Bill Connelly's Statistical Preview for the Upcoming Season

[Willy Lump Lump]

Offensively, the difference between good and great on offense will hinge on creating more explosive plays. That was something that we simply did not do last year, but the pieces are in place to make that a reality this year.

Defensively, Shoop has all of the talent necessary to field a top defense. If he can exercise more discretion than Grantham in dialing up blitzes, then the possibility of fielding a truly elite defense exists.

We are favored in 9 games, and are slight dogs in 2 others (AU and LSU). If the offense hums and the defense lives up to expectations, the November 10th trip to Tuscaloosa could be for all of the marbles. We shall see.

https://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2018/8/10/17595462/mississippi-state-football-2018-preview-schedule-roster

[sleepy dawg]

Bad ass article if you enjoy some good analytics.

[MetEdDawg]

Offensively, the difference between good and great on offense will hinge on creating more explosive plays. That was something that we simply did not do last year, but the pieces are in place to make that a reality this year.

Defensively, Shoop has all of the talent necessary to field a top defense. If he can exercise more discretion than Grantham in dialing up blitzes, then the possibility of fielding a truly elite defense exists.

We are favored in 9 games, and are slight dogs in 2 others (AU and LSU). If the offense hums and the defense lives up to expectations, the November 10th trip to Tuscaloosa could be for all of the marbles. We shall see.

https://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2018/8/10/17595462/mississippi-state-football-2018-preview-schedule-roster

I would love to know how many explosive passing plays we had over the last 5 years. I bet that number is one of the lowest in the country.

I also think this is the reason people are going to undervalue our offensive prowess. We are better at every position offensively than last year. But the thing I believe Moorhead brings is a downfield passing attack that we will be able to utilize. We have better WR's, but schematically, I believe Moorhead improves us drastically to be able to attack in a way we haven't before. We may have fewer high percentage completions, but we won't be relying on 10-15 play drives to score all the time. We should be able to get enough 8 or fewer drives to add another TD to our PPG average from last year.

[BrunswickDawg]

I would love to know how many explosive passing plays we had over the last 5 years. I bet that number is one of the lowest in the country.

I also think this is the reason people are going to undervalue our offensive prowess. We are better at every position offensively than last year. But the thing I believe Moorhead brings is a downfield passing attack that we will be able to utilize. We have better WR's, but schematically, I believe Moorhead improves us drastically to be able to attack in a way we haven't before. We may have fewer high percentage completions, but we won't be relying on 10-15 play drives to score all the time. We should be able to get enough 8 or fewer drives to add another TD to our PPG average from last year.

Plays over 10 yards and plays over 30 yards - our rank nationally http://www.cfbstats.com/2018/leader/national/team/offense/split01/category30/sort01.html

2017 - 65th (178) 98th (20)
2016 - 56th (189) 72nd (27)
2015 - 31st (213) 34th (34)
2014 - 11th (237) 25th (34)
2013 - 23rd (221) 66 (25)
2012 - 57th (183) 98 (13)
2011 - 72nd (166) 75th (21)
2010 - 61st (171) 34th (27)

Dan Mullen, Check Down King.

[Prediction? Pain.]

I would love to know how many explosive passing plays we had over the last 5 years. I bet that number is one of the lowest in the country.

Here ya go:

Passes of 20+ yards - SEC Rank in SEC Games

2012 - 4th
2013 - 8th
2014 - 3rd
2015 - 3rd
2016 - 9th
2017 - 11th

I skimmed the national stats for the same period and noticed that our high mark was 2014 when we were 11th. The other years seemed to range anywhere from 28th nationally to 94th.

Also, here are Bill C.'s national advanced stat ranking for our total explosiveness (IsoPPP) for the past four years:

2014 - 12th
2015 - 13th
2016 - 21st
2017 - 62nd

Looking at all these numbers and the ones in Bill C's article, it's interesting to see how Mullen shifted the footprint of the offense over the past 5 or 6 years. Our offensive explosiveness reached its peak in 2014 and 2015 and then plummeted last year to being very average (at least nationally; not sure where our explosiveness ranked among SEC teams). And yet, without any threat of an explosive passing game, we still fielded a really efficient offense 2017. (No. 20 nationally in Bill C.'s "Success Rate" stat, which measures this: the rate at which we gained "50 percent of necessary yardage on first down, 70 percent on second down, and 100 percent on third and fourth down.")

