In the last post, I looked at home field advantage and generally made the case that it does not have a legitimate impact on the outcome of games, and any advantage that it generates -- if there is any at all -- is essentially so small that it is statistically insignificant.
In this post, things will be a bit more general and a bit more rambling, with little concrete conclusions. That aside, it will still contain relevant things.
For starters, exactly what gives home teams an advantage?
In football, unlike baseball, the dimensions of the playing field are static, and never change regardless of where you play. It doesn't matter if you play in Tacoma, Washington or Miami, Florida, the field is still 100 yards long, 53 1/2 yards wide, with two end zones both 10 yards long. The uprights, too, are the same. The base of the crossbar is 10 feet high, and the width of the uprights is 16 1/2 feet. Same goes for the pylons: 4 inches by 4 inches, and 18 inches high. Hell, even the directional arrows by the yard markers are the exact same: an isosceles triangle with two sides at 36 inches, and the base at 18 inches. At bottom, there are no differences whatsoever in the dimensions of the field, regardless of where you play, so it's not like baseball where hitter's parks v. pitcher's parks can give a particular team an advantage.
Moreover, there's no special object on the field to make a difference. In basketball, though the dimensions of the court never change, different arenas have different tightness levels to the rim, and that can dramatically change a team's shooting abilities, and therefore have a major impact on their overall scoring. But again, in football you have nothing like that.
Playing surfaces can make a difference, no doubt there. In the past, particularly in the NFL, teams with fast surfaces (Astro Turf, primarily) built teams around speed, and they would have an advantage at home, and of course when they would go to opposing team's stadiums with poor, slow surfaces, they would be at a disadvantage, thus giving the opposing home team an advantage. But in the SEC -- and most places for that matter -- you just don't have very different playing surfaces. Generally speaking, they are all pretty much the same. Just about everyone uses natural grass, and even the ones that don't use the FieldTurf that is highly similar to natural grass. At bottom, there's nothing between those two that would create an advantage for one team and a disadvantage for the other. Moreover, no one in the SEC pulls a Notre Dame (letting the grass grow ridiculously high and thick before a big game) in order to slow down faster teams. In reality, the only real differences in playing surfaces at SEC schools are the aesthetic differences. At bottom, the playing surfaces are just so similar throughout the SEC that it can't really make any real impact.
Climates, too, can also create an advantage for one team and a disadvantage for others, no doubt about it. Teams used to playing in the muck and mud of a torn up field (a good example is the Chicago Bears), build teams designed to play in those conditions, and when speedy teams that often play in domes (a good example is the New Orleans Saints) must go on the road to play those teams, that creates a distinct advantage for the home team. But again, we really don't have that in the SEC, or anywhere else in college football for that matter. Conferences are so geographically based that the climates are generally the same regardless of which school is in question. The SEC is the perfect example; generally all SEC games are played in roughly the same conditions, aside from a game in which it might randomly rain, and even those are rare (Alabama usually averages less than one game per year that is affected in any way by the rain). So, that too has no real effect.
So then what is it that makes a difference?
Could it be that teams are generally afraid of going on the road?
That's something that I could very easily imagine a juvenile (in terms of maturity, not age) fan saying, but that's really laughable more than anything else. Seriously, exactly what is there to be "afraid" of? For one, players are rarely subjected to physical danger outside the playing field, and even if they were, so what? Modern day Division 1-A football players are largely physical freaks of nature, and they could rip a normal person to shreds if they wanted. You can rest assured they aren't worried about that. So again, what is there to be "afraid" of? Or, forget that, Hell, what is there to not even like about a road trip? Think about it, these guys are chauffeured to airports in swanky buses, with a full police escort the entire way, at which point they board luxurious charter jets. Once boarded, they get big, roomy seats with newly-released in-flight movies, customized to player and coach preferences, and world-class cuisine; sufficed to say, no pack of peanuts and a twelve-ounce Diet Coke for these guys. Once they arrive at the final destination, they unload and again they are chauffeured in swanky buses, with a full police escort, to the finest hotel in the surrounding area. Once there, they are waited on hand and foot, and in most cases later go out on the town. So, again, exactly what is there to be "afraid" of on a road trip? If anything, it seems like these players are having the time of their lives. All I can say is that I wish I got a similar weekend getaway four-to-five times per year for free like those guys do. At bottom, though, as said earlier, this argument is just laughable.
The only thing left that I could think of is crowd noise, and honestly that is the one that is generally most talked about. But exactly what impact does crowd noise have?
Supposedly opposing team's players get "rattled," but I have to admit that I really don't know what that means. And I really don't think there is much to it. Crowd noise is crowd noise, and believe it or not this is not NCAA Football 2008 where players become mentally retarded and physically inept. Much like the "afraid" notion, there's probably not much to this.
The notion that crowd noise affects communication, particularly with audibles, does seem very plausible, which puts it much higher than most other arguments regarding a real rationale for home field advantage. But really, how big of an impact can be that be? As we've seen in the past, coaches at this level are very good, and players are generally well prepared. Coaches know they will be going into loud environments, and they do game-plan accordingly. They install more hand-check audibles (as opposed to verbal audibles shouted out to other players), and they also install default adjustments if an opponent gives a certain look. Moreover, let's be brutally honest here, coaches generally keep their quarterbacks walking the tight and narrow, and most are on a short leash in terms of audibles. They simply aren't allowed to do it very much, for the most part, and the ones that are allowed to do so generally can only check into a few plays. This isn't like the NFL where quarterbacks routinely have the permission to completely change a play to whatever they want at their own volition. So, the impact there is largely limited by quarterbacks not being able to change the play that much in a given situation, particularly one that the coaching staff expected and are therefore presumably prepared for.
Moreover, the most important point regarding crowd noise is that, unlike everyone assumes, it makes it difficult for both teams. Fans don't really cheer for or against anyone, for the most part. At bottom, as a whole, it's just a whole bunch of yelling and screaming, and all told it's just loud. It's not like it's like a rock concert for the road team and it's quite as a museum for the home team. Both must deal with the crowd noise effectively. You may say that the crowd noise affects the road team's offense from audibling, but at the same time it also equally affects the home team's defense from audibling (and yes, defenses do audible, and often times they do it just as much as the offense).
Then some people say that they want the stadium silent when the home team has the ball, but rocking when the opposing team has the ball. And that's absurd, it makes no difference whatsoever. Sure, it's quiet for your offense, but it's quiet for the opposing defense too. You can freely adjust with no crowd interference, and so can they. And of course the exactly same thing goes for the opposite situation, where the noise makes it more difficult to adjust for both the opposing offense and the home defense. There is simply no net advantage for the home team.
At bottom, it's hard to see much of an advantage from crowd noise. After all, how can crowd noise be an advantage for the home team and a disadvantage for the road team, when it seemingly has the exact same strategical effect on both teams?
All told, the crowd noise argument is more plausible than most other rationales for the existence of home field advantage, but it too is not particularly convincing.
And beyond that, how do we know which stadiums are really the loudest?
I know the answer to that one: We don't.
Don't kid yourself, we have no clue whatsoever as to which stadiums are the loudest, nor does anyone who claims to know so. The reason for that is simple: no one has ever done any empirical test whatsoever of stadium noise levels. And until someone does a legitimate empirical study in which they take decibel meters into every Division 1-A stadium and measure the loudness of those stadiums on a consistent basis, and then rank them based on how loud they were on the decibel meter, we won't know. And, of course, no one has ever even attempted something remotely close to that.
Moreover, first person testimonials saying X Stadium is the loudest are simply not legitimate in any real sense. For one, you can find testimonials of people saying about thirty or more different stadiums are the loudest, and that's not quite the case, obviously. There can only be one "loudest" stadium, by definition, period. Moreover, individual testimonies are subject to bias and other perception-based distortions. For any findings to be credible and legitimate, crowd levels must be measured on an objective basis that is free from human biases. Finally -- and this is the main reason first person testimonials are not legitimate -- the level of crowd noise as perceived by an individual is determined almost wholly by the noise in the area immediately surrounding him / her. As a student at Alabama, you would have times in which the stadium seem deafening, but it was really just the student section. Again, from one physical location -- which of course is the most any human can be at during one time-frame -- you are not hearing how loud the entire stadium is, but how loud the immediate area surrounding you at that time. Even if you did a study with decibel meters, you would have to place them strategically throughout the stadium in order to figure out how loud the stadium was as a whole. Again, first person testimonials to stadium noise levels are simply not legitimate.
The bottom line is this with regard to stadium noise levels: Until someone does an empirical study in which they measure the noise levels in stadiums with strategically played decibel meters on a consistent basis, and then does a comparison analysis, we don't know which stadiums are truly the loudest. I don't care how many juvenile fans brag about their stadium being the loudest. I don't care what ESPN sideline reporters say. Bottom line. We. Simply. Do. Not. Know.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Home Field Advantage
Now we turn to the next vaunted topic, "Home Field Advantage."
Admit it, you hear about it all the time, you probably talk about it all the time, and you probably think it is a very significant factor in the outcome of games.
But is it really? Does home field advantage really make a difference in the outcome of games? Oh sure, the talking heads go on and on about it, but does it really count?
Well that's a good question, and believe it or not, it's a very complex question. Some would like to paint that question in simple terms of "Team X has the loudest stadium, and it's much tougher to beat Team X in Team's X's home stadium." But, of course, things in life are rarely that simple, and the phenomenon of home field advantage is no different.
In fact, believe it or not, there is a lot of data, and I do mean a lot of data, that indicates that there really is, effectively speaking, no such thing as home field advantage. This forum will be one of the few places you hear that, but it is nevertheless true.
For example, if you break down the results in SEC games (48 SEC intra-conference games per year), there seems to be little legitimate correlation between the overall results and where the game was played. In most years, the home teams wins slightly more games than the road team (usually about one game more, a 25-23 overall record for the home team), but that's not always a given. It's pretty common for the road teams to actually have a better overall record in conference play than the home teams. In the end, it's very close one way or the other, with neither the home teams or the away teams having any real advantage, and honestly what very little difference that actually exists between the two being almost certainly statistical white noise.
