Hoke on the Road: The Depressing Numbers
Hoke on the Road: The Depressing Numbers
So Michigan decided to one up ND by quitting the series 1 game earlier than ND. How did that work out for them, Cotton? The first shutout in 30 years, and an innovative new defensive scheme “And-run Coverage” [It’s like bump-and-run coverage, except you don’t bump them and you run after them after they catch the ball.]
Sadly, this is nothing new for Hoke on the road. He carries a shiny 20-2 record at home, and even excluding the baby and adolescent seals he still has a respectable 12-2 record. Once he gets away from the friendly confines of Michigan Stadium and its raucous library atmosphere, his record is not so pretty. 6-9 in True Road games and 1-3 in Neutral site games, a not so respectable 7-12.
What has been the problem? Simply, the offense. Below is a chart [and the crowd rejoices] that shows the depressing numbers [the crowd stops rejoicing]:
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There isn’t a single statistic up there that isn’t significantly worse. 30-40% worse. Home field advantage is generally considered to be about 3 points. That should result in about 6 points (if it were solely focused on offense). There is a difference of 17 points between true road games and home. If home field only explains 6 points where are the 11 points going?
It is difficult to play on the road. Maybe our defense hasn’t played well either? Here is the same chart [the crowd resumes rejoicing] for the defense:
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Road |
Road/Neutral |
Home |
Home vs Power |
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|
Yards Per Game |
315.67 |
336.26 |
334.00 |
348.07 |
|
|
Points Per Game |
23.00 |
24.74 |
18.55 |
21.64 |
|
|
Yards Per Play |
4.68 |
5.04 |
5.17 |
5.56 |
|
|
Yards Per Carry* |
3.86 |
4.12 |
4.74 |
5.04 |
|
|
Yards Per Attempt* |
5.56 |
6.04 |
5.64 |
6.14 |
|
|
Turnovers Per Game |
1.80 |
1.68 |
1.91 |
2.00 |
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If anything it looks like the defense plays slightly better, but only gives up a few more points because of the turnovers from the offense.
More troubling, this problem seems to be getting worse. Below is a graph table of the Yards per play for Road and Neutral site games. I have thrown in a trendline to emphasize the point. Things aren’t getting better they are getting worse.
| Opponent | YPP | Trendline |
| NW | 6.94 | 5.20 |
| MSU | 3.73 | 5.13 |
| Iowa | 4.31 | 5.06 |
| Illinois | 5.75 | 5.00 |
| Vtech | 3.54 | 4.93 |
| Alabama | 4.80 | 4.86 |
| ND | 4.53 | 4.79 |
| Purdue | 5.84 | 4.72 |
| Nebraska | 2.94 | 4.65 |
| Minnesota | 6.59 | 4.58 |
| OSU | 5.94 | 4.51 |
| S Carolina | 4.33 | 4.44 |
| Uconn | 4.01 | 4.37 |
| PSU | 4.69 | 4.30 |
| MSU | 2.85 | 4.23 |
| NW | 4.20 | 4.16 |
| Iowa | 2.77 | 4.09 |
| K State | 4.92 | 4.02 |
| ND | 4.31 | 3.95 |
That is a negative slope of -.07
Is the offense deterioration solely on the road? Maybe. The first graph table shows Yards per Play for Home games vs the Power Conferences (essentially just the B1G and Notre Dame).
| Opponent | YPP | Trendline |
| ND | 9.04 | 7.69 |
| Minnesota | 7.95 | 7.58 |
| Purdue | 7.64 | 7.47 |
| Nebraska | 5.23 | 7.36 |
| OSU | 6.63 | 7.25 |
| Illinois | 7.98 | 7.14 |
| MSU | 5.26 | 7.03 |
| NW | 6.76 | 6.91 |
| Iowa | 8.27 | 6.80 |
| ND | 6.39 | 6.69 |
| Minnesota | 7.25 | 6.58 |
| Indiana | 9.05 | 6.47 |
| Nebraska | 2.78 | 6.36 |
| OSU | 7.35 | 6.24 |
That is a negative slope of -.11
That’s alarming, the slope is steeper (i.e. worse). That Nebraska game sure is an extreme outlier. If we exclude it (and I’m not so sure that we should), then the graph table looks pretty flat:
| Opponent | YPP | Trendline |
| ND | 9.04 | 7.31 |
| Minnesota | 7.95 | 7.31 |
| Purdue | 7.64 | 7.31 |
| Nebraska | 5.23 | 7.30 |
| OSU | 6.63 | 7.30 |
| Illinois | 7.98 | 7.30 |
| MSU | 5.26 | 7.29 |
| NW | 6.76 | 7.29 |
| Iowa | 8.27 | 7.29 |
| ND | 6.39 | 7.28 |
| Minnesota | 7.25 | 7.28 |
| Indiana | 9.05 | 7.28 |
| OSU | 7.35 | 7.27 |
The slope is still negative but barely so (less than .00)
What does it all mean? It means Hoke needs to figure out his road woes soon or we are looking at seasons capped at 8-5 and 7-6. Based on this:
This is I believe 0-4 against the big three rivals on the road over the last four years. What is this team missing? What does this team need to get over the hump?
