UConn Football Advanced Stat Roundup

What the numbers say about UConn, good and bad, eight games into the season.

UConn football has improved vastly from last year in more than a few metrics: UConn ended the 2021 season No. 129 (-25.6) in SP+, Bill Connelly’s tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency, improving to No. 125 in the nation (-21.5). It’s not a perfect comparison, but it does tell us that this year’s team would be favored by over four points over last year’s.

The Huskies have also improved in the most significant stat: Wins. UConn is 3-5 on the year, equaling the team’s win total since 2019 under former head coach Randy Edsall.

So how has UConn gotten to this point, and what does it mean for the rest of the year? Here are a few advanced stats we picked out to make sense of the Huskies’ solid start:

Defensive success rate: 0.32 (No. 79 nationally) and defensive explosiveness: 1.12, No. 3 nationally)

UConn’s defense has taken the old “bend but don’t break” axiom to its absolute limit this year. Opposing offenses have been able to chip away at them relatively successfully, but Jim Mora’s defense is one of the best in the entire country at limiting the number of big plays given up.

The Huskies’ defense ranks No. 8 in the entire country in defensive explosiveness — a points-per-play scoring metric adjusted for pace and opponent quality. While this number might be boosted by the quality of offense that UConn faced in the meat of the season (the stretch from Syracuse to Michigan), it’s illustrative both of the steps forward that UConn’s secondary has taken and the defensive scheme that Mora has drawn up.

UConn has played a soft zone coverage on the majority of its defensive snaps in 2022, which is extremely good for bottling up high-flying passing offenses, as illustrated by the Huskies’ tremendous defensive explosiveness rating. But it’s less good for mediocre at preventing those same offenses from moving the sticks. The Huskies are ranked just No. 111 in the country in passing play success rate. That’s better than the Huskies have scored in that metric in the past, but still, an indication that they’re giving up more short passes over the middle as a result, limiting the effectiveness of their pass defense.

Havoc rate: 0.12 (No. 125 nationally)

Despite forcing the 13th-most turnovers in the country over the past three games, UConn’s underlying stats show potential cause for concern on that front. Havoc rate is the cumulative number of “havoc” plays — tackles for loss, interceptions, fumbles forced, and passes defended — divided by the number of total plays ran against a defense, and the Huskies have lagged a bit behind in that metric.

They’ve been better at creating those plays in the defensive backfield than up front, registering a havoc play only 7% of the time in the front seven. Mora doesn’t like to send pressure and play man behind it often, and the hesitance to do so definitely hinders UConn in that area. Preferring to leave the front three and edge rushers to their own devices hindered UConn against Ball State, as the team registered just one sack and four total havoc plays in the game. Without the defensive line living in the backfield as they had in games against Fresno State and, to a lesser extent, FIU, Ball State’s rushing attack cut apart UConn in the second half.

Rushing play success rate: 0.42 (No. 85 nationally) and power run success rate: 0.58 (No. 82 nationally)

Despite their No. 124 rank nationally in offensive SP+, the Huskies’ offense has done pretty much everything that could have been asked of them on the ground, especially given the extensive injuries at the skill position players and quarterback.

The advanced stats confirm the eye test on the UConn offense: Nick Charlton loves to run the crap out of the ball, and the Huskies are darn good at executing it. The success rate is one of the major pillars of SP+, it’s the percentage of plays that can be considered “successful” for the offense, defined as gaining 50% of available yards to the sticks on first down, 70% on second down and 100% on third or fourth down.

UConn’s rushing plays have been “successful” 42% of the time, just below the FBS average. On third or fourth down with two yards to go or less, UConn’s offense converts 58% of the time, another respectable number given the Huskies’ injury struggles at RB.

Open field yards per carry: 1.47 (No. 43 nationally)

Consistency on the offensive line has been key to UConn developing its extremely solid rushing attack in 2022, but it couldn’t happen without the explosivity of the offensive backfield. Open field yards per carry (yards per carry past ten yards) is a good measure of your running backs’ ability to flip the field on a long run. Devontae Houston has carried UConn to the 43rd rank nationally in that category.

In PFF’s breakaway percentage stats, the percentage of a runner’s yards that come more than 15 yards from the line of scrimmage, or, how effective a runner is after the blockers give them a healthy edge, Houston checks in at 49%, ahead of Rosa (40.8) and even Carter (36.9). When Houston has been able to rip off runs like that, UConn’s rushing attack goes from “old reliable” to a potentially game-changing force.

Pass blocking efficiency: 94.6% (No. 19 nationally)

Though most of the praise heaped on UConn’s offensive line has been for its run-blocking performance, the unit is quietly one of the more solid units in the country when it comes to keeping the QB clean. It is ranked No. 19 in the country in pass-blocking efficiency, a PFF stat that “measures pressure allowed on a per-snap basis with weighting towards sacked allowed.” In short, out of 200 dropbacks, the UConn offensive line has allowed just three sacks, two QB hits, and 17 hurries.

You’d expect this stat to favor UConn, a team that likes to get the ball out quick on screen passes and short yardage routes: Zion Turner releases the ball after 2.75 seconds in the pocket on average. But as UConn’s offense opens up more and the freshman quarterback gets more comfortable in the pocket, having an extremely solid pass-blocking offensive line has (and will continue to) do him wonders.