On ESPN College Football Game Day from the Memorial Quad in Eugene, Pat McAfee proved again you can use statistics to misrepresent anything.

McAfee told the live crowd and the national TV audience, "This Oregon defense has DUDES everywhere. Their numbers are excellent everywhere except for in the Red Zone. For some reason they haven't been able to keep people out of the endzone."

What he said was superficially correct, but misleading. He left out the most telling, informative part. The Oregon defense has allowed opponents to REACH the Red Zone just six times, the second fewest Red Zone attempts allowed in the country. What's more, three of those came late in games against the third team defense.

The Ducks rank sixth in the country in scoring defense at 12.2 points per game, 11th in yards per play at 4.16. They've been tough in every part of the field.

Autzen Zoo

Pat McAfee slanders the Oregon defense with an incomplete...

On ESPN College Football Game Day from the Memorial Quad in Eugene, Pat McAfee proved again you can use statistics to misrepresent anything.

Thanks for providing that...as context is crucial. Maybe this could provide a little bulletin-board material for Tosh today?

Yeah, first question I asked myself when he said that was, how many red zone trips have there been? Thanks for the info.

Guessing it was more of an ignorant take from someone that doesn’t ever prep. The bigger disappointment to me is no one else on the crew calling it out. 6 red zone trips in total almost half-way through the season is an absurdly good stat.

Edited yesterday at 05:22 PM1 day by JabbaNoBargain

Immediately as well, I thought, wait, how many red zone trips have the Duck defense faced this year so far?

Went to the NCAA site but the search query comes back "No stats available." So had to dig elsewhere.

Probably some intern tasked with finding a stat for McAfee to look well informed, when the intern really didn't really have the full knowledge to interpret the number? McAfee didn't bother to look further either; but, you know, entertainer and all.

Looking else where, you find:

Redzone defense scoring conversions allowed:

#127 (tie) Indiana 100%

#127 (tie) Oregon 100%

#127 (tie) Missouri 100%

#127 (tie) Utah 100%

#127 (tie) Utah State 100%

#127 (tie) Oregon State 100%

#127 (tie) Virginia Tech 100%

#127 (tie) South Alabama 100%

#127 (tie) Rice 100%

#127 (tie) Charlotte 100%

However, fewest redzone scoring attempts per game allowed:

#1 Indiana: 0.8

#2 (tie) Oregon: 1.3

#2 (tie) Utah: 1.3

#4 Oklahoma 1.5

I would say this would be more the proper way to present this stat? I mean, why single out it as a negative for Oregon when Indiana has the exact same number and rating?

Edited yesterday at 05:27 PM1 day by AnotherOD

I wish I was Pat McAfee's hair product salesman. Kaitlyn Olson was right when she referred to him as an "oaf' on the Gameday set last season.

2 minutes ago, idontrollonshobbas said:

I wish I was Pat McAfee's hair product salesman. Kaitlyn Olson was right when she referred to him as an "oaf'

I always think about that horrible McAfee "trial" antivirus you have to immediately remove when cleaning up a "non tech savvy" family member or friend's pc: "Your pc is infected." "Did you know your pc is infected?" "Aren't you going to do something?" "C'mon man, can't you see you are infected!" "How many times do I need to tell you that you are infected?" 🙂

Hats off to Pat for his Hoosiers pick. His wife's an Indiana graduate; make this pick or sleep in separate bedrooms?

My response is "Who the he-l cares what McAfee thinks?" As for his prediction, even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then". But he did make a gutsy guess before that audience in Eugene, Oregon.

Well that's kind of ironic that Pat pointed out that stat. Let's look at the ratio when we play elite teams...

That number is pretty significant then isn't it.?

And that's what really matters doesn't it?

We're a little above the expectation level of an Iowa, Wisconsin or Nebraska. Holding mediocre teams to six trips in the Red Zone isn't much to brag about in my opinion.

We've had this discussion already. What are OBD doing against elite teams on defense? Northwestern isn't going the playoffs are they? Neither is Penn this year.

So the question is: is Pat misleading us? The question in my mind is what are OBD against the teams that will matter when its win or go home?

Our defense needs to stop elite teams from scoring 14-17. That's when we're talking about Blue Blood material. Isn't that the standard actually?

I see the point but in terms of this statement by McAfee? I am going to have to again say nope.

His statement wasn't "against good teams Oregon's defense has allowed too many redzone trips and allows a very high conversion percentage."

That probably would be an interesting stat to see. Somebody really wanting to make that argument, if they want to use it as evidence, should actually probably do the work and produce the stat. I'm curious too but I don't particularly want to do the work and look the number up right now either.

What is a good team, 10 wins in a season? Since Lanning arrived: Georgia (22), Wash (22), Utah (22), Oregon State (22), Wash (23), Wash 2 (23), Liberty (23), Boise State (23), Ohio State (23), Illinois (23), Penn State (23), Ohio State 2 (23), and Indiana (24). So redzone trips per game allowed and scoring percentage from Oregon. Then do at least 3-5 other top teams and 10-15 games each against 10 win teams and produce a comparable number, and I think we have a great discussion.

Instead it was something to the effect of, "I found a little stat, so far Oregon has allowed 100% of its redzone attempts to score, so I think that's a sign Oregon will lose."

Well, Indiana had given the exact same number.

So, pointing out Oregon is giving up 100% scoring in the redzone is smart and a huge key but Indiana giving up 100% scoring in the redzone isn't a key stat that matters?

I see that as a very odd interpretation. It isn't even very logical. So far both team have kept team out of the redzone, but when both teams have allowed teams in there, they each have allowed 100% scoring, so one team will probably lose because of that but the other team is fine?

The good news? Finally, after 6 games Indiana got its first (and still only) redzone stop of the season when Sappington doinked a short FG.

So, based on a bad FG kick, we probably have a new point of data to suggest really anything about Indiana's defense?

I'd like the point and if someone wants to do the work I am here for it. The way McAfee did it is the "I don't actually care enough" garage sale/low rent version of the same thing.