by Patrick Zier | May 15, 2025 |
It was just after the race at Kansas, and Chad Knaus, Hendrick Motorsports vice president of competition, was talking about Kyle Larson. Heck, everybody was talking about Kyle Larson.
Larson had just finished crushing the competition, winning the race and leading 221 of the 267 laps. He is the dominant driver in NASCAR and Knaus, who is best known as the crew chief who guided Jimmie Johnson to seven NASCAR championships including five in a row, implied that led by Larson, Hendrick is now the sport’s dominant team.
“I think if you take a look at it, we’re maturing as a group,” Knaus said at a post-race press conference as reported on NASCAR’s website. “Obviously, the crew chiefs (Hendrick has four cars) are now in their third complete year of working together and our drivers are maturing and working together.
“The communication at Hendrick Motorsports has always been high, but I don’t think it’s ever been as high as it is now,” Knaus continued. “It’s something great to be part of.
“We’ve got Tom Gray, who is our technical director and he’s doing a really good job in his role and obviously, our leadership is just awesome with Mr. H (Rick Hendrick) and Jeff Gordon and Jeff Andrews,” Knaus said.
It’s easy to push Hendrick to the front. It’s been an elite team for years and few would argue that it isn’t the best team now. But is it?
The NASCAR point system, which is used to determine the sport’s champion, says it is. All four Hendrick drivers, Larson (1st), William Byron (2nd), Chase Elliott (4th) and Alex Bowman (8th) are in the top 10.
But the NASCAR point system has never been about determining who’s the best, it’s all about keeping as many drivers in the championship chase for as long as possible.
Points are awarded based on where you finish, not how you compete. Although there are some add-ons, you get 40 points for a win, 35 for second and one point less for each position after that. So, if you rack up a bunch of top 10s, which the Hendrick cars have done, you’re going to be in good shape.
Combined, the four Hendrick cars have 29 top 10s in the first 12 races. Joe Gibbs Racing’s four cars have 21, and Penske’s four (including the Wood brothers entry, which has a close alignment with Penske) have 15.
None of this, though, really tells you much about who is competitive and who isn’t. In NASCAR, you can finish 10th, never lead a lap and collect 27 points and someone else can lead 100 laps, get wrecked, finish 35th and get only two.
The Old Guy Sport competition index uses a totally different system to determine who’s competitive and who’s not. It produces very different results than NASCAR because it relies mainly on top five finishes and leading laps under green.
Take Elliott for example. While he’s fourth in NASCAR’s standings with 378 points, 91 behind leader Larson’s 469, he has only 50 points in the OGS competition index, putting him 237 behind Larson, who also leads OGS with 287.
The OGS competition index also shows Larson is not as dominant as it may seem and Hendrick is not in a class by itself as a team. Again, using the OGS model instead of NASCAR, until he won Kansas, Larson was second in the OGS competition index behind Denny Hamlin. And Byron and Christopher Bell are competitive with him as well.
This is not to say Larson isn’t the best driver in the sport, he probably is, but racing is a fickle mistress and there are things out of your control which affect the outcome.
For example, Larson has never won a championship in the Next Gen car, which came on line in 2022. In part, this is because NASCAR’s playoff system, patterned after those in team sports, doesn’t work in racing because it is unforgiving.
A quarterback can throw two interceptions in the first quarter of the Super Bowl to put his team behind, then come back in the fourth with a touchdown pass to win the game.
Not in racing. You can have the best car in the race but if somebody knocks you into the wall, you’re done.
The OGS competition index does not use a playoff system and counts all its races equally, and using that format, Larson has been the champion the last two years in a row. The NASCAR champion last year was Joey Logano, who ranked 15th in points going into the playoff.
And while Knaus and others praise Hendrick’s team effort, it is really Larson who is keeping them on top this year. Hendrick’s success is not a team effort. It is a Larson effort, although you would never know it using NASCAR’s system.
Using NASCAR, the four Hendrick drivers, Larson, Byron, Elliott and Bowman, have scored 1,606 points, of which Larson has 469. Joe Gibbs Racing, with Hamlin, Bell, Chase Briscoe and Ty Gibbs, has 1,325 led by Bell’s 384.
But the OGS competition index presents a very different picture. To begin with, JGR is actually very competitive with Hendrick, totaling 535 points to Hendrick’s 538. And of Hendrick’s 538, Larson has a whopping 287. Bell leads Gibbs with 227 and Hamlin has 218.
