Over the last few years tempo free statistics in basketball have become more prevalent.  I almost scoff when announcers use regular per game averages, so I thought I would try to take a look at tempo free statistics for football.  It might not be as prevalent in football because there is a lower spread in tempos.  In basketball, there is a big difference between Wisconsin’s 58 possessions a game and North Carolina’s 72 possessions a game[1].  In football, Michigan had 11 possessions a game, while Nebraska had 13.8 possessions per game.  [Sorry I didn’t track Oregon, but I would imagine they are at or above Nebraska].  This is a very simplistic look at what Tempo Free football might look like.

The first step is simple enough I divided the total yards by the possessions for Yards Per Possession (YPP) and total Points by possessions for Points Per Possession (PPP).  A few adjustments were made, 1^st I didn’t include any overtime yardage or possessions because it skews the YPP down and the PPP up.  2^nd I didn’t count any kneel downs at the end of the game or half as a possession (but I didn’t adjust the yardage for that kneel down – I don’t believe that this would result in a significant difference in results).  I only looked at the Big Ten to adjust for schedule strength such as Michigan playing the #1 and #2 teams in the country, while Ohio toughs it out against 3-9 California at home. 

Brian’s alter ego can’t make it today, but here’s a bunch of charts anyway.  (Numbers in parenthesis is the traditional yards per game rank in the Big Ten).  Commentary will follow at the end. 

Despite being 5^th in the traditional measure, Michigan accumulates the most yards per possession in the Big Ten.  The scoring offense is similar

Defensive Stats:

While using Big Ten only stats eliminates most of the schedule disparity there is still some schedule imbalance.  To adjust for this I divided the individual YPP by the opponent average then averaged the result. 

First the offense:

Now the Defense:

So that’s a lot of numbers, what does any of it mean?  Let’s start with the offense.  In conventional stats, Michigan is ranked 5^th in yards per game and 3^rd in points per game.  However, given our low tempo we move up to 1^st in yards per possession and 2^nd in points per possession.  So despite our offensive line troubles we have been very efficient in our offense.  We managed to avoid both the best and the worst teams in YPP defense, but relative to the strength of the defenses we have faced we have the 3^rd most efficient offense.  However, if you throw out the Nebraska game (which hopefully is because it is a non-repeatable event given that would mean both Denard and Devin go down), we shoot up to number 1 by a long way.  I don’t like to throw out only one extreme, so if you throw out the best performance against Iowa’s impersonation of air we drop right back to 3^rd.

How about the defense?  By the conventional measures Michigan has the best defense in the Big Ten.  However, once we adjust for our slow tempo, we find that the defense drops to 5^th.   We love our defense how is that possible?  I think there are a couple potential explanations: 1) Throw-God Trevor Simien and the elusive Colter -- Northwestern was Michigan’s worst performance of the year.   2) Michigan always seems to have one or 2 bad drives per game regardless of how bad the offense is (Illinois need not apply).  MSU, Iowa, Minnesota all had 2 long scoring drives where it was completely out of character for both them and us. And since they are so bad offensively that bad drive is enough to put them above their average.  In other words, Michigan has yet to put together a full game defensively. 

What about the game this weekend?  We already talked about what Michigan needs to do – Remain efficient on offense and play a full 60 minutes (or more) on defense.  Ohio has an extremely efficient offense, and their defense is very solid on a yardage basis.  However, Ohio gives up a lot of points despite their good yardage defense.  I believe this is largely a reflection of their turnover margin and I think they have had 2 punts blocked in Big Ten play.  As in every big game ever Turnovers will be important. 

Other interesting notes – Nebraska has a much better defense than people here have given them credit for.  Ucla was more the aberration than the rule.  Northwestern may be really close to being 11-0, but they are also getting outgained by their competition which could be an indicator that they could be close to .500 for the season.  [Though how many of those yards came in the 4^th quarter?]

Future Blue Originals: Chris Fox

Apologies to Ace for stealing his title and not emailing him this directly but I thought this would be worthy of a diary.  Last night I had a chance to watch OT/DT Chris Fox and his Ponderosa Mustangs travel to Vista Ridge High School. 

The Setup

Both teams came into the game undefeated at 4-0.  According to MaxPreps Ponderosa is ranked 29^th in the state while Vista Ridge is ranked 14^th.  Both teams are in the 2^nd highest division, so this is probably the best competition Ponderosa will really face until the playoffs.  Chris Fox is a beast he was easily the tallest person on the field, standing head and shoulders above everyone.  He is listed at 6’6” and it wouldn’t surprise me if he were taller than that.

The Caveats

My only expertise in football is that I have watched it all 37 years of my life.  The one play I had in Freshman ball was a false start.  Offensive Line is very difficult to predict even for the professionals, much less a lay person like me.  I will give you my observations.   In addition since this isn’t the biggest school, the stands only went up 10-15 rows in the 1^st and 4^th quarters I had a lousy angle to watch him play on offense. 

