Bad News/Good News

[TheCusian]

I was thinking about Yards Per Play (that Millhouse) keeps referencing and I was thinking about how we seem to play uneven halves of offense. So I decided to plop the info down into a spread sheet and work up some info. The news is both bad and good. And a little weird.

So top line is our what our opponents give up in YPP (pink) and what we did against them (orange). I included just games with Dungey playing 4Q.

Bad News
We've played the softest defensive teams already. Pitt and USF are respectable at #41 and #44 nationally. But that UVa game should stick in our craw a bit. They are bad and we didn't get the job done posting a pretty bad YPP.

Other Notes:
- We are better on O at home. This makes sense with our youth. They haven't figured out how to play consistently home/away.
- Wake Forest is skewed a bit by that explosive half. We didn't get the ball much, but when we did we were explosive.
- I'm not worried about BC's defense. We score once or twice, it's over. They are really awful on O.

Good News
This is crazy. It seems like we haven't put together a full game yet on offense. It's beyond frustrating to watch.

- In every game we've played we've had a half where we were better than the other teams avg.
- The Pitt game was the only game where we were above their avg for both halves. But I think those 2 TO's and Ishmeal's dropped 1st down really hurt us.
- If you add up all of the good halves, our average would be 7.41 YPP. That's good for 4th, nationally.
- If you add up all the bad halves, our average would be 4.40 YPP. That's a tie with BC for 124th, nationally.
- That's a hell of gap.
- If we bring our ugly half up to our game avg YPP, we'd be at 6.42. That's good for 26th, nationally.

So here's my takeaway: Without looking at our D (which I think is getting better, but haven't looked at the stats to prove that one way or another), if our offense could play two complete halves we could really compete with the remaining teams. It's a big ask however. The defenses get better every week here on out. Should be a great lesson for our young offense no matter what.

 

[chakka3421]

Hmmmmmmm.....freshmen!

While I don't expect miracles, all we need to do is win 1 out of the next three and win the final 2. If this team can put together a complete game for 3 games, we go bowling.

We almost, as you point out, did that against Pitt a top 25 team. I haven't been this excited for SU football than I am now. I still expect we will be up or down by 1 score in the 4th in all 5 remaining games. These youngsters need to just learn how to win in the 4th quarter.

 

[TheCusian]

Hmmmmmmm...freshmen!

While I don't expect miracles, all we need to do is win 1 out of the next three and win the final 2. If this team can put together a complete game for 3 games, we go bowling.

We almost, as you point out, did that against Pitt a top 25 team. I haven't been this excited for SU football than I am now. I still expect we will be up or down by 1 score in the 4th in all 5 remaining games. These youngsters need to just learn how to win in the 4th quarter.

Yeah. I think when you add the defensive problems to it - the whole thing gets really unpredictable. I think looking for improvement and hoping to shock the world this weekend is the right way to think about it.

What better way to grow up, right ?

 

[Chip]

So what this chart is telling me is that I need to donate more to breast cancer.

 

[TheCusian]

So what this chart is telling me is that I need to donate more to breast cancer.

Couldn't hurt.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

Good post, seems like an interesting way to look at things

 

[KaiserUEO]

on all the drives where we go 3 and out, not only do they not score, but they gain less than 10 yds. these #s would put us last nationally.

on all the drives where we go down and score a TD, the yardage and scoring #s would put us 1st nationally.

therefore i think we should eliminate the plays on all 3 and outs and just use the plays on the where we score TDs.

problem solved.

nationally

championship......

 

[TheCusian]

on all the drives where we go 3 and out, not only do they not score, but they gain less than 10 yds. these #s would put us last nationally. on all the drives where we go down and score a TD, the yardage and scoring #s would put us 1st nationally. therefore i think we should eliminate the plays on all 3 and outs and just use the plays on the where we score TDs. problem solved. nationally championship...

If it broke down like that I wouldn't be writing anything. It broke on the half. That's weird.

 

[kcsu]

its called youth

 

[upperdeck]

when we struggle we struggle so badly we only run a handful of plays the whole quarter/half. nothing gets to set itself up and there is no energy. when it works down the field we go.. too bad against UV it didnt lead to pts.

 

[TheCusian]

when we struggle we struggle so badly we only run a handful of plays the whole quarter/half. nothing gets to set itself up and there is no energy. when it works down the field we go.. too bad against UV it didnt lead to pts.

This. I'd imagine that all teams have good and bad possessions or even quarters. We have great halves follows by epic meltdowns.

What encourages me is that we faced a very good defensive team in Pitt and sliced them up in the 1st half. We played a good second half compared to other games and lost on two TO's and a fake punt. We are getting better on offense.

 

[Forza Azzurri]

I was thinking about Yards Per Play (that Millhouse) keeps referencing and I was thinking about how we seem to play uneven halves of offense. So I decided to plop the info down into a spread sheet and work up some info. The news is both bad and good. And a little weird.

So top line is our what our opponents give up in YPP (pink) and what we did against them (orange). I included just games with Dungey playing 4Q.

