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Thread: Random OL stats for your perusal

  1. #1
    Senior Member Prediction? Pain.'s Avatar
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    Random OL stats for your perusal

    While I was looking at some stats over lunch today -- if reading and doing math is what I do on my "break," I'm not sure what that says about my actual job -- I came across a few numbers that I thought y'all might be interested in given how frequently we all discuss the play of our offensive line.

    Now, before I get into it, I want to note that I'm not delivering this stuff as the definitive assessment of the line's quality or lack thereof this year. We've got a long, long way to go. We're only halfway through the schedule and five of the next six are against conference teams. Further, I haven't crunched lots of other relevant numbers that are probably relevant to the OL's play, and have been unable to see what the metrics developed by people way over my pay grade -- Bill C., specifically -- say about our line.

    With that said, considering only games played against FBS teams -- I prefer SEC-only stats, but we're not far enough along for that -- we've earned some fairly impressive OL-centric numbers.

    First, there's our sacks-allowed percentage. This is a better stat than "sacks allowed per game" because it accounts for the fact that we're a run-first team. Just by looking at raw sacks-given-up numbers, you'd think that Army or Georgia Tech or Appy St. have the best pass protection every year for the past decade. Ga Tech is actually a great example. Right now, they've given up only 5 sacks all year to FBS teams. That's good for 20th in the country and 3rd in the ACC. But they've only attempted 40 passes in those games (35 attempts plus the 5 attempts that they were sacked on), which is dead last in the country. So in context, giving up 5 sacks is awful -- they've been sacked on 12.5% of all their pass attempts, which is 125th in the nation. (Ga. Southern, another option team, is dead least at a whopping 21.21%. Yikes.)

    State has given up sacks on 2.04% of its pass attempts in FBS games, which is 6th nationally and 1st in the SEC. That's pretty strong, especially considering that LSU and Auburn are in the top 3 of the SEC in sacks per game and in the top 15 nationally in that category. (Each average 3 or more sacks a game. AU sacked us twice. LSU sacked us once.)

    [By the way, the national sacks-allowed-vs-FBS stat is available here if you'd like to check it out.)

    Now on to TFL-allowed percentage. Same deal as the sacks-allowed percentage. The raw numbers favor pass-happy teams. For example, the raw TFL-allowed stat shows that U. Miss. is 5th best in the SEC at preventing TFLs. But given how little they run, their raw numbers should be low. As a percentage of their overall run attempts, their TFLs-allowed numbers are not good -- 15.8% of all their run attempts vs. FBS teams result in TFLs, which is 13th in the SEC.

    State has given up TFLs on 6.6% of its run attempts, which is 1st in the SEC. (I haven't found a database for this stat nationally, and I obviously wasn't about to crunch those numbers for the whole damn FBS.) Now, to be fair, we've only faced one really good TFL defense so far. Auburn is 2nd in the SEC and 28th in the country. (UGA is ok, but not stellar. 8th in the SEC and 69th nationally.) But still, not too shabby.

    Even though the advanced stats for "highlight" and "opportunity" yards aren't out yet -- those are advanced stats that try to get at an O-Line's impact on rushing production -- our raw yards-per-carry numbers are solid. We're at 5.73 ypc vs. FBS teams, which is 3rd in the SEC. Yeah, that's buoyed a little by our crazy numbers vs. La Tech (8.2 ypc over 40 rushing attempts), but the stats from our three SEC games were pretty solid, all things considered. 48 rushes for 6 ypc vs. LSU, 37 rushes for 4.8 ypc vs. UGA, and and 48 rushes 4.1 vs. AU. And UGA's and AU's rushing defenses are freaking stout -- UGA gives up 3 ypc to FBS teams, and AU gives up 3.2 ypc. (They're ranked 2nd and 3rd in the SEC, both top 15 nationally.)

