Illinois Hokie's Recent Comments
The mike is still on the field in nickel. It's whip that subs out.
Okay just to update...
My orginal five tracked stats:
- Total Offense
- Scoring Offense
- 3rd Down Conversion %
- Red Zone Touchdown %
- Red Zone Scoring %
In addition, based on feedback above, I will be adding the following stats and comparing to the equivalent point last season:
- Avg. Yards per Play
- Avg. Plays per Game
- Avg. Plays per Drive
- Yards per Passing Attempt
- Yards per Carry, Backs Only
While there have been some really good suggestions about situational stats like avg yards to go on third down, I think I'm gonna forego those simply because if the offense is struggling on first and second down, overall stats will suffer. We won't have a high third down conversion rate if we average 7 yards to go on the down. Likewise with explosive plays, if they are lacking then yards per play will suffer.
I would like to make clear, I think these situational stats are excellent ideas and I wish I could do them. The problem is, I'm not aware of a source that publishes them. I don't have time to do the number crunching to actually generate the statistics. So if you're aware of a place that tracks down and distance and explosive plays, please let me know.
Thanks for the positive feedback and keep the suggestions coming!
So would it be right to say Motley made the wrong read on the runs that resulted in negligible gain you mentioned above?
They play Navy before us? Didn't they hear no one can beat us if they have to play Navy the week before?
Almost impossible to track. No stat site I've found tracks YAC. (Or YBC in this case.) I agree with where you're headed logically, but I'm not going to be doing a lot of the number-crunching myself. I want to rely on compiling stats published by others. Let's just assume if YPC is up, that means in general the blocking is most likely better.
Both very valid stats. It's got me wondering if I need to track those against the same week last season. Those seem more like "benchmark" stats, targeting a threshold rather than caring how we were doing last season. I'll include YPA and YPC by backs, I just don't know how yet.
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10 years 10 months
# | QBs Brenden Motley, Dwayne Lawson Strut Their Stuff, Hokies' Offense Roasts Furman 42-3 Well, ideally I'd just like to see our OL be good enough to not have our QB get pressured, whoever it is. So far, they're doing a much better job of that. Obviously we'll see what kind of pocket presence Motley has as the level of competition improves. I'm hoping outings like he had against Furman give him the confidence to remain committed to the pass under pressure.
As for the receiver being covered, one thing I've noticed so far this season is Lefty's route design is getting a receiver open on just about every attempt. So hopefully we don't see Motley trying to thread the needle into coverage too much this season. If he does, he's probably making bad reads in his progressions.
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10 years 10 months
# | QBs Brenden Motley, Dwayne Lawson Strut Their Stuff, Hokies' Offense Roasts Furman 42-3 85.7% red zone TD%, tied for 16th in the nation. No way the percentage stays that high over the season, but given that we've played both the best and the worst teams on our schedule, it probably isn't a completely bogus stat either.
oddly designed package plays, allowed for unblocked defenders in the box that couldn't be accounted for by the offensive line
Am I right in thinking that a package play is the extreme version of a read? But instead of deciding whether to hand the ball off or keep it based on a read, the QB is reading the defense whether to run a zone read or a play action pass? If that's the case, in the above example of there being unblocked defenders on the run, did Motley make the wrong read on the package play and should have instead committed to the passing option?
Also wanted to add, one of my favorite parts of the clip of Bucky's big gain was seeing Cam Phillips come in looking to make a downfield block. Burden is changing the culture of the receivers, and it seems Cam has really bought into it. He had some stumbles, with what may or may not have been a ticky-tack offensive PI call (fricking ESPN3 cameramen), but that just tells me he's trying. And ALL our receivers are running backs once they have the ball, looking to make defenders miss and pick up as much YAC as they can. Excellent to see.
Found a replay of his first run from scrimmage.
I can certainly do that. I think we can all agree the pervasive false starts and illegal procedures last year were indicative of players not yet being fully comfortable within the scheme.
Beyond false starts and illegal procedures, are there any penalties you want to see tracked? I originally thought about tracking holding penalties, but I think that says more about an individual lineman's development than the overall offense.
cfbstats.com is about the best site I've found, and even they don't track average down and distance. I'll look for other options though.
I'm wondering if we're getting redundant with yards per play, though. On the average, once you have hit an acceptable sample size, it's a fair bet that a team that averages 5 yards per play would on average face a second and five, a third and short, and would face lower than the median number of third downs.
It's a balance picking stats to use, because at some point you get focused enough that you're just watching the whole game on paper. I don't necessarily think that's what you're suggesting, I just want to make sure I'm not following the same start three different ways.
Lemme do some research and see if what you're suggesting is practical.
No baseline or presumptions about what "acceptable" improvement would look like, just a stastitics-driven presentation of this season vs. the same point in last season. Then, perhaps at the end of the year, trends over the course of the season might become apparent that are lost when taking "season as a whole" stats.
Just a fun way to look at the data. Do with what I present as you will.
Oh man. That's a really good idea, but would take a buttload of research and I'm lazy.
Not only did we play an FCS, but our first two games were also an FCS and OSU, making this a particularly valid point in the season for comparison.
Another good benchmark will be after week 5. Our other three opponents in 2014 were ECU, WMU and GT. This year will be ECU, Purdue and Pitt. With the season almost half gone by that point, I think that will be the first time we'll be able to draw some strong conclusions about how we're shaping up this year vs last year.
SLC has a bit of a drug problem. Not El Paso or ABQ levels, but significant and growing.
A home run threat who still average five and a half per carry when you factor out the home runs?
Motley vs Lawson will be one hell of a spring camp battle, with Motley having starter experience and Lawson (hopefully) seeing significant game snaps this year.
McMillian looks like the best running back so far. Has the most explosive play threat on the roster IMO. I haven't paid particular attention to his blocking. Anyone who has, is he serviceable?
If eleven straight hasn't changed their mind, their recruiting isn't influenced by VT vs UVA.
Really, really nice work. I'm thinking plays per game coupled with plays per drive and yards per play would be a great replacement for TOP. Straight plays per game might favor a team like Georgia Tech, that's designed to consistently get 4 yards per play. Meanwhile, teams that get bigger chunks of yards per play might have fewer plays per game just by virtue of it taking fewer plays to get to the end zone.
I'll include plays per game, plays per drive and yards per play going forward. Thanks again for your input!
Agreed, it's way too early to know what we have this season. But I think comparative trends will begin to emerge well before the end of the season. That's one reason I thought this weekly comparison would be fun to do, because we can benchmark against where we were at the exact same point last season instead of drawing broad, sweeping comparisons come December.
Also., if we see offensive improvement with our backup QB, I would see that as arguing in favor of Lefty's scheme as opposed to one player making the offense go, a la Tyrod circa 2009-2010.
The thing about TOP is, I think it's an increasingly meaningless stat. When every team ran every down, you could draw strong conclusions from TOP. With so many pass-first offenses, the stat had lost significant value.
Yards and plays per drive, I'm a straight up idiot for not including those. Will do moving forward.
That's one reason I'm tracking both RZTD% and RZS%. Like right now, both stats are 85.7% because we've missed our only red zone FG try. By taking both stats together, you'll see at a glance how often we scored, how often those scores were settling for a field goal (by comparing scoring to TD%) and how often we came away with nothing.
To clear it up, red zone scoring percentage is what you're talking about, scoring ANY points in the red zone, whether field goals or TDs.
And that will indeed be compared to the equivalent point last season.