Stats Breakdown: Texas vs. UTSA by the numbers
The Texas Longhorns welcome the UTSA Roadrunners to Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium for a week three matchup on Saturday. Though there are not a lot of data points through two games, the numbers are clearly in the Longhorns’ favor.
[Join Inside Texas TODAY and get the BEST Texas Longhorns scoop!]
Here’s a comparison of Texas’ and UTSA’s standing nationally in certain conventional and advanced stats.
Standard Stats
via the UT Game Notes
College Football Insiders
The Longhorns are great and near the nation’s best in almost every advanced statistical category save for defensive rush rate over expected.
What does that measure? According to CFB-Stats’ Parker Fleming, it looks at given down, distance, yard line, and game state, how often do you call designed runs relative to an average team?
Fleming has reiterated that RROE is not a measure of quality. It’s a measure of what opponents are doing against a defense.
For most of these pictures, Red = Bad and Blue = Good. That doesn’t apply for this particular stat, it just illustrates how often a team is calling a designed run relative to an average team.
Both Colorado State and Michigan were more than content to shorten games where the outcome was already decided, likely contributing to this “Red” number. They ran to run clock. In Colorado State’s case, they ran because they couldn’t block Texas’ pass rush.
In the early season, Texas has Blue everywhere else.
ESPN Football Power Index
A reminder: it’s week three.
The Longhorns are now ranked No. 1 in ESPN’s football power index with a FPI rating of 27.4. Texas has the top projected W-L in the country at 11.3-1.3.
Texas has the second-highest “win out percentage” at 20.0 percent, just behind Ohio State’s 22.3 percent.
FPI also gives Texas a 35.7 percent chance to win the SEC, the top number in the league ahead of Georgia’s 19.7 percent.
Texas has a 91.0 percent chance to make the Playoff, best in the nation. Other numbers like Texas’ chances to make the national championship game at 34.8 percent and the chance to win it all at 21.1 percent also are tops in FPI.
According to ESPN, the Longhorns have the No. 2 strength of record behind Northern Illinois and the No. 17 remaining strength of schedule.
UTSA is currently ranked No. 99 in FPI.
ESPN SP+
The Longhorns are currently No. 4 in ESPN’s SP+, a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency.
Texas ranks highly on offense and on defense. Texas is No. 2 in offensive SP+ and No. 10 in defensive SP+.
However on special teams, the Longhorns are ranked No. 114 in special teams SP+ out of 134 teams. The Longhorns carry a -0.2 rating in this area, while No. 1 Florida has a 0.2. This ranking may be one that changes drastically over the course of the season.
UTSA is No. 89 in overall SP+, No. 81 in offensive SP+, No. 97 in defensive SP+, and No. 107 in special teams SP+.
FEI
The Longhorns rank No. 3 in overall FEI, an opponent-adjusted possession efficiency data representing the scoring advantage per non-garbage possession a team or unit would expect to have on a neutral field against an average opponent. Texas trails No. 2 Ohio State and No. 1 Georgia.
[Subscribe to the Inside Texas YouTube channel and help get us to 10,000 subs!]
The Longhorns rank No. 6 in offensive FEI, No. 5 in defensive FEI, and No. 8 in special teams FEI.
UTSA is No. 106 in overall FEI.
