Looking Ahead for the Texas Longhorns: Week 1 vs Louisiana Tech

[[Each week this season, I am going to do a comparison between Texas and their upcoming opponent on their ability to successfully turn drives into points and convert in various down and distance situations.]]

The Longhorns will meet the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs at DKR this Saturday. This will be the first ever match-up between these two teams.

Louisiana Tech is coming off of some decent seasons over the past few years, including an 8-5 season last year, and three straight 9-win seasons from 2014-2016.

From a drive efficiency standpoint, Louisiana Tech ranked 88th (of 130) in offense, and 46th in defense. This pairs somewhat well with the Longhorns, actually, who were 36th in Offense and 86th in Defense. According to my end of 2018 algorithmically generated rankings, the Longhorns came out at #9, while Louisiana Tech was down at #92.

Yards Gained by Down (Edge: Texas)

Bee Swarm Plots:

The Bee Swarm Plot (click here to view Texas and Louisiana Tech swarm plots in a new tab) shows each play at every down and distance, colored based on whether or not the series of downs resulted in a successful first down. Unsurprisingly, in shorter yardage situations, both teams were more successful than in longer yardage situations. However, higher ratio of orange to blue dots in the plot for Texas indicates that Texas was, overall, better at moving the ball on offense.

When Louisiana Tech was penalized on first down and faced 1st and >10 in 2018, they converted just 25% of the time. Texas did better than 59% (16/27) in these situations. Texas was, however, far more likely to face any given first down behind the sticks.

Boxen Plots:

The Boxen Plots tell a similar story. (Note that I set the y axis from -10 to 50. Louisiana Tech had a couple of plays >50 yards, and both teams had plays that lost more than 10 yards, but neither are particularly significant in the discussion of a standard set of downs). The interquartile range (25th percentile to 75th percentile) of plays gained on each down was similar, however, Texas’ median gain on second, third, and fourth down was higher than Louisiana Tech’s. Furthermore, Texas never lost yards on 4th down all season long.

Play Selection by Yards (per Play) Needed for a First

This, to me, is the most interesting part. First some assumptions that are made here:

Under all circumstances, a set of downs is approached with the idea in mind that the team in question will be punting or attempting a field goal on 4th down. (Obviously there are cases when teams operate with the knowledge that they will be going for it on 4th and adjust the play calling accordingly, but those cases represent such a small fraction of the total, that worrying about them does not significantly influence the analysis). As such, a team is considered to have 3 plays left on a 1st down, two plays left on 2nd, and one play left on 3rd. A play recorded as a Sack is assumed to have originated as a pass play, so while it goes down in the record-book as a run, it is counted in this analysis as a pass. A QB run for positive yards is considered a rush whether it originated as a pass play with no options down field, or a draw/designed run (the reason for this is a limitation in the data. Without re-watching every play and recording it manually, I just don’t have data that tells me that information).

(Web development is not my strong suit, so if you want to see full-size images of these figures, you can go here for Texas and here for LA Tech)

Annotated above the bars are the success rates of that play call at eventually getting a first down. Understandably, both teams choose to run the ball in short yardage situations, and pass in long yardage situations. Texas, however, is much more likely to run the ball at a very short down and distance than they are to pass it. Louisiana Tech, while somewhat successful with their longer down-to-go situation run choices, almost exclusively chooses to pass.

Texas is more successful at getting first downs at almost every single down-and-distance situation, regardless of their decision to run or pass.

Play Selection By Down (Texas (2018)):

Texas is about equally likely to pass or run the ball on first down.

Their conversion rate is about the same regardless of their decision to pass or run the ball. There is perhaps a slight edge toward finding success running the ball on first down.

Texas is slightly more likely to run the ball on second down.

The success rate on second down is almost dead even. Texas goes on to convert about 68% of the time on second down, regardless of called run or pass.

Texas is much more likely to pass the ball on 3rd down.

This one is tricky to draw conclusions on. Obviously the numbers say Texas is more successful when they run on 3rd down, but they also choose to run the ball much more frequently in short yardage situations, where is it objectively easier to convert. When choosing (or being forced to) pass it on 3rd down, Texas converts about half the time. They are about 58% successful when running the ball.

Texas’ play selection is almost dead even on 4th down (8/15 pass, 7/15 rush). Texas never attempted a 4th down longer than 4th and 6 last season and were 12/15 on the season, as seen from the chart below.

Play Selection By Down (Louisiana Tech (2018)):

Louisiana Tech is almost identical to Texas in that they choose to run the ball slightly more often than pass on first down.

Their success rates under both situations are lower than Texas’, but similar to the Longhorns, it does not make a significant difference one way or the other on which they choose.

Unlike Texas, Louisiana Tech is more likely to pass the ball on second down.

Despite their choice to pass the ball, they find slightly more success running, however, the difference is small.

Louisiana Tech passes the ball more than twice as often on third down.

When they are forced to pass, they are not very successful at all, with a conversion rate of less than 40%. When running (in shorter yardage situations), their success is nearly 70%, which is better than Texas.

Louisiana Tech attempted 21 4th down conversions last year. They chose to pass in 12 and run in 9. They found roughly equal success in both situations, however they were slightly more successful when they opted to run.

Field Goals (Edge: Texas)

Louisiana Tech actually has a slight edge when it comes to kicking at short distance (at least as far as we can say with a pretty small sample size based on last year’s data). Inside 30 yards, Texas was 4/5 last year while Louisiana Tech was 10/11. At longer distance, Texas is more consistent, hitting 8/13 at 40+ with a long of 52. Bailey Hale, the Louisiana Tech kicker, was just 3/8 at that distance, with a long of 46.

Conclusion

There’s no doubt that on paper, Texas is the better team. However, Louisiana Tech, despite their mishaps, are still a good team that should not be overlooked. Texas has struggled in season openers in the last two years under Herman, and with some lost offensive productivity, there might be some questions as to how the Longhorns will perform. Still, I expect Texas to come away from this one with a win.

Notes:

This is my first week ever doing this, so bear with me as I figure this all out, please! I have many ideas for features I want to track in the future. I want to

Track penalty yardage. (By the way, Texas was penalized more often than they received penalties in 2018. This goes both for number of calls and total yardage.) Get a better breakdown of average yards to go when a team decides to pass/rush at each down. Look at the punting game of each team and determine the impact that punting will have on the outcome. Clean up some of the graphs to make them easier to read.

If you want to help in the development of this site, please let me know! I am happy to include other original content!

If you have more ideas, please let me know!