Wisconsin Football vs. Purdue Analytics Recap
Let's dig into the numbers from UW's Week 4 matchup vs. Purdue.
It was a big win for Wisconsin Football Friday night vs. Purdue.
The Badgers kicked the Slow-Start bug, and have become a Turnover-inducing machine on defense. But all of that seems moot to the fact we lost one of the most important pieces to the offense on Friday Night in Chez Mellusi. I won’t dwell on it too much here, as it goes without saying the grit and tenacity he displayed wearing that Badger Uniform will be sorely missed.
With that, I’ll get into it all in this initial recap. But I’ll go into much more detail in my new “DEEP DIVE” series, where I dive into Player-Tracking Data and more!!
Alright, let’s jump into the Wisconsin Badgers Analytics Recap!
Play Call Distribution & EPA:
Play Calls:
We can see that the Wisconsin Badgers PA/RPO game was pretty solid on 1st Down. On 2nd Down, I would have liked to have seen a bit more PA/RPO Passes.
EPA:
You can see on 1st Down no play was “successful” on an EPA/Play basis. On 2nd Down the passing game was much more impactful from an EPA basis than the Run-Game, with the PA/RPO passes narrowly beating out Straight Dropbacks! Our Run Plays on 3rd Down were the Most Successful from an EPA/Play basis. 5.17 EPA was generated on 3 plays, both Mordecai's TD Runs & Braelon’s final TD of the night!
But we we’re very good all night on 3rd Downs (67% Conversion) due in large part to the many 3rd and manageable situations we left ourselves!!!
Over 63% in a “manageable” situation. So, when you average it out you get 5.79 AVG Yards-To-Go. But in reality, 63% of our 3rd downs were in a very manageable position, when you average those situations you get 3.67 AVG Yards-To-Go.
So it’s no wonder we were so good on 3rd Down, which ultimately really helps your EPA/Play.
If you can recall from my EPA Primer, moving the chains and getting a fresh set of downs with a better field position is the whole idea of the EPA Model. And it gives you a general understanding of which plays & players add the most value to WINNING!!!
You’ll see this theme play out in the 1st Half and 2nd Half Breakouts below, so I won’t go into much more detail on this!
Wisconsin Football 1st Half Play-Call Distribution & EPA:
Again, things were pretty similar 1st Half and Second Half. We didn’t do a ton of “Damage” on 1st and 2nd Downs. But we moved the ball into extremely manageable positions and executed on 3rd Downs.
There were certainly opportunities for big plays in the 1st Half, especially in the Passing Game (Rucci Drop/Skyler Bell Drop) that would have flipped the script on Run vs. Pass “Success” and 1st-3rd Down “Success”.
But they weren’t connected on, yet we were able to overcome those mishaps. Overall the way we were able to control the LOS in both halves, but specifically in the 1st Half is a terrific sign for Wisconsin Badgers Football!