Texas Football: Inside the Longhorns Advanced Stats
By Shane Black
Field Position
I would not consider field position an overlooked stat in the moment, but as a whole people often throw it to the wayside. A good return or a bad punt gives fans instant reactions, but as a whole how did Texas fair in the field position battle in 2019? I’ll give you a hint, it was not as good as when they had Michael Dickson in 2017.
The Texas offense average starting field position was on the 28.9 yard line. That is not good. In fact it ranked 85th nationally.
Ever since college football brought touchbacks to the 25-yard line we have seen most teams take a knee in the endzone on a majority of their kick returns. This means there are two main ways to increase field position: coffin corner punts and turnovers.
Sophomore punter and cousin of Dickson, Ryan Bujcevski, improved on his freshman average but still ranked in the bottom half of punters in the Big 12. Of his 32 punts, 10 ended up inside the opponents 20-yard line (31%). For reference, the nations leader in punt average Max Duffy had 49 percent of his punts pin opponents inside the 20.
In order to increase field position the Longhorns need a junior season from Bujcevski like they got out of Dickson.
On the turnover front, it is simple: force more turnovers! In 2019 the Horns snagged 12 interceptions and pulled in seven fumbles. This was tied, nationally, for 31st and 72nd.
Though those numbers are not awful, a few more picks or fumbles recoveries in opponents territory could go a long way in setting up what will be one of the top offenses in 2020.