Todd4State
07-08-2018, 06:38 PM
Bill Connelly had a good article about the five things that win football games a few years ago.
https://www.footballstudyhall.com/2014/1/24/5337968/college-football-five-factors
Yes, he does employ Stephen Godfrey the amateur journalist wannabe that is happy to tell us that everyone cheats....so if you don't want to read let me sum up the article for you.
Basically the five factors that win football games are:
1. Explosive plays- I'm defining it as rushing plays that are 12+ yards or more and pass plays that 20+ yards or more and yards per play.
2. Efficiency- 50% of needed yardage on first down, 70% of needed yardage on second down, and 100% on third and fourth down. For this I'm going to look at completion percentage, times we were tackled for loss and our third down conversion rate because of the data I have available to me even though it's not quite as good as the efficiency measure in the article.
3. Field position- This is pretty shocking but the closer you are to the goal line the higher chances are of scoring. I'm going to talk about punting and the return game.
4. Finishing drives- Basically they're talking about the percentage that you score a touchdown in the red zone and they view field goals as failures.
5. Turnovers- You win the turnover battle more often than not you will win the game.
EXPLOSIVE PLAYS
We were pretty good at this last year as far as rushing plays go as were 3rd in the SEC in rushing plays of 10+ yards or more but then we dipped to 7th in the SEC in rushing plays of 20 yards or more but then go up to 4th in the SEC in rushing plays of 30 yards or more and then 6th in the SEC in rushing plays of 40 yards or more. We only had one rushing play of 50 yards or more so I'm stopping there. Thanks Nick! However we were terrible on explosive pass plays. We were 12th in the SEC of pass plays of 10+ yards or more which doesn't count as explosive but is a reference. On explosive pass plays we finished 12th is pass plays of 20 yards or more and 14th in pass plays of 30 yards or more and 13th in pass plays of 40 yards or more. We only had one pass play of 50 yards or more. Penn State for reference was second in the Big 10 in long scrimmage plays. While Penn State was 6th in the Big 10 in rushing plays of 10+ yards they were first in pass plays of 10+ yards and 20+ yards while finishing 3rd in pass plays of 30+ yards and 40+ yards. And one reason why Penn State was 6th in rushing plays of 10+ or more yards was because there were several times they were rushing for MORE yards as they finished second in the Big 10 in rushing plays of 20+ and 30+ yards. And while they finished 5th in rushing yards of 40+ or more they led the Big 10 in rushing yards of 50+ or more with 14.
I think this is the area where we will see the most noticeable improvement because of scheme and personnel. We are going to attack deep more than we did under Dan which will yield more explosive pass plays. At the same time we will be running higher percentage pass plays which will also potentially yield more explosive plays. This will yield more explosive running plays because teams will be forced to back out of the box and allow our elite runners- Fitz, Aeris, and Kylin more room to run. Plus the RPO's added in will also add to threat of explosive plays as well. This should all add up to more points per game- a stat that we finished 7th in the SEC in.
EFFICIENCY
Nick Fitzgerald finished with a completion percentage of 55.6% last year. I'd like to see him get up to 65% although that would have been good for second in the entire league so 60% may be more realistic. That said, Trace McSorley at Penn State finished the year at 66.5% so maybe there's a chance. At any rate we must improve here if we want to be the big name teams. We were tackled for loss 4.46 times a game which is good- we were 4th in the SEC in least times tackled for loss and Penn State was last in the Big 10 at 7.0 times per game. We were also first in fewest sacks allowed at 1.0 per game and Penn State wasn't too bad there at 2.23 per game themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if we allow more sacks and TFL's next year- partly because we were so good statistically at not allowing those to happen and partly because I expect Joe to be way more aggressive than Dan. But at the same time if we complete a higher percentage of passes and our veteran o-line is able to keep the TFL's in the same ballpark as last year we should see improvement on offense.
FIELD POSITION
I think we're going to miss Logan Cooke a lot on both punting and on KO's. Punting stats can be misleading but Cooke had a whopping 20 punts inside the 20 and 13 punts of 50+ yards or more. That's why the NFL drafted him and I have my doubts that Day or Schexnader will come close to matching that. We may have a true freshman handling KO's for us too. If Chris Boniol can work his magic with these guys we're going to be even better but this is by far my biggest question mark coming into the season. That said, we were 13th in the SEC in KO returns and 7th in punt returns. Again, I think a lot of that goes back to Dan being conservative. My guess is Joe will let the reigns off of our return men who based on the eye test look pretty good- when given the rare opportunity. What I am expecting is a decline in punting and maybe KO return but improvement in our return game- mainly because Logan Cooke was just that good. Having A NFL kicking coach in Boniol and a real coach focusing solely on special teams who was a return guy himself at Alabama will probably yield long term improvement.
