CU Buffs Potential Yards breakdown

With just one game to go and Coach Mac gone, I wanted to take a look into how the Buffs have moved the ball so far this season and compared to their opponents.


Saying the offense has been inconsistent this season would be an understatement.  Overall the Buffs managed to pick up 45.8% of their possible yards, but that's come at a bit of a bipolar clip.  In half their games the Buffs managed to gain at least 50% of the total potential yards.  This though gets tempered by the USC, Utah, Washington and Wazzu games where the offense couldn't get more than 35% of their potential yards.  This has been the crux of the Buffs problems down the stretch.  After the UCLA game, CU has only scored touchdowns on 19% of their drives vs the 35% clip they had been on prior.  The defense has continued to be consistent all season, despite being on the field a lot more.  They've surrendered 44% of the potential yards on the season, which has been pretty consistent.  Five games have seen opponents gain over 54% of their potential yards, with the rest under 50%.  The issue again down the stretch had been that CU was giving up more touchdowns, but a lot of that was second half scores after the game already felt out of reach thanks to a dwindling offense.

One of the biggest problems for the Buffs has been their performance on long drives, drives that are 70 or more yards to go.  They've scored Touchdowns on those drives just one fifth of the time they had them (141 drives so far).  Tats just not going to cut it with how many touch backs occur these days and with how often teams start deep in their own zone.   It hasn't helped that since the ASU game onwards, the defense surrendered touchdowns on 25% of those drives.  And this is all despite the Buffs having better starting field position this season than almost all of their opponents, averaging a start at the 29. 

This season has been a bit of a lost one it feels like for a team that started 5-0.  I truly believe as I have said before the offensive playcalling and scheme have been the true downfall.  The defense has struggled a bit at points, but really has been much better than they had been in years past.  If the offense could finish drives this season is a whole other story.