Hokepoints: Removing Sacks
This hurt. [Fuller]
Longtime readers will know the MGoBlog policy on sacking: sacks and sack yardage should be counted as passing, because they are pass plays, not rushing, as the NCAA and thus everybody else is wont to do. Counting sacks as passing leads to a better understanding of success and where yards come from, and prevents problems like the computer in the NCAA videogames passing every play because the sacks that generates keep making the rushing numbers look progressively more awful.
For the Hail to the Victors preview books (kickstarter coming soon) each year we put these "At-a-Glance" boxes into the opponent previews, complete with offensive and defensive stats that we've adjusted for this. Having done the calculations for that, I thought I'd share them with you.
First, the difference it makes to passing stats:
2013 Passing | Unadjusted | Sack-Adjusted | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Team | Pass Att | Pass Yds | YPA | Rk | Sacks | Sack Yds | YPA | Rk | ||
Indiana | 470 | 3680 | 7.83 | 2nd | 18 | 121 | 7.29 | 1st | ||
Ohio State | 368 | 2846 | 7.73 | 3rd | 22 | 135 | 6.95 | 2nd | ||
Penn State | 409 | 3110 | 7.60 | 4th | 22 | 135 | 6.90 | 3rd | ||
Michigan | 395 | 3221 | 8.15 | 1st | 36 | 270 | 6.85 | 4th | ||
Wisconsin | 355 | 2562 | 7.22 | 6th | 16 | 94 | 6.65 | 5th | ||
Illinois | 455 | 3452 | 7.59 | 5th | 30 | 231 | 6.64 | 6th | ||
Iowa | 375 | 2562 | 6.83 | 10th | 15 | 61 | 6.41 | 7th | ||
Michigan State | 430 | 2964 | 6.89 | 9th | 17 | 127 | 6.35 | 8th | ||
Nebraska | 378 | 2557 | 6.76 | 11th | 17 | 140 | 6.12 | 9th | ||
Northwestern | 382 | 2726 | 7.14 | 8th | 36 | 198 | 6.05 | 10th | ||
Minnesota | 267 | 1925 | 7.21 | 7th | 27 | 170 | 5.97 | 11th | ||
Purdue | 426 | 2590 | 6.08 | 12th | 38 | 265 | 5.01 | 12th |
By counting sacks as passing Michigan drops from 8.15 yards per attempt (good for the best passing team in the conference last year) to a more realistic 6.85 YPA, dropping them to fourth. Minnesota's passing game dropped from middling to awful, Iowa's climbed from the bottom to the middle.
And the difference to running stats:
2013 Rushing | Unadjusted | Sack-Adjusted | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Team | Rushes | Rush Yds | YPC | Rk | Sacks | Sack Yds | YPA | Rk | ||
Ohio State | 635 | 4321 | 6.80 | 1st | 22 | 135 | 7.27 | 1st | ||
Wisconsin | 557 | 3689 | 6.62 | 2nd | 16 | 94 | 6.99 | 2nd | ||
Indiana | 458 | 2422 | 5.29 | 3rd | 18 | 121 | 5.78 | 3rd | ||
Nebraska | 584 | 2804 | 4.80 | 4th | 17 | 140 | 5.19 | 4th | ||
Illinois | 411 | 1668 | 4.06 | 10th | 30 | 231 | 4.98 | 5th | ||
Minnesota | 586 | 2538 | 4.33 | 5th | 27 | 170 | 4.84 | 6th | ||
Northwestern | 507 | 2069 | 4.08 | 9th | 36 | 198 | 4.81 | 7th | ||
Penn State | 501 | 2088 | 4.17 | 8th | 22 | 135 | 4.64 | 8th | ||
Michigan State | 569 | 2433 | 4.28 | 6th | 17 | 127 | 4.64 | 9th | ||
Iowa | 556 | 2338 | 4.21 | 7th | 15 | 61 | 4.43 | 10th | ||
Michigan | 498 | 1634 | 3.28 | 11th | 36 | 270 | 4.12 | 11th | ||
Purdue | 319 | 805 | 2.52 | 12th | 38 | 265 | 3.81 | 12th |
Michigan's awful running game is still awful, but it no longer looks like the Scheelhaase option-running game was a disaster. Ohio State's 7.27 YPC isn't just first among the conference; OSU and Wisconsin were the #1 and #2 rushing offenses in the country. Michigan: 115th out of 125 teams.
This isn't perfect since quarterback scrambles still can't be pulled out of rushing stats, but that's not so big of a deal considering a running QB should be contributing to your rushing success.
