Needs improvement: Red Zone Offense

[ISUBU]

One of the more frustrating parts of the 2017 Birds was their struggles to actually score touchdowns once they moved into the red zone. In conference games only, we were last in the league in Red Zone success at 68% We rank 7th of 10 in Red Zone touchdown percentage - which I think better shows your offensive success. In a way, once you move into the Red Zone a field goal is a sign that you didn't get a touchdown. No one statistic tells the whole story, but it's interesting to look at the MVFC teams ranked by Red Zone touchdown percentage, and then how they finished in the conference

SDSU .800 Playoff
NDSU .667 Playoff
USD .656 Playoff
UNI .625 Playoff
YSU .615
WIU .609 Playoff
ISU .560
SIU .552
MSU .393
InSU .385

I do think we may see a jump in performance here in 2018.

 

[fourthandshort]

agree on this and 3rd down conversions, where we were 9th despite having strong run game. Which says were were either predictable or in more 3rd and longs than most .. more likely a lot of both.

Related to red zone production .. I think we have led MVFC in turnovers in the red zone 2 years in a row .. counting on Beathard to fix this problem. If we didn't turn ball over, we jump from 17 of 25 to 17 of 20 in 2017.

Other issue is we were 9th in getting to red zone the least .. also hoping Beathard can help there.