So, Hendrick really isn’t some 500-pound gorilla smashing everything in sight. Gibbs, particularly with Hamlin and Bell, will hit you pretty hard, too. Larson may get the headlines, but he doesn’t always get the win. And neither does Hendrick.
NASCAR NOTES: All-Star race this week. Does not count in OGS competition index standings.
Last week’s OGS Kansas picks: 1-Kyle Larson, 2-William Byron, 3-Ryan Blaney. Kansas winner: Larson. OGS season record: 5-4.
OGS competition index top 10: 1-Larson 287 points, 2-Christopher Bell 227, 3-Denny Hamlin 218, 4-Byron 139, 5-Blaney 107, 6-Josh Berry 83, 7-Bubba Wallace 73, 8-Joey Logano 70, 9-Tyler Reddick 67, 10-Alex Bowman 62.
OGS competition index top 10 on intermediate tracks: 1-Larson 172 points, 2-Blaney 92, 3-Byron 88, 4-Bell 70, 5-Hamlin 63, 6-Berry 59, 7-Logano 58, Bowman 58, 9-Ross Chastain 51, 10-Wallace 41, Daniel Suarez 41.
by Patrick Zier | May 11, 2025 |
They were not, frankly, a very good team. Alabama-Birmingham (UAB) would finish the season 3-9, but here they were leading South Florida, 9-7, as the third quarter began.
USF kicked off, and UAB started at its own 35. Three plays, 1:15 later the score was UAB 16, USF 7 as a dazed Bulls defense left the field after giving up a 12-yard run, a 38-yard pass and a 15-yard pass for the touchdown.
Explosive plays. They have become the name of the game in college football. Some think they may be the most important statistic of all as far as determining who wins and who loses. There are various definitions of what constitutes an explosive play, but generally, any pass of 15 or more yards and any run of 10 yards or more qualifies.
For the moment, we will forget about the runs and concentrate solely on chunk yardage passes, because they absolutely killed USF.
Eventually, USF won the game against UAB, but the Blazers stayed in it right to the end because they had 15 passes of 15 or more yards and another 10 of 10 yards or more.
And this was not an outlier, it happened a lot. If USF wants to move up and gain elite status in the Group of Five or even the American Athletic Conference (AAC) specifically, this has to stop.
There are a number of teams USF has to beat to reach the top tier, and two of them are Tulane, a rising conference power, and Memphis, which has been consistently good for many years. In 2024, Memphis was 11-2 overall and 6-2 in the AAC while Tulane was 7-1 in the conference and 9-5 overall.
In USF’s 21-3 loss to Memphis, quarterback Seth Henigan only threw for 208 yards, but he was 11 of 13 for 130 yards with two tosses of 15 or more yards and one of 10 on Memphis’ two touchdown drives in the first quarter. Overall, four of his completions went for 15 yards or more and he had two of 10 or better.
Tulane simply embarrassed the Bulls, winning 45-10. Quarterback Darian Mensah was 18-of-22 for 326 yards and in the first half, when Tulane built a 31-7 lead, he had nine throws of 15 yards or more and three that went for 10 or better.
Auburndale’s Jaelen Stokes has been around a while and was part of all this. In his final season at USF, he has played in all 26 games the last two years and started 11. He is part of an experienced secondary that knows it has to play better.
“I feel like defensively, we have to work on the back end,” he commented. “Like we have to work on not getting picked and rubbed (getting beat physically). That’s why we gave up a lot of big plays in the passing game last year.
“We need to get that off our plate and eliminate that from our game,” Stokes continued. “We’re really trying to make it (playing physically) a strength, not a weakness.
“Like just playing as a whole defense and knowing where you’ve got to be so you don’t hit one of your own players and basically knock them off the route,” Stokes remarked.
“On the back end (in the secondary) we’ve harped on staying of top of everybody (the receivers) and trying not to give anything up,” Stokes said.
“Honestly, we’re trying to make it easier for our D-line to eat. If the D-line eats we all eat, know what I’m saying?” Stokes went on.
“So, just trying to make it easier for those guys to have more time to force the quarterback to make a bad decision that helps us.”
Stokes is trying to help instill that philosophy in the younger players, mentoring them, emphasizing the importance of keeping explosive plays in check. While he may not project as a starter, he is still an important piece of the back end defense and has something to contribute.
And if he can help the secondary do a better job of smothering opposing receivers, preventing the chunk play, then USF will have a better chance to take a step up.
