Tomcat posted these ratings by the Daily Orange writers. I though they were harsh.
This is an interesting exercise at mid-season - am interested in what you think.
Here's mine.
QB - D (biggest disappointment of the year)
RB - B (when they get holes they hit them)
WR - C (they have been open all over the field but their blocking is very poor)
TE - D (too many dropped passes and missed blocks)
OL - B- (ups and downs and I look for them to do better)
DL - B (better than I though they would do)
LB - B- (if they could only pass cover better)
Secondary C- (a lot of the problems are because of scheme but even so, they tackle poorly)
Returners (ugh)
P - A+ (just great)
K - C (wait till next year)
Team C (some anticipated improvement probably in this grade)
I know that ultimately it comes down to scoring points, but the offense is averaging about 70 yards per game more than last year versus FBS teams (358.7 ypg vs. 430.8 ypg). With average production in the red zone and the fanbase is much happier right now. But is it really just a perception issue (of the real impact that it would have on the game results)?
Taking a look at the actual numbers in 2013 versus 2014 is interesting. Last year we scored touchdowns on 64.1% of our red zone drives, and field goals on 15.38% for a total scoring percentage of 79.49% in the red zone. The TD% was 48th in the country last year against FBS competition (above FBS average). This year our TD% is 123rd. This year we have scored touchdowns only 36.8% of the time, field goals 36.84% of the time, for an overall red zone scoring percentage of 73.68%.
So, overall if we met our TD% and FG% from last year, we would have scored 94 points in the red zone this year instead of 70 points in games against FBS competition. That's on average an extra 4.8 points per game over the 5 games vs FBS teams this season.
If we performed to last year's average numbers for red zone production, the red zone point impact by game would have been as follows:
CMU - 5 trips, 4 TD, 1 FG, 31 points (actual) -- 5 trips, 3.2 TD, 0.77 FG, 24.71 points -- delta -6.29 points
Maryland - 5 trips, 2 TD, 1 FG, 17 points (actual) -- 5 trips, 3.2 TD, 0.77 FG, 24.71 points -- delta 7.71 points
Notre Dame - 3 trips, 1 TD, 1 FG, 10 points (actual) -- 3 trips, 1.9 TD, 0.46 FG, 14.68 points -- delta 4.68 points
Louisville - 2 trips , 0 TD, 2 FG, 6 points (actual) -- 2 trips, 1.28 TD, 0.31 FG, 9.98 points -- delta 3.98 points
Florida State - 4 trips, 0 TD, 2 FG, 6 points (actual) -- 4 trips, 2.56 TD, 0.62 FG, 19.78 points - delta 13.78 points
Clearly, this is not the only factor at work here but just for arguments sake if we were only performing to last years standard then the Maryland and Florida State games would have been much tighter and might have had a different outcome. Based on this stat alone, it doesn't appear that the red zone performance really had much impact in the Notre Dame and Louisville games.
Obviously, if we ignore last years performance and expect that our FGs should have all been TDs, then those point differences change significantly. But that wouldn't be realistic. Over the last 5 seasons including this year the FBS red zone TD average is about 58-61%. Using those averages (since they are less than our performance last year) would decrease the point deltas even further (making this year's performance versus average performance even less of an impact on the point total).
