Four Key Football Stats Brian Billick head coach of the Baltimore Ravens wrote a book several years ago about about game planning and the duties of an offensive coordinator. You might chuckle at the notion of "offense" and "Baltimore Ravens" in the same sentence as they are known as more of a defensive team. However Brian wrote the book when he was with the Minnesota Vikings and at that time in the late 1990's he was considered among the top offensive minded coaches of the period. Under his direction as offensive coordinator the Vikings put up team and NFL record breaking numbers on offense. They also came within an inch of the Super Bowl during a 15-1 season before losing to the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship Game. The next season Brian was named head coach of the Ravens and of course has compiled a winning record as well as a Super Bowl victory. Here is a link to the book on Amazon for anyone interested: Developing An Offensive Game Plan. The book is about how much offense a team needs based upon detailed study of NFL games and down and distance situations. It determines the average number of first down plays, 2nd and long, 2nd and medium, 3rd and long, 3rd and medium, 3rd and short, etc. and outlines the number of plays roughly required for each situation. The content is pretty dry and mathematical but it is worth a read if the topic is of interest to you. On a side note in the book Coach Billick references multiple NFL studies that have been conducted over the years regarding factors that statistically correlate with winning football games. I could not find the NFL study mentioned however those four factors are: First down efficiency (% of 1st down plays that gain +4 yards) Red zone efficiency (% of scores when inside the 20 yard line) Explosive plays (+12 yard run plays & +16 yard pass plays) Turnovers (turnovers gained - turnovers lost) Performance in these four areas correlate to victories in pro football season after season. So out of curiosity I had to go back and check some old game files and see how USC performed in these areas. After crunching the numbers for 2006 I also wanted a baseline to compare them against for reference. Due to the similarities in terms of certain personnel positions I chose 2003 for comparison. Here is how the two seasons compared in these four dimensions. Year*/Category 1st Down Efficiency Red Zone Efficiency Explosive Plays Turnovers 2003 41% 95% 114 +20 2006 43% 90% 103 +4 *Note: For 2006 I have a full season of data.  For 2003 I used only four games Cal, Oregon State, Washington State, & Michigan to form a representative sample. Some surprising items of note came out of the study. First off was the slight edge in first down efficiency by the USC offense in 2006. A larger sampling of games might change the results somewhat but the data seemed to stabilize after 3 games and not change with the addition of the fourth game to the sample. It might move a couple of points but there was not looking like there was a ton of difference in regards to this key metric. Secondly Red zone efficiency in contrast was pretty similar. Here I suspect the sample size does effect the results as only about 20 trips to the red zone happened in the four game period. I suspect that both teams would be in the low 90% range if all the data were to be included. However for this study give a slight edge to the 2003 squad. Thirdly there was less of a difference in explosive plays than I suspected. This may result from the definition of what an explosive play is (+12 yard run or +16 yard pass) or there is less difference that I seemed to recall in this dimension. For confirmation sake I actually did go back and check every game file in 2003 on this key metric. The results were as follows. In 2003 there were 39 runs of greater than 12 yards and 75 pass plays of greater than 16 yards for a total of 114 explosive plays. In 2006 there were only 27 run plays of 12 yards and 76 pass plays of greater than 16 yards for a total of 103 explosive plays. The difference was mainly in the number of +12 yard run plays. The last category was the biggest difference maker between the two teams. The 2003 squad was #2 in the nation in turnover margin at +20 for the season. The 2006 squad was a good defensive team but produced no where near the same level of turnovers. In fact the team was a mere +4 for the season in this category. Head coach Pete Carroll always comments on the importance of this key category in football and yet I doubt most fans or commentators grasp its importance. What is the value of a +20 turnover margin? I can extrapolate using some historic data. For starters the average field position for USC after forcing a turnover the past few years has been the opponents 40 yard line. From inside the 40 yard line the USC offense is very aggressive and tends to score about 70% of the time with three quarters of those scores being touchdowns and the rest being field goals. 70% x 20 extra drives results in 14 more scores per season. Converting this to points (.75 x 7 x 14) + (.25 x 3 x 14) = 84 points per season. Turning this into a per game numbers requires simply dividing 84/13 = 6.5 points per game. Tacking this onto the 30.5 points per game in 2006 results in an average of 37.0 points per game. The average points scored for USC since 2001 is 37 points per game since Pete Carroll arrived. Fix the turnover shortfall in 2007 and the offense will likely produce the average number of points in past seasons. The rest of the difference is also due to the short game in 2006 due to the different game clock rules in effect that shortened the number of plays by about 10% The fans will always clamor for more big plays especially in the passing department but my guess is that the coaches are far more interested in instructing technique and forcing more turnovers in 2007 than last year. Also emphasis will be place on developing a more dependable run game with a few more explosive run plays.