Graphing the SEC, 2023 Week 4 (and 3)

For data definitions and disclaimers, take a look at my rundown in the first article in this series: Graphing the SEC, 2023 Week 1

We didn’t have many true upsets, but there are a few intrigues in the efficiency stats out of week 4

• The Georgia Bulldogs technically tabbed the highest efficiency for the week, but I didn’t feature them as the image header because ... of ... advanced statistical reasons that have nothing to do with qualitative preference!
• The highest-efficiency game, however, was the Arkansas-LSU game, where the Woo Pigs once again nearly beat Kelly’s LSU squad. If they’d fill in those last few points one of these years, we Gumps would really appreciate it.
• In Graphing the Tide this week, I apparently achieved Stockholm Syndrome and praised the Alabama offense for being “pretty efficient,” all things considered. But when you look at this list it’s a little damning; the Tide offense was barely Top 10 in the SEC this week. And, spoiler alert, the offense was even less explosive.
• At least we held Ole Miss to an even lower efficiency, though; they’re down in the basement this week with the likes of Vandy, Kentucky, and Auburn. That is one disgusting basement.

The explosiveness table is wacky this week!

• Mississippi State has been pretty bad, but were oddly explosive in a close loss to South Caroline. Is it a coaching thing? Or a “poor man’s Bryce Young” effect for the Bulldogs?
• Kentucky has had sky high isoPPP’s against its last two opponents for some reason. That reason might be “the opponents were very bad,” but they aren’t exactly achieving efficiency against the same bad opponents.
• In a reveral of your usual Big 12 expectations, Oklahoma was one of the least explosive teams in this set, while Texas was up there towards the top.
• Unfortunately, these isoPPP metrics — a better explosiveness metric, if we’re being honest — is less kind to Alabama than my Graphing the Tide XRs. It’s also much kinder to the Ole Miss Rebels, who sit near the top of this list. I read this as such: Ole Miss and Alabama delivered explosive plays about as often, but the Rebels’ explosive plays were more explosive (read, more often passes, and longer gains).

And here’s the Week 3 results from last week. Pardon the delay for these, but there was a data error — an important one, it turns out — so by the time I had it fixed it was Week 4. The game missing from these was ... the Ole Miss vs. Georgia Tech game last week (sigh), which was the most important one for Tide fans. So the post wouldn’t have done much for us.

You’ll notice that game missing from the data source (and the charts below for week 3) was the Ole Miss game. Don’t blame me, blame ... the source.

Roll Tide! Holler with any other observations in the comments.