Nerd Box Score: Oklahoma State-Baylor

Welcome to our first nerd box score of 2016. This one actually tells us quite a lot about how Saturday’s game turned out. Let’s take a look at it and then discuss what it means.

There are a few things that stick out here. Let’s walk through them in bullet points.

• That 1.84 points per drive number for OSU? Yeah, that’s not very good. Holding Baylor to 2.92 per drive is actually respectable (and would have been downright great if not for that last 99.5-yard drive), but 1.84 on offense is not going to win you very many Big 12 football games.

• OSU also “wasted” 273 yards which is a TON for them. By “wasted” I mean yards they gained on non-scoring drives. Usually this number is closer to 100 or 150 (shout to Mike Yurcich’s all-or-nothing offense) so 273 is a huge bummer when you only score 24 points.

• That -25 swing points is where the game flipped. I forgot Baylor got inside OSU’s 25 twice (!) in the first half and walked away with zero points. But OSU got inside Baylor’s 25 four times (!) in the second half and only netted three points. That is awful.

• OSU’s offensive efficiency was artifically high because Baylor hasn’t played anyone and normally only gives up about 250 yards per game. This will normalize as the season wears on. But yeah, OSU’s defensive efficiency wasn’t terrible. The problem on Saturday, contrary to what a lot of people are saying, was not the defense.