[Jump for Devin Garder's passing season and profiles of next year's opponents]
Individual passing: Like an idiot I went and personally input every sack number for Big Ten QBs from NCAA's box score totals before thinking to ask Mathlete, who had all that already. Anyway here's the pure passing stats of QBs of interest:
Rk | Player | Team | PA (Adj) | P Yds (Adj) | YPA |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Tre Roberson | Indiana | 139 | 1079 | 7.76 |
2 | Tommy Rees | Notre Dame | 422 | 3194 | 7.57 |
3 | Nate Sudfeld | Indiana | 338 | 2400 | 7.10 |
4 | Devin Gardner | Michigan | 379 | 2614 | 6.90 |
5 | Caleb Rowe | Maryland | 136 | 933 | 6.86 |
6 | Braxton Miller | Ohio State | 276 | 1879 | 6.81 |
7 | Christian Hackenberg | Penn State | 413 | 2810 | 6.80 |
8 | Joel Stave | Wisconsin | 352 | 2388 | 6.78 |
9 | C.J. Brown | Maryland | 303 | 2046 | 6.75 |
10 | Kenny Guiton | Ohio State | 110 | 740 | 6.73 |
11 | Tommy Armstrong Jr. | Nebraska | 135 | 891 | 6.60 |
12 | Nathan Scheelhaase | Illinois | 458 | 3021 | 6.60 |
13 | Connor Cook | Michigan State | 396 | 2610 | 6.59 |
14 | Jake Rudock | Iowa | 360 | 2330 | 6.47 |
15 | Trevor Siemian | Northwestern | 315 | 2032 | 6.45 |
16 | Gary Nova | Rutgers | 328 | 1979 | 6.03 |
17 | Ron Kellogg III | Nebraska | 141 | 848 | 6.01 |
18 | Philip Nelson | Minnesota | 200 | 1186 | 5.93 |
19 | Mitch Leidner | Minnesota | 91 | 528 | 5.80 |
20 | Chas Dodd | Rutgers | 143 | 795 | 5.56 |
21 | Taylor Martinez | Nebraska | 116 | 589 | 5.08 |
22 | Danny Etling | Purdue | 298 | 1469 | 4.93 |
23 | Rob Henry | Purdue | 160 | 774 | 4.84 |
24 | Kain Colter | Northwestern | 99 | 458 | 4.63 |
The Indiana offense is crazy-awesome and that plus the receivers they had last year made their quarterbacks' stats crazy-awesome. Tommy Rees was a good QB but he was also the beneficiary of a system designed for high-efficiency passing. My point is Devin Gardner is right behind them. He too was helped by good receiving—Jeremy Gallon and Devin Funchess were two of the higher-efficiency targets in the conference according to a study I'll share at a later date. And the TD/INT ratio will certainly reflect a higher level of risk from him. That's still some dang impressive pure passing stats.
But there's totally a QB controversy guys.
2014 Opponents (who were FBS last year, i.e. not App State):
Wallowing any further in the 2013 offense won't do us much good, so let's shift our focus to things we can learn about next year's enemies. How to read this: Ranks are given as if they were part of a 14-team Big Ten conference. YPP is total yardage/play. Show?
Team | YPC | Rush Rk | YPA | Pass Rk | All YPP | YPP Rk |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Michigan | 4.1 | 13th | 6.8 | 5th | 5.4 | 8th |
Notre Dame | 4.7 | (9th) | 7.4 | (1st) | 6.1 | (5th) |
Miami (Ohio) | 3.8 | (14th) | 3.5 | (last) | 3.7 | (last) |
Utah | 4.6 | (11th) | 6.5 | (8th) | 5.5 | (8th) |
Minnesota | 4.8 | 6th | 6.0 | 12th | 5.2 | 13th |
Rutgers | 4.6 | 11th | 5.9 | 13th | 5.3 | 11th |
Penn State | 4.6 | 9th | 6.9 | 3rd | 5.7 | 6th |
Michigan State | 4.6 | 10th | 6.3 | 9th | 5.4 | 9th |
Indiana | 5.8 | 3rd | 7.3 | 1st | 6.6 | 3rd |
Northwestern | 4.8 | 7th | 6.0 | 11th | 5.4 | 10th |
Maryland | 4.8 | 8th | 6.9 | 4th | 5.8 | 5th |
Ohio State | 7.3 | 1st | 7.0 | 2nd | 7.1 | 1st |
Tendency: A more accurate accounting of sacks provides a more accurate portrayal of teams' tendencies, although this still has all sorts of two-minute drills and comebacks or clock-killing all-runs-with-the-backups drives, etc.
Touchdown rate is simply touchdowns divided by total plays. Turnover rate is the percent of plays there ought to have been a turnover—given that 50% of fumbles ought to be recovered I took interceptions plus 50% of total fumbles and divided that total by the number of plays.
