ISU should go for it on almost every 4th down

[StLouisClone]

I was talking to a guy in my office who is a huge football fan, and he claims that somebody did a study that proves a team would be better off if they went for it on just about every 4th down rather than punting it (statistically speaking anyway). That got me thinking about ISU. I noticed that our defense is actually better with a short field than they are with a long field. For 2008 at least, ISU would have been better off going for it on almost every 4th down. Besides, what difference does it make if Mizzou goes 80 yards or 40 yards? Going for it on 4th down would give the offense a chance to score some more points and perhaps keep up. What do you think? Is there a coach alive that would be willing to take that risk? Mike Leach goes for it on 4th down more than any coach I know of, and he's been pretty successful. I don't think that's mere coincidence.

 

[CrossCyed]

That'd be neutralizing our most effective player this year, actually.

 

[ketelmeister]

I was talking to a guy in my office who is a huge football fan, and he claims that somebody did a study that proves a team would be better off if they went for it on just about every 4th down rather than punting it (statistically speaking anyway). That got me thinking about ISU. I noticed that our defense is actually better with a short field than they are with a long field. For 2008 at least, ISU would have been better off going for it on almost every 4th down. Besides, what difference does it make if Mizzou goes 80 yards or 40 yards? Going for it on 4th down would give the offense a chance to score some more points and perhaps keep up. What do you think? Is there a coach alive that would be willing to take that risk? Mike Leach goes for it on 4th down more than any coach I know of, and he's been pretty successful. I don't think that's mere coincidence.

and we should run the option every time.

 

[throwittoblythe]

They did a report on outside the lines about this. From what I can remember, it was a statistical analysis of how teams fared over the last X years when they went for it on 4th down.

The study found that you have a high percentage of sucess if you go for it on 4th down. What they failed to consider was the fact that usually a coach will not go for it on 4th down unless a) he has to or b) he knows he has a real shot. It's case B that biases the data, in my mind.

 

[MadCy]

I was talking to a guy in my office who is a huge football fan, and he claims that somebody did a study that proves a team would be better off if they went for it on just about every 4th down rather than punting it (statistically speaking anyway). That got me thinking about ISU. I noticed that our defense is actually better with a short field than they are with a long field. For 2008 at least, ISU would have been better off going for it on almost every 4th down. Besides, what difference does it make if Mizzou goes 80 yards or 40 yards? Going for it on 4th down would give the offense a chance to score some more points and perhaps keep up. What do you think? Is there a coach alive that would be willing to take that risk? Mike Leach goes for it on 4th down more than any coach I know of, and he's been pretty successful. I don't think that's mere coincidence.

Read that article attached, maybe this is what they were talking about?

 

[Cydog]

I know other teams have had great success going for it on 4th down against us. Anyone know what the exact numbers are? I can't recall us stopping anyone on 4th down off the top of my head but I could tell you lots of examples of teams converting against us, including Kansas on 4th and long.

 

[Tornado man]

All I know is my high school coach rarely let us go for it on 4th down, unless it was late, game on the line.
His philosophy was that the intensity on first, second and third down suffers if the players know that there is a good chance you will have one more play. He may have been right. We always knew that we'd better convert on third down, or we were coming off the field...

 

[ISUFan22]

In '06 against Texas Tech - punt was our best offensive play - seriously. No way we can give that up.

However, I'm really thinking it wouldn't be a bad idea for us to onside kick it about 50% of the time.

 

[mplscyclone]

As far as going for it on 4th: often times its a short yardage situation like 4th and 1 or 4th and inches where losing the field position doesn't hurt you too bad (outside of FG range, on the goal line, etc).

The other common situation is when it's 4th and long and you're going for desperation. Your QB isn't really giving a F about whether he throws and INT or not, he's just going to put it up there. You tend to play more risky in that situation.

As far as Texas Tech goes: they've been built around a high powered offense. They always have been putting up high amounts of points with Leech as their coach. Our offense struggles to get to the upper 20s.

