How Offensive Has Joe's Offense Been?

[ShotgunDawg]

MSU has a SR QB, JR RB, older OL, experienced WRs, & is in the 2nd year of it's offensive scheme.

Ole Miss has a FR QB, heavily utilizes a FR RB, & has 2 SR across the OL.

Scoring offense - MSU - 84 & OM - 77

Passing offense - MSU - 110 & OM - 105 (Yes Plumlee can't throw but OM ranks higher in pass offense than MSU)

Rushing offense - MSU - 23 & OM - 9

Total offense - MSU - 72 & OM - 28

So with a new OC, scheme, FR QB, less experienced OL, & heavy utilization of a FR RB, Ole Miss' offense is better in EVERY SINGLE CATEGORY

For those that blame Tutor Gate, Tutor Gate is a defensive problem not an offensive problem. There isn't one contributor on offense from Tutor Gate.

His offense stinks, appears impossible to run in this offense, & hasn't shown enough of a pulse to even merit MSU considering going with it for another year.

Had MSU hired Rich Rod with Fitz last year, I don't see anyway we don't go at least 10-2

[msstate7]

Joe Moorhead really owes James Franklin for getting him the the best set of skill players in the country at penn st

[dawgday166]

Joe Moorhead really owes James Franklin for getting him the the best set of skill players in the country at penn st

For that and whatever tweaks he forced on Joe so the offense could perform at that level. Joe doing it his way now tho.

[Tbonewannabe]

Joe Moorhead really owes James Franklin for getting him the the best set of skill players in the country at penn st

McSorley was probably a top 10 college QB to go with the best RB and a top 5 TE. It honestly would have been hard to screw that up.

[confucius say]

If we score 38 this weekend we will average more points per game, for what that is worth. Truth is though, OM has more explosive skill guys than us. Sanders, plumlee, ealy are all home run hitters. We dont have a single one. I love Kylin but he aint outrunning anybody.

Here are some numbers I was shocked at: before even playing our fcs opponent, we are third in sec in rushing yards per game and eight in points per game (should rise to 7 after Abilene) and eighth in yards per game (may rise to 7 after Abilene). I would have thought our offensive numbers were much worse. We are twelfth in passing yards per game, bout what I expected. None of that is a defense of joe bc our offense has sucked against teams with a defensive pulse.


We are 12th in league in defense points per game (will not change after Abilene) and 11th In yards give up per game, dead last in sacks. Suspended guys would have helped these numbers some, but damn thats bad.

[TrapGame]

For that and whatever tweaks he forced on Joe so the offense could perform at that level. Joe doing it his way now tho.

Yep. The Penn State offense sputtered for the first five games in 2016 and then all of a sudden it "clicked"? No, that's Franklin breaking down Joe's offense. Remember what's his name at LSU is only using some of the basic RPO concepts. Joe's wonderful, innovated offense is a huge pile of shit.

[Really Clark?]

If we score 38 this weekend we will average more points per game, for what that is worth. Truth is though, OM has more explosive skill guys than us. Sanders, plumlee, ealy are all home run hitters. We dont have a single one. I love Kylin but he aint outrunning anybody.

Here are some numbers I was shocked at: before even playing our fcs opponent, we are third in sec in rushing yards per game and eight in points per game (should rise to 7 after Abilene) and eighth in yards per game (may rise to 7 after Abilene). I would have thought our offensive numbers were much worse. We are twelfth in passing yards per game, bout what I expected. None of that is a defense of joe bc our offense has sucked against teams with a defensive pulse.


We are 12th in league in defense points per game (will not change after Abilene) and 11th In yards give up per game, dead last in sacks. Suspended guys would have helped these numbers some, but damn thats bad.

The offensive numbers are skewed though. You have 55% of our SEC points coming in garbage time vs Auburn and TXAM and the ARK game this season. In the competitive portion of the 6 SEC games (not including ARK) we are averaging 12.3 points. A full third of all of our SEC points the last 2 years has been against ARK. Remove them and we are averaging 16.85 in all other 13 SEC games we have played the last 2 years, including EB last year and garbage points.

