Final S&P+ rankings are out for the 2018 season. Virginia Tech places:
- 66th Overall
- 44th in Offense
- 81st in Defense
- 57th in Special Teams
Compared to previous 5 years:
| Season | Overall Ranking | Offense | Defense | Special Teams |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 66th | 44th | 81st | 57th |
| 2017 | 30th | 96th | 9th | 31st |
| 2016 | 17th | 51st | 17th | 48th |
| 2015 | 59th | 72nd | 39th | 24th |
| 2014 | 49th | 94th | 10th | 119th |
I also thought it would be interesting to see our Offensive S&P+ rating (presented in the form of an adjusted scoring average) rather than just our ranking relative to other teams:
| Season | Offensive Ranking | Offensive Rating (adjusted scoring average) |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 44th | 31.8 |
| 2017 | 96th | 25.6 |
| 2016 | 51st | 31.9 |
| 2015 | 72nd | 27.7 |
| 2014 | 94th | 24.3 |
As a reminder, S&P+ rankings are adjusted for strength of opponent and do include plays that occur during garbage time. Offensive/defensive rankings are isolated and adjusted to account for how bad the other side of the ball is. Also note that there have been some small tweaks to the algorithms over the years (I believe the big change this year was that garbage time is defined as 21 point deficit, not 14 points)
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Comments
Yikes
It's weird because our offensive rating almost makes sense to me. We did seem to be able to move the ball at times, we probably had a decently high success rate, but ultimately we failed at what matters the most and that's scoring points against P5 competition.
Our scoring against P5 competition:
Florida State - 24 points (7 scored off a blocked punt recovered for a TD)
Duke - 31 points
Notre Dame - 23 points
North Carolina - 22 points
Georgia Tech - 28 points (21 in first half, scored one TD in the second half with game well out of reach)
Boston College - 21 points
Pitt - 22 points
Miami 14 points
Virginia - 34 points (blocked punt for TD, 3 points in OT)
We finished the season 92nd out of 130 teams in second half scoring on the year (all games including William & Mary to skew us upward).
I've tweeted Bill Connelly about this during the season, no answer yet. I have two theories:
Edit: I think your second half scoring stat supports my second bullet. When the games were close, our offense seemed to be able to move the ball. One stalled play by the offense, and two busted drives by the defense, and all of a sudden the game is out of reach. Our offense either doesn't have the fire power or doesn't have the motivation (or both) to come back from that kind of a deficit.
Regardless, I'm still trying to get Bill C's explanation on this one.
On your first point, there is absolutely truth to that. However, bad defense doesn't inhibit offense as much as bad offense inhibits good defense. Oklahoma and other high scoring teams with bad defenses prove this every year. Yet the statistics show that if you put the defense out on the field for 75+ plays the drop off in defensive efficiency is enormous.
Now that wasn't really an issue for us this year, but our offense did put our defense in bad spots several times this year as well, particularly with how awful our offense often was in the 2nd half of games. Against BC our offense gave them a super short field and went 3 and out constantly in the 2nd half. That drive chart (I've posted it before on TKP before) is damning of the second half.
See this is where I have to disagree a bit in regards to your edit: Those 2nd halves didn't always start as blowouts, it was often after spurts of offensive inefficiency that the games collapsed. See BC, Miami, Notre Dame where the defense was holding its own well and eventually collapsed under the weight of three and outs and no help from the offense. There are examples that fit your thought like Pitt, but there were examples of both.
Those schools that prove that point have really, really good offenses though. Oklahoma had the #1 offense this year. Despite having the #89th defense, they were ranked 4th overall. I think it's possible that our offense is okay, but didn't get the chance to prove it.
Even if it's just two games - Pitt and GT, that still a lot of snaps to be 'thrown out'. But I agree, it still doesn't make complete sense.
Well the collapse against GT actually started with giving them a super short field on a muffed punt and then going three and out several times.
Now let me be clear though, the defense lost us that GT game because they were completely dreadful, but the offense was still putting them in bad spots to end the 1st half, start the 2nd when they pulled away. Pitt was the worst defensive performance I have ever seen from a VT team in my lifetime.
Also I'm not throwing them out, I'm disagreeing with using your edited part and your second bullet point as a blanket statements because there were three games off the top of my head where quite the opposite happened. So those two games that fit your point, and three games that dispute it act to muddy the waters enough to where it's difficult to say definitively why we were so bad in the 2nd half offensively. I'm not so much saying "YOU'RE WRONG" as I'm trying to say, "well lets look at these three games because I think they actually tell the opposite story."
Either way, I'm glad you reached out to Bill, as I'm interested to hear what he has to say. In my experience he is pretty spotty on whether he gets back to you or not when you reach out. In general I am a big fan of Bill C and S&P+ (I utilize it constantly), but I still like to put his rankings in context as I would any other analytic system.
