Quick Thought | The Perine & Westbrook Difference

To start the season two of the Sooners top offensive targets weren’t 100%. Coach Stoops has noted on multiple occasions that Westbrook wasn’t nearly 100% for the Houston or Ohio State game.

In speaking to sources, I was told that Perine was still recovering from his off-season surgery and had a considerable amount of stiffness till the TCU game. In fact one source noted when talking about the violent tackle in space on Samaje Perine, “you really think that Houston player could’ve brought down a healthy Samaje like that?”

It just so happens that Perine and Dede got healthy around the same time (though Perine is now out for 2-3 weeks) which was around the TCU game. Watching the games, it certainly looks like the Sooners offense is much better and it would be hard to argue that having two of your best players back to 100% wouldn’t make a difference.

But I wanted to try to compare the difference statistically. I’m sure there will be plenty of holes to poke in this analysis but again this is a “quick thought”. So let’s look at the Sooners offensive stats for first three games with Perine and Westbrook still recovering and the second three games when both were closer to 100%:

1st 3 games – Perine and Westbrook still not 100% (vs. Houston, ULM and tOSU)

Average Yards Per Game:  479

Average Points Per Game: 35.3

2nd 3 games – Perine and Westbrook closer to 100% (vs. TCU, Texas and KState)

Average Yards Per Game: 572

Average Points Per Game: 45

That is a mighty significant difference in offensive production. The obvious response will be that the difference was in the defenses the Sooners faced in the first three games vs. the second three games.

1st 3 game defenses faced

Average Total Defense: 351.4 yds

Average Scoring Defense: 23.3 pts

2nd 3 games defenses faced

Average Total Defense: 403.9 yds

Average Scoring Defense: 28.3 pts

Comparison – So just so you can see things side by side below are the offensive numbers vs the average defensive numbers…

1st 3 games

479 avg yds put up vs. 351 avg yds yielded
Sooners averaging 136% of avg yards yielded

35.3 avg pts scored vs. 23.3 avg pts yielded
Sooners averaging 151% of avg points yield

2nd 3 games

572 avg yds put up vs. 403.9 yds yielded
Sooners averaging 142% of avg yards yielded

45 avg pts put up vs. 28.3 avg yds yielded
Sooners averaging 159% of avg points yielded

So trying to quickly account for the difference in defenses, the Sooners clearly have improved in their production. I’m just not sure, in terms of a percentage difference, that the difference is as large as I would’ve thought. Based on the above it does appear that the difference in defensive talent the Sooners are facing is a key part of the improvement.

I should note however that in the first three games the Sooners turned the ball over 5 times vs. 7 times in the second three games. That would seem to speak more to possessions and perhaps the best way to look at this would be broken down in terms of avg yards/points per possession vs. the avg yards/points given up per possession…but you can do that 🙂