Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
Texas quarterback Sam Ehlinger is leading one of the most high-powered offenses in the country.
Texas is averaging more points per game than any other college football program this season. Continue reading “Texas sits atop the college football leaderboard for most points per game”
On a regular basis, the Cowboys are asking Dak Prescott and company to overcome far more than most every NFL team. They’re doing so, but could use some help.
The Dallas Cowboys have a field position problem.
When quarterback Dak Prescott and company start a drive it often requires a bird’s nest and pirate telescope to see the end zone. Normally, a stat like this so early in a season could be written off as a fluke, but this is an issue that stretches back across 2019 as well, and the new coaching staff hasn’t brought any changes as of yet. The defense and special teams are not giving the offense the short fields necessary to win games.
Per Football Outsiders, this is the second year in a row the Cowboys have ranked No. 30 league-wide in terms of where their drives begin. On average, the Dallas offense starts at the the 22.97-yard-line. Last season it was the 26.19-yard-line, which is better, but not really and is likely due to variance so early on.
Only the Arizona Cardinals have started more drives inside their own 20-yard-line than the Cowboys’ 14 instances, but no team has been more successful moving the ball out of that position. Dallas has scored on these occasions six different times, with four being touchdowns. Both numbers are good for best in the league.
Scoring is not easy on drives like that. In fact, through three games, just 31% of the 242 drives have resulted in points of any kind. Getting short fields is the quickest way to points, unfortunately the Cowboys have started just one drive inside opponents’ territory. The league average is a little more than three. When teams create those opportunities for themselves, they score at an 80% clip.
It’s a two-pronged problem, and contrary to weirdos on the iiinternet, neither involves Dak Prescott.
The defense is seemingly incapable of generating turnovers, ranking in the bottom five of all teams on a per-drive basis. This, too, isn’t a new issue. The Cowboys defense often falls in the bottom third of that metric. The last time they were significantly better than average was back in 2014, where they actually ranked No. 1 in the league.
The other issue is, not surprisingly, special teams. The Tony Pollard fumble on the kickoff against the Seattle Seahawks is the most glaring issue to date, setting the offense up at their own goal-line, but the kick return game specifically has submarined an otherwise decent unit, ranking dead last according to Football Outsiders.
The good news is, football is a game of wild variance and these numbers could easily normalize over the rest of the season. The fact that the Cowboys are still managing to score nearly 30 points a game while facing such long fields is a testament of its offensive firepower, which is the most sustainable way to win games.
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