[NU Sports] Notes before the Evanston Drive

[cherron604 at aol.com]

The spread today is close - most I have seen have moved from Iowa -2 to Iowa -3 (a little too much money falling on Iowa's side ?).  In the Sagarin numbers, we are actually about 5 points better than Iowa at home.  It would be good to see a very good effort out there.
 
Third down conversion rate in Division I is 40% (4562 out of 11385).  Our opponents are just about on that number - 47/119 or 39%.  The number is a probably a little bit skewed because Ohio U was 0-9.  We actually have improved this number in recent weeks - Our opponents were 28-65 (43%) in games 1-5, and only 19-54 (35%) in games 6-8.
 
Our seasonal total is good, 49-113 (43%).  However, we have dropped off substantially from weeks 1-5 (42-81, 52%) to the last three weeks, when we are only 7 of 32, for a pretty week 22%.  We didn't have many opportunities against the Spartans (2/5), but Purdue wasn't good (3/14) and Michigan was also bad (2-13).
 
You can't sustain those drives with 20% 3rd down conversion.  Any ideas on the fall-off ?  It can't all be 'better opponents', because we were 12 of 24 against Penn State and 8 of 12 against Wisconsin.
 
Chuck Herron   Tech '85