NEW ORLEANS8212;Try to remember the last time you saw a Utah receiver loose the football. Rack your brain for the last Ute tailback to cough up the rock. It won’t be in 2008.
Of all the times Bradon Godfrey and Freddie Brown have caught passes over the middle, not one has been turned over. Every Brett Casteel swing pass and Matt Asiata rumble through the middle has stayed in Utah’s possession.
When asked about this trend, head coach Kyle Whittingham said, “Jinxing us now. Yeah, ball security was good for us.”
Good might be an understatement.
Utah had 20 fumbles on the season and lost only eight of them. Of those 20 fumbles, eight belonged to the quarterback8212;six to Brian Johnson and two to Corbin Louks. Four of Johnson’s fumbles resulted in loss of possession, while none of Louks’ did. Of Utah’s 12 remaining fumbles, nine of them happened on punt returns. Utah lost four of those. That means as an offense, Utah had just three fumbles all season, none of which were lost.
Of Utah’s 18 total turnovers so far, Brian Johnson has been responsible for 13 of them, but has had just three since beating Oregon State at the season’s midpoint on Oct. 2nd and were even in the turnover margin.
From then on, Utah basically dominated the turnover differential, which for Whittingham, was crucial.
“It’s the most important stat, aside from final score,” Whittingham said of turnovers. “I’ve talked with NFL coaches that say the same thing. Some years turnovers come in droves, some years they are rare. Which way the ball bounces is a factor.”
When the ball bounces in Utah’s favor, it has meant good things for Utah’s record. In the last 10 seasons, Utah has had eight or more wins seven times. Of those seven seasons, Utah’s takes the ball away an average of 69.7 percent of the time more then it gives it away and forces an average of 27 turnovers per season, compared to giving the ball away just 18.4 times. When Utah has failed to reach eight wins, their turnover margin was an average of -.36 and they gave the ball away an average of 24.6 times per season compared with only 20 takeaways.
“As a defensive coordinator, you coach takeaways every year,” Whittingham said. “Some year’s you’d be taking the ball away 30 times. Sometime you take the ball away 12 times. So I think if you just keep after it, keep demanding the same things of your players, keep teaching technique and so forth.”
Since the 2008 season midway point, Utah has forced 17 turnovers compared to committing just four itself. That’s a turnover margin of 1.83, which would have been good for No. 1 in the nation if that would have been a season long effort. As it stands, Utah has forced 28 turnovers compared to losing the ball 17 times, good for a .92 turnover margin, which has them ranked No. 16 in the country in that category.
To emphasis the importance of a high turnover average, the two teams playing in the national championship game, Oklahoma and Florida, are No. 1 and No. 2 in turnover margin this season with an average of 1.77 and 1.69 more takeaways than turnovers per season.
It’s also not surprising that Whittingham is calling the turnover battle one of the keys to the game when Utah goes up against an Alabama team that has forced 24 turnovers of their own and have lost the ball just 16 times, good for a .62 turnover margin and a No. 22 ranking in the country.