What Do Advanced Stats Tell Us About Oklahoma State-Kansas State?

How about @BradF79 making an appearance on the blog for the second straight week. He’s back with a deep dive into the advanced metrics ahead of OSU-KSU this weekend. Excellent stuff.

As always, before we get started, you can find the glossary for the advanced statistics here.

Most of you I’m sure have heard the trends on Oklahoma State in Manhattan, 1-8 there since 1988, their lone win coming in 2010 with a 24-14 victory.  Outside of that year, the home team has a history of winning this game.  This will be a significant test for this team coming off the huge victory over West Virginia on Saturday…

Five Factors

As always, we are going to get started with the Five Factors.

We’ll start this discussion with when Oklahoma State has the ball…  There are clear advantages for OSU in 3 of the 5 items, perhaps the most glaring one in success rate.  

KSU is allowing teams to have success nearly 45 percent of the time, that’s 95th (out of 128) in FBS.  Despite that number, they are doing a good job of limiting teams inside the 40 (giving up 4.22 points per trip), and we all know that there is a perception that OSU has struggled there, but that 5.08 value isn’t terrible either at 35th in the country.  

KSU has given up some big plays (IsoPPP) and will definitely have their work cut out for them again this week against the OSU offense. OSU’s +10 in turnover margin and haven’t turned the ball over recently, a trend that needs to continue.

When Kansas State has the ball, they aren’t without their advantages. While not explosive at all (least explosive team in FBS), they are very successful, capable of driving the length of the field with good success rates. KSU will attempt to chew the clock and wear out the defense.  They are very good at scoring once inside the 40 as well. OSU will hope to take advantage of their #1 in FBS opponent starting field position making KSU drive the length of the field hoping for a mistake or a stop.

That along with the defensive rotations OSU is using may help them limit KSU’s scoring opportunities.  One important thing to note is KSU does NOT turn the ball over which may limit the OSU’s defense ability to impact the game as they have the past few weeks.

Unadjusted Success Rates

Moving on to unadjusted (not modified based on the opponent difficulty) success rates and explosiveness values…

Again, starting with the OSU offense… Immediately you should notice the passing success rate matchup. KSU is allowing over 50 percent success rates vs the pass, last in FBS.

But while teams are having success, they aren’t getting much in the way of big plays. KSU’s defensive 1.36 IsoPPP value is in the top 30 (No. 29) in FBS. The offense this week may look a lot like last week, few big plays, but enough of the intermediate routes to work down the field. Rudolph must be accurate on these throws.  

OSU is struggling with giving up sacks on passing downs and KSU’s sack rates on passing downs are right around average. Keep on eye on KSU DL Jordan Willis however as he has eight of the 17 sacks for KSU this season (and 11.5 tackles for loss).

OSU’s running game seems to be improving, but it’s still a major work in progress, still getting stopped at or behind the line on nearly 25 percent of all runs, and while the power success rate is good, the yards blocked and the opportunity rate of the RBs is not.  

KSU defense will be a huge test on the running game as their ability to stop the power game is 2nd in the country and their stuff rate is 15th.  Their opponent-adjusted defensive line yards (not listed in the chart above) is 127.8 ypg which is 8th in the country.  

I think we all know what KSU does on offense and their 52 percent success rate at doing it is 6th in the country. Surprisingly, they have an even lower explosive rate than the OSU offense does in the run game, but paired vs the OSU defense that has given up big runs, that could change.  

Their opportunity rate and power success rates are both top 15 in the country as well.  OSU has done a good job of stopping the run (except for the big plays) so this should be a good matchup. Their standard down success rate is great as well which was a big emphasis last week vs West Virginia as well. OSU definitely wants to put them in 2nd/3rd and long situations.

KSU’s passing game isn’t as bad as you would think (41 percent success rate), pretty average and for a team that runs as well as they do, that’s generally enough. They do not hit you with the big play either, their IsoPPP numbers on offense for passing and passing downs are all extremely low.  

OSU has good numbers for passing down defense (limiting teams to 25 percent success rate), but they must get KSU into passing downs for that strength to be evident.

Drive Success Rates

Before we get into opponent-adjusted play-by-play numbers, this week we are going to look at some drive-based metrics (which does include one opponent-adjusted number).  These were not included last week, so I’ll give a brief run-down of the definitions.

Opponent-adjusted efficiency is an efficiency number adjusted for opponents based on each possession (not each play). First down is the percentage of drives that achieve at least one first down.  

Available yards is total number of yards earned by the offense divided by the number of yards available to be earned based on starting field position.

Value drive is the % of drives that begin at least 50 yards from the end zone and reach the opponent’s 30-yard line. Touchdown is the percentage of drives that result in a TD.  

Touchdown / First Down is the percentage of drives that result in a TD after a FD has been gained.  Turnover is the % of drives that result in a turnover.

The OSU offense certainly looks better when you look at it from a drive view instead of a play by play view. These numbers are all top 35 in FBS. The KSU defensive numbers are fairly average.

The numbers that stick out the most are their turnover numbers (getting a turnover on 13 percent of opponent drives) and their available yards and value drive numbers, giving up nearly 51 percent of available yards and nearly 45 percent of opponent drives reaching their 30 yard line.  

Don’t be fooled however, since these are non-opponent adjusted rates, their opponent-adjusted efficiency of .24 is good (38th in FBS).  They’ve played Stanford, WVU, OU, and TTU.

KSU’s offense, like OSU, is not turning the ball over. Both teams are turning it over around 8.5 percent of the time.  KSU is getting a first down on 76 percent of all drives, luckily their touchdown/first down number is only 37 percent. OSU defense is giving up a TD after a FD on 40 percent of drives.  

Pay attention to this matchup on Saturday, can OSU get off the field after giving up a first down.  Something else to watch, on both sides is the turnover battle. OSU defense has been excellent at getting turnovers and KSU is not turning it over much. The opponent-adjusted offensive numbers for KSU are NOT good. That -0.11 number is 79th in FBS.  

We will take another look at a few other stats tomorrow.