[Goose]

Stanford had only 32 yards rushing at half (12 atempts). Can't say I feel like the night was a good performance, though credit to Ford for his long gainer (did not know he had the wheels).

OTOH, with Mattingly in the game the longest run for Elon was 17 yards. Is that great? No. But it's definitely not embarassing. NC State is not a great rushing team, so I have hope that Friday won't be embarassing, either.

Yeah, the running game was a bit distorted by the 81 yard TD run, which dramatically brings up the average.  Without it, we have 141 yards on 32 carries, which is a much more pedestrian 4.4 ypc.  Now, of course, that 81 yard TD run did happen, so it is not entirely fair to just erase it off the books, but looking at the median run might be more instructive than looking at the mean in terms of establishing how dominant the running game was, and, let's face it, in most runs, we weren't picking up chunks of yards.

BC

As you note, the biggest run of a game counts….it’s the most meaningful run of a game! It’s always some sleight of hand to try to subtract that out. And having 4.4 carries without it hardly seems pedestrian, as that’s continual non-big play dependent moving of the chains. Here are Ford’s runs judged by success rate:

2nd and 9 - 1 yard FAIL

1st and 10 - 10 yard first down SUCCESS (double success)

2nd and 10 - 2 yard FAIL

1st and 10 - 2 yard FAIL

3rd and goal from the 1 - 1 yard touchdown SUCCESS (if you’re going to exclude the outlier biggest success you certainly shouldn’t include high leverage plays stopped by the end zone in lowering the average)

1st and 10 - 5 yards SUCCESS

1st and 10 - 4 yards pretty neutral but can call it FAILURE

2nd and 3 - 7 yards touchdown SUCCESS (again, stopped by the goal line)

1st and 10 - 10 yards first down SUCCESS (double success)

1st and 10 - 12 yards first down SUCCESS (double success)

1st and 10 - 0 yards FAILURE

3rd and 1 - 3 yards first down SUCCESS

1st and 10 - 7 yards SUCCESS

2nd and 3 - 13 yards first down SUCCESS (double success and then some)

1st and 10 - 3 yards FAILURE

3rd and 3 - 4 yards SUCCESS

1st and 10 - 4 yards pretty neutral but we can call it FAILURE

1st and 5 - 5 yards touchdown SUCCESS (again, stopped by the goal line)

1st and 10 - 81 yards touchdown SUCCESS (again, stopped by the goal line)

That’s so much success. We dictated the game, did it more through the ground than through the air, and did it against one of the best run defenses in FCS. This was a successful day on the ground.

To complete BC's thought the median is 4.0. IMO the Elon defense wore down in the second half. That helped quite a bit. I didn't "feel" that Stanford was at all dominant on the ground in the first half. We clearly were not a team that could run on every down and physically dominate Elon. I am guessing lots of fans hoped to see that, and it wasn't happening.
 
IMO we did indeed overall have a successful running attack. Elon couldn't ignore the run, and we ended up pretty "balanced" for the game. However Stanford did punt 4 times. Our running attack did not "dictate" much of anything until late in the game. Elon had 220 yards rushing, Stanford had 222. That is even. What "dictated" the game was that Elon couldn't pass and we could. Stanford had 293 yards passing, Elon had 52. Of course, if we couldn't run the passing game may have been impacted significantly by more blitzing and a stronger pass rush.

UPDATE: Incidentally, FORD's average ypc including the 81 yard burst was 9.16. Excluding it, his average ypc was 5.17. The standard deviation of the 5.17 was 3.77. This latter number reflects our propensity to get hit at the LOS or sooner was still operational. Ford often has to make 2 yards out of nothing. He is pretty good at that, but it is still a problem in attempting a "run heavy" offense.

[Goose]

Stanford had only 32 yards rushing at half (12 atempts). Can't say I feel like the night was a good performance, though credit to Ford for his long gainer (did not know he had the wheels).

OTOH, with Mattingly in the game the longest run for Elon was 17 yards. Is that great? No. But it's definitely not embarassing. NC State is not a great rushing team, so I have hope that Friday won't be embarassing, either.

Yeah, the running game was a bit distorted by the 81 yard TD run, which dramatically brings up the average.  Without it, we have 141 yards on 32 carries, which is a much more pedestrian 4.4 ypc.  Now, of course, that 81 yard TD run did happen, so it is not entirely fair to just erase it off the books, but looking at the median run might be more instructive than looking at the mean in terms of establishing how dominant the running game was, and, let's face it, in most runs, we weren't picking up chunks of yards.

BC

As you note, the biggest run of a game counts….it’s the most meaningful run of a game! It’s always some sleight of hand to try to subtract that out. And having 4.4 carries without it hardly seems pedestrian, as that’s continual non-big play dependent moving of the chains. Here are Ford’s runs judged by success rate:

2nd and 9 - 1 yard FAIL

1st and 10 - 10 yard first down SUCCESS (double success)

2nd and 10 - 2 yard FAIL

1st and 10 - 2 yard FAIL

3rd and goal from the 1 - 1 yard touchdown SUCCESS (if you’re going to exclude the outlier biggest success you certainly shouldn’t include high leverage plays stopped by the end zone in lowering the average)

1st and 10 - 5 yards SUCCESS

1st and 10 - 4 yards pretty neutral but can call it FAILURE

2nd and 3 - 7 yards touchdown SUCCESS (again, stopped by the goal line)

1st and 10 - 10 yards first down SUCCESS (double success)

1st and 10 - 12 yards first down SUCCESS (double success)

1st and 10 - 0 yards FAILURE

3rd and 1 - 3 yards first down SUCCESS

1st and 10 - 7 yards SUCCESS

2nd and 3 - 13 yards first down SUCCESS (double success and then some)

1st and 10 - 3 yards FAILURE

3rd and 3 - 4 yards SUCCESS

1st and 10 - 4 yards pretty neutral but we can call it FAILURE

1st and 5 - 5 yards touchdown SUCCESS (again, stopped by the goal line)

1st and 10 - 81 yards touchdown SUCCESS (again, stopped by the goal line)

That’s so much success. We dictated the game, did it more through the ground than through the air, and did it against one of the best run defenses in FCS. This was a successful day on the ground.

To complete BC's thought the median is 4.0. IMO the Elon defense wore down in the second half. That helped quite a bit. I didn't "feel" that Stanford was at all dominant on the ground in the first half. We clearly were not a team that could run on every down and physically dominate Elon. I am guessing lots of fans hoped to see that, and it wasn't happening.
 
IMO we did indeed overall have a successful running attack. Elon couldn't ignore the run, and we ended up pretty "balanced" for the game. However Stanford did punt 4 times. Our running attack did not "dictate" much of anything until late in the game. Elon had 220 yards rushing, Stanford had 222. That is even. What "dictated" the game was that Elon couldn't pass and we could. Stanford had 293 yards passing, Elon had 52. Of course, if we couldn't run the passing game may have been impacted significantly by more blitzing and a stronger pass rush.

UPDATE: Incidentally, FORD's average ypc including the 81 yard burst was 9.16. Excluding it, his average ypc was 5.17. The standard deviation of the 5.17 was 3.77. This latter number reflects our propensity to get hit at the LOS or sooner was still operational. Ford often has to make 2 yards out of nothing. He is pretty good at that, but it is still a problem in attempting a "run heavy" offense.