Team | Run% | Run % Rk | TD Rate | TD% Rk | TO Rate | TO% Rk |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Michigan | 52% | 9th | 5.4% | 4th | 2.6% | 10th |
Notre Dame | 50% | (11th) | 4.5% | (9th) | 1.9% | (4th) |
Miami (Ohio) | 54% | (6th) | 1.8% | (last) | 3.1% | (14th) |
Utah | 52% | (9th) | 4.7% | (6th) | 3.2% | (14th) |
Minnesota | 66% | 1st | 4.1% | 10th | 1.9% | 3rd |
Rutgers | 47% | 12th | 4.3% | 9th | 3.3% | 14th |
Penn State | 53% | 8th | 4.7% | 7th | 2.3% | 6th |
Michigan State | 55% | 6th | 4.6% | 8th | 1.2% | 1st |
Indiana | 47% | 11th | 6.6% | 2nd | 2.2% | 5th |
Northwestern | 53% | 7th | 3.5% | 13th | 2.1% | 4th |
Maryland | 50% | 10th | 4.0% | 11th | 2.9% | 11th |
Ohio State | 61% | 2nd | 8.3% | 1st | 1.8% | 2nd |
What we get is a rough idea of how that team played. As you might imagine turnovers were inversely correlated with how good the offense was in general: Ohio State's highly efficient offense got into the end zone on a remarkable 1 out of every 12 plays, but they didn't turn the ball over either; Miami (not THAT Miami) was awful at scoring and turned the ball over a ton because they were awful on offense.
Michigan got into the end zone on 5.4% of their plays—good for fourth in the conference—but also had a high turnover rate, suggesting an offense playing risk-ball. Among next year's opponents only Utah (4.7% scoring rate against a 3.2% turnover rate) seems to have the same profile. Conservative teams were Minnesota, Michigan State, and Northwestern.
Interesting thing about the run/pass ratios: primarily running offenses were Ohio State, Minnesota and a lot of teams not on Michigan's schedule next year. Notre Dame, Utah, Rutgers, Indiana and Maryland are passing offenses. In other words, Michigan's likely to be facing a lot more passing this season than they did in 2013.
Defense: Sure, I can flip these to show how the defenses did.
Team | YPP | YPP Rk | YPC | Rush Rk | YPA | Pass Rk |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Michigan | 5.3 | 7th | 4.4 | 6th | 6.2 | 9th |
Notre Dame | 5.1 | (5th) | 4.7 | (9th) | 5.7 | (4th) |
Miami (Ohio) | 6.4 | (13th) | 5.3 | (12th) | 7.6 | (13th) |
Utah | 5.4 | (9th) | 4.5 | (7th) | 6.2 | (9th) |
Minnesota | 5.7 | 10th | 5.0 | 11th | 6.3 | 10th |
Rutgers | 5.7 | 11th | 3.8 | 3rd | 7.0 | 11th |
Penn State | 5.3 | 8th | 4.7 | 9th | 5.9 | 5th |
Michigan State | 4.0 | 1st | 3.6 | 1st | 4.4 | 1st |
Indiana | 6.7 | 14th | 5.9 | 13th | 7.7 | 14th |
Northwestern | 5.5 | 9th | 4.8 | 10th | 6.1 | 8th |
Maryland | 5.1 | 4th | 4.5 | 7th | 5.7 | 4th |
Ohio State | 5.3 | 6th | 4.3 | 5th | 6.0 | 7th |
Not a lot of surprises here. Among new opponents, Miami (NTM) is just really bad on defense, Rutgers is not good against passing, and Utah's defense was a lot like Michigan's. Notre Dame was weak against the run despite a very good defensive line, reportedly because their linebackers were a problem.
And tendency:
Team | Run% | Run % Rk | TD Rate | TD% Rk | TO Rate | TO% Rk |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Michigan | 50% | 7th | 4.1% | 8th | 2.7% | 2nd |
Notre Dame | 54% | (12th) | 3.4% | (4th) | 2.0% | (11th) |
Miami (Ohio) | 56% | (13th) | 5.7% | (12th) | 1.7% | (14th) |
Utah | 46% | (4th) | 3.9% | (6th) | 1.7% | (14th) |
Minnesota | 51% | 8th | 4.1% | 9th | 2.2% | 9th |
Rutgers | 41% | 1st | 5.1% | 11th | 2.1% | 10th |
Penn State | 48% | 5th | 3.9% | 5th | 2.5% | 5th |
Michigan State | 45% | 3rd | 2.3% | 1st | 3.2% | 1st |
Indiana | 54% | 11th | 6.3% | 14th | 1.9% | 13th |
Northwestern | 49% | 6th | 3.9% | 4th | 2.6% | 3rd |
Maryland | 51% | 9th | 4.0% | 6th | 2.0% | 12th |
Ohio State | 42% | 2nd | 4.0% | 7th | 2.5% | 6th |
This has more to do with schedules than how the defenses play, e.g. Rutgers saw a lot of dinky-dunk offenses in the Big East/American, while MSU saw lots of passing plays because running on their defense was suicide. Notably Michigan was second only to MSU in generating turnovers.