Beyond that, we have further evidence.
Let's take a look at the last five years. If you had to say, which two SEC teams performed better at home, relative to their road performance, than the rest of the SEC? Surely, if a team does have a home field advantage, and if that advantage really makes a tangible impact on the outcome of games, then the teams with the biggest home field advantage would generally speaking have the best home performance relative to their road performance, right? Not quite. In fact -- get ready for a shocker -- the two SEC teams that have performed the best at home relative to their performance on the road have been -- again, get ready for a shock -- Ole Miss and Mississippi State. And correct me if I'm wrong, but you never hear anybody talking about how difficult it is to play in Vaught-Hemingway, or Davis Wade Stadium.
So what about some of the big boys of the SEC with those massive 90,000+ seat stadiums? Surely there is a big home field advantage there with those extremely loud crowds. Uh, well, not quite. Take LSU for example, and their vaunted Tiger Stadium. Believe it or not, despite all of the talk about supposedly how difficult it is to play in "Death Valley," in the five-year stretch from 2001-2005, LSU was 15-5 at home in conference play, and 15-5 on the road in conference play. At bottom, it was the same record, regardless of where they played. We'll go even deeper than that, looking at Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee in that same five-year stretch. Despite massive stadiums, it did them little good. In fact, all three teams had a significantly better record on the road than than they did at home. If anything, for that group, playing at home was at times seemingly a death knell more than anything else.
At bottom, as a whole, big-time programs have big-time winning records at their home stadiums, compared to their road records. And the reason is simple, when you take into account all games, you take into account all of the Sisters of the Poor that a team will play, and those patsies greatly inflate the overall home record (even we went 6-2 at home in 2006, for example). And obviously, since you don't play home-and-home series with the Sisters of the Poor, you never play them on the road to where you greatly inflate that record too, which causes the disparity between the overall home and away records. So, as expected, once you filter out all of the Sisters of the Poor, that inflated record goes away. At bottom, you generally win fewer games against better teams, and more games against poorer teams, regardless of where you play the game itself. For example, we all know the argument from the 2006 LSU season. They went 4-0 at home in SEC play, but 2-2 on the road, and the argument was that had those four road games been played in Tiger Stadium, they would have won them all. In reality though, that argument doesn't hold water. The disparities between the two records did not result from the location of the games, but the overall quality of the opponents faced. The four home games included three teams with losing records, and the overall record of those four teams was a measly 21-28 (42.8%). On the other hand, the four road games included the eventual national champion, a top ten team, a top fifteen team, and also a team that went 9-4 and finished in the top 25. All told, the overall record of those four teams was 43-11 (79.6% winning percentage). Had the schedule been reversed, it's very likely they would have went 2-2 at home and 4-0 on the road. Again, it wasn't the location of the games that made the difference, it was the disparity in the quality of opponents that mattered. The point of the matter is that when playing similar teams (such as conference games), teams tend to win more games against lesser opponents, and win fewer games against better opponents, regardless of whether the game is played at home or on the road.
Going even deeper than that, you often here that home field advantage really makes a difference in close games. So is that valid or not? In a word, no. Brian C. Fremeau, who publishes a college football rating system called the Fremeau Efficiency Index, did the research for a November 9th, 2006 column at Football Outsiders. In it, he compiled a list of every Division 1-A college football game that was decided by seven points or less, and he came to the conclusion that 172 games fell into that category in the 2006 regular season. Want to guess the home record and the road record? All told, in the 172 games, home teams went 86-86 (.500), and road teams went 86-86 (.500).
Fremeau later summed it up best: "Home-field advantage may be an emotional factor, but it does not appear to be a significant statistical one."
In fact, several coaches have indicated that they feel it to be advantageous to play on the road. That may sound odd at first because you hear so much about home field advantage, but there's a legitimate rationale behind it. Pat Dye, arguably, is that viewpoint's most prominent proponent, and he long stated his belief that playing on the road presented a more advantageous situation. According to Dye, teams are more focused on the road due to fewer off-field distractions (especially the day before the game and the day of the game), and also going into a hostile environment forces teams to band together as, well, a team, which though not quantifiable, is an important factor in winning football games.
Again, that probably sounds odd because you never hear it, but nonetheless it is a pretty solid rationale.
At the end of the day, the only real support for home field advantage seems to be what people say. In other words, support for the existence and legitimacy of home field advantage usually amounts to nothing more than unqualified verbal and written speculation from fans and / or questionably-qualified "experts" like the Lee Corsos of the world.
But why does everyone so badly want to believe in home field advantage? I say two main reasons.
For one, teams that lose games on the road suddenly have a convenient excuse for the loss. You hear it all of the time, as we mentioned earlier. Though it's a weak-at-best argument (it doesn't matter the least bit the speculative outcome of a game when played somewhere else, all that matters is the outcome of the game where it is played), fans cling to it passionately, even to the point of absurdity. Again with the 2006 LSU team, even most LSU fans continue to cling to the notion that they would have beaten Florida had the game been in Baton Rouge instead of Gainesville. Only one problem with that: the game wasn't even close. Florida took a 23-7 lead early in the third quarter, and from there sit on it. Only did a long LSU field goal four minutes into the fourth quarter bring the game within two touchdowns, and they never got closer. Truth is, even the people who think home field advantage has a massive impact on the outcome of games would have easily said it would never have made that much difference in a game like that. And keep in mind I'm not trying to pick on the LSU people here; if it is being read that way then that is incorrect. This type of rationale is common among all college football fans, unfortunately. At bottom, people will cling to the notion that "Oh yeah, well we would have won had it been at our stadium" (as if that doesn't sound like a middle school argument), even in the fact of sheer absurdity.
Two, you have to consider this: If home field advantage is legitimate and significant, a fan literally is part of a win. The fan literally plays a role in his team winning, and in that sense he's essentially like a player on the team; it produces the feeling that, hell, the common fan may as well have caught the game-winning touchdown pass. And of course, fans desperately want to believe that. They want to believe that their actions have a very tangible, very real, and very significant positive impact on their favorite team, even if there is no real evidence indicating anything of the sort. No one wants to believe that they pay ungodly amounts of money and yell and scream in support of their favorite team for it to have essentially no impact. Fans want to believe the former notion.
But wanting to believe something doesn't make that something true. Nor does everyone talking about it, even if it ESPN and the like doing the talking.
At bottom, despite vehement assertions that home field advantage is real and significant, there is simply little to no actual empirical evidence that there is any such thing as a home field advantage in college football, and what little "advantage" could possibly be rationally construed from the data seems to be so small that it is essentially insignificant in statistical terms. Just because something is constantly repeated does not make it true, and home field advantage in college football seems to be a good real-world example of that.
Again, Fremeau summed it up perfectly. Home field advantage may represent a significant emotional attachment to the fans, but in an empirical real world sense, it seemingly has simply has no real, legitimate, or significant impact on the outcome of college football games.
Admit it, you hear about it all the time, you probably talk about it all the time, and you probably think it is a very significant factor in the outcome of games.
But is it really? Does home field advantage really make a difference in the outcome of games? Oh sure, the talking heads go on and on about it, but does it really count?
Well that's a good question, and believe it or not, it's a very complex question. Some would like to paint that question in simple terms of "Team X has the loudest stadium, and it's much tougher to beat Team X in Team's X's home stadium." But, of course, things in life are rarely that simple, and the phenomenon of home field advantage is no different.
In fact, believe it or not, there is a lot of data, and I do mean a lot of data, that indicates that there really is, effectively speaking, no such thing as home field advantage. This forum will be one of the few places you hear that, but it is nevertheless true.
For example, if you break down the results in SEC games (48 SEC intra-conference games per year), there seems to be little legitimate correlation between the overall results and where the game was played. In most years, the home teams wins slightly more games than the road team (usually about one game more, a 25-23 overall record for the home team), but that's not always a given. It's pretty common for the road teams to actually have a better overall record in conference play than the home teams. In the end, it's very close one way or the other, with neither the home teams or the away teams having any real advantage, and honestly what very little difference that actually exists between the two being almost certainly statistical white noise.
Beyond that, we have further evidence.
Let's take a look at the last five years. If you had to say, which two SEC teams performed better at home, relative to their road performance, than the rest of the SEC? Surely, if a team does have a home field advantage, and if that advantage really makes a tangible impact on the outcome of games, then the teams with the biggest home field advantage would generally speaking have the best home performance relative to their road performance, right? Not quite. In fact -- get ready for a shocker -- the two SEC teams that have performed the best at home relative to their performance on the road have been -- again, get ready for a shock -- Ole Miss and Mississippi State. And correct me if I'm wrong, but you never hear anybody talking about how difficult it is to play in Vaught-Hemingway, or Davis Wade Stadium.
So what about some of the big boys of the SEC with those massive 90,000+ seat stadiums? Surely there is a big home field advantage there with those extremely loud crowds. Uh, well, not quite. Take LSU for example, and their vaunted Tiger Stadium. Believe it or not, despite all of the talk about supposedly how difficult it is to play in "Death Valley," in the five-year stretch from 2001-2005, LSU was 15-5 at home in conference play, and 15-5 on the road in conference play. At bottom, it was the same record, regardless of where they played. We'll go even deeper than that, looking at Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee in that same five-year stretch. Despite massive stadiums, it did them little good. In fact, all three teams had a significantly better record on the road than than they did at home. If anything, for that group, playing at home was at times seemingly a death knell more than anything else.
