First stat: Second-half adjustments

When determining the efficacy of a coach, you have to know how a coach can affect a college game and program. They can do so by:

1. Recruiting players - Ault has been decent at this.
2. Keeping players out of trouble - Ault has been better than previous coaches at this.
3. Managing players during games - I'm referring to making adjustments to opposing coaches' schemes, making sure the team is prepared enough to avoid penalties or costly mistakes, that sort of thing.

Ault is great at #1 and #2 - better, in fact, than any other coach that Nevada has had. If those were the only things needed to create a great football program, this blog wouldn't even exist. Unfortunately, his decisions on the sidelines are a weakness... and I can prove it.

You can tell a coach is a good sideline coach by observing the following:

1. Does the team do better in the second half than the first half? Usually, if they are, that means that the coach is adjusting to what the other team is doing better than the other team is adjusting to what the coach is doing.
2. How many penalties does the team experience? A lightly penalized team is usually a well prepared team.
3. How many big plays occur, either for or against the team? If the team has many big plays for it, that's a sign of great execution and preparation. If the team consistently is the victim of big plays, that's a sign of lousy execution and poor preparation.

Today, I'm going to focus on second half adjustments - I'm starting here because, near as I can tell, Ault doesn't adjust to anything anymore. It's rather disconcerting.

Before I proceed, I'm going to lay out a few ground rules. First, in blowout games, it's not uncommon for the team on the receiving end of the blowout to have a better second half than the first - that's a byproduct of both sides throwing their scrubs out there. Consequently, I'm going to include margin of victory at halftime and at the end of the game when I outline Ault's performance here. Secondly, I'm pulling all of my stats from the same source - ESPN.com. Finally, I'm going to post first half and second half scores - note that the second half scores will be the points scored in only the second half, not the total score. This lets us see whether the opposing team gained or lost victory margin over the course of the game.

So, how has Ault been doing this year? Let's take a look:

September 1st, @ Nebraska
1st Half:
NEB: 21
NEV: 10
Margin: NEB +11

2nd Half:
NEB: 31
NEV: 0
Margin: NEB +31

September 8th, @ Northwestern
1st Half:
NW: 10
NEV: 24
Margin: NEV +14

2nd Half:
NW: 26
NEV: 7
Margin: NW +19

September 15th, Nicholls State
1st Half:
NICH: 10
NEV: 31
Margin: NEV +21

2nd Half:
NICH: 7
NEV: 21
Margin: NEV +14

September 29th, UNLV
1st Half:
UNLV: 3
NEV: 10
Margin: NEV +7

2nd Half:
UNLV: 17
NEV: 17
Margin: 0

October 6th, Fresno State
1st Half:
FRES: 28
NEV: 13
Margin: FRES +15

2nd Half:
FRES: 21
NEV: 28
Margin: NEV +7

October 14th, @ Boise State
1st Half:
BSU: 28
NEV: 21
Margin: BSU +7

2nd Half:
BSU: 16
NEV: 23
Margin: NEV +7

Note: BSU won in 3OT by 2.

October 20th, @ Utah State
1st Half:
USU: 21
NEV: 14
Margin: USU +7

2nd Half:
USU: 7
NEV: 17
Margin: NEV +10

October 27th, Idaho
1st Half:
ID: 7
NEV: 17
Margin: NEV +10

2nd Half:
ID: 14
NEV: 20
Margin: NEV +6

So, to recap:

Of the eight games already played this year, only three of them led to us having higher margins in the second half than the first half - Boise State, Fresno State, and Utah State. The Boise State game was definitely an astounding performance by our team and our coaching staff, so I'm going to give kudos on that one. The Fresno State game, however, was out of control by the end of the third quarter - Fresno State tacked on an additional seven points to their margin by the end of the third quarter, meaning that we got our +7 margin for the half in the fourth quarter when the game was well out of our hands. The Utah State game, though, is a little harder to categorize. Our margin did improve well enough to win the game, which was good - that said, coming out that flat against them in the first half was pretty discouraging.

The key to note here is that, in a majority of our games, our team has consistently done poorer in the second half than the first half. This is a sign that our opponents are adjusting to us better than we're adjusting to them, which, in turn, is a reflection of the coaching.