Oklahoma State’s Points Per Drive So Far Shows Offense More Effective Than Defense

Points per drive is probably the most important statistic in football to me. Does it tell the whole story? No. But it tells you a lot. It tells you if you can get stops, and it tells you if you can get points. Ultimately the only two things that matter. Glenn Spencer agrees with this.

“Some teams will play 55 snaps today,” Spencer said after the TCU game last year. “I think we defended 17 possessions, 110 (snaps), so we just played two ball games compared to what some people do. That’s why the yardage thing is so irrelevant. People of influence have got to figure this out how to evaluate defense.”

We here, Glenn. We here. Unfortunately for him … we here.

Thankfully our friends over at BCF Toys have resumed charting their points per drive statistics so I don’t have to grind over my spreadsheets any longer. Here are OSU’s numbers through three games in non-garbage time possessions (FCS opponents do not count).

“He makes a point to tell us what our points per possession are every game,” Chad Whitener said after that same TCU game last year. “I think he said 1.5 is really good.”

Welp.

OSU is averaging 2.29 points per drive on offense which is very average (No. 57 in the country). It is allowing 2.34 points per drive which is below average at No. 72 in the country (better than OU though!). This is a trend with the defense unfortunately. This is pretty much exactly where Spencer’s last two defenses have landed at the end of the season. Those numbers are here.

This is not super surprising although I give OSU a bit of a pass against Baylor for only allowing 35 points to that high-powered offense. This is part of the reason I defend Mike Yurcich, though. He’s not necessarily been the reason OSU hasn’t won recently …

“Despite our record, I think we as a team have grown a lot closer,” said Jordan Burton on Monday. I think we’re a better unit, and it’s more of a brotherhood. Despite our record, that’s one of the best things we’ve had come out of it. It’ll get better.  You can take it either way. We try to look at the positives. We’re a couple of plays from being 4-0 but that also says we have a lot of potential that we can fulfill. We still haven’t played up to our best football, so that’s exciting to look forward to.”

Hopefully this is true because OSU hasn’t been very good on the defensive side of the ball at all.