At bottom, as a whole, big-time programs have big-time winning records at their home stadiums, compared to their road records. And the reason is simple, when you take into account all games, you take into account all of the Sisters of the Poor that a team will play, and those patsies greatly inflate the overall home record (even we went 6-2 at home in 2006, for example). And obviously, since you don't play home-and-home series with the Sisters of the Poor, you never play them on the road to where you greatly inflate that record too, which causes the disparity between the overall home and away records. So, as expected, once you filter out all of the Sisters of the Poor, that inflated record goes away. At bottom, you generally win fewer games against better teams, and more games against poorer teams, regardless of where you play the game itself. For example, we all know the argument from the 2006 LSU season. They went 4-0 at home in SEC play, but 2-2 on the road, and the argument was that had those four road games been played in Tiger Stadium, they would have won them all. In reality though, that argument doesn't hold water. The disparities between the two records did not result from the location of the games, but the overall quality of the opponents faced. The four home games included three teams with losing records, and the overall record of those four teams was a measly 21-28 (42.8%). On the other hand, the four road games included the eventual national champion, a top ten team, a top fifteen team, and also a team that went 9-4 and finished in the top 25. All told, the overall record of those four teams was 43-11 (79.6% winning percentage). Had the schedule been reversed, it's very likely they would have went 2-2 at home and 4-0 on the road. Again, it wasn't the location of the games that made the difference, it was the disparity in the quality of opponents that mattered. The point of the matter is that when playing similar teams (such as conference games), teams tend to win more games against lesser opponents, and win fewer games against better opponents, regardless of whether the game is played at home or on the road.
Going even deeper than that, you often here that home field advantage really makes a difference in close games. So is that valid or not? In a word, no. Brian C. Fremeau, who publishes a college football rating system called the Fremeau Efficiency Index, did the research for a November 9th, 2006 column at Football Outsiders. In it, he compiled a list of every Division 1-A college football game that was decided by seven points or less, and he came to the conclusion that 172 games fell into that category in the 2006 regular season. Want to guess the home record and the road record? All told, in the 172 games, home teams went 86-86 (.500), and road teams went 86-86 (.500).
Fremeau later summed it up best: "Home-field advantage may be an emotional factor, but it does not appear to be a significant statistical one."
In fact, several coaches have indicated that they feel it to be advantageous to play on the road. That may sound odd at first because you hear so much about home field advantage, but there's a legitimate rationale behind it. Pat Dye, arguably, is that viewpoint's most prominent proponent, and he long stated his belief that playing on the road presented a more advantageous situation. According to Dye, teams are more focused on the road due to fewer off-field distractions (especially the day before the game and the day of the game), and also going into a hostile environment forces teams to band together as, well, a team, which though not quantifiable, is an important factor in winning football games.
Again, that probably sounds odd because you never hear it, but nonetheless it is a pretty solid rationale.
At the end of the day, the only real support for home field advantage seems to be what people say. In other words, support for the existence and legitimacy of home field advantage usually amounts to nothing more than unqualified verbal and written speculation from fans and / or questionably-qualified "experts" like the Lee Corsos of the world.
But why does everyone so badly want to believe in home field advantage? I say two main reasons.
For one, teams that lose games on the road suddenly have a convenient excuse for the loss. You hear it all of the time, as we mentioned earlier. Though it's a weak-at-best argument (it doesn't matter the least bit the speculative outcome of a game when played somewhere else, all that matters is the outcome of the game where it is played), fans cling to it passionately, even to the point of absurdity. Again with the 2006 LSU team, even most LSU fans continue to cling to the notion that they would have beaten Florida had the game been in Baton Rouge instead of Gainesville. Only one problem with that: the game wasn't even close. Florida took a 23-7 lead early in the third quarter, and from there sit on it. Only did a long LSU field goal four minutes into the fourth quarter bring the game within two touchdowns, and they never got closer. Truth is, even the people who think home field advantage has a massive impact on the outcome of games would have easily said it would never have made that much difference in a game like that. And keep in mind I'm not trying to pick on the LSU people here; if it is being read that way then that is incorrect. This type of rationale is common among all college football fans, unfortunately. At bottom, people will cling to the notion that "Oh yeah, well we would have won had it been at our stadium" (as if that doesn't sound like a middle school argument), even in the fact of sheer absurdity.
Two, you have to consider this: If home field advantage is legitimate and significant, a fan literally is part of a win. The fan literally plays a role in his team winning, and in that sense he's essentially like a player on the team; it produces the feeling that, hell, the common fan may as well have caught the game-winning touchdown pass. And of course, fans desperately want to believe that. They want to believe that their actions have a very tangible, very real, and very significant positive impact on their favorite team, even if there is no real evidence indicating anything of the sort. No one wants to believe that they pay ungodly amounts of money and yell and scream in support of their favorite team for it to have essentially no impact. Fans want to believe the former notion.
But wanting to believe something doesn't make that something true. Nor does everyone talking about it, even if it ESPN and the like doing the talking.
At bottom, despite vehement assertions that home field advantage is real and significant, there is simply little to no actual empirical evidence that there is any such thing as a home field advantage in college football, and what little "advantage" could possibly be rationally construed from the data seems to be so small that it is essentially insignificant in statistical terms. Just because something is constantly repeated does not make it true, and home field advantage in college football seems to be a good real-world example of that.
Again, Fremeau summed it up perfectly. Home field advantage may represent a significant emotional attachment to the fans, but in an empirical real world sense, it seemingly has simply has no real, legitimate, or significant impact on the outcome of college football games.
A Synthesis: Sacks And Pass Defense
Earlier I made a post about 2006 SEC pass defense, and also about 2006 SEC sacks, analyzing each separately.
In reality though, considering it is all one defense, the two things are related, or are they? That's basically what I set out to determine. At bottom, is there any correlation between the number of sacks a team generates and how well their pass defense performs? Or does that number of sacks created have little if any correlation to how well a pass defense performs, as Joe Kines contended?
To figure it out, I ran the numbers on how well Adjusted Sacks correlated to a variety of different measures of performance for a pass defense, including opposing quarterback's average passer rating, yards per completion, yards per attempt, completion percentage, interception rate, and touchdown rate.
Before I list the results of what I found, I'll give a very brief primer on correlation for those who may not be familiar with the concept. At bottom, correlation ranges from 1 to -1, and values that that are near 1 or -1 have correlation, and values near 0 essentially have no correlation. Going up to 1 means there is positive correlation, i.e. the more x happens, the more y happens. Going down to -1 means there is negative correlation, i.e. the more x happens, the less y happens.
So, with that in mind, the following is how well Adjusted Sacks correlated to that variety of measures, in descending order:
Opposing QB average passer rating: -.4997
Touchdown rate: -.4693
Completion percentage: -.4660
Yards per attempt: -.4489
Yards per completion: -.3087
Interception rate: -.2573
As you see, opposing team's passing numbers generally tend to go down greatly as the number of Adjusted Sacks increase.
Opposing quarterback average passer rating, touchdown rate, completion percentage, and yards per attempt all have a pretty high negative correlation with the number of Adjusted Sacks. Again, there's just no real way to dispute the data, for the most part. Unless it's just an odd-ball deal with a one year sample size, which I highly doubt given the breadth of the statistics, it generally just showcases that pressuring the quarterback pays off.
I was thinking, perhaps, that would I might find would be a good bit of teams that racked up a lot of Adjusted Sacks did so by blitzing heavily, and that would even things out in the end with that defense giving up a lot of big plays and completions. But, as the breakdown showed, that simply wasn't the case. Certainly some teams did get a high number of Adjusted Sacks by blitzing heavily, but they didn't seemingly give up very many big plays or lot of completions. I suppose it isn't quite like the old Joe Lee Dunn days at MSU, where two sacks would be followed by a 38-yard completion against a seven man rush. You have to give credit to defensive coordinators and other defensive coaches; generally, it seems, even when they bring lots of pressure, the defensive backfield still, relatively speaking, prevents big plays.
The only snafu to the entire analysis was Interception Rate. There was a -.2573 correlation between Adjusted Sacks and Interception Rate, meaning that as Adjusted Sacks went up, the Interception rate tended to go down. Perhaps this should have been too shocking, especially considering the result of LSU, Arkansas, and Alabama, but it still is just a bit. You would think, intuitively, that more pressure would result in more bad throws and more interceptions, but the reverse is true. I suppose that the man-to-man coverage on the outside, combined with the shorter throws when the blitz is expected, means that defensive backs are not in as good of a position to intercept the football. And moreover, again since they are in man-to-man coverage, cornerbacks may not want to be as aggressive, knowing that they would have no help over the top if they made the slightest mistake. I know, it doesn't seem right intuitively, but more sacks correlates with fewer interceptions, at least in this data set. I would point out, however, that a correlation of only .2573 isn't particularly high, so maybe it is just statistical white noise that would work itself with a larger sample size. I suppose we'll see when we run the same numbers this time next year.
At the end of the day, you just have to be brutally honest about it. At bottom, it seems that if you were going to be successful in pass defense, you had to get after the quarterback. If you didn't, you just weren't going to be very good in defending the pass.
As for Kines, I certainly don't want to criticize his philosophy, because obviously he's forgotten more about football than I will ever know, but the numbers just seem to invalidate his defensive philosophy. Kines essentially betted that we could drop seven and eight defenders into heavy zone coverage, and opposing quarterbacks wouldn't be able to beat it. Unfortunately, at least in 2006 (that philosophy worked with all of the talent we had in 2005), that didn't work. Quarterbacks did effectively pick apart the defense with a relatively high degree of regularity, and with that in mind we struggled greatly in terms of pass defense. And, honestly, a lot of that credit goes to opposing quarterbacks. Perhaps there was a time when you could count on opposing quarterbacks to make a lot of mistakes throwing into heavy zone coverage, but that time seems to have passed.
The good news is that with Saban in charge now, Adjusted Sacks will go way up, and that should drive opposing team's passing numbers considerably lower.
In reality though, considering it is all one defense, the two things are related, or are they? That's basically what I set out to determine. At bottom, is there any correlation between the number of sacks a team generates and how well their pass defense performs? Or does that number of sacks created have little if any correlation to how well a pass defense performs, as Joe Kines contended?
To figure it out, I ran the numbers on how well Adjusted Sacks correlated to a variety of different measures of performance for a pass defense, including opposing quarterback's average passer rating, yards per completion, yards per attempt, completion percentage, interception rate, and touchdown rate.