To clarify, when I said "throw out", I was referring to Bill C's algorithm ignoring garbage time snaps. But I think we're on the same page - data isn't telling the whole story so further context is needed.
Ah I see I misread that, and it added some confusion because I felt like we were agreeing, but I couldn't make sense of that. My bad haha.
Where would this team be with even a top 50 defense?
Probably around 47ish. Ark State was ranked 48th overall with the same offense as us, 50th best defense, and 97th best special teams.
At least 8-5
Most interesting to me is that we were ranked higher offensively in 2018 than 2016, and that we only scored 0.1 point per game fewer in 2018 than in 2016.
Whether you consider that performance to be "good" or "bad" is up to you, but we set a lot of records in 2016 and in 2018 we started hearing people talk about how Cornelson isn't cut out for the job for one reason or another.
My point is not to defend him or advocate for his dismissal, but rather to say "wow, football is a team game with many individual parts, and the performance of one unit can impact the way fans perceive other units." I think the way perception and numbers interact with each other is kinda cool.
92nd out 130 FBS teams in 2nd half scoring for the 2018 season.
In 2016, we scored 30+ against P5 competition 8 times, and the ACC was much better in 2016 than it was this season. We accomplished that feat twice in 2018.
Leg for you. I don't doubt your numbers, but I am curious, where can I look at things like "2nd half scoring." The outcomes you listed are damning, but what does that say about ranking higher relative to our peers offensively in 2018 than 2016? Does this mean that we moved the ball better but scored less due to poor execution/poor field position? Does it mean we can't take much from the S&P+ ratings/rankings? Does it mean our numbers are better than our peers in the first half but then worse in the second half? I don't know if the answer to these questions is something I can learn about from a particular statistic or if someone can fill me in, but these are definitely questions I'd like to know the answers to.
Team Rankings - 2nd Half Points Per Game
Team Rankings is great for looking up more obscure stats like this.
Thank you
EDIT: just looked, we were 44th in first half points per game.
Which aligns pretty well with how much of the season went. Even during the rough stretch through late October and November, we would start games with some promise and seemed completely unable to move the ball or score in the 2nd half. It happened every single game from Notre Dame until UVA where we broke that mold somewhat.
Is this a reflection on the coaches inability to make adjustments or the players inability to execute something other than the simplified gameplan that was instilled during the previous week of practice, thus making halftime adjustments much more difficult?
I would love to know the answer to this. It seems like we made a lot more execution errors in the 2nd half, but the consistency with which we struggled to score in the 2nd half also suggests something more systemic like possibly not adjusting as the game drags on, or being unable to counter once the defense had made their adjustments. It might be something worth taking a deep dive into in the offseason, or maybe French will end up finding an answer through the work he already has planned.
I feel like the inability to score in the 2nd half wasn't a problem in the first two years, so I think it's not necessarily indictive of poor coaching, but rather inexperience.
Yes...I think that is a major point to make is that 2018 was not a good year for the ACC which makes it not valid to say that just because the S&P was better than 2016, the Offense is improving.
While numbers from 2018 were on-par with 2016 (and maybe even slightly better), the competition was not as consistently good. And 2nd Half (particuarly 3rd Quarter) offensive production was putrid.
In 2016, for the most part, our Offensive production seemed to improve as the game went along, particularly against better teams (Miami, Clemson). The Belk Bowl is also a very good example.
In 2018, there definitely was a consistent lack of production post-halftime and much of the production seemed to happen late in the 4th Quarter when the game was already out of reach (ND, Miami). Particuarly against, UM, it was clear after Halftime that Diaz was ratcheting up the Blitz and we had no answer for it and didn't sniff the EndZone again.
This is why I think there needs to be real concern about Cornelson. Sure, the S&P overall looks Average (and 44th is nothing better than average), but as you pointed out so well there was a huge gap in success in the 2nd half. In many games, our first drive or two were very successful followed by a huge dropoff (see FSU, UNC, Miami, BC). Without Insider knowledge, its hard to know exactly what the cause is, but in most scenarios the first 15-20 plays are "scripted" before the game and adjustments made from there. I don't think its unreasonable to speculate that the scripted plays had a lot of Input from JF, and without his oversight BC on his own is what produces the 2nd half results.
The funny thing is the first two years, when we were a second half team, fans theorized that it was CJF making adjustments at half time and that good second halves were proof that Cornelsen was the weak link.
Yeah but in 2016 we dont not get 4th and short with evans
So...
The best offense in five years, by far the worst defense, and took a step back in special teams in a year where we had a shortage of experienced players on the field.
The raw offensive score was actually lower than 2016. There were just more good offenses that year to push back their ranking out of 130.