[dawgday166]

The offensive numbers are skewed though. You have 55% of our SEC points coming in garbage time vs Auburn and TXAM and the ARK game this season. In the competitive portion of the 6 SEC games (not including ARK) we are averaging 12.3 points. A full third of all of our SEC points the last 2 years has been against ARK. Remove them and we are averaging 16.85 in all other 13 SEC games we have played the last 2 years, including EB last year and garbage points.

According to Joe those overall stats show improvement *** That's why I've said he's a used car salesman.

[ShotgunDawg]

According to Joe those overall stats show improvement *** That's why I've said he's a used car salesman.

But he wouldn't sell any cars. He's an idiot

[Tbonewannabe]

If we score 38 this weekend we will average more points per game, for what that is worth. Truth is though, OM has more explosive skill guys than us. Sanders, plumlee, ealy are all home run hitters. We dont have a single one. I love Kylin but he aint outrunning anybody.

Here are some numbers I was shocked at: before even playing our fcs opponent, we are third in sec in rushing yards per game and eight in points per game (should rise to 7 after Abilene) and eighth in yards per game (may rise to 7 after Abilene). I would have thought our offensive numbers were much worse. We are twelfth in passing yards per game, bout what I expected. None of that is a defense of joe bc our offense has sucked against teams with a defensive pulse.


We are 12th in league in defense points per game (will not change after Abilene) and 11th In yards give up per game, dead last in sacks. Suspended guys would have helped these numbers some, but damn thats bad.

And the eye test would tell you that we scored a lot of garbage points after the other team has control of the game after the first quarter.

[Prediction? Pain.]

At this point, it's hard not to pile on. The offense didn't get it done against most of the good defenses it played last year (AU and A&M being the semi-exceptions), and it most definitely isn't this year, either.

Two things, though.

First, as blah as States and U. Miss.'s offenses are this year, they're actually middling among a horde of blah offenses in the SEC:

https://i.postimg.cc/gJ6247Yy/Screenshot-Capture-2019-11-20-12-58-13.png

The big one there is probably success rate, which is the rate at which our offensive plays get X yards, a first down, or a TD. I'm shocked that we're middle of the league.

Same goes for other raw, traditional stats like 3rd Down Conversion % (State 6th in the SEC in conference games, U. Miss. 9th), Red Zone TD% (State 4th in the SEC, U. Miss. 5th), yards per rush (State 3rd, U. Miss. 1st), yards per passing attempt (State's 5th, U. Miss. is 9th), etc.

Want to discount garbage time? Go check out the FEI ratings for offense (https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/feioff/2019). Drive-based efficiency ranks for tons of stuff, all of which discounts garbage time and games against FCS schools. Here's what the SEC offensive landscape looks like (via national FEI offense rank):

Bama: 1st
LSU: 3rd
UGA: 22nd
A&M: 27th
UF: 33rd
MSU: 37th
Auburn: 52nd
U. Miss.: 55th
Kentucky: 78th
Missouri: 86th
UT: 90th
Arkansas: 104th
South Carolina: 107th
Vandy: 112th

(Other notables, by the way: Memphis is 7th and Louisiana Lafeyette is 15th. Not too shabby . . . .)

Or you could look at some traditional stats filtered for the scoring margin of a game. CFB Stats lets you look at some stats in these ranges: up 15+, up by between 8 - 14, up by 1 - 7, tied, down by 1 - 7, down by 8 - 14, down by 15+. In yards per rush, we're not below 8th in the SEC in any of those scoring ranges.

None of that is to say that we're getting it done on offense. We're not. At all. If we can hire someone else who can get it done, I'm all for it.

And one of the biggest problems -- if not the biggest -- is the turnovers. We're dead last in the SEC in turnovers in conferences games: 15 turnovers -- repeat 15 -- in 7 SEC games. If you go back to the FEI ratings, there's a stat that tracks that called "Turnover Rate." It tracks -- again, without garbage time -- the "percentage of offensive drives that result in a fumble or interception." While we're ranked between 20 and 70 in most of the FEI's metrics (which deal with rates of gained yards, first downs, scoring, explosive plays, and negative plays), we're ranked 119th in the country in Turnover Rate. 17% of all our offensive possessions have ended in a turnover. One more time: 17%. WTF?

