Behind The Numbers: Week 4 FCS Football Review

Each week, we will highlight a couple of marquee national matchups, and then use success rate to get a deeper look than what the final score may tell you about what happened in the game. We will take a look at the most dominant teams of the week, which teams outplayed their opponent but made too many mistakes to get a win on the field, and which teams got outplayed despite escaping with a win.

Success rate removes many of the underlying factors of a game and strictly tells you how well a team played down-to-down. While outliers can swing an individual game, success rate can be a better indicator of what future performance will be. A play is "successful" if 50% of the yards needed are gained on first down, 70% are gained on second down, and 100% are gained on third or fourth down.

The Average Success Rate for a college football program is about 40%, while closer to 50% is considered excellent, and anything under 30% is deemed poor.

We take a look behind the numbers from this weekend's FCS action in Week 4.

Week 4 Ranked Matchups

Abilene Christian 45, Austin Peay 31

Success Rate: ACU (51.4%), Austin Peay (44.4%)

Stone Earle was the best player in this game, leading Abilene Christian's passing attack that had a 59% success rate on passing plays alone. Earle finished with 399 total yards and six touchdowns. The Wildcats are also getting key contributions from newcomers at wide receiver. Raydrian Baltrip, Dallas Dudley, and JB Mitchell combined for 22 catches, 264 receiving yards, and three touchdowns.

Monmouth 51, Villanova 33

Success Rate: Monmouth (56.9%), Villanova (57.9%)

In a huge CAA matchup, Monmouth's offense showed why it is one of the best in the nation, regardless of conference. While Villanova technically won the success rate battle, much of that is skewed by the Wildcats' success late in the game, when it was already out of hand. It also didn't matter because of how explosive the Monmouth offense was on Saturday.

Wide receiver Josh Derry was a big part of the success, posting 177 yards on eight catches. He posted an incredible 7.08 yards per route run, meaning every single time he ran a route, he was getting Monmouth at least seven yards. Monmouth generated six pass plays of over 20 yards, while also posting 11 runs over 10 yards. Rodney Nelson finished with 186 yards, including 96 yards before contact.

As always, quarterback Derek Robertson was elite. He now has 1,662 passing yards and 18 touchdowns this season, on pace for nearly 5,000 yards and 54 touchdowns. Robertson has completed 71% of his passes, but is not feasting on yards after catch on short, underneath throws. His average depth of pass attempt is 10 yards, showing he's taking those shots downfield.

Northern Arizona 31, Incarnate Word 23

Success Rate: NAU (36.5%), UIW (41.3%)

This game was really feast or famine for Northern Arizona, and that really showed up in Ty Pennington's stat line. Pennington was only 17-for-34 passing, but still had 286 passing yards, good for 8.4 yards per attempt and 16.8 yards per completion. The Lumberjacks stalled out on several plays, but pulled out explosive plays, including a 46-yard touchdown heave on 4th & 10 before halftime. Pennington had completions of 46, 38, 33, and 30 yards to different receivers. He had three big-time throws and also suffered three drops from his targets.

Incarnate Word had its best offensive game of the season (efficiency-wise) behind new starting quarterback EJ Colson. Nine penalties hindered some of their drives, and they stalled at crucial times in the game. The Hail Mary touchdown was also a huge swing in momentum, putting even more pressure on UIW in the second half.

Who Were The Most Dominant Teams In Week 4?

In this section, we will highlight the teams that were the most dominant in success rate margin. This will highlight which teams truly dominated, even if the final score hides what really happened. Games against non-Division I opponents were excluded.

• Harvard (Net SR: 44.1%)
• Howard (Net SR: 34.1%)
• Montana (Net SR: 31.7%)
• North Dakota (Net SR: 28.2%)
• Northern Colorado (Net SR: 27.3%)
• Montana State (Net SR: 25.9%)
• North Carolina Central (Net SR: 24.1%)
• Mercer (Net SR: 22.9%)

No surprise to see Harvard here as the Crimson beat up on one of the worst teams in the FCS in Stetson. The Crimson looked sharp in a season-opening 59-7 win. The passing game was dominant, putting up nearly 15 yards per attempt. Jaden Craig only attempted 13 passes in his limited action, but nine of them were thrown 10 or more yards downfield. Craig completed seven of those nine passes for 189 yards.

Howard put together its most impressive performance of the season with a 34-7 blowout win over Hampton. Howard forced a punt or turnover on six of Hampton's first-half drives, not allowing a single drive over 30 yards. The Pirates never made it into Howard territory until the second half.

Montana hosted another MVFC team, but this time the Grizzlies completely dominated Indiana State in a 63-20 statement win. Eli Gillman continues to play like the best running back in the country, averaging 5.64 yards after contact this year. He's also averaging nine yards per carry after putting up 120 yards and three touchdowns on Saturday. The development of quarterback Keali'i Ah Yat is another big story. He's been more accurate this year, but he's also pushing the ball downfield more effectively. Coming into the year, his average depth of pass attempt was only 7.6 yards, but this year, his average has increased to 10.1 yards per attempt.

You may be stunned to see Montana State and Northern Colorado in this section. The Bobcats beat Mercyhurst 17-0, while the Bears escaped with a 26-23 overtime win over Houston Christian. These were two of the weirdest games of the weekend.

Montana State's offense only had six drives this weekend, including taking a knee on the final drive of the game in Mercyhurst territory. In fact, if you take their average points per drive in this game and multiply it by the average number of drives you'd expect in a normal college football game, the Bobcats would have scored over 37 points. On the other hand, Northern Colorado dominated Houston Christian's offense, but gave up two defensive touchdowns, allowing Houston Christian to stay in the game.

North Carolina Central put up an incredible offensive effort in a blowout win over North Carolina A&T. The Eagles recorded 745 total yards on an amazing 10.1 yards per play. Running back Chris Mosley had an insane game with 258 total yards and five touchdowns. He averaged over 17 yards every single time he touched the ball.

Mercer sneaks into this section for the second week in a row, but this time the on-field dominance was reflected on the scoreboard with a 38-0 win over The Citadel. The defense continued its dominance, holding The Citadel to 3-of-18 on third-down attempts. The Bulldogs finished with only 194 yards of total offense on 3.7 yards per play.

Which Games Conflicted With Success Rate?

Each week, this section will highlight teams that won the success rate battle but still lost the game. They outperformed their opponent down-to-down, but lost because of turnovers, penalties, special teams, or explosive plays.

There were not many games in Week 4 in which the team that lost the success rate battle actually found a way to win the game. In fact, the only notable ones were mentioned in the ranked matchups section.

It is worth noting that two games had almost identical success rates from each opponent, but both final scores were rather lopsided. West Georgia defeated Eastern Kentucky by taking advantage of two defensive touchdowns. The Wolves only had three offensive drives over 29 yards. UC Davis dominated Southern Utah on the ground, averaging an insane 10.8 yards per play.