codeDawg
06-13-2014, 09:52 AM
We all know that we were rebuilding last year, and at the end of the year with Dak at the helm we looked great, but we also know we came up short a lot. I wanted to take a an objective look at where we need to improve statistically on offense to be a real contending team this year.
1. Offensive TD / Defensive Allowed TD: We were a pretty good defensive team last year allowing only 24.3 points per game. That was good enough to be ranked #32. Unfortunately, we only scored 25.8 points per game coming in at #78 nationally. That has to improve. In comparison, UM was allowed only 24.6, but scored 29.9 on offense. A total of 4.1 points more than us was only good enough for #50 nationally.
2. Field Goal Percentage: It's easy enough to say score more points, but how? The first obvious place is making field goal attempts. I won't belabor the point, but we kicked at a 45% clip last season. Good enough for #120 nationally. If we could just add one field goal per game, we can get that number up to to 27.3. Hopefully the shift in coaching responsibilities and the walk on kicker can accomplish this.
3. Yards Per Rush: We should drastically improve this number this year by moving to JRob as the starter. While we put up a pretty decent 4.6 YPC (#36), Perkins had the majority of those and only averaged 4 yards. JRob in contrast had 5.9. Expect that to decrease a little with more first down carries, but we should do even better here. I think we should go from 182.7 (#44) to over 200 yards per game which we can do by running the same number of carries but adding .5 yard of average gain.
4. Everything Passing: We were so very pedestrian last year in the passing game with all stats ranked in the 40-60 range. There are lots of reasons for that including multiple QB's, inexperience at QB and at WR, and WR's just dropping the ball.
5. Red Zone Scoring: We were awful in the red zone last year. With a 76.6% success rate good enough for #100 in the nation. A lot of that has to do with the above field goal percentage, but there were also problems in the power run game and with inexperienced receivers in the end zone. This is a salvageable situation for us. Add a FG kicker, a RB that falls forward, and some long WR's with experience, and I think we can get it done.
6. 3rd Down Conversions: Maybe this should be higher, because I think this stat is the most telling of a great team. A team that gets 3rd down conversions are teams that can impose their will and keep their defense on the sideline. We were terrible early in the year, but improved later in the season to finish up at 39.26% (#69). Again JRob, Dak, and tall receivers should make the biggest difference here.
Looking at these areas I think we have the pieces in place we need to get over the hump. It all starts with JRob providing a boost in the running game. If he is able to do that to open up the pass, Dak will be able to do what he needs to do to get the ball to a much more experienced WR crew. We finally have the size we want there, and Lewis is Lewis. There is no reason to be anything but optimistic about this coming year's offense.
1. Offensive TD / Defensive Allowed TD: We were a pretty good defensive team last year allowing only 24.3 points per game. That was good enough to be ranked #32. Unfortunately, we only scored 25.8 points per game coming in at #78 nationally. That has to improve. In comparison, UM was allowed only 24.6, but scored 29.9 on offense. A total of 4.1 points more than us was only good enough for #50 nationally.
2. Field Goal Percentage: It's easy enough to say score more points, but how? The first obvious place is making field goal attempts. I won't belabor the point, but we kicked at a 45% clip last season. Good enough for #120 nationally. If we could just add one field goal per game, we can get that number up to to 27.3. Hopefully the shift in coaching responsibilities and the walk on kicker can accomplish this.
3. Yards Per Rush: We should drastically improve this number this year by moving to JRob as the starter. While we put up a pretty decent 4.6 YPC (#36), Perkins had the majority of those and only averaged 4 yards. JRob in contrast had 5.9. Expect that to decrease a little with more first down carries, but we should do even better here. I think we should go from 182.7 (#44) to over 200 yards per game which we can do by running the same number of carries but adding .5 yard of average gain.
4. Everything Passing: We were so very pedestrian last year in the passing game with all stats ranked in the 40-60 range. There are lots of reasons for that including multiple QB's, inexperience at QB and at WR, and WR's just dropping the ball.
5. Red Zone Scoring: We were awful in the red zone last year. With a 76.6% success rate good enough for #100 in the nation. A lot of that has to do with the above field goal percentage, but there were also problems in the power run game and with inexperienced receivers in the end zone. This is a salvageable situation for us. Add a FG kicker, a RB that falls forward, and some long WR's with experience, and I think we can get it done.
6. 3rd Down Conversions: Maybe this should be higher, because I think this stat is the most telling of a great team. A team that gets 3rd down conversions are teams that can impose their will and keep their defense on the sideline. We were terrible early in the year, but improved later in the season to finish up at 39.26% (#69). Again JRob, Dak, and tall receivers should make the biggest difference here.
Looking at these areas I think we have the pieces in place we need to get over the hump. It all starts with JRob providing a boost in the running game. If he is able to do that to open up the pass, Dak will be able to do what he needs to do to get the ball to a much more experienced WR crew. We finally have the size we want there, and Lewis is Lewis. There is no reason to be anything but optimistic about this coming year's offense.