My second point is this: As much of a problem as the offense has been and continues to be, the defense is worse.

https://i.postimg.cc/8zb07d6T/Screenshot-Capture-2019-11-20-13-29-14.png

So the only defenses in the SEC that are worse than ours are the worst Arkansas and Vandy teams that those schools have fielded in, what, a decade or so? Nice.

And the suckitude is pervasive. We're 13th in the SEC in yards per play allowed, 12th in scoring D, 11th in yards per carry allowed, 14th in yards per pass attempt allowed, 13th in opposing QB rating, 12th in opponents' 3rd down conversion %, 13th in opponents' Red Zone TD%, and 14th in opponents' plays of 20+ yards.

Holy balls, people. Holy balls.

And hey, if we're going to hold our offense's feet to the fire about garbage time, how bout the defense?

Currently, we're ranked 70th in the country in the FEI's defensive ratings (https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/feidef/2019). The only other State defense that's been lower than that since 2007 (when the FEI rating began) was Peter Sirmon's 2016 debacle, when we ended the season ranked 91st. Even Torbush in 2009 and Chris Wilson in 2012 managed top 50 finishes. Hell, even Shoop's Tennessee defenses weren't quite this bad. (57th in 2016 and 69th in 2017.)

Before I end my little rant here, shout out to the special teams. Our offense's average starting field position is 13th in the SEC, and our defense's is 14th. God lord, man. We're already turning the ball over at an epic rate. The special teams play is poo icing on a cake made of rocks.

[Homedawg]

If we score 38 this weekend we will average more points per game, for what that is worth. Truth is though, OM has more explosive skill guys than us. Sanders, plumlee, ealy are all home run hitters. We dont have a single one. I love Kylin but he aint outrunning anybody.

Here are some numbers I was shocked at: before even playing our fcs opponent, we are third in sec in rushing yards per game and eight in points per game (should rise to 7 after Abilene) and eighth in yards per game (may rise to 7 after Abilene). I would have thought our offensive numbers were much worse. We are twelfth in passing yards per game, bout what I expected. None of that is a defense of joe bc our offense has sucked against teams with a defensive pulse.


We are 12th in league in defense points per game (will not change after Abilene) and 11th In yards give up per game, dead last in sacks. Suspended guys would have helped these numbers some, but damn thats bad.

Your number get skewed when i you our games are over at half or before. See A&M and auburn. But that's jomo's sounding block- we are 7th in offense. Yeah wtf ever.

[Prediction? Pain.]

Yep. The Penn State offense sputtered for the first five games in 2016 and then all of a sudden it "clicked"? No, that's Franklin breaking down Joe's offense. Remember what's his name at LSU is only using some of the basic RPO concepts. Joe's wonderful, innovated offense is a huge pile of shit.

Were there rumors about that? I hadn't heard anything like that before. And the stats sort of belie that theory, too. In Franklin's first two years at PSU, they were 14th (last) and 12th in scoring offense in the Big 10. Then in 2016 and 2017 they were 3rd and 1st. Ditto for total offense -- 13th in the Big 10 in 2014 and 2015, and then 2nd in the league in both of Moorhead's years. And for advanced stats: 108th and 70th in FEI before Moorhead, 30th and 5th with him. If Franklin's input is the reason for the change, why were they so horrifically bad in his first two years there?

And I get that McSorley and Barkely were only freshmen in 2015. They were obviously huge difference makers Joe's two years. But I'm not sure I can hold them against Moorhead any more than I can hold Dak against Mullen in 2014 and 2015. Our offense was at its best under Mullen with Dak -- currently one of the best QBs in the NFL -- at the helm, but I don't think that alone means that Mullen's offense is fundamentally flawed. After all, I'm not sure you can have an elite offense in a P5 league without at some great talent.

[Homedawg]

The offensive numbers are skewed though. You have 55% of our SEC points coming in garbage time vs Auburn and TXAM and the ARK game this season. In the competitive portion of the 6 SEC games (not including ARK) we are averaging 12.3 points. A full third of all of our SEC points the last 2 years has been against ARK. Remove them and we are averaging 16.85 in all other 13 SEC games we have played the last 2 years, including EB last year and garbage points.


This. Sorry I posted before reading yours.

