FanPost

Some Sad USF Football Stats

* In the last 4 years, USF has only beat 2 D1 teams who ended up in the top 50 of the BCS computers that season (2011 ND was 27, 2013 Cincy was 49). The other 11 wins came against teams ranked #76 or worse, or against AA teams who had no rankings: 2011 Ball St (83), 2011 UTEP (94), 2011 Cuse (82), 2012 Nevada (76), 2012 UConn (80), 2013 UConn (93), 2014 UConn (119), 2014 Tulsa (118), and 2014 SMU (127). (Data per Massey Ratings)

* It bears repeating that the 3 D1 teams we beat this year were ranked 118, 119, and 127, and we beat them by a combined 12 points. USF was losing to the #118 team by 20 at the half, and by 14 to the #127 team in the 4th quarter. We almost blew a 10 point lead in the 4th quarter to the #119 team at home.

* This year, until the UCF game, USF had the 126th ranked strength of schedule (out of 128). Meaning we were 4-7 against the 3rd easiest schedule in the nation. Playing a 7-4 UCF team made our SOS jump to a brutal #115. (Rankings per TeamRankings.com)

* The BCS rankings of the teams USF lost to in 2014: MD (44), NC St. (62), Wisconsin (14), East Carolina (50), Cincinnati (46), Houston (72), Memphis (41), and UCF (53). They were 3-0 against teams ranked 118 and below, and 0-7 against teams ranked above 118. (Western Carolina not ranked)

* The rankings of the teams USF lost to in 2013: Michigan St. (5), FAU (79), Miami (37), Louisville (18), Houston (49), Memphis (102), SMU (89), and UCF (17, the fact that they were this low shows the flaw in this analysis).

* I suppose there is hope in seeing the #102 Memphis Tigers jump to #41 this year (USF is #104 this year per Massey), but there were signs of improvement in Memphis' F/+ ranking. They were #94 in 2012, #83 in 2013, and now #40. This shows they were improving, but the improvement hadn't quite translated into wins. According to Football Outsiders, USF is ranked #122 out of 128 in F/+. Last year, USF was #99 out of 125. The F/+ rankings from 2005-2014 are: 34, 34, 11, 35, 59, 40, 35, 73, 99, 122. [No, that's no a typo: Skip's 5-7 2011 campaign was #35 in F/+, so there's that.] So, USF is regressing. Also, USF will not be able to avoid UCF and ECU like Memphis did this year.

* A stat that I'm sure doesn't tell the whole story, but still: Skip Holtz lost 7 games by 10 or more in his 3 years, and 3 of those 7 were in his last 3 games. Willie Taggart has lost 16 games by 10 or more in his 2 years. (This stat probably says more about BJ Daniels than Holtz vs. Taggart, since those last 3 games for Holtz came right after BJ got hurt.)

* In 2013, USF lost to McNeese St. by 32 points, the largest margin of victory by a I-AA over a BCS opponent. [This made me realize we are no longer a BCS opponent]

* Current NCAA rankings (all out of 128) for USF in 2014: Scoring Offense (#119), Total Offense (#118), Passing Offense (#91), Passing Efficiency (#111), Rushing Offense (#115 - like you, I expected this to be higher), First Downs (#119), 3rd Down Conversions (#90), Completion Percentage (#121), and Red Zone Offense (#118). [So, our offense is really, really bad]

Fewest Penalties per game (#76), Fewest Penalty Yards Per Game (#94) [This means that, not only do we get a lot of penalties, but when we do, they are exceptionally bad penalties, like chop blocks.] Time of Possession (#99)

Passing Defense (#45), Rushing Defense (#82), Total Defense (#73) [They have a good defense, but once they got tired, teams ran on them a lot.], 3rd Down Conversion Percentage (#112) [We were really bad about getting a team off the field on 3rd down], 4th Down Conversion Percentage (#124) [USF gave up 90% of opponent's 4th down conversion attempts. Ninety Percent!]

* Speaking of Passing: over the last two seasons, USF's five QBs are 345-721 (47.85%), with 18 TDs and 27 INTs. Mike White's completion percentage has dropped from 53% in 2013 to 50.5% in 2014. The only teams in the NCAA with a worse completion percentage than USF (49.2%) are Army, Navy, Hawaii, and Miami (OH). Most of Army and Navy's passes are in 3rd-and-long situations.

* So, why was USF's rushing game so low at #115? They only averaged 107.9 yards rushing a game. Teams dared USF to beat them with the pass, and USF could not do it. Combine the poor passing completion percentage with the high penalty rate, and you get a situation where USF was put in long situations, which made it impossible to control the clock (which is why USF is #99 in time of possession) and convert 1st downs (which is why USF was #112 and #124 in 3rd and 4th down conversion rate).

* According to Rivals, USF's 2015 class is currently ranked #79 in recruiting. From 2002 to 2014, USF's recruiting rankings were: 91, 61, 57, 50, 59, 58, 54, 29, 62, 64, 49, 49, and 39. There is a good amount of time remaining, but USF is on pace for its worst recruiting class since 2002. That 2002 class was the class recruited during the 2001 season, which was USF's first as a D1-A school. Recruiting doesn't ultimately matter, although the narrative on Coach Taggart is that he's an excellent recruiter. Last year's class was well ahead of this year's pace. We should be careful if we expect the cavalry to be coming.

This post was created by one of our blog's readers.

In This FanPost

Teams

Trending Discussions