How much better?
Looking at the advanced stats from PuntJohnPunt, IU did a fantastic job stuffing the run in short yardage situations -- they held FIU to a success rate (usually a first down, in this case) of 26% - the national average on that stat is 43%. They struggled with the pass in the same situations, so we may see more teams try to spread us wide on third and short as the year goes on. But that's a stat to get excited about.
On passing downs (2nd or 3rd and long), the IU D struggled, but not as much as they did last week. They held FIU just below the national average, but please keep in mind that FIU was the nation's worst offense last year.
The offense worries me a bit with the passing game, but I'll get into that in a different post on a different day.
Long story short... the reason this was close (at all - if you look at the stats, it shouldn't have been) was Indiana's very, very poor conversion rate in scoring position. Indiana had the ball 9 times inside the opponent's 40, and got 36 points out of it. You have to learn to see a field goal as a failure in this situation -- the national average is about 3/4 of a touchdown in a scoring position (average of 5.0 points inside the opponent's 40), and Indiana got just a field goal (3.2). FIU's terrible offense got a 4.4.
You flat out can't settle for field goals as regularly as we did last week, and still expect to win football games -- even against mediocre to bad competition.
Looking at the advanced stats from PuntJohnPunt, IU did a fantastic job stuffing the run in short yardage situations -- they held FIU to a success rate (usually a first down, in this case) of 26% - the national average on that stat is 43%. They struggled with the pass in the same situations, so we may see more teams try to spread us wide on third and short as the year goes on. But that's a stat to get excited about.
On passing downs (2nd or 3rd and long), the IU D struggled, but not as much as they did last week. They held FIU just below the national average, but please keep in mind that FIU was the nation's worst offense last year.
The offense worries me a bit with the passing game, but I'll get into that in a different post on a different day.
Long story short... the reason this was close (at all - if you look at the stats, it shouldn't have been) was Indiana's very, very poor conversion rate in scoring position. Indiana had the ball 9 times inside the opponent's 40, and got 36 points out of it. You have to learn to see a field goal as a failure in this situation -- the national average is about 3/4 of a touchdown in a scoring position (average of 5.0 points inside the opponent's 40), and Indiana got just a field goal (3.2). FIU's terrible offense got a 4.4.
You flat out can't settle for field goals as regularly as we did last week, and still expect to win football games -- even against mediocre to bad competition.
