Tomorrow night, the Bulldogs head to San Antonio to take on the Roadrunners. Beating UTSA has been an annual tradition for quite some time now - what do the Dogs need to do to make it seven in a row?
1) Stating the obvious
Okay so first and foremost: Without considering any fancy PFF, SP+, or just plain ol' box score stats... It's obvious that the offensive line HAS to play better if we want to win this game or any game in the future. It's not like UTSA has a stellar pass rush or killer D Linemen. They've sacked opposing QBs 13 times, but only find their target 2.17 times per game, which is good for 42nd of 77 teams to play a game so far this season. The good news for Tech is that it appears all five starting offensive linemen from the first two games (you know, when Luke and Aaron actually had time to throw the football occasionally) will be back in the lineup on Saturday. I guess we'll figure out how much of the problem is personnel and how much of it is scheme.
2) Contradictions
UTSA really has one weapon to worry about offensively: Sophomore Tailback Sincere McCormick. Outside of having a top tier name, he's also one of the top running backs in the country by most metrics. He leads the nation in rushing yards with 702 (that's 110 more than #2), and even if you take into account that UTSA has played more games than most teams, he's still #9 in yards per game at 117. To stop a great running back, Tech will need to stack the box and play fundamentally sound defense. Lately Coach Holtz has harped on everyone "doing your job." Well, this is a game where the defense will truly have to do that. So where does the contradiction come in? Last week, Marshall--another team with a great running back--ran the ball on 66% of their snaps. Even though the defense did an okay job against him for most of the game, they eventually broke down and let him loose for some longer runs in the second half. Since UTSA has such a great back in McCormick (and such a revolving door at QB), I expected them to have similar numbers. But instead, UTSA only runs the ball on 49% of their plays. So while Tech stacks the box to stop McCormick, they'll have to be on their toes for play action and chunk plays to the WRs.
3) Early Down Success
Last week against Marshall, Tech struggled to convert third downs. In fact, we converted on only one attempt, a 1 yard run on 3rd and 1 to keep the field goal drive alive in the second quarter. Throughout the game, Tech struggled in large part due to our lack of success on early downs which put the team in obvious passing situations on third down. Tech needed an average of 8.1 yards on third downs in the game, which is not going to be a recipe for success. Let's look at some advanced stats here for UTSA: On "Passing Downs" (2nd and 8+, 3rd/4th and 5+), the Roadrunner Defense allows a success rate of 35%. In other words, 35% of the time, their opponents pick up enough yards to put themselves in a good position for the next play (50% of necessary yardage on 1st, 70% on 2nd, 100% on 3rd/4th). Meanwhile, on "standard" downs they allow a success rate of 46.4%. On the other side of the ball, Tech's standard down success rate is 45.6%, while their passing down success rate plummets to 29.8%. If Tech wants to win, they'll need to eliminate the 3rd and 22, 16, and 12 we saw last week and keep themselves in a position to keep the defense guessing.
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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.
