UFL Week 5: Visitors All Win by Double Digits!?!
Studs Birmingham, St. Louis, Dark Horses San Antonio, Michigan Prevail
So much for home field advantage in the UFL. It actually disappeared this week. For real. Four road victories by double-digit margins erased what had been a 2-3 point home field edge coming into the weekend. Here’s the latest number line and updates on average/median results.
Home Field Advantage Number Line 20 games into the Season from host’s perspective (median in parenthesis): -33, -23, -17, -13, -10, -7, -7, -6, -1, (-1, 2), 2, 3, 5, 8, 10, 14, 15, 15, 19
Average Result: Visitor by 1.5
Median Result: Host by 0.5
Yes, the average result is a ROAD WIN! Three biggest ROAD blowouts of the season all happened this weekend (-33, -23, -17), and four of the five biggest for the whole campaign. We’re at an odd number of weeks, though. Math may be a bit warped by the fact that both Birmingham and St. Louis have played three road games and only two home games. When that evens out, we may be at net zero on offense with a median around 1-2. Those are the two top teams. Two teams can have a lot of gravity in an eight-team league.
Let’s update some of the other “big picture” stuff before getting to the game boxes…
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
Week Five: 40-(41-53)-57
Scoring bounced back up this weekend…but it was mostly due to cheap points. And, that still only resulted in two Unders and two Overs. Some crappier QBs on the field now because of injuries to starters. That means more TOs that could set up easy points for opponents. Let’s see what the yardage numbers show us.
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
Week Five: 163-248-271-(280-311)-311-350-358
Hey, can’t argue with the best median of the season. Not exactly an explosion. But, it’s about time one of the midpoints reached out and touched 300.
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
Week Five: 18/36 in the red zone
A lot more trips into scoring territory than we had been seeing. Some of that was because of TOs and blocked punts. But, at least the volume is starting to look more like real football. Too bad it’s connected to sloppy play.
An improvement from last week when yardage was so anemic you really had to doubt the viability of the league’s future. I’m still kinda doubting the league’s viability. It’s not a great product. It’s not a league of potential NFL stars. At best, it’s a league of potential NFL hangers-on. Many of the QBs who were supposed to carry the hype feel like they peaked two years ago. Jordan Ta’amu is 26 now. Passing line of 12-23-3-79 in a home game today. Isn’t it better to live with a 23-year old’s struggles who has potential to develop? If the team’s going to be bad anyway?
Let’s get to game action in the order they were played.