Before I list the results of what I found, I'll give a very brief primer on correlation for those who may not be familiar with the concept. At bottom, correlation ranges from 1 to -1, and values that that are near 1 or -1 have correlation, and values near 0 essentially have no correlation. Going up to 1 means there is positive correlation, i.e. the more x happens, the more y happens. Going down to -1 means there is negative correlation, i.e. the more x happens, the less y happens.
So, with that in mind, the following is how well Adjusted Sacks correlated to that variety of measures, in descending order:
Opposing QB average passer rating: -.4997
Touchdown rate: -.4693
Completion percentage: -.4660
Yards per attempt: -.4489
Yards per completion: -.3087
Interception rate: -.2573
As you see, opposing team's passing numbers generally tend to go down greatly as the number of Adjusted Sacks increase.
Opposing quarterback average passer rating, touchdown rate, completion percentage, and yards per attempt all have a pretty high negative correlation with the number of Adjusted Sacks. Again, there's just no real way to dispute the data, for the most part. Unless it's just an odd-ball deal with a one year sample size, which I highly doubt given the breadth of the statistics, it generally just showcases that pressuring the quarterback pays off.
I was thinking, perhaps, that would I might find would be a good bit of teams that racked up a lot of Adjusted Sacks did so by blitzing heavily, and that would even things out in the end with that defense giving up a lot of big plays and completions. But, as the breakdown showed, that simply wasn't the case. Certainly some teams did get a high number of Adjusted Sacks by blitzing heavily, but they didn't seemingly give up very many big plays or lot of completions. I suppose it isn't quite like the old Joe Lee Dunn days at MSU, where two sacks would be followed by a 38-yard completion against a seven man rush. You have to give credit to defensive coordinators and other defensive coaches; generally, it seems, even when they bring lots of pressure, the defensive backfield still, relatively speaking, prevents big plays.
The only snafu to the entire analysis was Interception Rate. There was a -.2573 correlation between Adjusted Sacks and Interception Rate, meaning that as Adjusted Sacks went up, the Interception rate tended to go down. Perhaps this should have been too shocking, especially considering the result of LSU, Arkansas, and Alabama, but it still is just a bit. You would think, intuitively, that more pressure would result in more bad throws and more interceptions, but the reverse is true. I suppose that the man-to-man coverage on the outside, combined with the shorter throws when the blitz is expected, means that defensive backs are not in as good of a position to intercept the football. And moreover, again since they are in man-to-man coverage, cornerbacks may not want to be as aggressive, knowing that they would have no help over the top if they made the slightest mistake. I know, it doesn't seem right intuitively, but more sacks correlates with fewer interceptions, at least in this data set. I would point out, however, that a correlation of only .2573 isn't particularly high, so maybe it is just statistical white noise that would work itself with a larger sample size. I suppose we'll see when we run the same numbers this time next year.
At the end of the day, you just have to be brutally honest about it. At bottom, it seems that if you were going to be successful in pass defense, you had to get after the quarterback. If you didn't, you just weren't going to be very good in defending the pass.
As for Kines, I certainly don't want to criticize his philosophy, because obviously he's forgotten more about football than I will ever know, but the numbers just seem to invalidate his defensive philosophy. Kines essentially betted that we could drop seven and eight defenders into heavy zone coverage, and opposing quarterbacks wouldn't be able to beat it. Unfortunately, at least in 2006 (that philosophy worked with all of the talent we had in 2005), that didn't work. Quarterbacks did effectively pick apart the defense with a relatively high degree of regularity, and with that in mind we struggled greatly in terms of pass defense. And, honestly, a lot of that credit goes to opposing quarterbacks. Perhaps there was a time when you could count on opposing quarterbacks to make a lot of mistakes throwing into heavy zone coverage, but that time seems to have passed.
The good news is that with Saban in charge now, Adjusted Sacks will go way up, and that should drive opposing team's passing numbers considerably lower.
Monday, July 30, 2007
New Rule Set For Massive Impact
You may or may not have heard about it yet, but there is a new rule change in college football for the 2007 season. Kick-offs, which had previously taken place from the kicking team's 35-yard line, will now be moved back to the kicking team's 30-yard line.
On the surface, that may seem like the textbook definition of a minor, insignificant change. But you would be very wrong.
In fact, Kentucky head coach Rich Brooks was quoted as saying, "It’s going to be one of the most significant rule changes to come about in recent years, maybe in a decade in college football."
So how exactly will it change things? Well, Coach Brooks had something to say on that as well. Specifically, he had the following musings:
Georgia Coach Mark Richt even went as far as stating that last year his team returned approximately 25 per cent of all kick-offs, but that now he expects his team to return somewhere between 75 and 90 per cent of all kick-offs.
The are no two ways about it. This rule change may seem minor on the surface, but it is not. This is a massive rule change that will have a massive effect.
So exactly what will be the end result?
Well, I don't know for certain, of course, but we can speculate to a great degree about what the effect be.
For starters, at Mark Richt noted, a much higher percentage of kicks will be returned in 2007. In fact, it will be very much a rarity for a kick to not be returned, and honestly it will still even be a rare occurrence when kicks are not returned even when a great distance kicker is handling the kick-off duties.
Moreover, the starting field position is, of course, going to be much higher. Considering historically the average kick return generally hovers somewhere between twenty and twenty-five yards per return -- if the Meyer-referenced study is correct in their projection that the average kick will be fielded at the nine-yard line -- the average starting position for teams will be somewhere between the twenty-nine and thirty-four yard lines. And again, that's just the average. Teams that struggle in kick coverage and kick distance will routinely see opponent's starting beyond their own forty-yard line.
The better field position, of course, will also greatly increase the chances of scoring. It goes without saying that the further advanced the ball is, the greater the odds of scoring are. For example, take this into consideration: When the NFL kicked off from the 35-yard line, teams that got the ball first in overtime won 50% of the time, and teams that kicked won 50% of the time. When they moved the kick-off back five yards to the 30-yard line, however, it made a big difference. Since then, teams that get the ball first in overtime win 60% of the time, and teams that kicked won only 40% of the time. Again, moving the ball five yards further back can make a massive difference in the chances that the receiving team will score on the ensuing possession because the odds are scoring are much higher due to better field position.
And, of course, the greater chances of scoring on each drive following a kick-off will result in higher scoring games. In 2006, the average SEC team scored 20.6 points per game, and that number is likely to creep up towards, if not beyond, 22 points per game in 2007.
Coaches, as alluded to earlier by Rich Brooks, will compensate in a variety of ways. To begin with, we'll see more pooch kicks and squib kicks, and we'll see much more complex kick cover schemes in an attempt to limit returns. In the past, kick cover schemes have often times been pretty vanilla, but that is likely a thing of the past now. Beyond that, you are almost certainly going to be see much better players on special teams. In the past, many coaches have opted for lesser players (often freshmen and others buried on the depth chart) when composing their special teams unit, but 2007 will see, generally speaking, much higher quality players on both the kick coverage and kick return teams. The much higher potential reward / potential loss simply dictates that coaches will be forced to take more risk in that sense.
Of course, having better players on special teams will impact the rest of the game in yet another big way: injuries. It's no secret that the two most dangerous plays in all of football are the kick-off and the punt (massive men hitting each other at top speed, going in opposite directions, you do the math). And with much better players on special teams, it's inevitable that those much better players will occasionally get hurt. Again, that could make a huge difference when, for example, a star player who before 2007 wouldn't have even been playing special teams goes down for the year with a torn ACL on a kick-off. Say, for a more concrete example, Demeco Ryans would have broken his ankle covering a kick against Southern Miss in 2005, when he would have otherwise been sippin' Gatorade on the sideline; exactly how do you think that would have impacted our season? I'm pretty sure you get my point now. The injury impact of the move could be very significant, and likely will be very significant for the unfortunate few teams that lose a key player in the process.
All told, it's going to greatly emphasize both kick coverage and kick returns. Both coaches and players are going to focus greatly on kick coverage and kick returns, and you'll quickly see the difference when you watch games either on television or at the stadium.
The bottom line is this: teams that can cover kicks and return kicks well will be in great shape, and teams that can't cover kicks very well or return kicks very well are going to find themselves losing a lot of football games.
This is a major rule change, and it will have a massive overall impact. How well each team adjusts its performance to the rule change will likely have a significant impact on the team's final win-loss record. At bottom, if you are looking for a good season in 2007, you had better get your kick-off team in tip-top shape, or it's going to be a tough road to hoe.
On the surface, that may seem like the textbook definition of a minor, insignificant change. But you would be very wrong.
In fact, Kentucky head coach Rich Brooks was quoted as saying, "It’s going to be one of the most significant rule changes to come about in recent years, maybe in a decade in college football."
So how exactly will it change things? Well, Coach Brooks had something to say on that as well. Specifically, he had the following musings:
"You’re gonna see offenses starting with a lot better field position. You’re gonna see scoring averages go up because of this rule change. You’re gonna see a lot more gimmicks on kickoff coverage. By gimmicks I’m talking with pooch kicking, possible squib kicking. There may be some people that decide they want to kick it out of bounds and give it to the team on the 35-yard line rather than kicking it deep and having a return out to the 40 or 45."Florida Coach Urban Meyer later agreed with Rich Brooks' comments. In fact, he specifically mentioned a study that has concluded that the average kick-off will now be fielded at the nine-yard line.
Georgia Coach Mark Richt even went as far as stating that last year his team returned approximately 25 per cent of all kick-offs, but that now he expects his team to return somewhere between 75 and 90 per cent of all kick-offs.
The are no two ways about it. This rule change may seem minor on the surface, but it is not. This is a massive rule change that will have a massive effect.
So exactly what will be the end result?
Well, I don't know for certain, of course, but we can speculate to a great degree about what the effect be.
For starters, at Mark Richt noted, a much higher percentage of kicks will be returned in 2007. In fact, it will be very much a rarity for a kick to not be returned, and honestly it will still even be a rare occurrence when kicks are not returned even when a great distance kicker is handling the kick-off duties.