The preview's great. Definitely doesn't dampen any of my excitement about our potential this season. If Shoop does his job and the passing game progresses, things should rock on nicely.

[Prediction? Pain.]

Plays over 10 yards - our rank nationally http://www.cfbstats.com/2018/leader/national/team/offense/split01/category30/sort01.html

2017 - 65th (178)
2016 - 56th (189)
2015 - 31st (213)
2014 - 11th (237)
2013 - 23rd (221)
2012 - 57th (183)
2011 - 72nd (166)
2010 - 61st (171)

Dan Mullen, Check Down King.

Woops. Our posts overlapped. My sloth-like quicks shine again!

[Todd4State]

Here ya go:

Passes of 20+ yards - SEC Rank in SEC Games

2012 - 4th
2013 - 8th
2014 - 3rd
2015 - 3rd
2016 - 9th
2017 - 11th

I skimmed the national stats for the same period and noticed that our high mark was 2014 when we were 11th. The other years seemed to range anywhere from 28th nationally to 94th.

Also, here are Bill C.'s national advanced stat ranking for our total explosiveness (IsoPPP) for the past four years:

2014 - 12th
2015 - 13th
2016 - 21st
2017 - 62nd

Looking at all these numbers and the ones in Bill C's article, it's interesting to see how Mullen shifted the footprint of the offense over the past 5 or 6 years. Our offensive explosiveness reached its peak in 2014 and 2015 and then plummeted last year to being very average (at least nationally; not sure where our explosiveness ranked among SEC teams). And yet, without any threat of an explosive passing game, we still fielded a really efficient offense 2017. (No. 20 nationally in Bill C.'s "Success Rate" stat, which measures this: the rate at which we gained "50 percent of necessary yardage on first down, 70 percent on second down, and 100 percent on third and fourth down.")

The preview's great. Definitely doesn't dampen any of my excitement about our potential this season. If Shoop does his job and the passing game progresses, things should rock on nicely.

It's hard for me to believe that we had more explosive plays in 2016 than 2017. But a lot of that is because our WR's were awful.

[Todd4State]

Offensively, the difference between good and great on offense will hinge on creating more explosive plays. That was something that we simply did not do last year, but the pieces are in place to make that a reality this year.

Defensively, Shoop has all of the talent necessary to field a top defense. If he can exercise more discretion than Grantham in dialing up blitzes, then the possibility of fielding a truly elite defense exists.

We are favored in 9 games, and are slight dogs in 2 others (AU and LSU). If the offense hums and the defense lives up to expectations, the November 10th trip to Tuscaloosa could be for all of the marbles. We shall see.

https://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2018/8/10/17595462/mississippi-state-football-2018-preview-schedule-roster

I'm pretty confident that we're going to have more explosive plays. Just by function of throwing the ball deep more and also if Kylin Hill starts and plays at least 50% of the time that will happen.

I think Shoop will bring a lot of pressure but at the same time he will have more coverage in the secondary on the back end which will help stop explosive plays hopefully.

If we can find a punter that is effective it will help us out immensely because we will be able to control field position. That's really the only position I have any questions about at this point. We'll probably be OK.

[Todd4State]

I would love to know how many explosive passing plays we had over the last 5 years. I bet that number is one of the lowest in the country.

I also think this is the reason people are going to undervalue our offensive prowess. We are better at every position offensively than last year. But the thing I believe Moorhead brings is a downfield passing attack that we will be able to utilize. We have better WR's, but schematically, I believe Moorhead improves us drastically to be able to attack in a way we haven't before. We may have fewer high percentage completions, but we won't be relying on 10-15 play drives to score all the time. We should be able to get enough 8 or fewer drives to add another TD to our PPG average from last year.

The way I'm envisioning Moorhead's offense is we'll throw deep about 8-10 times a game typically. But the rest of the time we'll have a lot of higher percentage passes that are easier to throw which will drive Nick's completion percentage up. And then we'll throw some on RPO's as well.