I was curious how the Baylor offense through the first five games of last year compared to their offense the first five games of this year. The good news - it does appear the Baylor offense has regressed some. The bad news - the Baylor offense is still pretty damn good.
Scoring Offense
Last year through five games Baylor was averaging 64.2 ppg, whereas this year they are around 42.6 ppg. It should be noted last year Baylor was scoring basically the same amount of points in the first half (41.2 ppg) that Baylor is currently scoring the entire game. Baylor hasn't been nearly as good early on this year averaging 23.4 ppg in the first half, 17.3 ppg if you take out the game against a D1AA opponent.
Scoring Differential
This decrease in scoring offense has impacted the scoring differential as the defensive scoring output is fairly similar to what it was last year. Last year through the first five games, Baylor was beating their opponent by an average of 42 ppg whereas this year they are beating their opponent by 23.4 ppg. In the first half of the game, last year Baylor was leading by around 25 ppg at half. This year, they are only leading by 11.8 ppg at half and if you take out the first game against a D1AA opponent they are only up by 2.8 ppg on average at half.
Yardage/Plays
There has been a dip in yardage, both rushing and passing, per game so far this year compared to last year. Last year, Baylor averaged over 70 yards more passing per game and 50 yards more rushing per game. it should be noted that Baylor's rushing performance against ISU a couple of weeks ago was more than any rushing performance through 5 games last year. They also threw for almost 390 yards against OkSU, so the offense is still capable of going off either passing or rushing.
Now the interesting thing to me is that Baylor is actually running more plays through the first five games this year than they were last year. On average, Baylor is running 84 offensive plays this year whereas last year they were running around 80 plays per game. If you take out the D1AA game for both this and last year, Baylor is running around 87 plays per game this year and was around 76 plays per game last year. This shows they aren't getting nearly as many yards per play as they were last year
The biggest things I am taking away from this is that Baylor still has a really good offense, but it isn't as good as last year. Granted few offenses can do what Baylor has done recently, it doesn't appear Baylor is as explosive as they were last year. I think the key here will be to make sure it stays close in the first half. Baylor has struggled to start out strong, so we can't be letting Baylor get ahead by a lot early on like they were last year.
Scoring Offense
Last year through five games Baylor was averaging 64.2 ppg, whereas this year they are around 42.6 ppg. It should be noted last year Baylor was scoring basically the same amount of points in the first half (41.2 ppg) that Baylor is currently scoring the entire game. Baylor hasn't been nearly as good early on this year averaging 23.4 ppg in the first half, 17.3 ppg if you take out the game against a D1AA opponent.
Scoring Differential
This decrease in scoring offense has impacted the scoring differential as the defensive scoring output is fairly similar to what it was last year. Last year through the first five games, Baylor was beating their opponent by an average of 42 ppg whereas this year they are beating their opponent by 23.4 ppg. In the first half of the game, last year Baylor was leading by around 25 ppg at half. This year, they are only leading by 11.8 ppg at half and if you take out the first game against a D1AA opponent they are only up by 2.8 ppg on average at half.
Yardage/Plays
There has been a dip in yardage, both rushing and passing, per game so far this year compared to last year. Last year, Baylor averaged over 70 yards more passing per game and 50 yards more rushing per game. it should be noted that Baylor's rushing performance against ISU a couple of weeks ago was more than any rushing performance through 5 games last year. They also threw for almost 390 yards against OkSU, so the offense is still capable of going off either passing or rushing.
Now the interesting thing to me is that Baylor is actually running more plays through the first five games this year than they were last year. On average, Baylor is running 84 offensive plays this year whereas last year they were running around 80 plays per game. If you take out the D1AA game for both this and last year, Baylor is running around 87 plays per game this year and was around 76 plays per game last year. This shows they aren't getting nearly as many yards per play as they were last year
The biggest things I am taking away from this is that Baylor still has a really good offense, but it isn't as good as last year. Granted few offenses can do what Baylor has done recently, it doesn't appear Baylor is as explosive as they were last year. I think the key here will be to make sure it stays close in the first half. Baylor has struggled to start out strong, so we can't be letting Baylor get ahead by a lot early on like they were last year.
