled it) and came to the conclusions below of where the offense and the defense finished nationally using non-advanced metrics. For the Dave Hudsons of the world, I also included some slightly more advanced metrics to satisfy the hunger for a more complete look at things from an efficiency perspective.

Let’s start with the offense using yards per game (total offense) as the baseline and work to the defense before getting into more numbers. As a reminder, there are 131 teams at the FBS level in college football.

Offensive ranks nationally/Big 12 this season

Total offense rank	Yards/g	Big 12 rank
No. 53 (out of 131)	405.1	8 (out of 10)

Defensive ranks nationally/Big 12 this season

Total defense rank	Yards/g	Big 12 rank
No. 115 (out of 131)	435.7	8 (out of 10)

Now some (slightly) more advanced numbers: points per play. This blocks out the noise for teams that either ran a ton of plays or were limited to fewer plays and provides a bigger picture for how efficient a unit was. Again let’s start with the offensive side of the ball.

Points/play rank	Points/play	Big 12 rank
No. 81 (out of 131)	0.349	9 (out of 10)

Now we go again to the defensive side of the ball for points per play data. You can see statistically OSU’s rank nationally is slightly better but only marginally. It helps that a lot of Big 12 teams were really, really bad.

Points/play rank	Points/play	Big 12 rank
73 (out of 131)	0.392	6 (out of 10)

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Where things compare to past OSU seasons

We know this season was a disappointment, but how do we compare it and contextualize it? Was it bad luck? Was it just a bad finish to the season? Where does the offense and defense rank historically?

I tried to answer that as best I could below with a look at where things finished this season and how they compared to other seasons. For this exercise I used points per play data because it does seem to block out some noise and even out total plays run by presenting a more complete picture of efficiency.

Let’s again start on offense where, somehow, the 2022 season’s efficiency was worse than the dreadful 2014 season on a points-per-play basis and a national rank basis. Using this metric the only less-efficient offense under Mike Gundy was his first one in 2005.

Year	Points/play	Natl rank
2022	0.349	81
2021	0.406	52
2020	0.379	70
2019	0.419	47
2018	0.464	22
2017	0.570	4
2016	0.484	21
2015	0.516	10
2014	0.365	75
2013	0.486	18
2012	0.539	6
2011	0.634	1
2010	0.586	4
2009	0.375	63
2008	0.553	9
2007	0.452	23
2006	0.512	8
2005	0.291	93

Now to the defense. The offensive numbers tell a story of historically very quality production. The defensive numbers, as expected, do not. Howevah, it’s still not too flattering to look at and a pretty stark drop off from the last few years where the unit was either top 25 or flirting with it.

Year	Points/play	Natl rank
2022	0.392	73
2021	0.271	10
2020	0.317	27
2019	0.381	57
2018	0.430	83
2017	0.384	63
2016	0.358	49
2015	0.397	74
2014	0.411	83
2013	0.28	13
2012	0.371	51
2011	0.311	26
2010	0.313	28
2009	0.315	31
2008	0.398	74
2007	0.418	82
2006	0.394	82
2005	0.461	106