Moreover, the starting field position is, of course, going to be much higher. Considering historically the average kick return generally hovers somewhere between twenty and twenty-five yards per return -- if the Meyer-referenced study is correct in their projection that the average kick will be fielded at the nine-yard line -- the average starting position for teams will be somewhere between the twenty-nine and thirty-four yard lines. And again, that's just the average. Teams that struggle in kick coverage and kick distance will routinely see opponent's starting beyond their own forty-yard line.
The better field position, of course, will also greatly increase the chances of scoring. It goes without saying that the further advanced the ball is, the greater the odds of scoring are. For example, take this into consideration: When the NFL kicked off from the 35-yard line, teams that got the ball first in overtime won 50% of the time, and teams that kicked won 50% of the time. When they moved the kick-off back five yards to the 30-yard line, however, it made a big difference. Since then, teams that get the ball first in overtime win 60% of the time, and teams that kicked won only 40% of the time. Again, moving the ball five yards further back can make a massive difference in the chances that the receiving team will score on the ensuing possession because the odds are scoring are much higher due to better field position.
And, of course, the greater chances of scoring on each drive following a kick-off will result in higher scoring games. In 2006, the average SEC team scored 20.6 points per game, and that number is likely to creep up towards, if not beyond, 22 points per game in 2007.
Coaches, as alluded to earlier by Rich Brooks, will compensate in a variety of ways. To begin with, we'll see more pooch kicks and squib kicks, and we'll see much more complex kick cover schemes in an attempt to limit returns. In the past, kick cover schemes have often times been pretty vanilla, but that is likely a thing of the past now. Beyond that, you are almost certainly going to be see much better players on special teams. In the past, many coaches have opted for lesser players (often freshmen and others buried on the depth chart) when composing their special teams unit, but 2007 will see, generally speaking, much higher quality players on both the kick coverage and kick return teams. The much higher potential reward / potential loss simply dictates that coaches will be forced to take more risk in that sense.
Of course, having better players on special teams will impact the rest of the game in yet another big way: injuries. It's no secret that the two most dangerous plays in all of football are the kick-off and the punt (massive men hitting each other at top speed, going in opposite directions, you do the math). And with much better players on special teams, it's inevitable that those much better players will occasionally get hurt. Again, that could make a huge difference when, for example, a star player who before 2007 wouldn't have even been playing special teams goes down for the year with a torn ACL on a kick-off. Say, for a more concrete example, Demeco Ryans would have broken his ankle covering a kick against Southern Miss in 2005, when he would have otherwise been sippin' Gatorade on the sideline; exactly how do you think that would have impacted our season? I'm pretty sure you get my point now. The injury impact of the move could be very significant, and likely will be very significant for the unfortunate few teams that lose a key player in the process.
All told, it's going to greatly emphasize both kick coverage and kick returns. Both coaches and players are going to focus greatly on kick coverage and kick returns, and you'll quickly see the difference when you watch games either on television or at the stadium.
The bottom line is this: teams that can cover kicks and return kicks well will be in great shape, and teams that can't cover kicks very well or return kicks very well are going to find themselves losing a lot of football games.
This is a major rule change, and it will have a massive overall impact. How well each team adjusts its performance to the rule change will likely have a significant impact on the team's final win-loss record. At bottom, if you are looking for a good season in 2007, you had better get your kick-off team in tip-top shape, or it's going to be a tough road to hoe.
2006 SEC: Adjusted Defensive Sack Rates
We've already covered offensive sack rates to help determine who protected their quarterback the best in 2006, so we'll now turn to defensive sack rates to help determine which teams rushed the quarterback the best in 2006.
As was the case with total offensive sacks allowed, defensive sacks created on its own is a pretty meaningless number, and only takes on real meaning when you put it into the context of pass attempts. Long story short, a team that piles up a lot of sacks can be a relatively poor pass rushing team, and a team that has only a relatively few sacks can in fact be a good pass rushing team, depending on how many passes they have thrown against them.
So, what I have done is taken the total number of sacks created by a particular team in SEC play in 2006, and divided that by the total number of pass attempts against the same team. That division yields a percentage of passing plays that I call Adjusted Sack Rate, which of course is the percentage of passes that resulted in a sack.
The following is how the SEC ranked in terms of sacks in 2006:
Moreover, we'll break things down a bit further. I understand that Adjusted Sack Rate can be a bit hard to grasp, being a raw percentage and all, so I also added Adjusted Sacks. Basically, Adjusted Sacks is the number of sacks that a team would have gotten had they faced the league average of pass attempts (223). Again, it doesn't change the data at all, it just makes it a bit easier to comprehend and fully understand by putting it in concepts more familiar to football fans.
Also, I've looked at teams not just by sacks alone, but also the lost yardage from those sacks. As you'll see, I've ranked the SEC in terms of the average yards lost per sack as well.
Without further adieu...
So there it is. If you've ever wanted better statistics regarding sacks in 2007, now you have them.
Honestly, I really don't have a whole lot to say regarding the data itself, and the main reason I did this was to get data needed for a later post.
Why do you ask?
At bottom, a sack is a pretty meaningless thing, in and of itself. You often times see teams that have a lot of sacks because they consistently blitzed everything but the kitchen sink, and while that did accumulate a lot of sacks, it still did not mark solid defensive play. Opposing teams would know their heavy blitz tendencies, and game-plan accordingly with a lot of max protect packages and short drops, with the end result being lots of completions and many big plays when a defensive back, playing man-to-man coverage, would miss a tackle and there would be no one over the top to clean it up. So really the reason I did all this is to compare it (hopefully in a post coming shortly) to 2006 SEC pass defense results. Again, hopefully that post will be coming shortly.
But I will say a few things...
Namely, Alabama just didn't get it done. The pass rush was a little better than most would have thought (eleventh instead of dead last), but there wasn't much to it. As I've posted before, the underlying idea behind the Kines scheme with regard to pass defense was to drop a lot of defenders into coverage, usually only rushing three or four defenders, and then forcing the opposing quarterback to throw into heavy zone coverage. And, well, that's exactly what we did. It just didn't work. We didn't get very many sacks (as expected, even by Kines), but we also didn't force incompletions with the heavy zone coverage. Again, at bottom, it just didn't work. You really can't put it any way other than that.
Georgia does need to be mentioned. The Dawgs finished third in the conference in total sacks, which sounds about right, considering their two outstanding defensive ends Quentin Moses and Charles Johnson. However, once you analyze the Dawgs through Adjusted Sack Rate, they only finished fifth in the conference, and really just looked like a very mediocre pass rushing team. Honestly, that shocked me. I fully expected Georgia to be one of the, if not the, top pass rushing teams in the conference. With Moses and Johnson gone to the NFL, and Georgia having to replace eight starters on defense in 2007, perhaps there are some signs for concern in Athens. All told, the Dawgs were the textbook example of racking up a lot of sacks against the Sisters of the Poor, racking up ten sacks against the, shall we say, vaunted triumvirate of Western Kentucky, Colorado, and UAB (a 6-5 Division 1-AA opponent, and two D-1A opponents with a combined record of 5-19. If you ever wanted a case study of why I only look at conference games, this would be a good one.
The rest really aren't too shocking. The teams that you thought rushed the quarterback really well (LSU, Florida, etc.) in fact did so, and the teams that you thought rushed the quarterback poorly in fact did so, too.
The only other mild surprise, to me, was Tennessee. The Vols are always very talented in the front seven, and I expected them to be a pretty solid pass rushing team, and they were far from it. For whatever reason, the Vols struggled to get after the quarterback, finishing tenth in the SEC in Adjusted Sack Rate, and had only about two Adjusted Sacks more than Alabama and Ole Miss. Yikes for the Vols. Not what I expected.
Finally, let's look at average yards lost per sack. Arkansas, LSU, and Florida (i.e. three of the top four teams in Adjusted Sack Rate), finished 9th, 10th, and 12th, respectively, in terms of average yards lost per sack. At bottom, teams knew they had a great pass rush, and planned shorter drops accordingly. And, of course, shorter drops equals less yardage lost when in fact a sack does occur. On the other end of the spectrum, the two teams that finished first and second (Alabama and Tennessee) in average yards lost per sack were about the two worst pass rushing teams in the conference. Opponents saw the lack of a pass rush, and planned deeper drops and longer routes, accordingly. That, in turn, resulted in a higher amount of yards lost per sack, when in fact a sack did occur.
Later we'll put all of this together with 2006 pass defense and see what we find. It should be interesting stuff.
As was the case with total offensive sacks allowed, defensive sacks created on its own is a pretty meaningless number, and only takes on real meaning when you put it into the context of pass attempts. Long story short, a team that piles up a lot of sacks can be a relatively poor pass rushing team, and a team that has only a relatively few sacks can in fact be a good pass rushing team, depending on how many passes they have thrown against them.
So, what I have done is taken the total number of sacks created by a particular team in SEC play in 2006, and divided that by the total number of pass attempts against the same team. That division yields a percentage of passing plays that I call Adjusted Sack Rate, which of course is the percentage of passes that resulted in a sack.
The following is how the SEC ranked in terms of sacks in 2006:
Moreover, we'll break things down a bit further. I understand that Adjusted Sack Rate can be a bit hard to grasp, being a raw percentage and all, so I also added Adjusted Sacks. Basically, Adjusted Sacks is the number of sacks that a team would have gotten had they faced the league average of pass attempts (223). Again, it doesn't change the data at all, it just makes it a bit easier to comprehend and fully understand by putting it in concepts more familiar to football fans.
Also, I've looked at teams not just by sacks alone, but also the lost yardage from those sacks. As you'll see, I've ranked the SEC in terms of the average yards lost per sack as well.
Without further adieu...
So there it is. If you've ever wanted better statistics regarding sacks in 2007, now you have them.
Honestly, I really don't have a whole lot to say regarding the data itself, and the main reason I did this was to get data needed for a later post.
