Let’s start the 2024 season with a repeat of the best win of the Bielema era

The fans have spoken and the game I’ll be recapping today is Illinois’ victory over Penn State in 2021.

It was an unforgettable game. Here is Matt Rejc’s summary.

The best win of the Bielema era was a bit of everything.

9OT ranking victory in rainy Happy Valley.

The beginning of the barge formation.

Dirty runs by Josh McCray and Chase Brown.

And especially those body spear tackles by 0-star recruit and eventual top-5 pick Devon Witherspoon.

The game ended with a botched coverage and a completely unmarked Casey Washington catching the final 2-point attempt and giving the Illini the 20-18 victory over No. 7 Penn State.

Before I get into the advanced statistics section of this column, please read my previous columns that cover the statistics in detail – Part 1 , Part 2 and Part 3.

I would like to note that the game data was a bit messy. The data source doesn’t handle 9 OTs very well.

Adjusted Line Yards – ALY

ALY measures the number of yards you can attribute to the offensive line. This, along with the Adjusted Sack Rate, measures the success of the offensive line. You adjust the line yards and sack rate based on the DVOA, or Defense-adjusted Value Over Average.

At this point in the season, Penn State was pretty successful rushing. Penn State had a defensive success rate against the run of 57.8%, which was slightly below the league average of 58.2%. Penn State allowed 150 yards per game on the ground. Illinois had 136 line yards in this game. That brings me to my next stat, highlight yards.

Highlight shipyards

Highlight yards are the number of second-level yards. All yards not accounted for by the offensive line are awarded to the running back.

Illinois had 286.4 second-level yards. In this game, Illinois had more second-level yards than Penn State had allowed in a single game all season.

dominance.

Adjusted Sack Rate – ASR

ASR is calculated by dividing all sack and penalty yards by the number of pass attempts. This statistic is compiled for attempts and yardage.

The statistic that catches my eye here is that Illinois:

1. A lot of running on the second attempt.
2. Penn State’s pass rush had great chances on the Illinois offense on passing plays. Half of all first downs and a quarter of all third downs ended in a sack or penalty.

Fortunately, Illinois was able to impress with its running game. Aside from the 6 sacks, Illinois played a pretty clean game.

Illinois also only had 38 passing yards. But shhh.

Defense EPA

Based on down and distance, Illinois’ defense was extremely successful. The EPA measures the Eexpected PAnoint Aadded for each down played. Total EPA is the points added during the game and the per play stat is, well, per play. Illinois’ defense added, or rather prevented Penn State’s offense from scoring, 18 points in this game. Essentially, those bone-crushing tackles and law firm due diligence kept the Illini in the game. This is evident in the next stats.

Defensive Yards Lost Down and Distance (DYL)

DYL stands for Defense Yards Lost per Down and Distance. Penn State had a 93-yard drive at the end of the first quarter, 82 of those yards came on 1st and 10. Taking that drive out, Illinois allowed 42 yards on first down, 62 yards on second down, 35 yards on third down, and 36 yards on fourth down for the rest of the game. Chase Brown had more yards on second down than Penn State had yards for three-quarters of the game.

chaos

Havoc rating: 44.3%

Of the 97 defensive plays, Illinois stopped a whopping 44.3%. Illinois had 6 sacks, 10 tackles for loss and 26(!) failed attempts on 3rd and 4th down.

The Nittany Lions had nowhere to go.

F5

F5 is a metric created by Bill Connelly that essentially takes into account explosiveness, efficiency, effectiveness (points per drive inside the 40), average starting position and total turnover.

Illinois, 1.93 yards/play advantage: Illinois already leads 93% of the time.

Illinois 19.4% Efficiency Margin: Illinois wins 91% of the time.

Illinois had a small point lead inside the 40 (thanks, overtime rules), but both teams were so bad at finishing drives (welcome to the Big Ten!) that it didn’t matter.

However, Illinois was 15 yards further back than Penn State and lost the ball twice. This is where the strength of the defense showed and led the Illini to victory after 9 grueling overtimes.

I hope this was an interesting read. If you want me to go into some areas more or others less, let me know in the comments. The stats will be updated as the season progresses and I improve the code. Hopefully by the time we play Northwestern I won’t have Excel screenshots but nice charts.

But first: defeat Eastern.

SICK

All data courtesy of the team at Subscribe.