After a week off - I am BACK with another Three Keys to Victory. This time, Tech heads to Denton, where yours truly will be in attendance for our last matchup as conference foes.
#1 DON'T TURN THE FOOTBALL OVER
I mean, enough said, right? Last week in the Joe, we all saw how potent the Sonny Cumbie offense can be when it's clicking. And the number one reason it doesn't click? Turnovers! Keep the ball in Tech's hands, and we're likely to win. In a five game sample size, Tech is 0-3 when going negative in the turnover margin and 2-0 when staying positive. Against G5 foes like UNT, we're 0-1 when turning it over more than we take it, and 1-0 when we take it more than turn it. That's a phrase, right? The bottom line is that Tech will need to overcome their -0.6 average turnover margin by forcing UNT to lean into their identity as a -0.62 average turnover margin team.
#2 Take advantage of key opportunities
As Nathan pointed out in his Stat Attack post, North Texas is pretty good at scoring with the football once they reach the opponent's 40 yard line. Tech hasn't been the BEST at scoring in those situations themselves, getting just 3.5 points per "opportunity" (aka trip to the 40). If we're going to put up points, we'll need to take advantage of the fact that the Mean Green turn... pretty nice... towards their goal line. UNT is allowing a whopping 4.5 points per opportunity. If you thought Tech's offense moved the ball effectively against UTEP - you're largely right... but Tech still only scored 33 points in 8 trips inside the Mineshaft (4.125 ppo). Tech improved drastically against UTEP, but I'd love to see us put up 5 points per trip this week!
#3 Fancy Stat corner
This week, the fancy stats suggest that UNT is pretty good on first and second down - Their "Expected points added" on "early downs" is 0.075, which is good for 39th in the nation. What that means, roughly, is that on first and second, the plays North Texas runs are successful (EPA is a metric that tried to turn quantify how yards translate to points). I think this is largely because of UNT's success running the football with the three-headed monster of Adeyi, Adaway, and Ragsdale, who each average at minimum 4.9 ypc. In fact, UNT is 17th in the nation at picking up a first down on first or second down! They've done that on 74.3% of their first downs this season! Tech will need to slow UNT's success rate on early downs in order to FORCE the Mean Green into untenable third down situations, where they aren't quite as potent. On 3rd and 4th down, North Texas's success rate drops to 38.9%, or 91st in the nation. Their "non-fancy stat" for third down conversions shows the same thing: Get the Mean Green to third down, and you're on your way to victory (34% conversion rate).
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Evan is also a contributor to gtpdd.dog, a lighthearted Louisiana Tech blog. Be sure to check out @gotechplsdntdie on Twitter, play the gtpdd Contest and CUSA Fantasy, and listen to the gtpdd Podcast!
