I pulled the numbers for EPA per play on offense and defense, as well as success rate and explosive rate for offense, and defense for Weeks 1-4. Spoiler alert, Virginia Tech is below-average to average at everything. Here's to hoping that those numbers improve after the next third of the season.
Virginia Tech ranks 79th in EPA per play on offense and 66th in EPA per play on defense. Overall, Virginia Tech ranks 69th in Net EPA per play.
On offense, Virginia Tech ranks 103rd in success rate (ability to make progress towards a first down) at 40.0%, but 23rd in explosive play rate (runs over 15 yards and passes over 20 yards) at 11.0%. Having an explosive offense is about the only thing Virginia Tech can say they do well.
Passing the ball, Virginia Tech is 110th in success rate (36.6%), but 27th in explosive rate (13.4%). Rushing the ball, Virginia Tech is ranked 82nd (42.7%) and 41st respectively (9.1%).
On defense, Virginia Tech ranks 54th in success rate (38.4% allowed) and 65th in explosive play rate (runs over 15 yards and passes over 20 yards) at 7.4% allowed.
Against passing plays, Virginia Tech is 57th success rate (37.4%), but 80th in explosive rate (9.9%). Against rushing plays, Virginia Tech is ranked 60th (39.0%) and 65th (5.8%) respectively.
TL:DR - Virginia Tech is not good at sustaining drives, but we are effective at moving the ball down the field quickly in big chunk plays. The defense is on the better side of average but allows a lot of chunk yardage.
This is oddly similar to last year, even if the record is slightly better. The downside is the remaining schedule has only one team ranked below the Hokies by net EPA per play:
- @ Miami: 3rd
- @ Stanford: 80th
- Boston College: 24th
- Georgia Tech: 43rd
- @ Syracuse: 62nd
- Clemson: 54th
- @ Duke: 52nd
- Virginia: 66th
If Virginia Tech is going to make something happen, they better make some adjustments now.
Comments
Ok, so all we need to do is move up the scale by net EPA per play.
Cool, nice plan.
This might be the nerdiest thing I have ever said, but these charts are awesome.
Thanks! I would save if there is any silver lining that came from this data, it's that Miami has an average rush defense. 6th in the ACC in defensive rushing success rate, 13th in defense rushing explosive rate.
The data I work with isn't always the cleanest, so this could just be something funky with the play descriptions; but it seems like there have allowed a handful of big plays despite playing only one top 50 offense.
I have nothing interesting to add to this conversation, other than thank you for sharing!
I was kinda hoping there would be more interesting things to share but there just isn't anything. Last year you could actually see in the data the changes from when Drones took over, to the changes in the Pitt game, and beyond.
This year everything is just incredibly bland, below average, and boring. Not much of a story to tell that isn't apparent watching the games. At least there is data to put things into context across FBS.
I'm going to keep doing this though, cause I wanted to see if I could do one for every week of the season. If you have any weird things you want to know, like who's best at throwing the ball on first down, or something you think we're good/deficient at on paper, I'd be happy to look into more for the rest of the season.
Can you figure out where we stand nationally with having a right tackle sitting in your quarterbacks lap?
It's like one of those gorgeous business Powerpoint presentations where all of the lines slope downwards.