With Wyoming losing to the Air Force 28-27 despite having a 24-14 halftime lead, I asked on Twitter is Dave Christensen a good game day coach? The overwhelming response to that question was no as he was deemed to be a better coach in the first half of games but failed to make adjustments in the second half. This was a sentiment that I agreed with so I decided to dig into the stats to see if that argument held water. Below is a breakdown of Wyoming and their opponents scoring by quarter since Christensen took over in 2009.
The first thing that jumped out at me when looking at these numbers is the fact that Wyoming has been outscored in every quarter over the last three and a half years. Especially poor are the third quarter numbers where the Pokes have averaged only 3.5 points in the Christensen era. When looking at a per half breakdown the average score after one half has Wyoming opponents ahead 15.55 to 12.2 while the second half total comes out to a 13.17 to 9.59 advantage for Wyoming’s opposition. Those numbers leave the Cowboys with a 3.35 point scoring deficit per game in the first half and a 3.58 disadvantage in the second. These stats show no particular second half downturn trend but the third quarter scoring figures are a bit alarming and could be the main factor of our second half blues.
What say you Cowboy fans, what do you see in these numbers?