Ken Gordon Discovers That Water Is Wet

One of the major criticisms that Buckeye fans have with head coach Jim Tressel is that that is play calling is too conservative. I think it is, at times, certainly a valid criticism as he seems too often content to punt and play field position or go for a long field goal rather than opening things up a bit more. Ken Gordon decided to crunch some numbers to prove Tressel wrong and was surprised to learn that Tressel just might be right in his conservative approach. Here is Gordon's original premise.

My thought was that while Tressel successfully avoids turnovers, he also avoids giving his quarterbacks the confidence to air it out and use their natural talent to the full potential. So yes, he may win games by being careful with the ball, but has he lost games because he played too conservatively and denied his QB the chance to build a bigger lead (such as Penn State last year?)

And Gordon's numbers and summary.

OVERALL RECORD: 43-8 (.843)

WHEN OSU HAS A PLUS TURNOVER RATIO: 23-1

WHEN RATIO IS EVEN: 7-0

WHEN OSU LOSES TURNOVER RATIO: 13-7.

In 43 wins, OSU was plus-23 in turnovers (plus .53 a game)
In 8 losses, OSU was minus-13 (minus 1.63 a game)

In 43 wins, OSU threw 21 INTs (.49 a game)
In 8 losses, OSU threw 10 INTs (1.25 a game).

Bottom line: My premise was wrong. Tressel is right.

So there you go. Gordon has proven that a conservative approach wins more than not. This, of course, is why teams like Oklahoma, Texas and Florida struggle year after year to win games.

Ken Gordon's number crunching simply shows that the less turnovers a team commits the more likely the are to win. In other words, its the execution stupid. This analysis is about as groundbreaking as showing that the team that scores the most points wins more games.