The tl;dr

Skip ‘The Game’ and just look at ‘The Stats’ and ‘The Observations’

The Game

First Quarter:  Vista Ridge’s fight song was the same as Notre Dame so I hated them immediately.  The game started very defensively with neither side able to pick up a first down on their first 3 series.  On offense, as I said I had a lousy angle but I didn’t see Fox getting much of a push.  And if I am being harsh he was responsible for giving up a sack.  It looked like they were trying to set up a screen to the other side of the field and the QB held the ball too long and ended up taking the sack.  On Defense, Fox would just fling the lineman to the ground and fill the hole on running plays.  On passing plays, he had absolutely no penetration to the point where I wondered if his responsibility was to sit on the line and watch for the draws.  Fox played every non-special teams snap of the first quarter and he looked gassed at the end.

Second Quarter: Fox sat out the first series on defense, when he came back he looked like a new man.  On offense he was got a free release to the second level and got his first pancake block on a LB leading to a big run.  He got his second pancake when he pulled and absolutely leveled the DE, leading to another big run.  That drive led to a TD and a 7-0 lead.  At the end of the first half, Vista Ridge was trying to throw the ball and Fox came alive.  He got quick penetration and forced a bad throw and an interception.  On their next series, he again got in quickly and this time forced a sack, though he didn’t get the stat, he was the man that made the play. 

Third Quarter:  The second half started with fireworks both literally and figuratively.  They set off a big fireworks display at the start of the second half which was distracting for me, and had to be for the players as well.  Vista Ridge ran a reverse on the second half kickoff all the way back for a TD, but it was called back for holding.  Instead Vista Ridge was forced to punt.  One big run by Ponderosa got them deep in Vista Ridge Territory.  On the next play Fox got a great seal block on the DE allowing the RB to get the edge and run down to the 1 yard line.  They then moved Fox to the H-Back position and put him in motion, snapped the ball and right up his backside two plays in a row to take a 14-0 lead.  Fox sat out the next defensive series, but his replacement had a TFL and a forced fumble.  Ponderosa settled for a partially blocked FG that slipped over the cross bar.  Fox back in for the next series made his best play of the game.  He throws off the first defender, splits a second and third defender and gets immediate pressure on the QB who throws his 2^nd INT of the game.  Ponderosa did the opposite of take advantage of the turnover.  A holding penalty, then a sack, followed by a false start, then culminating with a bad snap over the head of the QB leading to a turnover.  Minus-30 yards on the drive.  On the first play Vista Ridge triple teamed Fox and hit a deep post for a touchdown to make the game interesting at 17-7. 

Fourth Quarter: On offense, Ponderosa and Fox really started to play well.  For the first time all game I saw Fox really drive blocking with authority escorting his man 5-10 yards downfield.  Ponderosa was also able to complete a pass or two (on the QB Waggle).  However, they fumbled inside the Red Zone keeping Vista Ridge in the game.  Vista went to a spread passing attack, and Ponderosa countered with a 3-man line moving Fox to NT.  He was completely neutralized by that move, but Vista was unable to connect on a pass and was forced to punt.  On offense once again, Ponderosa moved the ball well but stalled in the red zone and had a FG blocked.  Vista Ridge was unable to capitalize once again and punted away.  Ponderosa drove into Vista territory again, this time was able to seal the game on a 4^th down pass play.  The defender was able to tip the ball, but the receiver made a great adjustment and grabbed the ball before it hit the turf.  Fox still struggled playing NT on the 3-man line, but they went to a 4 man line and almost immediately he split the double team and forced yet another INT.  Ponderosa was able to punch it in to make the final score 30-7 to move to 5-0.

The Stats

·         Very unofficially Fox had about 6 pancakes, though a couple of those were on combo blocks

·         On Defense, Fox had 1 solo TFL, 3 assists, and 4 QB pressures (resulting in 3 INT’s, 1 sack)

·         The Overall Defense was very impressive, allowing maybe 4 first downs and forcing 4 turnovers. 

·         Ponderosa put up 30 points on a team that was only allowing 5 points/game coming into the game.  They only allowed 7 points to a team that was scoring 31 points/game.  Total Yards: Ponderosa 342 Vista Ridge 93; Rushing: Ponderosa 56/277 Vista Ridge 16/0

The Observations

·         Down blocks were good, his man couldn’t get any penetration, but I was a little disappointed in Fox’s drive blocking considering how much bigger than everyone he is, but he was definitely better in the 4^th quarter. 

·         In short yardage situations he was submarined a lot, he kept his feet, but wasn’t able to get off and get to the next level. 

