Stat Watch: Southeastern Louisiana

Stat Watch is back for another week, this time taking a look at the Southeastern Louisiana Lions. Last week the stats had pegged a really tough test for LSU against Miami, which obviously did not turn out to be the case, as the Tigers put in a dominant performance. This week the competition is obviously much less stiff, but we’ll take a look and see where the Lions really excel and struggle. Since SELU is an FCS school, we’ll be using your basic offensive and defensive stats and not the advanced ones I normally use that are tabulated for FBS schools only. And again, since it’s only Week 2, we’ll look at last year’s numbers.

Last Season (Offense):

• Points Per Game: 34.8 (12th in FCS)
• Total Offense: 428.1 (23rd in FCS)
• Yards per Carry: 5.76 (3rd in FCS)
• Yards per Pass Attempt: 7.03 (60th in FCS)
• Yards per Play: 6.13 (24th in FCS)
• Team Passing Efficiency: 122.63 (64th in FCS)
• 3rd Down Conversion Percentage: (42nd in FCS)
• Turnovers Lost: 19 (T55th in FCS)

The strong majority of Southeastern’s offense is on the ground, as they rank 3rd in yards per carry on offense and put up strong Points Per Game and Total Offense numbers despite having a middling passing game. With the strength of LSU’s defense being the front seven and stuffing the run, if this remains a strength of Southeastern heading into this season, they should be able to control their offense comfortably and the secondary should get a chance to regain some confidence after last week against what is not a strong passing offense, though there’s some evidence below which suggests a difference there from last year.

Last Season (Defense):

• Points Allowed Per Game: 25.6 (58th in FCS)
• Total Defense: 374.5 (64th in FCS)
• Yards per Carry Allowed: 3.74 (37th in FCS)
• Yards per Pass Attempt Allowed: 6.89 (47th in FCS)
• Yards per Play Allowed: 5.20 (43rd in FCS)
• 3rd Down Conversion Percentage Defense: 29.5% (7th in FCS)
• Turnovers Gained: 18 (T62nd in FCS)

Southeastern was not a particularly strong defense last year, middling by even FCS standards. This should be the kind of team which allows the LSU offense to work on all the things they want to get ironed out and put in before Auburn next week. They are good on 3rd Down, something LSU struggled with against Miami, so it’ll be something to look out for, but otherwise there is not much of a test here.

2018 (1 game):

• Points: 31
• Points Allowed: 34
• Yards per Play: 6.72
• Yards per Play Allowed: 5.77
• Yards per Carry: 3.1
• Yards per Attempt: 8.7
• Yards per Carry Allowed: 4.8
• Yards per Pass Attempt Allowed: 6.5
• Turnover Margin: 2-1

The interesting thing from SELU’s game last week at ULM is the flip in what made the offensive effective from last year. They were tremendous through the air and tended to struggle when running it. The latter would continue to play into LSU’s hands defensively but it’ll be interesting to see if SELU could keep up the success through the air. On defense they remain a rather mediocre unit and LSU should have a strong game in all areas in that regard.