Paul Chryst and the Wisconsin Badgers enter the 2020 season needing to account for more than 2,200 rushing yards, more than 1,440…
Paul Chryst and the Wisconsin Badgers enter the 2020 season needing to account for more than 2,200 rushing yards, more than 1,440 receiving yards and 37 combined touchdowns lost to the NFL or graduation after the 2019 season.
Recreating this production will be a tall task for offensive coordinator Joe Rudolph and his unit as those numbers represent around 68% of the team’s total rushing output, more than 50% of the total receiving output and almost 60% of the total touchdowns scored.
Forget recreating these numbers, as even finding something that resembles Jonathan Taylor running the ball and Quintez Cephus catching balls on the outside will not be an easy feat.
The good news, though, is those numbers won’t be the ones that will define the Badgers’ offensive season in 2020.
The one stat that will define their season on offense (well, two stats because they directly affect each other): third and fourth down conversion rate and therefore time of possession.
This may seem like an obvious answer but it was one of the driving forces behind the team’s improvement on offense from 2018 to 2019.
Their third/fourth-down conversion rate in 2018? 41.3%.
Their rate from last year? 51.4%
That ten percent increase led to a 3-minute, 34-second increase in their average time of possession and gave stars like Taylor and Cephus many more opportunities to break free put points on the board.
Now, you might think that the biggest difference between 2018 and 2019 was Alex Hornibrook and his inability to take care of the football along with Jim Leonhard‘s 2018 defense not being able to turn the ball back over for the offense.
The numbers actually were wildly similar between the two years, as the 2018 unit turned the ball over 1.8 times per game and in turn created 1.9 per game–good for an average turnover differential of -0.1–while the 2019 offense and defense both created 1.6 turnovers a game, obviously good for an average differential of 0.
On the other hand–and yes the improvement from Hornibrook to Jack Coan was a big one–one of the largest driving forces behind both the increase in late-down conversion percentage and therefore the offense’s total output was Paul Chryst adapting to the times and going for it on fourth down.
The world was watching when Philadelphia Eagles head coach Doug Pederson dialed up two critical fourth down conversions in Super Bowl LII against Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, one of which being the infamous Philly Special.
As Mississippi State head coach Mike Leach once said on the Dan Patrick Show: “When it comes to controlling the football, first downs and third down conversions are the important thing…the greatest form of ball control in the world is points.”
Well, as Pederson showed in the Super Bowl and as Chryst showed last year by going for it on fourth down 23 times and converting 18 of those tries, keeping your offense on the field in situations where they are in striking range to score points or are close to that range is important. What this does more than anything is give your playmakers more chances to make plays and put points on the board, which then requires your opponent to take more time in order to even the score.
Leach is obviously on one spectrum of the ball control argument as he often wins games with less than 50 yards on the ground. The Badgers on the other hand will always be a team built on a dominant rushing attack, but this doesn’t mean that kicking up the aggression and going for it on fourth down won’t lead to more points on the scoreboard and more time with the ball on offense.
There are players that obviously will need to step into the voids left by Taylor, Cephus and others. But more than anything, especially given Coan’s experience and talent under center, what will define Wisconsin’s 2020 season on offense will be the rate at which they convert third and fourth down opportunities, and therefore the number of chances Chryst and Rudolph give their playmakers on offense to put points on the scoreboard.
