OBU/HU Interesting Stats

[MilSF]

Looking over the final stats and saw some things that were a bit flabbergasting

OBU Rushing 2nd QTR: -1 yrd; 4th QTR: 3 yrd

HU 3rd QTR: 8:12 possession with 13 plays for 26 yrd (all rushing)

Every offensive stat, outside of a 40yrd difference in passing, belonged to HU. Averaged 4.5 yrd a play for 64 plays.

In the 4th QTR the teams combined to go 1-8 in 3rd down conversions.

HU hasn’t been shutout in the 2nd half since OBU did it in 2022. (GVSU did it in the first half during the playoffs, but HU won of course)

So basically the defenses of both teams were playing as well as any coach at any level of football could possibly expect against two superb offenses.

[walnut100]

The story of the game was definitely the two defenses. Harding's D had Ouachita's O looking confused on a few drives, especially by the end of the game where we got backed up into our own endzone and had to punt it away. On the flipside, after that initial touchdown drive Harding got on their first possession, Ouachita's D looked ready to seek and destroy anything they could throw out there. Without digging too deeply into the stats I'd say the offensive differentiator there was Harding's passing game - many of those pass plays were automatic until they were forced to stop using them strategically at the end of the game and had to start playing a more traditional pass game to try to make something happen to win in the 4th quarter. At the end of the day these two squads were VERY evenly matched, but Ouachita did a better job playing field position and was able to make key decisions that tilted the game in their favor to a W. I think that if these two teams were to rematch in the post-season then it would be a coin flip on who would win.