[msstate7]

Were there rumors about that? I hadn't heard anything like that before. And the stats sort of belie that theory, too. In Franklin's first two years at PSU, they were 14th (last) and 12th in scoring offense in the Big 10. Then in 2016 and 2017 they were 3rd and 1st. Ditto for total offense -- 13th in the Big 10 in 2014 and 2015, and then 2nd in the league in both of Moorhead's years. And for advanced stats: 108th and 70th in FEI before Moorhead, 30th and 5th with him. If Franklin's input is the reason for the change, why were they so horrifically bad in his first two years there?

And I get that McSorley and Barkely were only freshmen in 2015. They were obviously huge difference makers Joe's two years. But I'm not sure I can hold them against Moorhead any more than I can hold Dak against Mullen in 2014 and 2015. Our offense was at its best under Mullen with Dak -- currently one of the best QBs in the NFL -- at the helm, but I don't think that alone means that Mullen's offense is fundamentally flawed. After all, I'm not sure you can have an elite offense in a P5 league without at some great talent.

Moorhead total offense rankings nationally:
2009 UConn - 56th
2010 UConn - 95th (Lost OC title in 2011)
2016 psu - 49th
2017 psu - 19th
2018 state - 71st
2019 state - 72Nd

Seems 2017 was an anomaly... maybe it was the elite skill players

[Tbonewannabe]

Were there rumors about that? I hadn't heard anything like that before. And the stats sort of belie that theory, too. In Franklin's first two years at PSU, they were 14th (last) and 12th in scoring offense in the Big 10. Then in 2016 and 2017 they were 3rd and 1st. Ditto for total offense -- 13th in the Big 10 in 2014 and 2015, and then 2nd in the league in both of Moorhead's years. And for advanced stats: 108th and 70th in FEI before Moorhead, 30th and 5th with him. If Franklin's input is the reason for the change, why were they so horrifically bad in his first two years there?

And I get that McSorley and Barkely were only freshmen in 2015. They were obviously huge difference makers Joe's two years. But I'm not sure I can hold them against Moorhead any more than I can hold Dak against Mullen in 2014 and 2015. Our offense was at its best under Mullen with Dak -- currently one of the best QBs in the NFL -- at the helm, but I don't think that alone means that Mullen's offense is fundamentally flawed. After all, I'm not sure you can have an elite offense in a P5 league without at some great talent.

I think as much as anything, Joe's offense just completely shuts down against real SEC speed. Most of our points and yards this year have been against defenses almost playing Prevent with 2nd and 3rd string. You look at what we did against UT when their rush defense was at the time around 90th in the country. They have gotten better but our strength vs their weakness = disaster. Not only did UT shutdown our rushing game outside of a few Shrader scrambles but they also matched their season total in sacks in our game. That is an amazing stat. You would think a team selling out to bring pressure wouldn't be able to grind the run to a halt also unless they had some talent like Simmons just dominating the line.

Moorhead has truly done a really shitty coaching job this year. And if the problems behind the scenes are believed, he is absolutely destroying our culture that it took 5 years of Croom and 9 years of Mullen to repair the damage from 2002-2003.

[Tbonewannabe]

Moorhead total offense rankings nationally:
2009 UConn - 56th
2010 UConn - 95th (Lost OC title in 2011)
2016 psu - 49th
2017 psu - 19th
2018 state - 71st
2019 state - 72Nd

Seems 2017 was an anomaly... maybe it was the elite skill players

And those aren't the defensive leagues that the SEC is. What might work somewhere else might not work against SEC speed. I think that is Moorhead's biggest problem. He wants the QB to make all of these decisions that might work except DEs and LBs run a 4.5 in the SEC.

[Prediction? Pain.]

Moorhead total offense rankings nationally:
2009 UConn - 56th
2010 UConn - 95th (Lost OC title in 2011)
2016 psu - 49th
2017 psu - 19th
2018 state - 71st
2019 state - 72Nd

Seems 2017 was an anomaly... maybe it was the elite skill players

I was under the impression that his offense was on in its infancy at Akron (where he got them up to top 50 in the FEI and S&P offensive rankings by his last year) and UConn, and that he really created it from the ground up in his four years at Fordham. Don't know that, but that's what I recall from reading about him when he was hired.

Re: PSU, look at the Big 10 stats and advanced stats from 2016 again. In the Big 10, they went from last to 3rd in scoring and from 13th to 2nd in total offense. In the S&P+ and FEI ranks, they went from 71st and 70th to 23rd and 30th. Those are huge leaps in year 1.