    Also, just to be sure those ypc numbers aren't inflated too much by garbage time, I looked up our YPC while behind in games. While trailing by 14 or less points, we've rushed 39 times for 199 yards, which is good for 5.1 ypc, which is actually lower than our overall ypc. Also, among those 39 rushes, there was a long run -- 59 yards, I think when we were down against La Tech -- without which our ypc while down 14 or less points would decrease to 3.7 ypc. Now, we did a little better when down more that 15 -- 4.81 ypc -- so that certainly needs to be taken into consideration. Still, at least thus far, I don't think that it's just garbage time that's raising the average. (I don't think . . . .)

    Of course, all of this means bubkis if the line takes a poo on the field against the teams we should be able to compete with from here on out. Here's hoping that the line continues to gel and gives the RBs room to do their thing and Fitz time to toss out balls for our receivers to drop. Zing!

    Anywho, there you go. My PB&J's long gone, so I guess I need to do my pesky job again. Enjoy the daily squabble about the O-Line! I'll check back in later.

  2. #2
    Senior Member Commercecomet24's Avatar
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    Thats some serious work. Thanks for sharing that. I likes stats over the ?eyeball? test because stats tell you what youre producing. Good stuff!

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    Senior Member msstate7's Avatar
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    Posts like this are why I voted him best user of stats. Excellent

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    Senior Member KOdawg1's Avatar
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    Wow. Fantastic job. Post more please

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    TheDynastyIsDead TUSK's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Prediction? Pain. View Post
    While I was looking at some stats over lunch today -- if reading and doing math is what I do on my "break," I'm not sure what that says about my actual job -- I came across a few numbers that I thought y'all might be interested in given how frequently we all discuss the play of our offensive line.

    Now, before I get into it, I want to note that I'm not delivering this stuff as the definitive assessment of the line's quality or lack thereof this year. We've got a long, long way to go. We're only halfway through the schedule and five of the next six are against conference teams. Further, I haven't crunched lots of other relevant numbers that are probably relevant to the OL's play, and have been unable to see what the metrics developed by people way over my pay grade -- Bill C., specifically -- say about our line.

    With that said, considering only games played against FBS teams -- I prefer SEC-only stats, but we're not far enough along for that -- we've earned some fairly impressive OL-centric numbers.

    First, there's our sacks-allowed percentage. This is a better stat than "sacks allowed per game" because it accounts for the fact that we're a run-first team. Just by looking at raw sacks-given-up numbers, you'd think that Army or Georgia Tech or Appy St. have the best pass protection every year for the past decade. Ga Tech is actually a great example. Right now, they've given up only 5 sacks all year to FBS teams. That's good for 20th in the country and 3rd in the ACC. But they've only attempted 40 passes in those games (35 attempts plus the 5 attempts that they were sacked on), which is dead last in the country. So in context, giving up 5 sacks is awful -- they've been sacked on 12.5% of all their pass attempts, which is 125th in the nation. (Ga. Southern, another option team, is dead least at a whopping 21.21%. Yikes.)

    State has given up sacks on 2.04% of its pass attempts in FBS games, which is 6th nationally and 1st in the SEC. That's pretty strong, especially considering that LSU and Auburn are in the top 3 of the SEC in sacks per game and in the top 15 nationally in that category. (Each average 3 or more sacks a game. AU sacked us twice. LSU sacked us once.)

    [By the way, the national sacks-allowed-vs-FBS stat is available here if you'd like to check it out.)

    Now on to TFL-allowed percentage. Same deal as the sacks-allowed percentage. The raw numbers favor pass-happy teams. For example, the raw TFL-allowed stat shows that U. Miss. is 5th best in the SEC at preventing TFLs. But given how little they run, their raw numbers should be low. As a percentage of their overall run attempts, their TFLs-allowed numbers are not good -- 15.8% of all their run attempts vs. FBS teams result in TFLs, which is 13th in the SEC.

    State has given up TFLs on 6.6% of its run attempts, which is 1st in the SEC. (I haven't found a database for this stat nationally, and I obviously wasn't about to crunch those numbers for the whole damn FBS.) Now, to be fair, we've only faced one really good TFL defense so far. Auburn is 2nd in the SEC and 28th in the country. (UGA is ok, but not stellar. 8th in the SEC and 69th nationally.) But still, not too shabby.

