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The college football season has one game remaining, so I figured it was the best time to go through all the stats for the year and attempt to gather some of the stats that don’t get a lot of attention but for the entire year across all of Division I football. I did this on a weekly basis all year, why not do it again for the year end? Here is Part 2.

I had a fascination with the longest drives for Time of Possession. I am fascinated when teams hold the ball for a long time and then watch what they do with it. Did they cap off the hard-working drive with a touchdown or field goal? Or did something go wrong and they had to punt, or maybe they fumbled or threw an interception or turned it over on downs? I broke down some of these with graphics and will provide you with a Top 10.

LONGEST MISSED FIELD GOAL DRIVES OF THE YEAR - TIME OF POSSESSION

Army wins this one with an opening drive against Tulane. They went backward a little bit and then had to settle for a 44-yard field goal attempt, which they missed. So congrats, I guess, Army!

LONGEST GAME ENDING DRIVES OF THE YEAR - TIME OF POSSESSION

I absolutely love drives that basically have teams choke out their opponents and just say we’re ending the game now; you will not get the ball back. The most famous one was when Army led by one against Temple but never let the Owls get the ball back, draining all 9 minutes and 53 seconds of clock. Texas Tech handled UCF very well and just didn’t let them have the ball for the last 10+ minutes of the game on their way to a comfortable 48-9. Also, shout out to Nicholls for being on the good side and the bad side of this graphic.

LONGEST TURNOVER ON DOWNS DRIVES OF THE YEAR - TIME OF POSSESSION

We know teams love to go for it on 4th down more these days. While the reward seemingly outweighs the risk, sometimes you come up short and waste all this time for nothing. You really want the touchdown, so you go for it and come up empty. It feels like bowling where you have the empty frame and miss that one pin on a spare. 

No one touched Air Force’s journey against UConn. Air Force was up 7-6 on UConn, and it was 4th and Goal at the Huskies 3-yard line. Instead of kicking the field goal to go up 10-6, the Falcons decided to go for it but were stopped after a 1-yard gain. Air Force didn’t kick many field goals on the year, with only nine attempted. You do wonder if Air Force was up 10-6, if UConn would have settled for their field goal to lead 9-7. Ah well, it probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway; you don’t beat UConn in THE RENT.

LONGEST PUNTS IN ALL OF THE NCAA FOOTBALL DIVISIONS!!!

I had to manually search for this one, and I think I finished it, but most likely not. If I didn’t and you or anyone you know has a punt longer than 72 yards, I will update this graphic in a heartbeat. For Division I punts, I could pull a spreadsheet of all punts for the year, but I had to manually search for the distances. It was annoying, but for Division II and Division III, I basically had to click on each of the top 50 punters, go to their school’s home page, and then look at each one of their game logs. Was it worth it? Hell yeah, it was. I found the 94-yard punt from Josh Castro, the 91-yard punt from Braden Biller (also his 76-yarder; Braden, you’re now known as Braden the Boot), Chase Lanham from Southwestern (TX), and Matt Bolanos from Kentucky State.

I know I missed longer punts here, so please let me know, and I will be glad to update this for sure. This was way too manual for me to get this right on the first try.

Here is a compilation of the longest punts of the year on our YouTube. Also, I added a video at the end of the shortest punt of the year (non-blocked punt), a 3 yard punt. I have no clue how music ended up on that one either.

Thanks for reading, and as always, please click the link below here. Every link earns us funds to keep the committee going. No need to buy anything, just click that link!

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