Numbers That Mattered: No. 6 Indiana vs. Michigan

Numbers drive so much in today’s world and the sports world is no different. Now more than ever teams are hiring and building analytics teams to get every edge possible over their opponents. Over the course of the season, we’ll look into many of those numbers following each of the Indiana Hoosiers’ matchups each week, so be on the lookout for that!

Without further ado, let’s get into it:

81

…Represents Indiana’s passing yards on Saturday, which lands as the 2nd lowest total in the Cignetti era. The lowest was during Cignetti’s inaugural season when Kurtis Rourke threw for 68 yards on 8 for 18 throwing in a 38-15 loss against the Ohio State Buckeyes. There are many plus sides to all of this, however. One, we know Hoover is not 100% healthy, Cignetti said it himself. Two, Indiana won the game despite the low passing totals. And three, Indiana should be able to beat Minnesota at home – maybe with Grant Wilson under center – and then go into a bye week where rest should be the #1 priority.

167

…Represents Michigan’s passing yards on Saturday, which was a key focus heading into the matchup between the Hoosiers and Wolverines. Whenever an unknown at quarterback makes his first career start – especially at a place where his grandfather made so famous – there is always a possibility for magic to occur. Fortunately, the Hoosiers played it smart. Defensive Coordinator Bryant Haines brought confusing schemes that Tommy Carr had likely never seen before and that, coupled with the speed and skill of Indiana’s defense, led to a measly 5.2 yards per attempt from the true freshman, which Indiana was able to stymie with ease.

5th

…Represents where Indiana ranks nationwide in Passing Explosiveness, which shows that while the Indiana passing game is still facing trouble as of this writing, they are still always good for explosive plays that change the game. This constant is a very valuable aspect of the Indiana offense as it allows points to be generated quickly, even when roadblocks appear. Ideally though, Hoover gets back to 100% after Indiana’s bye week and we begin to see a more complete offense yet again, instead of one that relies strictly on the big play. This metric is better when it’s complementary, instead of the main driver.

Success Rate

…Continuing on the topic of explosiveness being better when it’s complementary, I wanted to take a look at the Success Rate metric for Indiana on offense and defense. Success Rate is measured as, “The share of plays gaining at least 50% of needed yards on first down, 70% on second, or 100% on third/fourth. Higher is better on offense. Lower is better on defense.” I’ve pulled a chart below that illustrates how Indiana fares relative to the rest of the Big Ten and a few interesting takeaways result.

Being in the bottom right quadrant is a good thing. It shows that your offense has a higher than average Success Rate and that your defense has a lower than average Success Rate (which is good for defense). It seems that Indiana falls into 6th in Success Rate on offense and 3rd or 4th in Success Rate on defense. On the defensive side, this makes sense. But on offense, we are beginning to see dips in the data as the Indiana offense has fallen shorter than expectations over the past three weeks. This will absolutely need to be corrected should Indiana repeat as National Champions.

8th and 7th percentile

…Represents where Indiana and Michigan’s EPA/Play (expected points added per play) metrics fall after Saturday’s game when comparing against all other games in the FBS that were played in this week. It was not pretty at times, and it might go down as one of the worst offensive games this season when you combine both teams’ outputs, but Indiana was able to get the win nonetheless. It is in the boring and ugly games where champions are born, and Indiana being able to win on Saturday will serve as a big notch in their belt to build on into the future.

Huge thank you to collegefootballdata.com for their data, metrics, and charts, sports-reference.com for additional data pulls, and gameonpaper.com for additional metrics.

As always, thank you for reading! We’ll be back next week with more numbers and takeaways from the Hoosiers’ matchup against Minnesota this coming Saturday. Go IU!