Why do you ask?
At bottom, a sack is a pretty meaningless thing, in and of itself. You often times see teams that have a lot of sacks because they consistently blitzed everything but the kitchen sink, and while that did accumulate a lot of sacks, it still did not mark solid defensive play. Opposing teams would know their heavy blitz tendencies, and game-plan accordingly with a lot of max protect packages and short drops, with the end result being lots of completions and many big plays when a defensive back, playing man-to-man coverage, would miss a tackle and there would be no one over the top to clean it up. So really the reason I did all this is to compare it (hopefully in a post coming shortly) to 2006 SEC pass defense results. Again, hopefully that post will be coming shortly.
But I will say a few things...
Namely, Alabama just didn't get it done. The pass rush was a little better than most would have thought (eleventh instead of dead last), but there wasn't much to it. As I've posted before, the underlying idea behind the Kines scheme with regard to pass defense was to drop a lot of defenders into coverage, usually only rushing three or four defenders, and then forcing the opposing quarterback to throw into heavy zone coverage. And, well, that's exactly what we did. It just didn't work. We didn't get very many sacks (as expected, even by Kines), but we also didn't force incompletions with the heavy zone coverage. Again, at bottom, it just didn't work. You really can't put it any way other than that.
Georgia does need to be mentioned. The Dawgs finished third in the conference in total sacks, which sounds about right, considering their two outstanding defensive ends Quentin Moses and Charles Johnson. However, once you analyze the Dawgs through Adjusted Sack Rate, they only finished fifth in the conference, and really just looked like a very mediocre pass rushing team. Honestly, that shocked me. I fully expected Georgia to be one of the, if not the, top pass rushing teams in the conference. With Moses and Johnson gone to the NFL, and Georgia having to replace eight starters on defense in 2007, perhaps there are some signs for concern in Athens. All told, the Dawgs were the textbook example of racking up a lot of sacks against the Sisters of the Poor, racking up ten sacks against the, shall we say, vaunted triumvirate of Western Kentucky, Colorado, and UAB (a 6-5 Division 1-AA opponent, and two D-1A opponents with a combined record of 5-19. If you ever wanted a case study of why I only look at conference games, this would be a good one.
The rest really aren't too shocking. The teams that you thought rushed the quarterback really well (LSU, Florida, etc.) in fact did so, and the teams that you thought rushed the quarterback poorly in fact did so, too.
The only other mild surprise, to me, was Tennessee. The Vols are always very talented in the front seven, and I expected them to be a pretty solid pass rushing team, and they were far from it. For whatever reason, the Vols struggled to get after the quarterback, finishing tenth in the SEC in Adjusted Sack Rate, and had only about two Adjusted Sacks more than Alabama and Ole Miss. Yikes for the Vols. Not what I expected.
Finally, let's look at average yards lost per sack. Arkansas, LSU, and Florida (i.e. three of the top four teams in Adjusted Sack Rate), finished 9th, 10th, and 12th, respectively, in terms of average yards lost per sack. At bottom, teams knew they had a great pass rush, and planned shorter drops accordingly. And, of course, shorter drops equals less yardage lost when in fact a sack does occur. On the other end of the spectrum, the two teams that finished first and second (Alabama and Tennessee) in average yards lost per sack were about the two worst pass rushing teams in the conference. Opponents saw the lack of a pass rush, and planned deeper drops and longer routes, accordingly. That, in turn, resulted in a higher amount of yards lost per sack, when in fact a sack did occur.
Later we'll put all of this together with 2006 pass defense and see what we find. It should be interesting stuff.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
The Scoreability Index
A couple of days ago, I posted about the Bendability Index, and made the case for its high relevance in college football.
Today, we'll move from a statistic that focuses mainly on the defensive side of the ball to a statistic that focuses mainly on the offensive side of the ball: the Scoreability Index. Whereas the Bendability Index determines how many yards it took an opponent to accumulate to score a point on a team, the Scoreability Index determines how many yards it takes an offense to score a point on their opponent. Just like was the case with the Bendability Index, the Scoreability Index is not solely a measure of offensive prowess, but instead a measure of overall team efficiency that takes into account a variety of factors, such as red zone offense, special teams performance, defensive performance, and turnovers.
The following is how the SEC finished up in terms of the Scoreability Index in 2006:
Now let's look at things closer, beginning with my beloved Crimson Tide.
Unfortunately, well, it's just not pretty for those clad in crimson. As you can see, we finished eleventh in the conference in the Scoreability Index, and combined with us finishing eleventh in the Bendability Index, well, no one should be surprised that we went 6-7 and Mike Shula was fired. In terms of the Scoreability Index, the offense moved the ball relatively well. We racked up 2,691 yard of total offense -- granted, keep in mind I understand that looking at things by total yardage alone doesn't tell you much, which is why we're going farther in this analysis -- and moreover we were very consistent in racking up yardage. We weren't boom and bust (400 one week, 150 the next), we consistently put up over 300 yards almost each and every week (the only two exceptions were Tennessee and MSU). But unfortunately, those yards didn't really translate into very many points.
At bottom, though we moved the ball relatively well, it didn't translate into points. Poor special teams (all across the board, in terms of punt returns, kick returns, punting, kicking, and punt and kick coverage), and below average defensive play meant that we generally didn't have great field position, so we had to move the ball long distances to score. Beyond that, once we did move the ball downfield, we bogged down in the red zone, so we never saw the full potential point value of all of the yards that we had accumulated. For example, moving the ball 74 yards isn't very meaningful if you can only get three points on the board when it is all said and done.
At the end of the day, it was just bad from top-to-bottom. There are no real bright spots to the matter.
Now just a few thoughts on the rest of the SEC...
Vanderbilt was the only team that finished behind Alabama, and in reality we should have been behind even them. Vanderbilt's yards-per-point ratio was skewed massively by the fact that in one game (Kentucky) they put up 621 yards of offense. For the other seven games, we were a good bit worse than even the Commodores. Bad stuff.
Arkansas just set the world on fire in this category, needing only 11.5 yards per point. You have to give the Hogs credit, they were good from top to bottom. They played great defense, capitalized on turnovers, had good special teams, and ran all over just about everyone when they actually got the ball on offense. What can you say? They were the epitome of how it is supposed to be done.
Auburn did not have a very good offense in 2006, but they did quite well in the Scoreability Index, finishing third in the conference. Again, they weren't very good on offense, mainly due to injuries to Brandon Cox and Kenny Irons. However, they still did the things, as an entire team, needed to be successful. They got great special teams play, and great play from their defense. Though their offense wasn't particularly good, it was efficient and capitalized quite well off of what their special teams and defense created for them.
And finally, to close, one of the keys to always look at with any statistic is how well that particular statistic correlates to winning or losing football games. Some stats -- despite people talking about them all the time and you hearing it talked about on ESPN 24/7 -- have essentially no correlation to winning or losing football games, but that is not true of this statistic. Much like the Bendability Index, the Scoreability Index has a very high correlation to actual wins. Just look at the teams that finished in the top five in the Scoreability Index versus those who finished in the bottom five. The teams that finished in the top five of the Scoreability Index were a combined 54-13 (80.59 percent winning percentage). The teams that finished in the bottom five of the Scoreability Index were a combined 28-33 (45.9 percent winning percentage).
Small wonder Cold, Hard Football Facts -- the inventor of this statistic -- refers to it as one of the "Stats That Matter."
Today, we'll move from a statistic that focuses mainly on the defensive side of the ball to a statistic that focuses mainly on the offensive side of the ball: the Scoreability Index. Whereas the Bendability Index determines how many yards it took an opponent to accumulate to score a point on a team, the Scoreability Index determines how many yards it takes an offense to score a point on their opponent. Just like was the case with the Bendability Index, the Scoreability Index is not solely a measure of offensive prowess, but instead a measure of overall team efficiency that takes into account a variety of factors, such as red zone offense, special teams performance, defensive performance, and turnovers.
The following is how the SEC finished up in terms of the Scoreability Index in 2006:
Now let's look at things closer, beginning with my beloved Crimson Tide.
Unfortunately, well, it's just not pretty for those clad in crimson. As you can see, we finished eleventh in the conference in the Scoreability Index, and combined with us finishing eleventh in the Bendability Index, well, no one should be surprised that we went 6-7 and Mike Shula was fired. In terms of the Scoreability Index, the offense moved the ball relatively well. We racked up 2,691 yard of total offense -- granted, keep in mind I understand that looking at things by total yardage alone doesn't tell you much, which is why we're going farther in this analysis -- and moreover we were very consistent in racking up yardage. We weren't boom and bust (400 one week, 150 the next), we consistently put up over 300 yards almost each and every week (the only two exceptions were Tennessee and MSU). But unfortunately, those yards didn't really translate into very many points.
At bottom, though we moved the ball relatively well, it didn't translate into points. Poor special teams (all across the board, in terms of punt returns, kick returns, punting, kicking, and punt and kick coverage), and below average defensive play meant that we generally didn't have great field position, so we had to move the ball long distances to score. Beyond that, once we did move the ball downfield, we bogged down in the red zone, so we never saw the full potential point value of all of the yards that we had accumulated. For example, moving the ball 74 yards isn't very meaningful if you can only get three points on the board when it is all said and done.
At the end of the day, it was just bad from top-to-bottom. There are no real bright spots to the matter.
Now just a few thoughts on the rest of the SEC...
Vanderbilt was the only team that finished behind Alabama, and in reality we should have been behind even them. Vanderbilt's yards-per-point ratio was skewed massively by the fact that in one game (Kentucky) they put up 621 yards of offense. For the other seven games, we were a good bit worse than even the Commodores. Bad stuff.
Arkansas just set the world on fire in this category, needing only 11.5 yards per point. You have to give the Hogs credit, they were good from top to bottom. They played great defense, capitalized on turnovers, had good special teams, and ran all over just about everyone when they actually got the ball on offense. What can you say? They were the epitome of how it is supposed to be done.
