Key stats for Pitt game

[The PonyGrad]

I noticed that Pitt has a higher rank in scoring offense than total offense and a higher rank in scoring defense than scoring defense, SMU is the opposite. I wanted to see if there were any stats that gave a clue as to why.

In SMU's case you would think turnover margin and that has to be part of it, but Pitt has a 0 ( average margin) so it must be something else. My next thought was penalties. They are better than us but not by all that much. The big difference is red zone offense. Pitt is tied for 5th while SMU is tied for 91st. The good news is that our red zone defense is better than theirs but not by as large a margin.

Other stats of note are sacks and sacks allowed. Pitt is tied for 4th in sacks but really bad in allowing them at #120.

The bottom line is that SMU must fix the red zone offense, prevent or create turnovers and get pressure on the QB without making McD a target to win.