Power Success & Stuffed Rate

Two of the new stats we are tracking this season are power success and stuffed rate. When it comes to analyzing offensive line play, these two stats are the most important. Offensive line coaches love to talk about being physical and attacking at the point of contact and that is what being measured with these two stats.

Power Success

First off, power success allows us to measure how well the team (and more specifically, the offensive line) gains enough to sustain a drive or score a touchdown on a short yardage plays. The actual formula is the percentage of plays that result in a first down or touchdown that occurs on a third or fourth down with two or less yards to go.

Since 2014, BHP has had a 61.5% power success rate (32 successful rushes on 52 attempts). Looking deeper, BHP’s power success rate in 2014 was 52.6% (20 successful rushes on 38 attempts). In 2015 BHP increased the power success rate by 84.7%. In 2015 BHP’s power success rate was 85.7% (12 successful rushes on 14 attempts).

Going a little deeper, since 2014 BHP has had a power success rate of 70% in region games (14 successful rushes on 20 attempts). In playoff games BHP had a 51.6% power success rate in that same time span.

As can be seen, BHP drastically improved their power success rate and decreased their opponents’ in 2015. It will be interesting to see how well the 2016 team and offensive line will fair in their ability to get first downs in short yardage plays compared to the 2014 and 2015 teams.

Stuffed Rate

One of the most important aspects of an offensive drive is to stay in manageable down and distance situations. One way an offense gets out of manageable situation is to have negative plays. Stuffed rate is the percentage of rushes that went for zero or negative yards. By having less stuffed plays the team has a higher probability of staying in manageable down and distance situations.

Since 2014 BHP has had a 26.1% stuffed rate. This means that of the 1,006 rushing attempts in 2014 and 2015 BHP gained zero or negative yards in 263 of those rushes. In those 263 rushes, BHP lost 586 yards which is -2.23 yards per stuffed play.

In comparison, BHP’s opponents had a 36.1% stuffed rate with 283 of their 785 rushes going for zero or negative yards. On those stuffed plays, the opponents lost 792 yards which is -2.80 yards per stuffed play.

One of the most direct outcomes we can gather from the table below is how well BHP is at limiting stuffed plays while causing them on defense. In region play, BHP only had a stuffed rate of 22.6%, while BHP caused a 39.9% stuffed rate.

Also, on third or fourth downs in 2014 and 2015, BHP caused a 41.5% stuffed rate while only having a 30.8% stuffed rate.

Conclusion

Power success and stuffed rate are great measures of how well a team can convert short yardage plays and stay in manageable down and distance situations. We will track these throughout the season to determine how the 2016 team compares to previous years and if we can find any patterns from game to game.