Auburn did not have a very good offense in 2006, but they did quite well in the Scoreability Index, finishing third in the conference. Again, they weren't very good on offense, mainly due to injuries to Brandon Cox and Kenny Irons. However, they still did the things, as an entire team, needed to be successful. They got great special teams play, and great play from their defense. Though their offense wasn't particularly good, it was efficient and capitalized quite well off of what their special teams and defense created for them.
And finally, to close, one of the keys to always look at with any statistic is how well that particular statistic correlates to winning or losing football games. Some stats -- despite people talking about them all the time and you hearing it talked about on ESPN 24/7 -- have essentially no correlation to winning or losing football games, but that is not true of this statistic. Much like the Bendability Index, the Scoreability Index has a very high correlation to actual wins. Just look at the teams that finished in the top five in the Scoreability Index versus those who finished in the bottom five. The teams that finished in the top five of the Scoreability Index were a combined 54-13 (80.59 percent winning percentage). The teams that finished in the bottom five of the Scoreability Index were a combined 28-33 (45.9 percent winning percentage).
Small wonder Cold, Hard Football Facts -- the inventor of this statistic -- refers to it as one of the "Stats That Matter."
Update: SEC Favorites
In a previous post, I looked at how the consensus SEC favorites have fared over the course of the past decade.
I recently ran across an article, however, that detailed the official SEC champion selection at SEC Media Days, and how they have historically performed.
According to this article in the The Advocate, only twice has the media successfully predicted the eventual SEC champion in the fifteen year history of the SEC since the implementation of the divisional format in 1992. The media correctly predicted the eventual SEC champion in 1994 and 1995, both times when they selected the Florida Gators. In the other thirteen years, the media has been dead wrong.
So, in reality, the "official" SEC favorite hasn't actually won the SEC in the eleven seasons, going 0-11 in the process.
Interestingly enough, teams not picked to win the SEC include five national champions (1992 Alabama, 1996 Florida, 1998 Tennessee, 2003 LSU, and 2006 Florida), and one team that went 13-0 despite being jilted at the ballot box (2004 Auburn).
I can't help but wonder if being the favorite makes teams prepare for you harder, and play harder against you, thus almost wholly ending your chances of the winning the SEC? And perhaps that same phenomenon allows other teams to sneak up a bit and get the job done? Right or wrong, it seems something is amiss. I understand the media isn't the most football savvy group in the world, but you could probably do better than 2-13 just by throwing darts at a dartboard.
But alas, back to the original point at the hand, if LSU can pull it off this year, you'll have to give the Tigers and Les Miles all the credit in the world. They will truly have pulled off a very rare feat.
I recently ran across an article, however, that detailed the official SEC champion selection at SEC Media Days, and how they have historically performed.
According to this article in the The Advocate, only twice has the media successfully predicted the eventual SEC champion in the fifteen year history of the SEC since the implementation of the divisional format in 1992. The media correctly predicted the eventual SEC champion in 1994 and 1995, both times when they selected the Florida Gators. In the other thirteen years, the media has been dead wrong.
So, in reality, the "official" SEC favorite hasn't actually won the SEC in the eleven seasons, going 0-11 in the process.
Interestingly enough, teams not picked to win the SEC include five national champions (1992 Alabama, 1996 Florida, 1998 Tennessee, 2003 LSU, and 2006 Florida), and one team that went 13-0 despite being jilted at the ballot box (2004 Auburn).
I can't help but wonder if being the favorite makes teams prepare for you harder, and play harder against you, thus almost wholly ending your chances of the winning the SEC? And perhaps that same phenomenon allows other teams to sneak up a bit and get the job done? Right or wrong, it seems something is amiss. I understand the media isn't the most football savvy group in the world, but you could probably do better than 2-13 just by throwing darts at a dartboard.
But alas, back to the original point at the hand, if LSU can pull it off this year, you'll have to give the Tigers and Les Miles all the credit in the world. They will truly have pulled off a very rare feat.
More On Pass Defense
In the past few weeks, I've made several posts on 2006 SEC pass defense. The problem with it all, however, is that its hard to put together. You analyze a ton of pieces, but at the end of the day it can be difficult to put them all together and determine what they mean as a whole.
But what we can do is take the combined statistics (attempts, completions, yards, touchdowns, and interceptions) of every SEC pass defense and convert them into one simple, easy-to-understand formula: the quarterback passer rating.
Granted, the quarterback passer rating has some flaws, but generally it presents a good overall summary of performance.
Thus, here you go, the 2006 SEC pass defenses ranked in terms of opposing quarterback's cumulative passer rating:
And that sums things up quite nicely.
As you can see, the Crimson Tide ranked ninth in the SEC in terms of opposing quarterback's cumulative passer rating. At bottom, we looked good on total pass defense (4th in the conference) because we allowed so few passing yards. But the dirty little secret behind that was we saw the fewest passes thrown against us of any team in the conference. In reality, we were a quite poor team in terms of pass defense, better than only lowly Mississippi State, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt.
But what we can do is take the combined statistics (attempts, completions, yards, touchdowns, and interceptions) of every SEC pass defense and convert them into one simple, easy-to-understand formula: the quarterback passer rating.
Granted, the quarterback passer rating has some flaws, but generally it presents a good overall summary of performance.
Thus, here you go, the 2006 SEC pass defenses ranked in terms of opposing quarterback's cumulative passer rating:
And that sums things up quite nicely.
As you can see, the Crimson Tide ranked ninth in the SEC in terms of opposing quarterback's cumulative passer rating. At bottom, we looked good on total pass defense (4th in the conference) because we allowed so few passing yards. But the dirty little secret behind that was we saw the fewest passes thrown against us of any team in the conference. In reality, we were a quite poor team in terms of pass defense, better than only lowly Mississippi State, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Bayou Bengals Fighting History
2007 SEC Media Days recently concluded with the media voting the LSU Tigers the overwhelming favorite to win the SEC this season. But the Tigers are very much fighting history. Being tabbed as the favorite to win the SEC has very much been a kiss of death the past decade.
Just look at the past nine seasons.
In 2006, everyone and their brother thought the Auburn Tigers had it locked up. And then the season started, and they finished second in their own division. 2005 had no true favorite (though Tennessee would have likely came closest), for the most part, but the team that did win it, the Georgia Bulldogs, were picked by effectively no one after they lost media darlings David Greene and David Pollack to graduation the year before. Tennessee, who was likely the main favorite, went 5-6, and a purge of their coaching ranks ensued.
In 2004, many expected Georgia to rebound for the SEC title, and some others expected Florida to break through in Zook's third year. As it happened, Auburn came out of nowhere and went 13-0 en route to an SEC championship. In 2003, Auburn was everyone's favorite, but they crashed and burned to a five-loss season in which head coach Tommy Tuberville came this close to getting fired. No one expected LSU to do it, coming off of an 8-5 season in 2002, but they did just that, winning the SEC and a share of the national championship.
In 2002, Tennessee, with Casey Clausen returning, was dubbed by most as the eventual SEC Champions. The Vols imploded amongst team dissension, and the Georgia Bulldogs came out of nowhere to go 13-1, win the SEC, and go on to a victory in the Sugar Bowl over Florida State. In 2001, the Florida Gators were pegged to win the SEC, and possibly the national championship. But the Gators fell to Auburn and Tennessee, and didn't even win the SEC East. LSU, the actual 2001 SEC Champion, shocked everyone by pulling it out. No one even thought they would win it even when they advanced to the SEC Title Game against Tennessee.
In 2000, our beloved Crimson Tide was the unanimous favorite, and uh, yeah, we all know how that one turned out. Florida ended up as the SEC champions, facing little resistance on their way to Atlanta or in Atlanta against Auburn. In 1999, everyone had either Tennessee, Georgia, or Florida as the SEC Champions. As it turned out, Alabama came out of nowhere and beat Florida twice, winning the SEC in a route of the Gators in Atlanta.
In 1998, the Florida Gators were dubbed by most to win the SEC after the departure of Peyton Manning, but surprising Tennessee -- led by Tee Martin -- came out of nowhere and went undefeated, winning the SEC en route to a national championship.
Finally, you have to go all the way back to 1997 until the favorite went on to win the SEC. That year, after Peyton Manning opted to forgo the NFL Draft and return for his senior season. The media picked up on it, and dubbed Tennessee as the SEC Champion. Though the Vols were blown out by Florida early in the year in the Swamp, they made the SEC title game when Florida surprisingly lost to two inferior teams (LSU and Georgia), and narrowly edged out Auburn 30-29 in the SEC Championship Game.
In the nine seasons since the Vols' SEC Championship in 1997, the preseason SEC favorite has combined to go 0-9 in their pursuit of the SEC title. More damning, however, is this fact: Of those nine favorites to win SEC, only one time did anyone remotely close to being considered a favorite has actually advanced to the SEC title game (the 1999 Florida Gators), and even the one team that did came in a year when there was no clear-cut favorite.
To sum up -- and this is something you are probably only going to read here regarding media favorites -- the harsh truth of the matter is that none of the past nine favorites to win the SEC have actually won it, and only one time did a favorite even make it to the SEC Championship game.
The perilous road to a championship doesn't simply end there, however.
It is an almost equally perilous route for those attempting to win the SEC with a first-year starter at quarterback.
Just look at the past eight seasons. In the past eight years, every team that has won the SEC championship has done so with a returning starter at quarterback.
In 2006, Florida won the SEC and later the national championship under the leadership of Chris Leak, a four year starter playing as a senior. In 2005, Georgia won the SEC with D.J. Shockley, who had started several games in his career in Athens, and had generally split playing time with David Greene.
In 2004, Auburn won the SEC with Jason Campbell under center. Campbell was a fifth-year senior who had started nearly his entire career. 2003 saw the LSU Tigers win the SEC with Matt Mauck, who had started the previous year, and who was older than most college quarterbacks (Mauck was 24, due to a minor league baseball career).
