OT: Going it for it on 4th & 1

Just read Bill C's Army Preview (link here), where he spends quite a few paragraphs talking about how frequently Army goes for it (and converts) on 4th & 1:

As a rule, college coaches are quite good at staying on 12 with the dealer showing a three. Monken, however, hits pretty much every time. In 2018, his Black Knights went for it 23 times on fourth-and-1 and punted just twice*. There are a couple of remarkable things about that:

  1. Since 2005, no one else had gone for it even 20 times on fourth-and-1.
  2. They converted 21 times! That's a 91 percent success rate, more than 20 percentage points higher than normal. Teams running the triple option have the perfect playbook for fourth-and-1 conversions, but even by triple-option standards, Army's 2018 success was ridiculous. While Army went 21-for-23, fellow optioneers Air Force, Georgia Southern, Georgia Tech, and Navy went a combined 40-for-52. That's a 77 percent success rate, still better than normal, and far below 91 damn percent. In recent history, only 2015 Navy (18-for-19 on fourth-and-1) came anywhere close to Army's frequency and proficiency.

* In case you're curious, and I sure as hell was, here are the two punts: 1) from their 12, up 10-0 on Navy with nine minutes left, and 2) from their 29, up 14-0 on Air Force early in the third quarter.

On the other hand, Football Study Hall did a piece two years ago that says on 4th & 1, you should go for it if you're between your own 43 yard line and your opponent's 25 yard line. Advanced Football Analytics did a similar piece on NFL teams 5 years ago that suggested that, at 4th & 1, you should basically always go for it:

Last year, VT was 51st in 4th down conversion rate, converting 15 of 27 chances. However, of the 15 times we faced 4th & 1, we went for 10 times, converting 9:

Opponent 4th & 1's 4th & 1 Attempts (not punted) Conversions
FSU 2 0 0
W&M 0 0 0
ODU 1 0 0
Duke 2 2 2
ND 0 0 0
UNC 1 0 0
GT 1 1 1
BC 1 1 1
Pitt 4 4 4
Miami 0 0 0
UVA 3 1 1
Marshall 0 0 0
Cincy 2 1 0
Totals 17 10 9

I think it's clear - we should go for it on 4th (especially 4th & 1) even more. What say you?

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