Starting Field Position - First 3 Drives

[Blakejc]

Through 10 games:

2023	Nebraska	Opponent
Avg Field Position First 3 Drives of Game	20.8	35.5
Total Starting Field Position Yardage First 3 Drives	623	1064

If it feels like the offense is always pinned deep throughout the 1st quarter or the defense is always on its heels to start the game, it's because they are. Severely.

Nationally speaking, here are the benchmarks we want to hit
Starting Field Position
top 10 = >32 yard line
top 40 = >30 yard line
100th or worse = <27 yard line

Opponent Starting Field Position
top 10 = <26 yard line
top 40 = <28 yard line
100th or worse = >31 yard line

The last thing a struggling offense needs to be dealing with is a long field, and conversely, our top 25 defense is neutralized because the opponent essentially gets a free first down in yardage each of the first three drives of the game.

For reference, things weren't nearly this bad the previous two years, which, by the way, were still very bad years for starting field position.

2022	Nebraska	Opponent
Avg Field Position First 3 Drives of Game	24.2	26.4
Total Starting Field Position Yardage First 3 Drives	872	949

2021	Nebraska	Opponent
Avg Field Position First 3 Drives of Game	23.2	25.0
Total Starting Field Position Yardage First 3 Drives	836	901

 

[Herbie]

Shitty offense and punter gives away good field position.
Good defense stuffs offenses and offense slowly gets buried deep

 

[tman87]

We like to dig holes to climb out of as a team. No matter the coaching staff, the last 20ish years we, by a large margin, are by far the worst team in P5 in turnover margin. As far as starting field position, this yet again is another stat where we almost always put ourselves behind the 8 ball.

T.O.'s teams were the polar opposite generally (usually, like most of the time) in stats like this. Field position, turnovers, etc - as a program, for two decades and counting now, we have been one of, if not the worst teams in the P5 for these types of rather important stats.

If a team wants to win and be successful, turnovers, field positon and special teams play a large factor in wins and losses. We have been atrociously bad in these areas for so long, it is truly unbelievable. Like if you tried to be that bad in key areas of the game like this, you couldn't even do it if you tried. The simulation has had it out for us (tongue in cheek here - we have been our own worst enemy).

 

[Blakejc]

We like to dig holes to climb out of as a team. No matter the coaching staff, the last 20ish years we, by a large margin, are by far the worst team in P5 in turnover margin. As far as starting field position, this yet again is another stat where we almost always put ourselves behind the 8 ball.

T.O.'s teams were the polar opposite generally (usually, like most of the time) in stats like this. Field position, turnovers, etc - as a program, for two decades and counting now, we have been one of, if not the worst teams in the P5 for these types of rather important stats.

If a team wants to win and be successful, turnovers, field positon and special teams play a large factor in wins and losses. We have been atrociously bad in these areas for so long, it is truly unbelievable. Like if you tried to be that bad in key areas of the game like this, you couldn't even do it if you tried. The simulation has had it out for us (tongue in cheek here - we have been our own worst enemy).

Starting Field Position and Yards Per Point are two stats that really describe “winning football”.

If you’re good at both you probably have a good punter, good return men, win the turnover battle, not heavily penalized, and efficient offensively.

Nebraska needs to fix both its SFP and yards/point. Fixing the turnovers would be the biggest help to both stats, but there’s a dozen other things we could improve upon to fix them as well.

 

[Cornicator]

Shitty offense and punter gives away good field position.
Good defense stuffs offenses and offense slowly gets buried deep

Terrible punt return game also comes into play. 2 yard returns from the 7 or fair catches on the 6 don't do a lot.

 

[Dear_Leader]

What was our starting position first half of last year with BB?

 

[Blakejc]

What was our starting position first half of last year with BB?

Here’s a link to the spreadsheet I keep. Lots of tabs on the bottom, but one is 2022 - Field Position. Our net field position was positive in two games - Indianus and Cockeye. Not a shock we won both.

 

[jickey moseph]

Defense gets into get positions to get themselves off the field on 3rd down and give the struggling offense good field position... but they've been struggling to get off of the field on said 3rd down.