[terry]

Well done.  One correction... MSU did have a punt blocked against Ohio State.  Not sure why that didn't show up in your research.

As for the number of punt touchbacks (8-1), I'm not sure there is much relevance to the discrepancy without incorporating number of attempts and field position.  I'm guessing MSU has significantly more attempts than Stanford, considering our defense outscored our offense during the first few weeks of the season.  8 times as many?  Don't know.  How about average starting field position of the offense?  Maybe MSU has more pooch attempts.   

MSU's official statistics say that MSU had no punts blocked this year:

PUNTING              No.  Yds  Avg Long  TB  FC I20 Blkd
----------------------------------------------------------
Sadler, Mike          70 2960  42.3  69  8  18  30    0
Total..........            70 2960  42.3  69  8  18  30    0

http://www.msuspartans.com/sports/m-foot...mcume.html

The box score for the Ohio State game does not show any MSU punts being blocked. It shows that MSU had a 19 yard punt in the 4th quarter, but it's not recorded as a blocked punt.

MSU's 8 touchbacks is quite a high figure. MSU punted 70 times, so the 8 touchbacks represent 11.4% of all MSU punts. That ranks 95th in the nation. Stanford had 1 touchback on 47 punts for a touchback rate of 2.1%, which ranks 9th in the nation.

I'm not going to do a field position analysis on punts, but you're welcome to do it. In my opinion, the discrepancy in touchbacks is large enough to be a significant difference between the two teams, no matter what field position they had.

I'd be curious about your reaction to my posts on MSU's offense and defense, if you want to post in those threads.

MSU offense - http://thecardboard.org/board/index.php/...184.0.html
MSU defense - http://thecardboard.org/board/index.php/...212.0.html

[terry]

Well done.  One correction... MSU did have a punt blocked against Ohio State.  Not sure why that didn't show up in your research.

As for the number of punt touchbacks (8-1), I'm not sure there is much relevance to the discrepancy without incorporating number of attempts and field position.  I'm guessing MSU has significantly more attempts than Stanford, considering our defense outscored our offense during the first few weeks of the season.  8 times as many?  Don't know.  How about average starting field position of the offense?  Maybe MSU has more pooch attempts.   

MSU's official statistics say that MSU had no punts blocked this year:

PUNTING              No.  Yds  Avg Long  TB  FC I20 Blkd
----------------------------------------------------------
Sadler, Mike          70 2960  42.3  69  8  18  30    0
Total..........            70 2960  42.3  69  8  18  30    0

http://www.msuspartans.com/sports/m-foot...mcume.html

The box score for the Ohio State game does not show any MSU punts being blocked. It shows that MSU had a 19 yard punt in the 4th quarter, but it's not recorded as a blocked punt.

MSU's 8 touchbacks is quite a high figure. MSU punted 70 times, so the 8 touchbacks represent 11.4% of all MSU punts. That ranks 95th in the nation. Stanford had 1 touchback on 47 punts for a touchback rate of 2.1%, which ranks 9th in the nation.

I'm not going to do a field position analysis on punts, but you're welcome to do it. In my opinion, the discrepancy in touchbacks is large enough to be a significant difference between the two teams, no matter what field position they had.

I'd be curious about your reaction to my posts on MSU's offense and defense, if you want to post in those threads.

MSU offense - http://thecardboard.org/board/index.php/...184.0.html
MSU defense - http://thecardboard.org/board/index.php/...212.0.html