CFB Week 2 Recap

Ryan Rubinstein (0:08)

Welcome to the Off The Charts Football Podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Rubinstein. I'm joined today by our Ops member, Andrew Oja and James Weaver of our Research and Development Department. We have a great show for you guys today. We're going to be recapping the first couple of weeks of the college football season, focusing more on all the action that happened this past weekend. We're going to jump right into it. What are we starting to start out with? In my opinion, it's been the game of the season so far. It could end up being the game of the season when all of a sudden done.

Ohio State, Texas. Oja, what can you tell me about this game? What went right? What went wrong? Why was this game so close?

Tell me.

Andrew Oja (0:43)

Texas got really lucky in this game. They did their best to lose it time and time again. Just really got the bounce of the ball rolled their way every single time pretty much. They had two back-to-back fumbles that they ended up falling on top of. They muffed a punt that, again, right there to fall on. But they really tried to give Ohio State this victory.

The missed field goal at the end, all of the things that the football gods have the impact on ended up making this game go Texas' way. But they really tried to give it to them. Quarterback play from Arch was very solid.

The drops from the Texas receivers really, really let him down. I think his IQR versus actual rating would have been a significant difference. The first drop was the most inconceivable interception that you could ever imagine. And yeah, beyond that, I think that the game, he started to get a good feel for it. As the game went on, he made good adjustments. His receivers started to actually catch the football.

And then, yeah, Texas really found a way to put some drives together in the second half. Basically, their run game was very a tale of two different elements. Whenever they were in a single back look, things looked a little rough. They weren't able to get that same push. The RPO passing wasn't really opening up for them in the same way. Second half, they started to go to a lot more to backfield spreads, where you had your tight end, you know, either in motion or in the backfield coming in as your lead blocker. And that really opened things up for them. Other than that, I think that the game really, again, it was one of these things where they just did not win it so much as Ohio State lost it.

Ryan Rubinstein (2:26)

Seems like the collapse hurt around the world for this one. James, can you tell me anything interesting about the win probability throughout this game? How close was Ohio State to really, like, locking this one up? And with that missed field goal towards the end there, like, what did their chances actually drop to?

James Weaver (2:42)

Yeah, at the beginning of this game, I mean, we had Ohio State rated as the better team already. So we were already kind of looking at 65, 70% win percentage for Ohio State to start this game. And when we got to about 349 left in the third quarter, I believe there was a Texas penalty to knock them back on that drive. We had Ohio State up to a 98% chance to win this game. Obviously, some things changed there. And even when we got to the field goal attempt, we still had Ohio State an 88% chance to win the game. So this is just kind of an all out collapse. And to be honest with you, it really came down to two things, in my opinion. The first being Texas' offensive line really took charge there in the third and fourth quarter. They were, like Andrew had mentioned, they were really taking advantage of those two back sets. They were grinding, they were pounding in between the center and the guards right into the teeth of Ohio State defense. And to my knowledge, it was hot knots on Saturday night. And they really took advantage of that with the team coming from up north, coming down south. And they were really able to get the push on the line of scrimmage as they needed. And they were a team that outgained Ohio State from an EPA per attempt perspective. By the end of the game.

And then the second thing is, you know, Andrew mentioned earlier about the touch of God and the luck and all this stuff. When do you see Jeremiah Smith drop footballs, man? His two key drops on the third down and the first down on that second and last drive they had.