Charting Chris Relf

Part of the Michigan blogosphere's ongoing effort to scout Mississippi State more than any team has ever been scouted.

Here's the Mississippi State offense against Kentucky:

The Bulldogs won 24-17 with a quick late drive featuring a Relf zinger over the middle that ate up a third of the field. Kentucky's defense was (sigh) significantly better than Michigan's this year but it wasn't great. They were 79th in rush D, 53rd in pass efficiency D, 49th overall. The don't fare nearly as well in FEI, though—they're 82nd, the worst defense other than Memphis the Bulldogs played. Michigan was 103rd. (Fun fact: only one other team had a winning record against I-A competition with a worse defense than Michigan, and that was Baylor.)

I charted Relf for the hell of it:

CHRIS RELF

[Most of these were clear-cut, but there was a fade down the sideline that was well-covered, hit the receiver in the hands, got dropped, and then saw the receiver hit with an offensive PI call. That could have been anything from CA to BR. I punted and filed it MA—he should have led the receiver to the sideline but it wasn't awful.

The backup quarterback came in for a series, went run, BR, INX, and then ate bench. ]

So… that's not very good. That DSR is one pip off Denard Robinson's freshman year—you know, the one that spawned an offseason of debate about whether he should be a wide receiver or running back—and most of those INs were TacoBLANK specials where the receiver watched the ball zing well over his head or well wide or well short; receivers had no chance to bring in any of them. The two TAs are generous as well. Either could have been filed IN.

However, it should be noted that the Kentucky game was Relf's worst of the year by far. In his last two games against reasonable defenses Relf went 13 of 20 for 288 yards with 3 TDs, and one INT (Ole Miss) and 20 of 30 for 224 yards (Arkansas). This is not a representative sample.

Relf seems like a ridiculously fast version of Steven Threet—capable of those downfield darts in the seam that result in huge chunks of yards and blithering inaccuracy on the next play. In this game he had six complete misses against six accurate downfield throws, but three of the accurate ones were beautiful long gains.

Other notes:

I probably didn't give Relf enough credit as a runner. He was impressive in this game, making decisive option cuts and even throwing in an I-hit-circle spin move:

He's a better runner than Tebow, closer to a Scheelhaase than anyone else we saw this year. Yes, again with the Illinois comparisons and the grim prospect of not putting up 67 against a team with the Illinois offense.

Even more Illinois comparisons. Seriously, they scored the winning touchdown on the inverted veer after their erratic but fast quarterback scrambled for a first down. The clip above is an option keeper. They love the jet sweep and have a difficult time throwing downfield. It's a really close comparison. The differences as I see them:

• Mullen is much more willing to chance his QB throwing downfield. Illinois games I saw this year almost never featured Scheelhaase throwing more than ten yards downfield. Mullen's takes his shots and lives with the balls to covered receivers because occasionally Relf nails a guy and Mississippi State has a much shorter touchdown trudge to make.
• Relf is a better power runner. Scheelhaase is fast but not a guy you're going to go to on third and two (or five, or nine) as Mississippi State does with Relf. He brings the wood and usually picks up two or three yards after contact.
• The Bulldog offensive line may not be very good. It's hard to tell without going super in-depth but it seemed like MSU bogged down when Kentucky players were not getting hooked on the outside or doing many things wrong on the long TD. Almost every time MSU faced a third and long situation they ran or moved the pocket, though, and their offensive design seems like it's built around not expecting a ton out of the OL.

Bumphis and Ballard. Those guys are the heart of the Bulldog offense. Both are short, quick guys capable of turning a small crease into a big gain. Ballard isn't going to break a ton of tackles but is very fast, getting to top speed quickly when an opportunity presents itself and capable of turning on the jets. A wrong angle on him and you've given up six points.

Bumphis is an A- version of a slot receiver.

General confidence level adjustment. Even despite the ugly Relf chart above since more recent info suggests he's not really this bad, because MSU put up 24 against a Michigan-ish caliber defense when their QBs went 7 for 19. If Michigan's 4-7 points worse than Kentucky (and many metrics suggest this) I'm not happy with the idea that they'll have to put up mid-30s to win with the opponent completing 33% of their passes.