FINISHING DRIVES
We finished 8th in the SEC in Red Zone scoring percentage at 86.21 percent and 7th in the SEC in touchdown in the red zone percentage. That's pretty average. Penn State led the Big 10 in both categories at 89.83 Red Zone Scoring percentage and at 77.97% touchdown in the red zone percentage. I suspect that we will see improvement here as well as Joe's offense has a lot of higher percentage pass plays built in with the RPO's and also we have the ability to run the ball making us more difficult to defend than when even the elderly woman sitting next to me goes "Nick's gonna run it again" and sure enough she was correct over 90% of the time. Having WR's taller than the other teams CB's will probably help here too.
TURNOVERS
As the article says this is somewhat out of our control. At least to a degree. We were 8th in the SEC in fumbles lost which is not great but even worse- we led the league in throwing interceptions between Nick and Key. We finished the year -1 in turnover margin as a team with a safety that led the league in INT's. Not good. Penn State led the Big 10 in turnover margin so even though they took deep shots fairly frequently they still took care of the ball pretty well. Again, I think we will improve here as well. I think the scheme and having more dangerous offensive weapons will help us improve here as well. People just aren't going to be able to sit their entire defense down in a 15 yard box and then try to keep everything in front of them anymore. Another component to this is creating turnovers and all know how ugly Tennessee's stats are. That said, we have the SEC leader in sacks returning who is a probable first round pick along with a DT that is a first round talent in most years. We also return the SEC leader in INT's, a guy that is so badass he actually ended a spring game with a hit, three pretty capable corners in Peters, Dantzler, and Rayford but the biggest thing is we're adding a former Army All-American in Brian Cole at the nickel spot who can match up with both slot receivers and H-Backs which I think will make a huge difference for us. To me the biggest difference between Grantham and Shoop is going to be Grantham was more of a constant pressure/blitz guy and Shoop is going to be a DC that is more about match-ups trying to put our best defender that matches up with his respective counterpart on offense. And with the offense improved I think the defense will be even better which I think will reduce the odds of a Georgia/Auburn game type of blowout happening. All in all I think all factors considered I think we improve here also.
So, all in all I see us improving in at least four out of the five areas and probably staying about the same in field position because Logan Cooke was just a badass but our return game should be better.
https://www.footballstudyhall.com/2014/1/24/5337968/college-football-five-factors
Yes, he does employ Stephen Godfrey the amateur journalist wannabe that is happy to tell us that everyone cheats....so if you don't want to read let me sum up the article for you.
Basically the five factors that win football games are:
1. Explosive plays- I'm defining it as rushing plays that are 12+ yards or more and pass plays that 20+ yards or more and yards per play.
2. Efficiency- 50% of needed yardage on first down, 70% of needed yardage on second down, and 100% on third and fourth down. For this I'm going to look at completion percentage, times we were tackled for loss and our third down conversion rate because of the data I have available to me even though it's not quite as good as the efficiency measure in the article.
3. Field position- This is pretty shocking but the closer you are to the goal line the higher chances are of scoring. I'm going to talk about punting and the return game.
4. Finishing drives- Basically they're talking about the percentage that you score a touchdown in the red zone and they view field goals as failures.
5. Turnovers- You win the turnover battle more often than not you will win the game.
EXPLOSIVE PLAYS
We were pretty good at this last year as far as rushing plays go as were 3rd in the SEC in rushing plays of 10+ yards or more but then we dipped to 7th in the SEC in rushing plays of 20 yards or more but then go up to 4th in the SEC in rushing plays of 30 yards or more and then 6th in the SEC in rushing plays of 40 yards or more. We only had one rushing play of 50 yards or more so I'm stopping there. Thanks Nick! However we were terrible on explosive pass plays. We were 12th in the SEC of pass plays of 10+ yards or more which doesn't count as explosive but is a reference. On explosive pass plays we finished 12th is pass plays of 20 yards or more and 14th in pass plays of 30 yards or more and 13th in pass plays of 40 yards or more. We only had one pass play of 50 yards or more. Penn State for reference was second in the Big 10 in long scrimmage plays. While Penn State was 6th in the Big 10 in rushing plays of 10+ yards they were first in pass plays of 10+ yards and 20+ yards while finishing 3rd in pass plays of 30+ yards and 40+ yards. And one reason why Penn State was 6th in rushing plays of 10+ or more yards was because there were several times they were rushing for MORE yards as they finished second in the Big 10 in rushing plays of 20+ and 30+ yards. And while they finished 5th in rushing yards of 40+ or more they led the Big 10 in rushing yards of 50+ or more with 14.
