Spiff's Spots of Observations and Other Statistical Nonsense

I went to the RSL game on Saturday night (they scored more than BYU - 6 goals vs 4 touchdowns) but I was able to remain spoiler free before getting home at 11 and starting the BYU game. It made for a late night, but I was able to fast-forward through commercials and half-time.



I was thoroughly impressed with what I saw on both sides of the ball - especially in the trenches. It's not often BYU controls the line of scrimmage against a P5 team. Michigan St might be the last time that happened but that was 20 games ago.



Some observations:

- BYU's 21 3rd quarter points were the most since also scoring 21 against Michigan St in the 4th in 2016.



- The Cougars were scoreless in the 1st quarter for the 13th time under Sitake in 27 games.



- Arizona was also scoreless in the 1st, the 10th time an opponent has been held scoreless under Sitake.



- Mangum had a PER of 138.77. It was just the 7th such game under Sitake (BYU has won 6 of them).



- BYU won the PER battle (138.77 to 108.38). The team with the better PER has won 14 of the last 16 games (.875) and 22 of the 27 games under Sitake (.815).



- Sitake improved to 6-4 (.600) against teams with a white helmet.



- BYU is also 4-1 (.800) when wearing all-whites under Kalani.



- The 10 BYU penalties were the most since also being flagged 10 times against Utah in 2016.



- The Defense did not force a turnover. It was the 3rd time in the last five games, they've failed to do so.



- Arizona gained 4 first downs from BYU defensive penalties, the most since Toledo in 2016 also had four.

Great stuff. Good win by the Cougs, still some things to clean up.

10 penalties! Didn't realize it was that many.

We also had 0 sacks (busted play where Mangum had nobody to give to counted as a run). Any stats on sack counts and how they correlate with wins?

redneckjedi wrote:

We also had 0 sacks (busted play where Mangum had nobody to give to counted as a run). Any stats on sack counts and how they correlate with wins?

Sackless teams aren't usually very good.

redneckjedi wrote:

We also had 0 sacks (busted play where Mangum had nobody to give to counted as a run). Any stats on sack counts and how they correlate with wins?

My stats may not be perfect, but by my count, since 1996, BYU has given up 0 sacks 51 times. Of those 51 games, BYU won 45 of them. That's a .882 winning percentage.



BYU has won all six of its road games against P5 opponents when the Cougars gave up 0 sacks.

SpiffCoug wrote:

We also had 0 sacks (busted play where Mangum had nobody to give to counted as a run). Any stats on sack counts and how they correlate with wins?

My stats may not be perfect, but by my count, since 1996, BYU has given up 0 sacks 51 times. Of those 51 games, BYU won 45 of them. That's a .882 winning percentage.



BYU has won all six of its road games against P5 opponents when the Cougars gave up 0 sacks.

So...sackless does win you games...