SWINNEY VS. BOWDEN- ROUND 1- OFFENSE

Here are some interesting statistics comparing offensive categories under former head football coach Tommy Bowden to the offense under current head football coach Swinney. Although each was the coach for exactly half the season or six games, the games against FBS opponents (Citadel and S.C. State) coached by Bowden were excluded. Consequently, there are only four games of statistics under Bowden ('Bama, NCSU, MD, WF against which Bowden went 1-3) but six games under Swinney (GT,BC, FSU, Duke, UVA, SC against which Swinney went 4-2). Swinney's stats. are on the left, Bowden's stats. are on the right.


AVG. POINTS SCORED: 24.3, 15.6

AVG. YARDS OF OFFENSE: 324.2, 296.5

AVG. # OF FIRST DOWNS: 17.7, 15.5

AVG. # OF TOUCHDOWNS: 2.83, 1.75

AVG. # OF PLAYS: 67, 56.5

AVG. # OF YARDS PER PLAY: 4.82, 5.18

AVG. # OF RUSHING YARDS: 99.5, 102

AVG. # OF CARRIES: 36.3, 26.7

AVG. # OF PASSING YARDS: 224.7, 194.5

AVG. PASS COMPLETION %: 64.55, 60.32

AVG. # OF PASS ATTEMPTS: 30.7, 29.7

AVG. # OF INTERCEPTIONS: 1.3, 1.0

AVG. # OF TOTAL TURNOVERS: 2.5, 2.5

AVG. 3RD DOWN CONVERSION %: 33.3, 25

AVG. # OF PENALTIES/AVG. YARDS PER: 4.67/8.61, 6.25/9.08

So, what's it all mean? First, to be fair, Bowden did not actually run the offense himself. He left that job to former offensive coordinator Rob Spence, the so-called "mad genius" who was fired about thirty seven seconds after Swinney was named interim head coach. However, Bowden was the head coach and therefore is ultimately responsible for offensive production or lack thereof. An examination of these statistics reveals that under coach Swinney, the Tigers offense averaged more points, more total yards, more first downs, more touchdowns, more plays, more carries, more passes, more passing yards, a higher pass completion percentage, a higher third down conversion and less penalties and yards per penalty than it did under Bowden.

Three of the categories look better under Bowden: The Tigers offense averaged more yards per play and more rushing yards even though it averaged less carries. There was also less average interceptions. Statistics don't tell always tell the whole story and in some cases, teams can dominate a game statistically and lose it. However, in this case there is clearly a marked improvement offensively across the board under Coach Swinney and the win-loss record also improved.