Bad News
We've played the softest defensive teams already. Pitt and USF are respectable at #41 and #44 nationally. But that UVa game should stick in our craw a bit. They are bad and we didn't get the job done posting a pretty bad YPP.

Other Notes:
- We are better on O at home. This makes sense with our youth. They haven't figured out how to play consistently home/away.
- Wake Forest is skewed a bit by that explosive half. We didn't get the ball much, but when we did we were explosive.
- I'm not worried about BC's defense. We score once or twice, it's over. They are really awful on O.

Good News
This is crazy. It seems like we haven't put together a full game yet on offense. It's beyond frustrating to watch.

- In every game we've played we've had a half where we were better than the other teams avg.
- The Pitt game was the only game where we were above their avg for both halves. But I think those 2 TO's and Ishmeal's dropped 1st down really hurt us.
- If you add up all of the good halves, our average would be 7.41 YPP. That's good for 4th, nationally.
- If you add up all the bad halves, our average would be 4.40 YPP. That's a tie with BC for 124th, nationally.
- That's a hell of gap.
- If we bring our ugly half up to our game avg YPP, we'd be at 6.42. That's good for 26th, nationally.

So here's my takeaway: Without looking at our D (which I think is getting better, but haven't looked at the stats to prove that one way or another), if our offense could play two complete halves we could really compete with the remaining teams. It's a big ask however. The defenses get better every week here on out. Should be a great lesson for our young offense no matter what.

I think this analysis dovetails with what several of us have been saying: They are competing and they are close to turning the corner. Hopefully, more consistency will come with seasoning and these Ls will be replaced with Ws.

 

[texascpa]

Holy pastels, Batman!

Nice chart, but offense is not our problem, IMHO. Defense is what has let us down.

 

[TheCusian]

Holy pastels, Batman! Nice chart, but offense is not our problem, IMHO. Defense is what has let us down.

I agree. You need both to compete for conf champs. You need one side to be really good to win games vs peers. We are close on offense.

(The app I used has a limited set of colors. Didn't mean to invoke the 1980 Tampa Bay uni's lol)

 

[Millhouse]

I was thinking about Yards Per Play (that Millhouse) keeps referencing and I was thinking about how we seem to play uneven halves of offense. So I decided to plop the info down into a spread sheet and work up some info. The news is both bad and good. And a little weird.

So top line is our what our opponents give up in YPP (pink) and what we did against them (orange). I included just games with Dungey playing 4Q.

Bad News
We've played the softest defensive teams already. Pitt and USF are respectable at #41 and #44 nationally. But that UVa game should stick in our craw a bit. They are bad and we didn't get the job done posting a pretty bad YPP.

Other Notes:
- We are better on O at home. This makes sense with our youth. They haven't figured out how to play consistently home/away.
- Wake Forest is skewed a bit by that explosive half. We didn't get the ball much, but when we did we were explosive.
- I'm not worried about BC's defense. We score once or twice, it's over. They are really awful on O.

Good News
This is crazy. It seems like we haven't put together a full game yet on offense. It's beyond frustrating to watch.

- In every game we've played we've had a half where we were better than the other teams avg.
- The Pitt game was the only game where we were above their avg for both halves. But I think those 2 TO's and Ishmeal's dropped 1st down really hurt us.
- If you add up all of the good halves, our average would be 7.41 YPP. That's good for 4th, nationally.
- If you add up all the bad halves, our average would be 4.40 YPP. That's a tie with BC for 124th, nationally.
- That's a hell of gap.
- If we bring our ugly half up to our game avg YPP, we'd be at 6.42. That's good for 26th, nationally.

So here's my takeaway: Without looking at our D (which I think is getting better, but haven't looked at the stats to prove that one way or another), if our offense could play two complete halves we could really compete with the remaining teams. It's a big ask however. The defenses get better every week here on out. Should be a great lesson for our young offense no matter what.

remember when you complained that I didn't back out defensive TD and overtime scores for every team in FBS

but here you're assuming that other teams have the roughly same performance in all halves?

you might be getting fooled by randomness here. lots of teams would look good if you skim off the bottom 50%

my handicap back when I had any time to actually play golf would've been pretty good if i got to drop my worst nine holes. 50 - 35 is my gold standard, if i stick with it, I can go 54-34 someday.

 

[TheCusian]

remember when you complained that I didn't back out defensive TD and overtime scores for every team in FBS but here you're assuming that other teams have the roughly same performance in all halves? you might be getting fooled by randomness here. lots of teams would look good if you skim off the bottom 50% my handicap back when I had any time to actually play golf would've been pretty good if i got to drop my worst nine holes. 50 - 35 is my gold standard, if i stick with it, I can go 54-34 someday.

Yeah - that could be. I think assuming the defense plays exactly the same from half to half is a big hole in the data. Especially going from 1st half success to 2nd half horribleness (halftime adjustments).

I think it's unlikely that we are that good for two halves this season. But there is still enough there for me to think it's youth and that we can be much better - even against decent defenses.

 

[Deano]

its called youth

We will not have positive posts like this on the board so you need to stop.