Time of Possession is Meaningless

I get sick of people talking about time of possession. Football is about scoring and thus about moving the ball. First downs and touchdowns... I could care less, and most coaches would agree, what the TOP numbers are at the end of the game. We want to know what the SCORE is at the end of the game.


Sports writers and fans want to argue over TOP. They say things like you have to run to win and the defense is tired because they've been on the field so long. Makes for good copy, but not relevant. Defenses would get off the field if they force more punts.

This is from Homer Smith

How can it be?  The clock stops when a pass falls incomplete.  It keeps moving when a run is stopped for no gain.  Both results are zero yardage, yet, the pass kept the ball for five seconds while the run kept it for 40. 

If a team that passed only but never completed a pass played a team that ran only but never made a firstdown, the result would be a tie and both defenses would have been on the field for the same number of real minutes.  Yet, if both teams ran the same number of plays, one would have a possession time of eight times that of the other. 

Time of possession is meaningless.  It has nothing to do with keeping your defense or their offense off the field.  It has nothing to do with anything meaningful.  It is for writers and readers who feel precise when a 36:07 is compared to a 23:53. 


This from Mike Leach

NEW YORK (AP) _ Who's got time to worry about time of possession? Not Mike Leach and many other college football coaches.
Offenses have become more reliant on the pass, more capable of breaking off big plays and more likely to skip the huddle and hurry to the line scrimmage. That leaves time of possession - often a deceiving statistic - becoming less and less relevant.

 

Never was that more apparent than Saturday, when No. 10 Cincinnati and its up-tempo attack, jammed four touchdowns into about 16 minutes of possession time during a 28-20 victory against Fresno State.
At Texas Tech, Leach's "Air Raid'' offense goes no-huddle only part-time. But being so reliant on the pass - with every incomplete throw stopping the clock - the Red Raiders rank 94th in time of possession.
Not that Leach cares. To him, ball control is about plays run, first downs and third-down conversions. He says 20 first downs in a game is good target. For plays, he says, "There's not a magic number but you'd like to have more than your opponents.''
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)