Our Underachieving Season Was Due To

GIVEN the fact that we endured major injuries, what is the most important factor in our disappointing won loss record?

It's pretty clear that our team stats in giveaway/takeaway was a huge blip. Which caused most of our losses?

Is it our historic take away numbers? 2 interceptions is a historical team record for modern day foot ball.

Is it our generous give aways? We were third most in the league in fumbles and third most in interceptions.

Or both? Our -25 giveaway ratio is second most since 2000, and rivals the all time record of -30 set by the 1965 Steelers.

I would love to say it's the anemic takeaways.

But, every QB of ours -- including JG -- averaged at least 1 int per game.

We had too many giveaways to be competitive.

Again, this question is NOT about injuries...it's asking about our season GIVEN the injuries.

QB1 going down in the third game. Period.

Bad defensive coaching

Levis stadium grass. i.e. injuries.

I mean, look at how Alabama was sliding all over the place.

Originally posted by NinerBuff:
QB1 going down in the third game. Period.

This is not about injuries

Originally posted by TonyStarks:
Levis stadium grass. i.e. injuries.

I mean, look at how Alabama was sliding all over the place.

This is not about injuries.

Given the injuries, whiat factor that was IN OUR CONTROL was most responsible for our underachieving won loss record.

You have to look first at the turnover stats, IMO.

Originally posted by brodiebluebanaszak:

Originally posted by NinerBuff:

QB1 going down in the third game. Period.

This is not about injuries

Then your thread title is invalid.

Injuries happen, lesser players come in and are generally more prone to turnovers/inability to takeaway.

You can't disregard injuries from a discussion about why our season was poor.

Originally posted by JaggedJ:
Then your thread title is invalid.

Injuries happen, lesser players come in and are generally more prone to turnovers/inability to takeaway.

You can't disregard injuries from a discussion about why our season was poor.

Its valid to discuss if our offensive game plans were too ambitious for CJ and Mullens. That's a point of discussion here.

On defense, we didn't have any season changing injuries -- just no depth at all.Foster laid an egg his sophomore season. But that's not really meaningful injuries that change the course of a teams season.

I see what you're trying to do, so will play along. It's definitely both, turnover differential will have a big say in the outcome of a game, and we turned it over far too much, couple that with inefficiency in the Redzone and not being able to take the ball away and you're pretty screwed.

Luckily it's also one of the most volatile stats in football, how many fumbles just bounced out, or right to opponents, how many potential ints just hit the floor or were flat out dropped, it can get a lot better very quickly.

An edge rusher will help a lot.

Jimmy's Int were one game. He was pretty clean in the others (66% comp and zero turnovers).

Personally, I'm still formulating an opinion on Jimmy and his turnovers. His td/int ratio hasn't been impressive but all of his other numbers have been so I'd love to see a season sample size to see where he is. I suspect he's gonna be fine and be a less than 1 int game QB.

What were the giveaways and takeaways last year. Is there a trend starting?

But this year, the answer is both.

They had a high number of turnovers, but the low number of turnovers forced was historically bad.

Clearly, injuries.

Our team was designed to succeed offensively this year, but since injuries arent an excuse for this thread then Ill say...

Beathard fumbled away or threw away 3 games off the top off the top of my head.

Penalties. Im pretty sure all our wins were games where we were the less penalized team.

Inability to make plays on D. We could never come up with a big play on D in close games. We started doing better toward the end of the year, but thats fools gold imo.

Honorable mention to tackling and RZ offense

Originally posted by NCommand:

What were the giveaways and takeaways last year. Is there a trend starting?

But this year, the answer is both.

Originally posted by thl408:

They had a high number of turnovers, but the low number of turnovers forced was historically bad.

2018 32 turns
2017 23 turns
2016 25 turns
2015 17 turns
2014 22 turns

2005 35 turns
2004 40 turns

1980 40 turns
1979 39 turns

1978 63 turns

Some periods of time and giveaway numbers.