That's a fair point.
But what conclusions would you draw about the team from that?
For me, it's consistent with having inexperienced players on the field, which may have hurt us worse on defense than on offense.
Also lack of depth. When teams struggle in the second half, it's typically because the players aren't physically/mentally mature enough to play a full game (meaning their young), or they're tired, and the people coming off the bench aren't as good.
Not that much lower. 31.8 vs 31.9.
But that proves his point. We scored an average of only 0.1 points less per game than in 2016, but that equated to being 7 spots higher relative to everyone else in 2018 because scoring was down in 2018. He's just contextualizing the S&P rating being higher in 2018 than 2016 despite scoring practically the same amount of points per game.
If we were that far down, I would've just rather seen us ranked 69th.
The sooner we can be Top-25 in all those rankings, the better. Hopefully 2018 proves to be the low point of the Fuente Era.
It is almost as if the offense wasnt as bad as the vocal outrage would lead us to believe.
Until you realize how abysmal the 2nd half scoring was.
Wonder what SoS looks like for each year
The rankings are adjusted for SOS. You can interpret them as all having the same SOS.
Y'all can do a deeper dive with his stat profiles here.
Edit:
The problems on offense seem to have been this:
1. With the lack of an explosive run game, the offense bogged down on the opponents side of the field way too much. Unless we got first and goal or a long touchdown pass, it felt like we almost never scored.
2. If we didn't have success on first or second down, we were done for unless we hit a long, low-percentage throw. Hence all of the three-and-outs at inopportune times.
We weren't efficient enough in converting on third-down and keeping drives going and the running game wasn't explosive enough to keep from needing to drive the length of the field so often. Hence the lower scoring totals.
With regards to point #2:
-It seems to me that way too often, when faced with a 3rd and medium or 3rd and long, the coaching staff just gave up and called a QB draw. It was totally predictable by the end of the season. It just seemed like quitting on the drive instead of, you know, actually trying to get a first down to keep your porous defense off of the field. If your offense only plans on using 1st and 2nd down than you're unnecessarily handi-capping yourself. It just seemed like a lot of opportunities were missed because the coaches were
scaredoverly-cautious.-It also seemed like when they did actually try on 3rd down, there were a lot of pass plays where the route was short of the line to gain. I realize that some or all of these may have been check-downs, but what is the point of having any routes, including check-downs, that aren't past the sticks on third down?
At a certain point risk aversion, becomes success aversion ("scared money don't make money"). If Willis is soooo bad that they cannot trust him on third downs, handicapping the offense, then why is he even on the field? You are straight up telling him, the rest of the team, the opposing team, and the fans that you don't trust him. How is that setting him up for success? Willis is a "gun-slinger", let him sling his gun and live with the results. He could possibly throw a pick or twelve, but he could also possibly produce acceptable, if not exceptional results. But at least you tried. You never know if you never try. Give the kid the chance to earn your trust in a game. If you distrust him that much, then just put in Hooker and run a bunch of run plays.
I'll start by repeating the obvious:Fuente was explicitly hired to spark some life on the offensive side of the ball. As much as everyone seems to want to shit on Fuente and Cornelson, the numbers seems to suggest that they've mostly held up their side of the bargain. 2016 and 2018 were above average Virginia Tech offenses, with 2017 being closer to the usual frustration. 2018 was literally the worst VT football squad in 25 years, but I do still think numbers like this show that Fuente deserves patience from the fanbase.
While the S&P does show improvement from Beamer's last years in 2/3 years, there are also situational and on-field issues that makes the conclusion that the offense is under the best direction less clear.
First, as was well pointed-out above, 2nd half performance was extremely poor, suggesting that we Repeatedly have difficulty making successful adjustments. This, in turn, would suggest that opposing DC are outmatching our Offensive playcallers consistently...this is not a good thing. I would challenge you to watch the Miami game again, Diaz clearly outclassed Cornelson in that 2nd half.
Second, there were some bizarre decisions made, not the least of which was the Quincy Patterson "package." Which had the rare combination of both appearing poorly timed and poorly game-planned. The package appeared so simplistic and underwhelming that Cornelson, in fact, later had to defend it to the Media saying QP runs "more than 6 plays."
Our defense was only 81st? No way with the numbers we were allowing unless everyone else was that bad
I agree, I think our stats were upgraded thanks to the garbage time factor. By stinking up the field and playing in lots of garbage time, those stats got thrown out. In other words, had we played in a lot of closer games and not so many blow outs, all those stinky stats would have been included.
In short, we were so bad that it improved our stats, so yeah, we were really worse than that on defense.
Also helped we were a break don't bend defense. Only counts as 1 play. And other than FSU and Marshall we played a decent slate of offenses IIRC
Not even a little.