    Even though the advanced stats for "highlight" and "opportunity" yards aren't out yet -- those are advanced stats that try to get at an O-Line's impact on rushing production -- our raw yards-per-carry numbers are solid. We're at 5.73 ypc vs. FBS teams, which is 3rd in the SEC. Yeah, that's buoyed a little by our crazy numbers vs. La Tech (8.2 ypc over 40 rushing attempts), but the stats from our three SEC games were pretty solid, all things considered. 48 rushes for 6 ypc vs. LSU, 37 rushes for 4.8 ypc vs. UGA, and and 48 rushes 4.1 vs. AU. And UGA's and AU's rushing defenses are freaking stout -- UGA gives up 3 ypc to FBS teams, and AU gives up 3.2 ypc. (They're ranked 2nd and 3rd in the SEC, both top 15 nationally.)

    Also, just to be sure those ypc numbers aren't inflated too much by garbage time, I looked up our YPC while behind in games. While trailing by 14 or less points, we've rushed 39 times for 199 yards, which is good for 5.1 ypc, which is actually lower than our overall ypc. Also, among those 39 rushes, there was a long run -- 59 yards, I think when we were down against La Tech -- without which our ypc while down 14 or less points would decrease to 3.7 ypc. Now, we did a little better when down more that 15 -- 4.81 ypc -- so that certainly needs to be taken into consideration. Still, at least thus far, I don't think that it's just garbage time that's raising the average. (I don't think . . . .)

    Of course, all of this means bubkis if the line takes a poo on the field against the teams we should be able to compete with from here on out. Here's hoping that the line continues to gel and gives the RBs room to do their thing and Fitz time to toss out balls for our receivers to drop. Zing!

    Anywho, there you go. My PB&J's long gone, so I guess I need to do my pesky job again. Enjoy the daily squabble about the O-Line! I'll check back in later.
    Wow.

    If only this type insight were available in 2014.

    *
    "It is not courage to resist TUSK; It is courage to accept TUSK."

    No.


    Easy there buddy. Tusk is...well Tusk is Tusk. Tireddawg 12.20.17

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    Yet another reason why the Hevesy haters are lemmings just repeating the mob opinion.

    This is the 2nd straight year that the OL will be the top performing unit on the team if this trend continues.

  7. #7
    General Public Political Hack's Avatar
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    Enjoyed that. We were fortunate against LSU that their DL studs were a little banged up when we played them, but overall that's pretty impressive for our OL as a group. You also have to consider our best OL being out too. I know people like to fuss about the offense a lot, but falling behind early in games is what's killed us in our two losses. We never gave ourselves a chance because the defense wasn't ready out the gate.

    OL has been a pleasant surprise so far this year. Outside of our passing game (accuracy and drops), there's not a lot to be upset with on the offensive side of the ball.

  8. #8
    Senior Member BrunswickDawg's Avatar
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    I'm really not surprised by the stats. Our OL has continually improved and I think next season will be impressive (not that your stats aren't impressive this year). Out of interest, I went and looked at the site to see our OL trend on your Sack% over the Mullen era

    Sack %
    '09 - 7.66% (92) Lee
    '10 - 7.53% (88) Relf
    '11 - 6.43% (74) Relf/Russell
    '12 - 4.59% (45) Russell
    '13 - 5.04% (47) Russell/Dak
    '14 - 5.04% (38) Dak
    '15 - 6.04% (63) Dak
    '16 - 4.34% (23) Fitz
    '17 - 2.04% (6) Fitz

    The overall trend line has been getting significantly better. The only real outlier was '15 - when Dan went pass happy with Dak. He is an ass, but the Hev hate really skews perceptions.

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    Having the fastest QB in MSU history has something to do with the trend too.

    Good analysis though. Data mining can be obsessive.

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    We probably had similar stats in 2014 until we played BAMA and Ole Miss.