In 2002, David Greene led Georgia to its first SEC championship in twenty years in his second full season as a starter. In 2001, Rohan Davey led LSU to the SEC championship as a senior who had started off-and-on his entire career at LSU (he generally split starts from 1999-2000 with Josh Booty). Finally, Alabama won the SEC in 1999 with Andrew Zow in his second full season as a starter.
You have to go all the way back to the 1998 season to find a team that won the SEC with a first-year starter. The Tennessee Volunteers did it that year with Tee Martin, and no one has done it since.
So what does all of it mean?
At bottom, it means that the SEC is an incredibly tough conference with an amazingly high level of parity. No matter how good one team is thought to be, the truth is that the conference is just so strong from top-to-bottom that the odds are very much against even the favorite winning the SEC. And, moreover, if you generally want to have any real chance of winning the SEC, you had better have a quarterback with at least a year of starting experience. Apparently this league is generally just entirely too tough to throw a first-year starter to the wolves and expect a champion to emerge.
As LSU embarks on its 2007 campaign, they will do so as the undisputed SEC favorite, and also with a first-year starter at quarterback: Matt Flynn. If the Tigers can win the SEC this season, they will not only have out-fought eleven opponents in a brutally tough conference, but they will have out-fought history as well.
Just look at the past nine seasons.
In 2006, everyone and their brother thought the Auburn Tigers had it locked up. And then the season started, and they finished second in their own division. 2005 had no true favorite (though Tennessee would have likely came closest), for the most part, but the team that did win it, the Georgia Bulldogs, were picked by effectively no one after they lost media darlings David Greene and David Pollack to graduation the year before. Tennessee, who was likely the main favorite, went 5-6, and a purge of their coaching ranks ensued.
In 2004, many expected Georgia to rebound for the SEC title, and some others expected Florida to break through in Zook's third year. As it happened, Auburn came out of nowhere and went 13-0 en route to an SEC championship. In 2003, Auburn was everyone's favorite, but they crashed and burned to a five-loss season in which head coach Tommy Tuberville came this close to getting fired. No one expected LSU to do it, coming off of an 8-5 season in 2002, but they did just that, winning the SEC and a share of the national championship.
In 2002, Tennessee, with Casey Clausen returning, was dubbed by most as the eventual SEC Champions. The Vols imploded amongst team dissension, and the Georgia Bulldogs came out of nowhere to go 13-1, win the SEC, and go on to a victory in the Sugar Bowl over Florida State. In 2001, the Florida Gators were pegged to win the SEC, and possibly the national championship. But the Gators fell to Auburn and Tennessee, and didn't even win the SEC East. LSU, the actual 2001 SEC Champion, shocked everyone by pulling it out. No one even thought they would win it even when they advanced to the SEC Title Game against Tennessee.
In 2000, our beloved Crimson Tide was the unanimous favorite, and uh, yeah, we all know how that one turned out. Florida ended up as the SEC champions, facing little resistance on their way to Atlanta or in Atlanta against Auburn. In 1999, everyone had either Tennessee, Georgia, or Florida as the SEC Champions. As it turned out, Alabama came out of nowhere and beat Florida twice, winning the SEC in a route of the Gators in Atlanta.
In 1998, the Florida Gators were dubbed by most to win the SEC after the departure of Peyton Manning, but surprising Tennessee -- led by Tee Martin -- came out of nowhere and went undefeated, winning the SEC en route to a national championship.
Finally, you have to go all the way back to 1997 until the favorite went on to win the SEC. That year, after Peyton Manning opted to forgo the NFL Draft and return for his senior season. The media picked up on it, and dubbed Tennessee as the SEC Champion. Though the Vols were blown out by Florida early in the year in the Swamp, they made the SEC title game when Florida surprisingly lost to two inferior teams (LSU and Georgia), and narrowly edged out Auburn 30-29 in the SEC Championship Game.
In the nine seasons since the Vols' SEC Championship in 1997, the preseason SEC favorite has combined to go 0-9 in their pursuit of the SEC title. More damning, however, is this fact: Of those nine favorites to win SEC, only one time did anyone remotely close to being considered a favorite has actually advanced to the SEC title game (the 1999 Florida Gators), and even the one team that did came in a year when there was no clear-cut favorite.
To sum up -- and this is something you are probably only going to read here regarding media favorites -- the harsh truth of the matter is that none of the past nine favorites to win the SEC have actually won it, and only one time did a favorite even make it to the SEC Championship game.
The perilous road to a championship doesn't simply end there, however.
It is an almost equally perilous route for those attempting to win the SEC with a first-year starter at quarterback.
Just look at the past eight seasons. In the past eight years, every team that has won the SEC championship has done so with a returning starter at quarterback.
In 2006, Florida won the SEC and later the national championship under the leadership of Chris Leak, a four year starter playing as a senior. In 2005, Georgia won the SEC with D.J. Shockley, who had started several games in his career in Athens, and had generally split playing time with David Greene.
In 2004, Auburn won the SEC with Jason Campbell under center. Campbell was a fifth-year senior who had started nearly his entire career. 2003 saw the LSU Tigers win the SEC with Matt Mauck, who had started the previous year, and who was older than most college quarterbacks (Mauck was 24, due to a minor league baseball career).
In 2002, David Greene led Georgia to its first SEC championship in twenty years in his second full season as a starter. In 2001, Rohan Davey led LSU to the SEC championship as a senior who had started off-and-on his entire career at LSU (he generally split starts from 1999-2000 with Josh Booty). Finally, Alabama won the SEC in 1999 with Andrew Zow in his second full season as a starter.
You have to go all the way back to the 1998 season to find a team that won the SEC with a first-year starter. The Tennessee Volunteers did it that year with Tee Martin, and no one has done it since.
So what does all of it mean?
At bottom, it means that the SEC is an incredibly tough conference with an amazingly high level of parity. No matter how good one team is thought to be, the truth is that the conference is just so strong from top-to-bottom that the odds are very much against even the favorite winning the SEC. And, moreover, if you generally want to have any real chance of winning the SEC, you had better have a quarterback with at least a year of starting experience. Apparently this league is generally just entirely too tough to throw a first-year starter to the wolves and expect a champion to emerge.
As LSU embarks on its 2007 campaign, they will do so as the undisputed SEC favorite, and also with a first-year starter at quarterback: Matt Flynn. If the Tigers can win the SEC this season, they will not only have out-fought eleven opponents in a brutally tough conference, but they will have out-fought history as well.
Big Recruiting News
Only twenty-four hours after landing a huge prospect in Tyler Love, Nick Saban and company have apparently struck gold again.
Melvin Ray, one of the top wide receiver prospects in the country, has committed to Alabama. Ray is a 6'3, 202 pound receiver out of Tallahassee, Florida. He was one of the most widely sought-after recruits in the nation, with offers from the likes of Alabama, Florida State, Florida, LSU, Georgia, Clemson, and South Carolina. Now don't think this recruiting battle is over just yet. Ray is from Tallahassee, and admittedly he and his father have always been big FSU fans. And while he says he would not have committed now if he thought he would back out later, he also did say that he would take a visit (I assume an official visit in December or January) to Florida State. It's not over yet, but it's just the point of the matter that Saban is going out-of-state and freely reeling in such great prospects.
What can you say? Nick Saban is certainly earning that four million dollar paycheck on the recruiting trails. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this class will, as a worst-case scenario, be a top ten class, and has a great shot at being a top five class.
Many of the issues that we analyze around here can largely be addressed with a massive upgrade in the talent level of the entire roster, and Nick Saban seems to be doing just that.
Melvin Ray, one of the top wide receiver prospects in the country, has committed to Alabama. Ray is a 6'3, 202 pound receiver out of Tallahassee, Florida. He was one of the most widely sought-after recruits in the nation, with offers from the likes of Alabama, Florida State, Florida, LSU, Georgia, Clemson, and South Carolina. Now don't think this recruiting battle is over just yet. Ray is from Tallahassee, and admittedly he and his father have always been big FSU fans. And while he says he would not have committed now if he thought he would back out later, he also did say that he would take a visit (I assume an official visit in December or January) to Florida State. It's not over yet, but it's just the point of the matter that Saban is going out-of-state and freely reeling in such great prospects.
What can you say? Nick Saban is certainly earning that four million dollar paycheck on the recruiting trails. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this class will, as a worst-case scenario, be a top ten class, and has a great shot at being a top five class.
Many of the issues that we analyze around here can largely be addressed with a massive upgrade in the talent level of the entire roster, and Nick Saban seems to be doing just that.
2006 SEC: The Bendability Index
In the previous post, I introduced the Bendability Index, and made the argument for its relevance in college football. Though I focused on Alabama, I nevertheless had to do the research for the other eleven SEC teams just to see how the Crimson Tide stacked up by comparison. And since the research has already been done, I might as well go ahead and publish it.
The following is how the entire SEC ranked in Bendability Index:
All told, I wouldn't really say there are any major surprises. The teams generally stacked up about like you thought they would have, with a few exceptions here and there.
One point, though, that should be made regards Georgia. Though the Dawgs had one of the best defenses in the conference -- if not the nation -- in 2006, they were very low in terms of Bendability Index, ranking tenth in the conference by that measure. The problem was a struggling Georgia offense that often times committed devastating turnovers. Again, as said earlier, the Bendability Index is not solely a measure of defensive prowess, but of overall team efficiency. The 2006 Georgia Bulldogs proved that point quite nicely.
The following is how the entire SEC ranked in Bendability Index:
All told, I wouldn't really say there are any major surprises. The teams generally stacked up about like you thought they would have, with a few exceptions here and there.
One point, though, that should be made regards Georgia. Though the Dawgs had one of the best defenses in the conference -- if not the nation -- in 2006, they were very low in terms of Bendability Index, ranking tenth in the conference by that measure. The problem was a struggling Georgia offense that often times committed devastating turnovers. Again, as said earlier, the Bendability Index is not solely a measure of defensive prowess, but of overall team efficiency. The 2006 Georgia Bulldogs proved that point quite nicely.
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