UFL Week 4: Worst Week of Season Lowlighted by Crappy Offense
Big Steps BACKWARD Across the Landscape
THIS was not the product America was craving when it was imagining the potential of spring football.
Big step backward this week both in quality and excitement as UFL offenses struggled (except for St. Louis) to move the ball and avoid TOs (St. Louis still had two TOs).
Usually I run some big picture numbers after the boxes to give you a sense of how things are progressing in the UFL. There was actual progress before! Let’s lead with those numbers this time. Check out what happened in a depressing Week Four (as compared to the first three weeks)…
Full-Game Scoring Sums from Low-to-Hi
Week One: 30-(34-39)-41
Week Two: 33-(39-41)-51
Week Three: 47-(54-55)-57
Week Four: 26-(28-38)-49
Yawn! Only two games all season saw less than 30 total points scored. Those were Sunday of this week. That 49 on the far end of W4 might seem “normal” given past growth. But, it featured cheap points galore. St. Louis and Memphis had TD drives of 18-33-44-45 yards in a misleadingly high scoring game. Memphis finished with 127 total yards, single-worst team performance of the UFL season to date.
Team Yardage Number Lines from Low-to-Hi
Week One: 174-228-253-(261-262)-270-280-409
Week Two: 205-285-286-(287-288)-302-310-344
Week Three: 208-250-254-(259-260)-332-419-424
Week Four: 127-193-251-(251-253)-305-355-356
Worse than Week One! Those were essentially exhibition openers with offenses that weren’t ready for game speed. Last two days were worse. Lowest median of the season. Two teams couldn’t even reach 200 yards.
Part of that was caused by a few teams breaking in new QBs because of injuries. And, Birmingham decided to give Corral a shot over Martinez, the week after Martinez put up huge numbers in a blowout. Can see a team with “an embarrassment of riches” wanting to keep two QB’s ready for a potential championship run. Corral continues to disappoint in a league where he was supposed to thrive.
You’ll recall from last week that scoring went way up because of sterling red zone performances rather than raw yardage. Short-lived.
UFL Combined Red Zone Performances by Week
Week One: 10/22 in the red zone
Week Two: 12/27 in the red zone
Week Three: 19/28 in the red zone
Week Four: 12/23 in the red zone
The seven extra TDs that went on the board in W3 came back off the board this week. Probably a mix of defenses adjusting and fluky good luck regressing.
Let’s run game stats in the order they were played. You’ll have to shield your eyes for some of this stuff. Honestly, if the league sticks at THIS BAD for a few more weeks, we may call off the jam and do more baseball. Nothing that ESPN nor FOX could do to get people interested. (You can only hype “boy, this party-minded crowd sure loves mugging for the cameras” so long.)
St. Louis (-7) 32, Memphis 17
Total Yards: Memphis 127, St. Louis 355
Yards-per-play: Memphis 3.3, St. Louis 5.4
Rushing: Memphis 67, St. Louis 133
Passing: Memphis 12-21-1-60, St. Louis 35-45-1-222
Third Downs: Memphis 13%, St. Louis 60%
Turnovers: Memphis 1, St. Louis 2
Red Zone TD Pct: Memphis 67% (2/3), St. Louis 100% (4/4)
If you were scoreboard watching at all Saturday during the NBA Playoffs or a busy MLB slate, you would have gotten the impression that this was an early shootout that saw St. Louis eventually pull away. Score was 20-17 at halftime. Memphis must have been hanging tough before wearing out. Nope.
The first half was close because both teams were scoring cheap points. St. Louis had TD drives of 18 and 33 yards. Memphis had TD drives of 44 and 45 yards, representing the bulk of its offense for the entire day! Once TOs and kick returns stopped setting up easy stuff…St. Louis established its dominance much more emphatically.
Hosts were so impressive in the second half that I had to wonder about Birmingham’s stat rout of Memphis the prior week. Maybe Memphis is just horrible…and it wasn’t clear earlier because it got to open with also-horrible Houston, then grinded a lead on San Antonio before falling apart late.
Statistically, Memphis has been suffering shell shock since that late collapse against San Antonio…
*Birmingham outgained Memphis 424-208 on 7.9 to 3.4 YPP
*St. Louis outgained Memphis 355-127 on 5.4 to 3.3 YPP
Yes, those Memphis opponents are the two best teams in the league. But, man, that’s UGLY (I wrote that sentence right after the game ended, long before so many other teams also played ugly). That’s a complete lack of competitiveness hidden by short TD drives, and what at least appears to be a true ability to score red zone TDs when the opportunity arises. It’s the “driving the field” part that seems to be missing.
Good result for St. Louis. Team feels solidly part of a “big two” for now in the UFL. Still a bit too much gushing about QB McCarron. That 35 of 45 passing line looks/sounds huge. But, it only amounted to 222 passing yards. So…a lot of short stuff. But, clear efficiency on third downs and in the red zone.
Updated Records: St. Louis moves to 3-1 on the season, and a nice recovery from the opening-week shock at Michigan. Memphis falls to 1-3, with the only win coming off a fumble return TD in a Week One snoozer at lowly Houston. Market needs to drop this team in its Power Ratings.