  11. #11
    Senior Member msstate7's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Leeshouldveflanked View Post
    We probably had similar stats in 2014 until we played BAMA and Ole Miss.
    We?ve played Georgia, LSU, and auburn already.

  12. #12
    Senior Member BB30's Avatar
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    Our issue this year isn't poor OL play. We have got to fix our secondary and our WRs have got to catch the dang ball. I am so tired of watching receivers run wide open without a DB within 15 yds of them. Some of that may be scheme and us just not getting to the QB quick enough but our secondary is atrocious and has been for some time.

  13. #13
    Senior Member Prediction? Pain.'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BrunswickDawg View Post
    I'm really not surprised by the stats. Our OL has continually improved and I think next season will be impressive (not that your stats aren't impressive this year). Out of interest, I went and looked at the site to see our OL trend on your Sack% over the Mullen era

    Sack %
    '09 - 7.66% (92) Lee
    '10 - 7.53% (88) Relf
    '11 - 6.43% (74) Relf/Russell
    '12 - 4.59% (45) Russell
    '13 - 5.04% (47) Russell/Dak
    '14 - 5.04% (38) Dak
    '15 - 6.04% (63) Dak
    '16 - 4.34% (23) Fitz
    '17 - 2.04% (6) Fitz

    The overall trend line has been getting significantly better. The only real outlier was '15 - when Dan went pass happy with Dak. He is an ass, but the Hev hate really skews perceptions.
    That's a great find, Brunswick. I hadn't even thought of looking at our progress at preventing sacks over Mullen's tenure. That's actually pretty damn impressive. This year's pass protection is obviously far from settled with so many conference games left, and I'd be shocked if we don't drop from the top 10 nationally. But we're off to a damn good start and seem to be continuing our upward trend.

    [A side note about the outlier year in 2015. We gave up 27 sacks in SEC games that year, which was 13th in the conference. 16 of our sacks that year came in two games -- Bama and U. Miss. If our line had held those to defenses to below or equal to their average sack totals -- which is what we did against every other SEC team we played that year -- we'd have been in the top half of the conference in sacks allowed.]

  14. #14
    Senior Member BrunswickDawg's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Prediction? Pain. View Post
    That's a great find, Brunswick. I hadn't even thought of looking at our progress at preventing sacks over Mullen's tenure. That's actually pretty damn impressive. This year's pass protection is obviously far from settled with so many conference games left, and I'd be shocked if we don't drop from the top 10 nationally. But we're off to a damn good start and seem to be continuing our upward trend.

    [A side note about the outlier year in 2015. We gave up 27 sacks in SEC games that year, which was 13th in the conference. 16 of our sacks that year came in two games -- Bama and U. Miss. If our line had held those to defenses to below or equal to their average sack totals -- which is what we did against every other SEC team we played that year -- we'd have been in the top half of the conference in sacks allowed.]
    I had expunged those 2 games from my memory. They were 2 of the worst OL performances by a MSU team I can ever recall.
    Just to throw a little more trend history into the discussion - look at TFL in the SEC under Dan and listed the leading RB by yards

    '09 - 77 (7th) - Dixon
    '10 - 77 (7th) - Ballard
    '11 - 86 (6th) - Ballard
    '12 - 65 (4th) - Perkins
    '13 - 82 (12th) -Perkins/Robinson
    '14 - 62 (3rd) - Robinson
    '15 - 71 (7th) - Holloway
    '16 - 68 (3rd) - Williams
    '17 - 21 (2nd) - Williams

    While I didn't dive into calculating the percentage - I think this shed light on 1 thing - RTGDF. If we have a legit power back (Dixon, Robinson, Williams) and run our offense the way it should be run, the OL is strong. When we have undersized or "speed" backs (Holloway), our run gets stuffed. '13 is an outlier - and I think somewhat related to us moving back and forth between Russell/Dak/Williams and Perkins/Robinson due to injury. No one could get settled in 1 system.
    Last edited by BrunswickDawg; 10-17-2017 at 09:51 AM.

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