Saturday night, most of the Big 12's coaches will be rehashing what went right and what went wrong in the first game of what may no longer be a shiny new 2014 season.
Part of that assessment will be breaking down what the numbers say transpired on the field.
But which numbers mean most to the guys in charge of teams? I wanted to find out, and I wasn't quite sure what to expect.
Some like to think when it comes to football, coaches' minds work on an entirely different plane than the lowly layman. Advanced statistics are more en vogue than ever. Would any staffs have their own invented metrics or specific stats that correlate to their respective game plans?
Uh, not really.
What did I find? Coaches see stats much the same as most college football fans.
There wasn't a peep about F+, FP margin, points per possession or even yards per play. West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen gave "efficiency" a shoutout, but didn't toss any love to fancy, new-fangled statistics to measure it.
"I know some people are getting into the analytics of college football. I haven't gotten there yet," Texas Tech coach Kliff Kingsbury said. "I think that's kind of above my head."
Their methods of assessing their respective teams, short of game film, were remarkably uninteresting which is, in itself, interesting.
"Turnover margin is always a big indicator in my eyes," Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops said. "Generally yards per rush are an indication, too, of how well you did."
I polled all 10 Big 12 coaches and their responses didn't leave a single eyebrow raise. I didn't necessarily limit them to one specific statistic. I asked which were most important to their postgame assessments and which stats they valued.
Six mentioned turnovers. Four mentioned rushing yards. Only Stoops specifically mentioned yards per carry.
Three coaches - Kansas State's Bill Snyder, TCU's Gary Patterson and Baylor's Art Briles, say they don't concern themselves with statistics at all, at least not when figuring how well or how poorly their teams performed.
"We don't pay attention to stats," Briles said. "If we've got one more point than they've got, it was a good game statistically."
Added Snyder: "There's a number of statistics you can look at, whether it's third down conversion percentage, how you defend third down, how you do on the goal line, how you do in the red zone, etc. All those stats have some kind of meaning to you, but our investment is in individual player, play by play, how well they performed."
Statistics are changing, but the game has changed, too. Though coaches like Texas' Charlie Strong and Stoops preached toughness and winning the rushing battle, as passing offenses and uptempo paces have become more en vogue, statistic evaluation has evolved.
"You can play great defensive in this league and give up high 20s. You really can based on the offensive skill and the offensive schemes," Iowa State's Paul Rhoads said. "Overall yardage was probably at one point a bigger piece. Time of possession at one point was probably a bigger piece."
Times have changed, but one thing hasn't: Coaches don't see box scores much differently than you or I.
What stat is most important in assessing your team's performance?
Art Briles, Baylor: None. "We don't pay attention to stats. If we've got one more point than they've got, it was a good game statistically."
Paul Rhoads, Iowa State: Turnover margin, rush offense, rush defense.
Charlie Weis, Kansas: Turnover margin. "Turnovers are a great equalizer in every single game, good or bad."
Bill Snyder, Kansas State: None, focus on individual player fulfillment of assignments
Bob Stoops, Oklahoma: Turnover margin, yards per rush.
Mike Gundy, Oklahoma State: Turnover margin. "Everything comes down to turnovers."
Gary Patterson, TCU: None. "At the end of the year, everybody, all they look at is wins and losses."
Charlie Strong, Texas: Rushing yardage. "You always want to stop the run and make a team one-dimensional."
Kliff Kingsbury, Texas Tech: Turnover margin. "It was such a negative for us being in the bottom three in the entire country and last in the conference."
Dana Holgorsen, West Virginia: Turnover margin, third down success rate on offense and defense. "I specifically just look at being an efficient offense or an efficient defense is what you do in critical situations."
