English to Arabic Other Other Sports

Hello,

The writer is quoting a coach describing an important football match back in 2007 between Boston College and Virginia Tech.

Context:
The weather that late October night was awful, to say the least, with heave rain and wind. Through the first three and a half quarters of that game, it was a pure defensive battle with both offenses struggling not only due to the weather, but also due to brilliant defense play and coaching for both teams. We were down 10-0 with a little more than 3:00 left in the game. All night we had sputtered on offense and made little progress; however, on this drive Matt was finally able to get something working, and we scored to make it 10-7 with 2:11 left.


Book: Unstoppable
Author: Dave Anderson

Question:

What is meant by "we had sputtered on offense" here? I understand the verb "to sputter" means to emit saliva unintentionally as in when someone speaks enthusiastically or angrily. Is that a figurative sentence to imply they (players/the team) exerted an enormous effort on the offense side?

Thanks!