·         His pad level was pretty good considering he was 6 inches taller than everyone, but he did sometimes come up pretty high

·         He was very strong.  Yes he was bigger than everyone, but he never moved backward.  Ever.  Not even a little bit.  I did see him block two guys at the same time once.  On defense he pretty much threw his man around, and his splitting of the triple team was a thing of beauty.

·         He blocked really well on the move and in space.  When he got a free release to the second level or when he pulled he pretty much annihilated the defender.  Sometimes he did have trouble finding someone to block on screens or clean releases to the second level, but it was rare.

·         His lateral movement was pretty good.  On pass protection he was able to slide out and handle the speed rushers pretty easily.  Bull rushing him would have been futile.  He did get beat wide once, but a) it was really really wide and b) it was a rollout to the opposite side so no harm at all.  On defense, once he took on the double team and slid down the line square to the ball carrier on an outside run and allowed his teammates to swarm for a TFL.

·         An oddity, he struggled with reach blocks to his left.  A couple times he completely whiffed on the block.  But on reach blocks to his right he was often able to seal the defender giving the RB the edge. 

·         Overall, I was more impressed with his defense than his offense.  While he didn’t make a ton of plays himself, his disruption allowed his teammates to make a ton of plays.  However, whenever Ponderosa needed yards on third down or close to the goal line they were certain to follow Fox. 

If you have any questions about what I saw let me know and I will try to answer them to the best of my ability.  

[Ed-Ace: Bumped on a slow day. I'm working on the initial Big Ten recruiting rankings for the class of 2013, which should be up later today.]

Preface.

I have never played basketball at any level, outside of a few pickup games.  I'm not all that good at statistics, so I apologize for any and all statistical errors.  However, as a former actuary, I am good at finding trends and patterns in data.  Last week, Maize N Brew had a good article on whether Michigan lives and dies by the three. The conclusion was that the offensive efficiency was not really dependent on hitting 3 pointers.  When looking at it the data presented, it looked as though the more three point shots UM takes the worse the offensive efficiency.  I decided to take a closer look.

3 point Attempts vs Offensive Effiency.

I went throught the game by game box scores and looked at the 3-point attempts and plotted it against the offensive efficiency.  [I removed Ferris St. since they aren't a D-I opponent.]  What I found was slightly disappointing.  The correlation was -0.15 (the negative means the higher the number of 3-point attempts the lower the offensive efficiency) and the R-squared was a low 0.02.  However, when I took a closer look, I noticed that two of our lower offensive efficiency numbers came against Ohio and MSU, which is no surprise considering that they are the #1 and #2 best defensive efficiency teams in the country. 

So to adjust for that I looked at the amount the offensive efficiency exceeded the opponents average adjusted defensive efficiency from Kenpom.  The result was more in line with what I expected.  The correlation drops to -0.49 and the R-squared rises to 0.24. 

Looking at the results, when U-M shoots 20 3-pointers or less, Michigan is 10-0 (4 of them RPI Top 50 wins, 5 more Top 100 wins).  Shooting more than 25, Michigan is 6-3, but those wins came against Arkansas Pine Bluff, Oakland, 2 overtime wins against Northwestern, Bradley and Iowa St (the only quality win in regulation).  The 3 losses were the 3 worst performances of the season, @Iowa, @Arkansas, and the loss to Purdue. 

Other Teams

So is this unique to Michigan?  I looked at Northwestern, a team I think is most similar to Michigan's style of play (in the B1G).  They spread the floor, shoot a ton of 3s and look for back door cuts.  And I found they have a positive correlation between 3 attempts and offensive efficiency.  A correlation of +0.17 (after adjusting for defensive effiency).  The R-squared is a pathetic 0.03, but I think it is important to note that the correlation is the opposite sign. 

I also looked at Wisconsin.  Ohio relies on Sullinger and MSU relies on the offensive rebound so much that I didn't think that they would be good comparisons to Michigan.  For them it doesn't seem to matter if they shoot a lot of threes or not.  A correlation of -0.1 and an R-squared of 0.01. 

Free Throws

One of the 4 factors is Free Throw Rate.  I think this may be the most important of the 4 for Michigan.  Michigan is 10-0 vs RPI Top 100 competition when their FT Rate is greater than 25%. Michigan is 2-7 vs RPI Top 100 when the FT Rate is at or below 25%.  How does this relate to 3-pointers?  My theory is that Michigan is at their best when driving the basket and drawing fouls and not settling for jump shots of the 3-point variety (I'm looking at you THJ).  It might also explain why Northwestern gives us fits.  Their zone forces us to take a bunch of 3 point shots (like 38 of them). 

So as we go into the post season:

• Cackle with knowing glee if Michigan is driving the basket
• Worry if we draw a zone team that forces us to shoot a lot of 3 pointers. 

If anyone has a team they would like me to look at, let me know. I'm going to try to figure out how to add graphs so you can see the dramatic downward slope of Michigan's efficiency against 3 point attempts.