Also, I'm not sure how useful national ranks in raw total offense are here. You're comparing stats from different leagues in different eras. And as for the correlation you're proposing -- that a coach's high-water mark belies his true quality -- I'm not sure that the data bears that out. For example, here are the national ranks in total offense in Mullen's FBS games at MSU:

09 - 64th
10 - 50th
11 - 96th
12 - 76th
13 - 44th
14 - 7th
15 - 34th
16 - 57th
17 - 52nd

By the logic you propose, 2014 (and 2015, to an extent) was an anomaly. It was just Dak and Mullen was, in reality, a middling (or worse) offensive coordinator.

But really, my point with my original question was aimed at the theory that Franklin, who had fielded two consecutive horrible offenses at Penn State, was responsible for the offensive gains in '16 and '17 because of his alterations to Moorhead's system. That doesn't make sense given the facts. The Barkley and McSorely contributions, though, I can buy into that to an extent. But, like with Mullen and Dak, I'm not sure that I'd say that their presence totally discounts Moorhead's contribution to the offensive performance.

[bluelightstar]

I mean, there's also the possibility that Moorhead's offense has just been figured out. That happens too.

[timotheus]

Joe needs to rename the RPO to RFYL

[dawgs]

I think what we see here clearly is that elite talent can make lots of coaches look good, and being able to consistently bring in enough future NFL talent to make you look good is what differentiates shitty from successful college coaches. Certain coaches consistently put out top notch offenses, sure they are smart guys, but they are also regularly bringing in guys with an NFL future. I'm not saying crootin' stars are everything, but crootin' stars definitely correlate with a higher hit rate on NFL talent and takes away some uncertainty instead of trying to decide which 3* guys are diamonds in the rough waiting to be polished and which ones are still gonna be a turd regardless of how much polishing you put into it.

[Goldendawg]

How about Croom and Willie Westcoast 2.0 bad?

[Irondawg]

Lots of good points in this thread.

From what I’ve seen there have been times against the good defenses where we’ve actually run some good plays and either somebody totally whiffs a block, or more often, our guy can’t make the one defender in the area miss.

There were two plays I can remember specifically against Bama that if we break one tackle we go for 30-40 yards. Clyde broke those tackles against Bama. Plumlee made those guys miss against LSU. We simply don’t have guys to make those plays. Some system changes might help but I don’t think we have the players to be a top 40 offense.

Same way our defense is really bad but we have hardly anybody that would start for any of the top half of sec defenses

[Goldendawg]

Lots of good points in this thread.

From what I’ve seen there have been times against the good defenses where we’ve actually run some good plays and either somebody totally whiffs a block, or more often, our guy can’t make the one defender in the area miss.

There were two plays I can remember specifically against Bama that if we break one tackle we go for 30-40 yards. Clyde broke those tackles against Bama. Plumlee made those guys miss against LSU. We simply don’t have guys to make those plays. Some system changes might help but I don’t think we have the players to be a top 40 offense.

Same way our defense is really bad but we have hardly anybody that would start for any of the top half of sec defenses

I am convinced that there has never been an offensive play run this year that all 11 players knew what we were trying to do at the same time.

[dawgday166]

I am convinced that there has never been an offensive play run this year that all 11 players knew what we were trying to do at the same time.

Ahh ... maybe 2 or 3 against ULL & USM.

[trojandawg]

Moorhead?s offense is not rhythmic in the way it?s called. It?s a rambling pile of crap. He doesn?t believe in long sustained drives and calling plays in rhythm based off of each other this makes for a lot of low percentage high reward type plays which makes for a lot of whiffs that kill drives. If he would focus on high percentage rhythmic play calling he might have a little more success. There isn?t much room for error in the sec and focusing on low percentage plays or the big plays gets your offense off the field in a hurry unless you are absolutely loaded with talent

[Goldendawg]

All of Tommy's checkdowns Sat when he threw for 82 yards reminded me of Croom's West Coast "offense" when receivers ran a two or three and out when we needed about eight for a 1st down. Of course, Croom's play was drawn up to get the other needed yards after breaking a tackle or two. Just like Jo can draw up all his "explosive" plays in his mind.