[Editor’s note: NEWBrutus is one of our long-time posters on the Legacy Forum who crunches numbers after every game and offers up various bits of data. This is one of those posts.]
Let’s start with success rate.
Successful plays are defined as a gain of 50% of the needed yards on first down, 70% of the needed yards on second and 100% of the needed yards on third or fourth down.
This is how things stacked up for the Ohio State Offense and Defense:
Ohio State Offense
| Down | Plays | Successful Plays | Success Rate |
| First Down | 42 | 24 | 57.1% |
| Second Down | 27 | 15 | 55.6% |
| Third Down | 11 | 3 | 27.3% |
| Fourth Down | 4 | 3 | 75.0% |
| Game Total | 84 | 45 | 53.6 |
Ohio State Defense
| Down | Plays | Successful plays | Success Rate |
| First Down | 28 | 12 | 42.9% |
| Second Down | 20 | 5 | 25.0% |
| Third Down | 13 | 3 | 23.1% |
| Game Total | 61 | 20 | 32.8% |
It was a pretty good day for the Ohio State offense and defense, albeit against a fairly overmatched opponent.
Of note, J.T. Barrett only had two third down passing attempts in his limited time. Neither were successful as neither were completed. Haskins had four third down passing attempts, completing one and it converted to a first down.
Let’s look at the QBs
This was Haskins first extended action of the season, and he went against the same bad defense that Barrett faced. Let’s see how each fared.
Of Note, the Pass Efficiency x Success Rate is something I thought I would look at. Pass efficiency can be distorted by a couple of really big plays that go for touchdowns. It is equally important to generate continued success on a regular basis. So this is designed to consider both the pass efficiency metric along with the success rate of those passing plays.
J.T. Barrett
| Down | Comp | Att | Yards | Comp Pct. | TD | Int | Pass Eff. Rating | Success Rate | Pass Eff * Succ Rate |
| First Down | 6 | 9 | 84 | .667 | 0 | 0 | 145.07 | .444 | 64.47 |
| Second Down | 4 | 4 | 118 | 1.000 | 3 | 0 | 595.30 | 1.00 | 595.30 |
| Third Down | 0 | 2 | 0 | .000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Fourth Down | 2 | 2 | 7 | 1.000 | 2 | 0 | 459.40 | 1.00 | 459.40 |
| Game Total | 12 | 17 | 209 | .706 | 5 | 0 | 270.92 | .588 | 159.36 |
Dwayne Haskins
| Down | Comp | Att | Yards | Comp Pct. | TD | Int | Pass Eff. Rating | Success Rate | Pass Eff * Succ Rate |
| First Down | 10 | 13 | 179 | .769 | 2 | 0 | 243.35 | .692 | 168.48 |
| Second Down | 3 | 5 | 25 | .600 | 0 | 0 | 102.00 | .400 | 40.80 |
| Third Down | 1 | 4 | 16 | .250 | 0 | 1 | 8.60 | .250 | 2.15 |
| Fourth Down | 1 | 1 | 8 | 1.00 | 0 | 0 | 167.20 | .000 | 0.00 |
| Game Total | 15 | 23 | 228 | .652 | 2 | 1 | 168.49 | .522 | 87.91 |
This was against similar levels of competition. It could probably be argued that Haskins faced lesser competition in the later stages of the game as UNLV likely used this as an opportunity to get some of their non-starters some work.
(This is not me making a case for one or the other, just sharing the numbers so you can judge for yourself).
Five Factors
Football outsiders did a study about the numbers which indicate a winning performance on the field. They include measures for explosiveness (Yards Per Play), efficiency (Success Rate and pct of available yards Gained), Average Starting Field Position, Finishing Drives (Points per scoring opportunity—a drive with a first down play inside the opponent 40 yard line), and Turnovers.
| Explosiveness | Efficiency | Field Position | Finishing Drives | Turnover Battle | ||
| Team | Yards Per Play | Pct. of Available Yards | Success Rate | Average Starting FP | Points Per Scoring Opportunities (Scoring Opportunities) | Turnovers |
| Ohio State | 7.90 | .778 | .536 | 60.9 | 4.10 (11) | 1 |
| UNLV | 4.33 | .294 | .328 | 77.6 | 2.3 (3) | 2 |