S11 Stats Preview: How good is Baylor's Texas Bowl opponent Vanderbilt?

Now that signing day is over it’s time to look at a solid bowl matchup for the Bears.   Both teams are 6-6 and won their last game to get here.  It’s a slightly humorous de-facto playoff bracket as both teams were 5-6 and had to beat another 5-6 team to get here and not stay home for the bowl season.

Vanderbilt scheduled Notre Dame in non-conference play and faced good Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Missouri, and Kentucky teams in SEC play.  They are 6-6 but lost three of their losses by a single score.  They did not have an easy time in wins over Arkansas, Ole Miss, and FCS Tennessee State.  They have no common opponents with Baylor so let’s look at the numbers to see how the Commodores stack up relative to their competition and who else has played their competition.

Vanderbilt Offense

This team moves the ball slightly less than other Power 5 teams do against it’s P5 opponents.  Vandy averages 95% of what other P5 teams do against the 9 power teams they played.  Their best outings relative to other teams were against Notre Dame, Mizzou, and Tennessee where they moved it well in excess of what others did to them.  Their worst was easily South Carolina who shut them down cold despite the Gamecocks averaging over 40 yards per drive defensively.  Baylor’s yards per drive against P5 teams is very similar to what Vandy’s opponents averaged against other power teams.

Offensive Overview Stats

Vandy isn’t a prolific offense on average.  They are not very efficient on third down at all with almost 9% fewer conversions than expected so winning first and second down will be key.  Baylor isn’t a good third down defense (allows 43%) but isn’t far off from what Vandy’s opponents have been on average.  Their yards per play and yards per drive is slightly below expected but they do a good job avoiding turnovers as they averaged only .75 per game in SEC play and 1 per game with Notre Dame included.  They won’t be the most wide open opponent for the Bears but they do a good job manufacturing a few big plays a game with schemes that Baylor isn’t used to seeing.

Offensive Passing Game

Their passing game is based on a west coast offense scheme with lots of short passes and high percentage throws.  Unsurprisingly this led to a slightly higher completion percentage and a slightly lower yards per pass than one would expect.  They aren’t far off from expectations but the demolition of the Razorback’s secondary (68.4%, 14.8 per completion) does lift these a bit.   Their pass protection allows less than what is expected with sack percentage but I expected lower considering how good Schurmur is at avoiding sacks and getting rid of the ball quickly.  Since they scheme it well to avoid pressure on standard downs it might point to an personnel opportunity for pressure when the Commodores are in long yardage that many of Baylor’s Big 12 opponents didn’t give the Bears.

Offensive Run Game

This run scheme is pretty pedestrian statistically. Of the run averages, only the Quarterback run game generated more yards per carry than expected and they average only 1.5 quarterback carries per game other than sacks so that means little.  Usually it’s a scramble or the backup QB coming in to obviously run wildcat schemes which isn’t going to be a main feature for them.  In most games this year Vandy will get one or two long carries for around 50 yards but the other 30 or so  will average around 3.5 per non-QB carry.  It’s boom or bust more than most of who Baylor played.

Defense

The Vandy defense isn’t nearly as strong as the reputation & brand Derek Mason brought with him from Stanford.   He’s a good defensive coach but they allowed several teams to post some very big totals on them including Arkansas and Tennessee State.  

Their best outing was probably the Tennessee game or the Nevada game.   Baylor’s offense averages more yards per drive than Vandy’s P5 opponents averaged in other P5 games which is encouraging.

Defensive Overview Stats

The Vandy defense gets a strong reputation but has not been all that good this year.   They allow almost six more yards per drive (16.5%  more) than expected, more yards per play, more yards per game, and allows scores on 47% of opponent drives in P5 games.  Their third down defense is very suspect and they’ll face a Baylor offense that averages almost 44% despite the awful outing against TCU (15%) weighing the average down considerably. They do force slightly more turnover though which can be a good equalizer.

Defensive Passing Game

The Commodores allow opponents to basically do what they do in the air with a smilar completion percentage and slightly more yards per completion to what other P5 teams allow.   The issue for them though is that they don’t disrupt well.  They generate a little over half of the sack percentage other P5 teams do against their opponents.  This takes the sack adjusted yards per attempt up well above what other teams allow.   This issue is further illustrated by how rarely they sack or hurry the QB compared to expectations.

Defensive Run Game

Their run defense isn’t very consistent statistically despite solid front seven personnel.  The lack of sacks hurts the pure yards per rush number but the non-sack average and non-QB average would indicate issues stopping the ground game.

Special Teams

The Commodores are typical on punt returns and slightly below average on kickoff returns.  Their coverage units are typical covering kickoffs but give up more than expected on punt returns.    Despite this Vanderbilt enjoys a 4.3 yard advantage in starting field position which amounts to an estimated 50 yards over the course of one of their games.  This is likely due to turnover margin and the Bears need to deny them this advantage.

Conclusions

Much like Baylor, the Commodores have some things to work on but present a solid challenge in this game.  Turnovers are the big key with Vandy- it gives them 50+ yards of field position per game and sets up scores for them.   Their yardage efficiencies aren’t above average relative to their competition but this team gave several good squads a fight for a reason- they don’t beat themselves.  The Bears will need to be ready for some schemes they haven’t seen much of and that is where the next article of this preview series will start.

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