Turnover Margin

[Anonymous]

Ever since my 1983 Cal State Fullerton Football team went 11-1 with a +22 turnover margin for the season, I’ve been a big believer in turnover margin (note: CSUF had future All Pro CB Mark Collins and future CFL career passing leader Damon Allen). Someone over on uterfans.net posted the following article on the subject:

http://www.footballstudyhall.com/2013/8/23/4649718/college-football-turnover-margin-winning-percentage

Utah ended up with a 1.0 turnover margin per game which projected out to 9 wins per the study. If you look back at our 3 PAC-12 losses, turnovers by Utah played critical roles in each of them. Travis Wilson’s 4 INTs leading to 21 points by USC. Booker fumble against Arizona. Williams fumble against UCLA.

I know the Utah crowd hated Dave Christiansen, but the reports were that when he came in and reviewed film on Utah, he concluded that they needed to cut down on the turnovers. Wilson had thrown for 18 TDS but also 17 INTs the 2013 season. They needed to cut down on the INTs and they did in 2014. People complained that they had Wilson on too tight a leash and they needed to open up the playbook. The rub was that as soon as you did that with Wilson, the INTs would pile up. I would argue coaches knew what they were doing and were coaching with Wilson’s limited abilities.

Utah now has Troy Williams coming in who passed for 24 TDS against 4 INTs. That is a pretty outstanding ratio and regardless of the level of play, reflects on his accuracy. I would expect to see a totally different approach to the offense next year.

[Tony (admin)]

I’ve long said that our offensive play calling was a “prevent offense,” designed to prevent Wilson from throwing picks.

[Anonymous]

Tony, you and I are seeing it the same way. Whitt emphasized turnovers on defense, great special teams with emphasis on pinning oppenents with poor field position, and minimize the damage from Wilson INTs on offense. It was a good strategy. I think it will be a little different next year.

[Anonymous]

I don’t really care to look it up or no where it is but what was Utah’t points off of turnovers? It seemed like Utah had poor results when they would get turnovers. Points being the most important stat of the game, I think turnovers are a close second.