I read a lot of books, just not a lot of books about sports. For every sports book I read, I probably read four others not about sports. I will bang out a Grisham book in three days, but it might take me a month to navigate my way through a book on the 1993 Phillies.
There are a couple of reasons for this, ranging from the basic (I dig books on history) to the ridiculous (I am envious; I can't write like that).
Right now I am reading a sports book. It's by Stefan Fatsis, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who wiggled his way into the Denver Broncos training camp as a placekicker, a modern-day George Plimpton. Fatsis, a self-described "no Plimpton," writes about life as an NFL player, really digging deep into the psyche of the modern day athlete.
Not quite all the way through it yet, but I read a page over the weekend that stopped me in my tracks. While Fatsis does a remarkable job telling the tale of the Broncos, he's also a statistic nut like I am. He hit on one that just floored me, not just because the fact numbed me alone, but the fact that it directly tied into what Bucknell coach Tim Landis has been preaching all season and ties into one of the overlooked reasons for Susquehanna's success.
Fatsis writes about the two Broncos punters in camp -- Todd Sauerbrun and Micah Knorr -- who were only separated by an average of two and a half yards per kick over their careers. While that does not seem like much, when you really look at the numbers, it turns out to be a huge difference.
By noting a number of studies, Fatsis weaves a statistical analysis of how Sauerbrun's seemingly small yardage advantage per kick turns into 200 yards of field position over the course of the season. He says that one calculation shows that every five yards of field position equates to 0.4 points on the scoreboard. Take that over the typical number of punts throughout the season, and the difference between Sauerbaun and Knorr actually equates to about 16 points a season.
Don't think 16 points matters over the course of a dozen games or so in a college season? Consider that Bucknell has won a game by one point, another by three and another by eight. The Bison also lost a game by five points. Susquehanna won at Rochester last week by three and Bloomsburg, ranked fourth in the country in Division II, has wins by three and seven points.
That's all the proof you need to see how valuable a weapon like Bobby Eppleman is at Susquehanna. Sure, SU's defense is performing better this year than it has in a long time, but Eppleman is a big reason why.
The junior All-American candidate averaged nearly 43 yards a punt last year. This year his average is way down (36 yards a kick), but he has downed 10 punts inside the 20. Susquehanna is allowing nearly two touchdowns less a game this year (28.9-16.3) thanks to dominating field position created when Eppleman pins the opponents deep.
That's the underlying secret in football, at any level. From midgets to high school to the NFL, it's not about the stars or the big plays, or the great coaches, or the beefeaters up front.
It's about field position. You have it, you win, because there aren't a lot of teams that can consistently drive the length of the field and score.
That brings us to Landis. The Bucknell coach handles most of the special-teams duties himself. He prides himself on the fact that the Bison always rank high nationally in terms of kick returns and kick coverage. Through last week's game at Penn, the Bison rank 31st in kickoff returns and 51st in return defense (out of 118 FCS schools).
Field position matters to Bucknell more than most, especially this year. With an offense that at times can be unwatchable, Bucknell needs to win field position more often than it does not. The Bison have 127 more return yards than their opponents this fall. Over the course of six games, that is more than 21 yards per game, or two first downs Bucknell does not have to get.
That's why a team that ranks near the bottom in every offensive category in FCS can be 3-3. Because they understand that sometimes it's not about marching the ball up and down the field. Sometimes it is about punting the ball away and pinning the other team in the shadow the goalpost and living to fight another day.
n Sports editor Bill Bowman covers college football for The Daily Item. E-mail comments to bbowman@dailyitem.com
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