Indiana's defense was just bad and MSU's was just really good, but the discrepancies in TD% and TO% ranks for Notre Dame, Utah and Maryland (bolded above) demonstrate defenses playing bend-don't-break. That fits with what we've heard about their defenses, though Notre Dame's new defensive coordinator says he's going to reverse that, having his backfield play a lot more man as opposed to the mostly zone they were in last year. Michigan's was the only defense that seemed to stand out as high-risk, or "aggressive" if you're using coach speak.
Lessons:
- All the stuff they said about our offensive line was true. Giving sacks to the passing game didn't help the rushing game, but painted a picture of a devastating passing game if only could protect the quarterback.
- Michigan is "aggressive," if you consider the high TD and turnover rates purposeful, and high-event if you don't. So there's a reason to watch, eh?
- Ohio State's offense and Michigan State's defense were off-the-charts good. They should be emulated.
- The 2014 schedule has way more passing offenses than last year, and that's not even considering Northwestern going from Kain Colter to Unstoppable Throw God Trevor Siemian and Penn State going to a dunky James Franklin offense.
- Purdue was all kinds of horrible.
- Utah is the most similar team to Michigan on our schedule next year.
April 15th, 2014 at 11:04 AM ^
But great analysis, as always!
[Jump for Devin Garder's passing season and profiles of next year's opponents]
(Meaning it isn't a link - it's plain text and the full article is displayed on front page)
April 15th, 2014 at 11:08 AM ^
Sometimes the jump takes a few minutes to upload for some reason. I published directly to the page today instead of publishing a draft last night like I usually do.
April 15th, 2014 at 11:29 AM ^
Guess I have "premature click-eration"!
April 15th, 2014 at 11:27 AM ^
I totally agree with removing sacks from the run game. In doing so, to be fair you would almost have to add scramble yards to the passing game. Then again, who wants to be fair these days?
April 15th, 2014 at 12:57 PM ^
to do that is to attribute sacks and scrambles directly to total yards.
Passing Yards xxx
Rushing Yards xxx
Scramble Yards xx
Sack Yards -xx
Total Yards xxx
April 15th, 2014 at 11:42 AM ^
Equivalent of 5th in Offense and 4th in Defense. Hmm. I was worried about Utah but now will also worry about Maryland. It sucks to worry about Utah and Maryland.
I kind of disagree. I mean, sure, I'd like Michigan to be dominant, but an NCAA landscape where it's possible for most teams to beat most other teams on any given Saturday makes for much better college football in the long run.
April 15th, 2014 at 11:43 AM ^
When did Dennis Franklin start coaching Penn State?
April 15th, 2014 at 11:45 AM ^
Seth's post makes me sad. I find myself uninspired looking forward to Michigan football. Hope remains, but faith is disappearing. For the first time the formula in my head for Michigan to succeed extends beyond our players and coaches playing and coaching well. It now includes the need for MSU and OSU to regress, neither of which is likely with OSU probably improving their D, and MSU probably improving their O. This is based on the disparity we witnessed last year between Ohio's O and our D, and MSU's D and our O. This was a disparity I can only twice recall outside of the RR era and that was Dennis Dixon and Oregon 2007, and Donovan McNabb and Cuse two decades ago where an opposing team literally toyed with one side of the ball.
Hoke came in pledging to get back to Michigan's roots, and defense and toughness, and about the only thing Hoke's done right in regressing every year is recruit, and take us to a bowl win over VT where we were severely outplayed. Firing Borges showed he had some semblance of a clue this offseason, but keeping Funk, and then this Spring that provided zero evidence that the O line will trend positively, quickly diminished any faith therefrom.
Road games at ND, MSU and Ohio... Funk still on the payroll... Faith gone, but hope remains.
There will always be hope.
April 15th, 2014 at 12:05 PM ^
The endless public pessimism is nauseating. I get that people feel down about M sports, but do you really have to repeatedly chant "ALL IS LOST" until the world ends?
April 15th, 2014 at 12:15 PM ^
I think the optimism thread on the OL is still up. Plenty of people in there just SURE we're gonna kick-ass this year
You cant tell me that guy didnt sound whiny and entitled
April 15th, 2014 at 12:06 PM ^
Imagine an MGoBlog going into the 1969 season predicting 5 wins.
April 15th, 2014 at 12:26 PM ^
just kill me
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