“I just want to play my role,” Stokes said. “Just do anything I can to help the defense.” And Lord knows, the defense definitely heeds help
by Patrick Zier | May 7, 2025 |
Chase Elliott is the poster boy for what’s wrong with NASCAR’s current point system. Despite the fact that he has not won a race, has led only 45 laps, 42 of which came at Martinsville and three of which are on super speedways where you can’t pass by yourself; and has only three top five finishes, Elliott is fourth in the current standings.
From a competitive standpoint, Elliott is way off the mark. But he doesn’t get into wrecks, his pit crew keeps the car running if something goes wrong, and he finishes races. All 11 of them so far. And that’s what you have to do to rack up points.
The Old Guy Sport competition index gives a more realistic picture of Elliott’s problems. The OGS competition index has Denny Hamlin first with 218 points, Kyle Larson second with 212, Christopher Bell third with 187 and William Byron fourth with 141. They’re the clear leaders. Elliott is way behind them in 12th place with just 45 points.
Elliott is currently in the throes of a 38 race winless streak, having last won at Texas in 2024. Prior to that win, he had gone 42 races without a victory. That means Elliott has now won only one race in his last 81 starts.
He has a contract with Hendrick Motorsports that goes through 2027. And he won’t be 30 until this November despite the fact he already has 10 full years of cup competition and won the NASCAR championship in 2020. He should be in his prime, but…
His performance of late is making a lot of people nervous. Elliott is, generally speaking, an easy going guy. Some wonder if he can still be competitive in the new cut throat era that was ushered in with the NextGen car in 2022.
There was a lot of buzz around Elliott’s return to Texas, where he got his last win last year, but Elliott, who is a realist if nothing else, pointed out that winning at Texas a year ago and racing at Texas in 2025 had little in common.
“It was 12 months ago,” Elliott said as reported by NASCAR’s website and Fox sports among others. “A lot changes in a year, and things that we are working on behind the scenes, whether its setups or race strategy of what ever it is, that is going to outweigh something that went on 12 months ago.
“It’s hard to reflect that far back and think that ‘Oh, we’ll just do what we did last year’ and that’s going to be perfect because most of the time that’s not the case,” Elliott said.
Elliott ended up 16th at Texas, continuing a familiar pattern of finishing races but essentially not being competitive. Once again, he failed to lead a lap.
Of the 12 drivers on the three elite teams, Gibbs, Hendrick and Penske (We’re counting Josh Berry as a Penske car even though he drives for the Wood brothers because the team is closely aligned with Penske) Elliott ranks 10th in laps led.
He’s well behind teammates Larson, who has led 596 laps, and Byron, with 386. Even Alex Bowman, who has struggled more than Elliott, has led 108. While it’s not a perfect indicator, leading laps means you’re putting yourself in position to win, giving yourself a chance, and the way he’s running now, Elliott has no chance at all.
“All you can do when you’re in this fight is just keep showing up, make sure you’re prepared to just show up on any given weekend and put together a solid day,” Elliott continued.
“But its all got to come together at the right time,” he stressed. “I have to do my job. We’ve got to call good races in the box. We have to have good pit stops.
“I’m no different than anybody else on our team,” Elliott said. “We want more, I think we’re capable of more. We have high expectations. We are proud of the good runs we’ve had, but we know there’s more in the tank.
“The season’s still very early, and we’ve seen enough high spots to kind of give us hope,” he added. Hoping you can win, though, is one thing. Going out and doing it is something else. Elliott’s last 81 races have proven that.
NASCAR NOTES: Three most likely winners at Kansas – 1-Kyle Larson, 2-William Byron, 3-Ryan Blaney. Last year’s winners at Kansas – First race, Larson. Second race, Ross Chastain. Top five in first race last year – 1-Larson, 2-Chris Buescher, 3-Chase Elliott, 4-Martin Truex, 5-Denny Hamlin.
Last week’s OGS Texas picks – 1-Byron, 2-Larson, 3-Hamlin. Texas winner – Joey Logano. OGS season record – 4-4.
Top 10 in OGS competition index after eight races – 1-Hamlin 218 points; 2-Larson 212, 3-Christopher Bell 187, 4-Byron 141, 5-Josh Berry 83, 6-Blaney 77, 7-Bubba Wallace 73, 8-Logano 70, 9-Tyler Reddick 67, 10-Alex Bowman 52.
Top 10 in OGS competition index on intermediate tracks after four races – 1-Larson 97, 2-Byron 88, 3-Hamlin 63, 4-Blaney 62, 5-Berry 59, 6-Logano 58, 7-Chastain 51, 8-Bowman 48, 9-Wallace, Daniel Suarez 41.