Birmingham (-9) 20, DC 18
Total Yards: DC 251, Birmingham 356
Yards-per-play: DC 5.2, Birmingham 5.4
Rushing: DC 90, Birmingham 130
Passing: DC 12-22-0-161, Birmingham 19-29-0-240
Third Downs: DC 36%, Birmingham 27%
Turnovers: DC 1, Birmingham 1
Red Zone TD Pct: DC 50% (1/2), Birmingham 0% (0/4)
Backers of Birmingham had to be disappointed to see Corral get the start. Still a good yardage win. But, way too much sluggishness. Big favorites fumbled the ball away twice deep in DC territory. Fell from three of four in the red zone last week to one of four. Poor third down performances. Must have been some big plays in the middle of the field that led to field goals.
Birmingham “with Martinez” is still the best team in the league. Heck, Birmingham “with Corral” may still be third best because of other team strengths. But, the Power Rating difference between those two versions might be as much as a field goal. We’ll need more sample size.
DC deserves some credit for lifting its game…even if those Birmingham fumbles created a misleading closeness. Nice 86-yard TD drive put some points on the board. QB Ta’amu made more good plays than bad. Almost pulled off a shocker. Hosts had to kick a FG as time ran out to salvage a victory.
Updated Records: Birmingham is 4-0 straight up, 3-1 ATS…but sharper with Martinez than Corral. DC falls to 2-2 straight up, 2-1-1 ATS.
San Antonio (+1) 19, Michigan 9
Total Yards: Michigan 251, San Antonio 305
Yards-per-play: Michigan 5.0, San Antonio 5.1
Rushing: Michigan 111, San Antonio 41
Passing: Michigan 18-27-1-140, San Antonio 23-37-1-269
Third Downs: Michigan 18%, San Antonio 36%
Turnovers: Michigan 3, San Antonio 1
Red Zone TD Pct: Michigan 0% (0/1), San Antonio 50% (2/4)
Road opener for Michigan. Turned into a pumpkin. Couldn’t move the chains (2/11 on third downs). Couldn’t protect the ball (3 TOs). Couldn’t score a TD. Must have made some big plays in the middle of the field to reach 251 yards on 5.0 YPP. Etling got a lot of snaps at QB for Michigan after starting QB Perry appeared to injure his hamstring in the third quarter.
San Antonio did enough to win in front of a loud crowd. New QB there because the prior starter was lost for the season to injury last week. Can’t complain much about this debut. Looked sharper than Michigan most of the night. Very clean win and cover in what was supposed to be a toss-up. Could turn out that projected doormat Michigan might be blowout fodder on the road. SA better than that at least.
Updated Records: San Antonio is now 3-1 straight up on the season, thanks partly to playing three of four at home. Not as good as that record. But, not as bad as being in a toss-up at home vs. Michigan would have suggested either. Brahmas are 2-2 ATS. Michigan is 2-2 straight up and ATS.
Houston (+3) 17, Arlington 9
Total Yards: Arlington 193, Houston 253
Yards-per-play: Arlington 3.9, Houston 4.7
Rushing: Arlington 40, Houston 76
Passing: Arlington 16-29-1-153, Houston 18-28-0-191
Third Downs: Arlington 20%, Houston 27%
Turnovers: Arlington 2, Houston 1
Red Zone TD Pct: Arlington 50% (1/2), Houston 67% (2/3)
Arlington was either going to come out breathing fire after the blown game vs. DC last week…or show everyone they’ve decided to punt the season after a winless start. Coach Stoops is tough to deal with during the best of times. Can’t be fun at all when losses are piling up and it’s everybody’s fault but his (if you’re new to this writing project, I live in Austin and have a natural distrust of OU coaches, lol). Horrendous stats for Arlington when you remember that Houston is (or was) the worst team in the league and has a soft defense that’s easy to move the ball against!
Houston’s defense had given up TD drives of 74-59-68-83-68-86-64-26 this season (listed in the order they were scored). Arlington, with hyped QB Perez could only manage a relatively cheap 41-yd TD drive today. Arlington was just 2 of 10 on third downs. Prior three Houston opponents combined for 19 of 37 (better than 50%!).
One of these winless teams had to break through. Houston managed to do so…but it might have been taking candy from a disinterested baby.
Updated Records: Houston is 1-3 straight up, 1-2-1 ATS. Arlington falls to 0-4 straight up, 1-3 ATS. (How did these guys only lose by 3 at St. Louis?!).
You might have noticed that home teams swept the board 4-0 straight up this week. That’s expanded the value of home field advantage through 16 games. Here are the updated numbers on that continuing study…
Home Field Advantage Number Line 16 games into the Season (from host’s perspective): -13, -7, -7, -6, -1, -1, 2, (2, 3), 5, 8, 10, 14, 15, 15, 19
Average Result: Host by 3.6
Median Result: Host by 2.5
Birmingham and St. Louis go back on the road this week (at Houston and DC respectively). So, numbers might swing back the other way a bit. Will probably still use 2 points when I’m estimating “market” Power Ratings…unless it’s become clear that settled lines more suggest three than two.
That’s it for this week’s UFL stat summaries. Our next football report will be late in the week with that update of estimated “market” Power Ratings. Plenty of basketball (with a taste of baseball) coming up between now and then.
Thanks for reading. See you again soon.