To me, the data for going for it on 4th is based on some pretty specific situations and it's a pretty biased sample set.

 

[CyCloned]

ISU should figure out how to run for 1 to 2 yards when they have to, then they can worry about going on fouth down. I would bet that ISU has done better this year at 4th and 5+ yards than 4th and 2. The running play up the middle against MU at the 3 was amazing. How the heck can you line up in the I and run up the middle and loose 4 yards? The DL was in the backfield before AA had the ball pulled from under center.

 

[Cardinal&Gold11]

I don't think we should've gone for it one 4th down all the time, especially considering we could rarely get a yard or 2 when we needed it. Seemed like when we really needed a 1 or 2 yard gain, we got lit up in the back field

 

[SeattleClone]

I think our defense would be at their best if our opponents were only allowed two downs.

 

[Wesley]

Herm Edwards punted to the 12 and th opponent went onto get a fieldgoal Sunday and the Chief lost the game. I bet he wished he had that decision back.

 

[ianoconnor]

Brandtner for heisman.

 

[besserheimerphat]

TMQ (Tuesday Morning Quarterback on ESPN Page 2) preaches this tactic for the NFL, in which the average offensive play gains 5 yards. So, if it's 4th down and less than five (I'd guess that the majority of 4th down plays are less than five yards to the first down), you are actually playing the odds by going for it.

TMQ is a great read by the way, appearing every Tuesday during the NFL season. He writes a lot about non-football related items as well.

 

[StateThrowdown]

That'd be neutralizing our most effective player this year, actually.

haha! my thoughts exactly...

 

[MontyBurns]

If we go for it on 4th and short we would be better off with a fake punt than lining up the offense only to watch them go backwards.

When is the last time we tried a fake punt or fake field goal?

 

[Psyclone]

You need to also look at the statistics of opponents scoring on long drives versus short ones. Forgetting about ISU for a second, scoring on long drives is much less frequent, so going for it in bad field position is a big risk.

 

[StLouisClone]

Read that article attached, maybe this is what they were talking about?

That's it. It's a good read, and I think any coach should take 20 minutes to read Romer's analysis. It's interesting how his conclusions pretty much line up with how I would operate if I were a coach at ISU. You need to be more aggressive at ISU. I'll get to that later. How many coaches would be willing to:

- go for it every time on 4th and 3 or less when you are on your OWN end of the field.
- go for it every time on 4th and 9 or less when you are at your opponent's 33.
- go for it every time on 4th and goal when you are inside your opponent's 6 yard line.

The key to the whole article is that "aggression pays" and I think that's a big reason why offensive gurus like Pinkel, Mangino and Leach have been successful in the Big 12 and defensive gurus like McCarney and Prince have been less successful. The players seem to love coaches who take chances so it's really something that can snowball as we've seen happen at Texas Tech. I've always thought that Bob Stoops is pretty agressive for a defensive guy, and I really think Chizik will have to become the same way if ISU ever has a chance to become the next Tech. I just don't think ISU will be able to get the defensive recruits Chizik needs in his first few years to play a conservative style (ala the Big 10).

The key is also to make the most of every possession. That's especially important when your opponents have scored 35 or more points in EVERY Big 12 game this year except the CU game (28 points). By contrast, ISU has scored more than 35 points in ZERO games this year. Knowing that, there really is no reason to attempt as many FGs as ISU has attempted this year (23). That's way too many. It doesn't do much good to score 3 points when your Big 12 opponent is scoring an average of 4 points on every possession (296 total points on roughly 75 possessions). Are we trying to stay close or win the game?

I don't think Chizik is any more conservative than 80% of the coaches out there. I just want to see him move into the other 20%. Given what has happened this year, I'm somewhat optimistic that we'll see Gene re-evaluate things during the offseason and come out with a more aggressive approach in 2009. From where I sit, I can only hope!

 

[A-town Cy]

Brandtner only had 1 punt on Saturday.