Previewing the Razorbacks with advanced statistics

Howdy and welcome back to Fun With Numbers, where we talk Aggie Football, Advanced Stats, and if there’s any time left over, we dedicate it to medieval strategy and war time tactics.

Full disclosure, there has yet to be any time left over in one of these blogs, but I’m holding out hope. Let’s get to it.

How’d We Do Last Week?

The Aggies took care of business in their SEC opener, beating Auburn 27-10 in a game that relied a lot on the Aggie Defense, Randy Bond, and a surprising Max Johnson appearance. Take a look at the box score below.

The Aggie Offense struggled at times, particularly in the 2nd quarter, and the passing attack was not what it had been in recent weeks. Altogether, this game doesn’t look all that different from the 2021 matchup at Kyle Field (see that box score here), and similarly to that game the Aggie D stepped up as needed and made it a frustrating day for both Thorne and Ashford, and the offense was able to hit big plays to put the game away. To be able to do all that when your starting QB goes out in the 2nd quarter is pretty impressive, and overall I think there was a lot to like in this game.

What Do We Know?

Texas A&M will face the Arkansas Razorbacks in one of the most depressing situations you could dream up for college football, at 11:00 am in an NFL stadium. The Razorbacks are riding a two game losing streak, dropping one score matches against BYU and LSU in successive weeks. Vegas favors the Ags by 6.5 points, the SP+ predicts an 11 point victory for the good guys, and the FEI sees the margin of victory at about 8. Insert a picture from College Game Day where they all pick the same team and Twitter reacts to it, because this game always feels weird.

Aggie Offense vs Razorback Defense

Following Barry Odom’s departure to try his hand at head coaching again, Sam Pittman brought in UCF DC Travis Williams to try to get back to their 2021 level of play. It hasn’t been a huge success yet, the Hogs have been mostly successful at defending the run and great at creating Havoc, particularly at getting to the QB. But when the pressure doesn’t get home, the secondary has been prone to giving up big plays and they’ve only been forcing teams into Passing Down situations about 32% of the time. The Aggie offense is missing Achane’s explosiveness (take care of him Dolphins please), but overall the offense is night and day different from where it was this time last year. The big questions is, can Max Johnson continue his second half success against Auburn and carry that as long as needed? If the OL can protect him, I don’t see why not.

Aggie Defense vs Razorback Offense

Dan Enos returns to Fayetteville to call the offense for the Hogs, and for the most part things have gone well in KJ Jefferson’s 5th year at Arkansas. The Razorbacks have been efficient and have run the ball well, despite Raheim Sanders being out since their first game. They’re not hitting a lot of big plays (that could change with Sanders return) and have already allowed Jefferson to be sacked 11 times, but they’re finishing drives well and have scored 31 points in their last two losses. The Aggie Defense has looked really good against bad competition and an Auburn squad who could do little outside running the ball, but struggled against their only true test this season. It will be interesting to see if the Aggies can recreate the pressure and run defense from the Auburn game, if they don’t it will be a long day, due to potential in the Arkansas backfield and Jefferson’s ability to extend plays.

Anything the Numbers Don’t Tell Us?

The first time Bobby Petrino returned to Fayetteville after his firing from Arkansas was 2022, when his Missouri State Bears led the Hogs for the entire game until a 21 point 4th quarter from Arkansas saved them a tremendous amount of embarrassment. Was that performance fueled just a tiny bit by some spitefulness from a man who has been a bit spiteful throughout his career? Who’s to say? Can he bring that same energy coordinating an offense with more talent against a defense that has given up 34+ points in back to back weeks? Again, it’s not really my place to say. But yes.

As I started writing this, word came out that Conner Weigman is unlikely to see the field the rest of the season. The “numbers” don’t really reflect this, but in simple and easy to understand advanced analytic terms… it sucks. Weigman was truly showing some brilliant flashes and you could see a lot of potential in this offense. Max Johnson came in and looked great against Auburn, and in terms of QB backups to take over, the Aggies are in one of the best positions in the country there. Few people have a guy with that many reps who’s spent a couple of years in the offense that can slide in as needed. But does this change the offense going forward? Weigman routinely faced pressure (including a hit that ended his season) can the OL improve enough on it’s own, or will the Aggies keep more blockers home going forward, reducing the number of potential targets downfield? Max is not a statue by any means, but he’s also not the dynamic runner that a healthy Weigman was. How much additional protection do you provide to ensure that you’re not dipping into your 3rd QB in a season, similar to 2022?

What’s the Verdict?

Everything seems to point to an Aggie win on Saturday, but this game winds up being interesting so often, and the news about Weigman is demoralizing as well. Can the Aggies get the Razorbacks to drop 3 games in a row and restart the win streak after last year’s somewhat fluky win? BYU struggled with efficiency throughout the game (29% Success Rate!!!!) but was able to hit big plays to keep them in the game (2.41 Explosiveness Rating in the 2nd Half!!!), and LSU essentially did what every offense would love to do in every game… ran the ball well (4.1 Yard Lines/Rush) and then hit big plays over the top (2.1 Passing Play Explosiveness). Either the way, this defense gave up points, and I imagine the Aggies should be able to move the ball well, the key will be to finish drives and get in the end zone instead of settling for field goals.

Defensively it maybe a bit more tricky, Arkansas had great weeks back to back and that was without Rocket Sanders in the backfield. Similar to Auburn, it will be a test to shut down the run and force them into Passing Down situations, something no team has really done much this season (The Hogs are in Standard Downs 72% of the time). This has not necessarily been a particularly explosive offense, hopefully Durkin’s squad doesn’t make them look like one on Saturday.

My Prediction: I like the Aggies again this week, even without Weigman and the uncertainty of what this defense is really capable of. I think it’s close for a while but second half adjustments by the Aggies win out and they pull away 31-21.

Final Notes

Thanks as always for reading along, check out these sites below if you’re interested in more CFB stats.

• Bcftoys.com for Brian Fremeau’s FEI data and other fun projects from him.
• ESPN.com is the home for all of Bill Connelly’s SP+ info (as well as the FPI rankings). You’ll need to subscribe to ESPN+ for most of his stuff these days.
• CollegeFootballData.com is a great site for data and charts that you can download and play with on your own time, in case Fun With Numbers isn’t filling that statistical void in your life. Most of my data comes from here.
• SEC Stat Cat is another great site. Solid blend of statistics and football concepts.

Questions? Comments? Criticisms? You know where to leave ‘em.