I think this is the area where we will see the most noticeable improvement because of scheme and personnel. We are going to attack deep more than we did under Dan which will yield more explosive pass plays. At the same time we will be running higher percentage pass plays which will also potentially yield more explosive plays. This will yield more explosive running plays because teams will be forced to back out of the box and allow our elite runners- Fitz, Aeris, and Kylin more room to run. Plus the RPO's added in will also add to threat of explosive plays as well. This should all add up to more points per game- a stat that we finished 7th in the SEC in.
EFFICIENCY
Nick Fitzgerald finished with a completion percentage of 55.6% last year. I'd like to see him get up to 65% although that would have been good for second in the entire league so 60% may be more realistic. That said, Trace McSorley at Penn State finished the year at 66.5% so maybe there's a chance. At any rate we must improve here if we want to be the big name teams. We were tackled for loss 4.46 times a game which is good- we were 4th in the SEC in least times tackled for loss and Penn State was last in the Big 10 at 7.0 times per game. We were also first in fewest sacks allowed at 1.0 per game and Penn State wasn't too bad there at 2.23 per game themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if we allow more sacks and TFL's next year- partly because we were so good statistically at not allowing those to happen and partly because I expect Joe to be way more aggressive than Dan. But at the same time if we complete a higher percentage of passes and our veteran o-line is able to keep the TFL's in the same ballpark as last year we should see improvement on offense.
FIELD POSITION
I think we're going to miss Logan Cooke a lot on both punting and on KO's. Punting stats can be misleading but Cooke had a whopping 20 punts inside the 20 and 13 punts of 50+ yards or more. That's why the NFL drafted him and I have my doubts that Day or Schexnader will come close to matching that. We may have a true freshman handling KO's for us too. If Chris Boniol can work his magic with these guys we're going to be even better but this is by far my biggest question mark coming into the season. That said, we were 13th in the SEC in KO returns and 7th in punt returns. Again, I think a lot of that goes back to Dan being conservative. My guess is Joe will let the reigns off of our return men who based on the eye test look pretty good- when given the rare opportunity. What I am expecting is a decline in punting and maybe KO return but improvement in our return game- mainly because Logan Cooke was just that good. Having A NFL kicking coach in Boniol and a real coach focusing solely on special teams who was a return guy himself at Alabama will probably yield long term improvement.
FINISHING DRIVES
We finished 8th in the SEC in Red Zone scoring percentage at 86.21 percent and 7th in the SEC in touchdown in the red zone percentage. That's pretty average. Penn State led the Big 10 in both categories at 89.83 Red Zone Scoring percentage and at 77.97% touchdown in the red zone percentage. I suspect that we will see improvement here as well as Joe's offense has a lot of higher percentage pass plays built in with the RPO's and also we have the ability to run the ball making us more difficult to defend than when even the elderly woman sitting next to me goes "Nick's gonna run it again" and sure enough she was correct over 90% of the time. Having WR's taller than the other teams CB's will probably help here too.
TURNOVERS
As the article says this is somewhat out of our control. At least to a degree. We were 8th in the SEC in fumbles lost which is not great but even worse- we led the league in throwing interceptions between Nick and Key. We finished the year -1 in turnover margin as a team with a safety that led the league in INT's. Not good. Penn State led the Big 10 in turnover margin so even though they took deep shots fairly frequently they still took care of the ball pretty well. Again, I think we will improve here as well. I think the scheme and having more dangerous offensive weapons will help us improve here as well. People just aren't going to be able to sit their entire defense down in a 15 yard box and then try to keep everything in front of them anymore. Another component to this is creating turnovers and all know how ugly Tennessee's stats are. That said, we have the SEC leader in sacks returning who is a probable first round pick along with a DT that is a first round talent in most years. We also return the SEC leader in INT's, a guy that is so badass he actually ended a spring game with a hit, three pretty capable corners in Peters, Dantzler, and Rayford but the biggest thing is we're adding a former Army All-American in Brian Cole at the nickel spot who can match up with both slot receivers and H-Backs which I think will make a huge difference for us. To me the biggest difference between Grantham and Shoop is going to be Grantham was more of a constant pressure/blitz guy and Shoop is going to be a DC that is more about match-ups trying to put our best defender that matches up with his respective counterpart on offense. And with the offense improved I think the defense will be even better which I think will reduce the odds of a Georgia/Auburn game type of blowout happening. All in all I think all factors considered I think we improve here also.
So, all in all I see us improving in at least four out of the five areas and probably staying about the same in field position because Logan Cooke was just a badass but our return game should be better.