Saturday night, in a twist of fate, Georgia Tech beat North Carolina 46-42. The night was full of excitement! It’ll be a short one today, but I want to touch on a couple of different things here. Full advanced box score can be found below.
A Tale of Two Halves
If you look at the box score for this game, you’ll notice something.
Georgia Tech won this game despite not scoring in either the first or third quarter, which is an interesting and impressive feat. That made me want to dig in a little more to see how Tech’s production shifted over the course of the game.
Data courtesy of GameOnPaper.com; Visualization by Benjamin Tankersley
Data courtesy of GameOnPaper.com; Visualization by Benjamin Tankersley
What stands out most to me here is that the passing game was very much a roller coaster along with the score, but the rushing game gradually got better throughout the whole game. Dontae Smith won the day there, finishing with 22 carries for 178 yards and a touchdown. He averaged 0.42 EPA/rush, and even without the 70-yard touchdown run, Smith still had a phenomenal day, though the EPA/rush dropped to 0.14.
Generally, once the rushing game got going, UNC’s defense was utterly powerless to stop it. Big kudos to both the offensive line for setting up the rushers for a big day. Having Paul Johnson watch Georgia Tech rush for over 300 yards just seems right.
The Hot-Crazy Matrix
So if you have seen the show How I Met Your Mother, you have probably heard of the Hot-Crazy Matrix. This matrix, designed by James Yeager and popularized by Barney Stinson, is a chart in which—actually, let me just let them explain it.
Now, say what you want to about the validity or the ethics of such a chart, this isn’t the place for that discussion. I just needed to provide some background so that I can share this tweet that was making the rounds last week.
Now, as you can see Georgia Tech’s offense fits squarely into the fun zone of the hot-crazy matrix. This means that Georgia Tech’s offense at its best is pretty dang good and at its worst isn’t half bad. I would be very curious to see how this updates post-UNC. Adding in just a week’s worth of games probably wouldn’t move the needle too much, but I’d also love to see Tech’s progression through the season.
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