“Winning. You win the game. You play. You don’t turn over the ball. You don’t give up big plays.”
That doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence that he knows how to fix it. I like Hoke, I think he recruits well, he makes the correct 4th down decisions, he does what I want a head coach to do. Except win games on the road. Right now, he isn’t. I think a coaching change would be disastrous for the program. 1) Who is out there that we could get that would immediately improve the team? 2) Another coaching transition would set us back another 3 years. I think we need to ride it out and hope that the results start catching up with the recruiting.
PS I can't get my pretty graphs to show up. So you are stuck with tables on the YPP and trendlines.
September 8th, 2014 at 4:44 PM ^
Other computer ratings use a standard home field advantage, but Massey calculates a home field advantage for each team based on their home/road discrepancy. (It's "HFA" in the link.)
Michigan's is the biggest in the B1G.
Oddly, though, it's only #27 in the country. For some reason home/road disparities seem to be bigger in the Pac 12 and MWC--the top ten entirely consists of teams from those two conferences plus Notre Dame.
I have no idea what's causing any of this but this if anyone has a theory this might be useful data to check it against.
September 9th, 2014 at 8:20 AM ^
I wonder what part officiating plays in the Pac-12 / MWC home vs. road disparity. Is the "home cooking" element more prevelant in those conferences? In other words, are the refs "taking over the game" and deciding the outcome due to preferential calls heavily in favor of the home team?
That seems like a real possiblitly in a situation where everyone in the conference has a large disparity in their success at home vs on the road.
September 9th, 2014 at 12:21 PM ^
The one thing all the conference members have in common is the conference officials.
ND being the one outlier in the top ten has me thinking in that direction too. Having your own TV network seems to me to be a pretty big advantage in the age of replay reviews. And they only have that advantage at home.
September 8th, 2014 at 4:44 PM ^
My first thought about halfway thru the game on Saturday was for them to STOP doing whatever they do to prepare for road games and try something else....anything!
September 8th, 2014 at 5:23 PM ^
September 8th, 2014 at 5:36 PM ^
On the road is where youth and inexperience is exposed and that seems to fit our Oline the past two seasons which would lead to a critical failure for the offense overall.
September 8th, 2014 at 10:31 PM ^
all these stats about our regression on the road the last few years could boil down to one point - youth on the O-line. O-line play is notoriously hard on the road, where crowd noise interferes with communication. Inexperienced players are already overwhelmed. Adding the stress of away games can't help. The alternate explanation that many seem to be leaning towards is that Hoke is getting worse at coaching on the road over time. Which is more likely: 1) Hoke, a coach of quite some time, is regressing in his ability to win on the road, or 2) the regression is attributable to youth that increased across the o-line proportionately with the drop in offensive performance on the road? I will go with #2.
September 9th, 2014 at 11:37 AM ^
Sure, a young OL is going to struggle w/communication on the road, and young players presumably will lack the maturity to play "mentally tough" as required to win tough road games. But that doesn't explain everything behind Michigan's current road woes under Hoke. Does "youth" explain why Blake Countess, a fourth-year guy with all-Big Ten caliber talent, isn't playing inside leverage and taking away the easy pitch-and-catch slant on fourth-and-3 vs ND last Saturday? Or why a fifth-year senior QB, Devin Gardner, locks on to his favorite receiver too often and fails to make the proper read even when he does have time to throw? I have no definitive answer on what's causing stuff like that, but "youth" is not the reason for those problems -- so one has to look at the coaching.
September 8th, 2014 at 5:42 PM ^
We played well against South Carolina, and would have won but for the defense folding in the last seconds (sans JT Floyd). The offensive production is hidden in these numbers.
We played poorly againt VT but won anyway, without Molk. What does that mean. The offense sucked, without Molk, and was lucky to even be in the game.
We played well against OSU in 2012, in the first half, and then we all know how it cratered in the second half. What does that mean. Was it bad playcalling, or related to being an away game.
My theory is that the team is not good, and teams that are not good play better at home than away; hence the overall gap. When the team is better, it will play better away. Maybe the quarterbacking is better at home because the QBs like it there. There is a lot of theorizing, when we know full well that this is not at the talent level of, say, 1999 or 2004.
September 8th, 2014 at 5:44 PM ^
of patsies for home games. The build their resume beating these teams badly. Those would skew the numbers.
Also, Michigan plays in the weak B!G and beating half them isn't anything to boast about.
The answert to winning games on the road is simple. Coaching, coaching, coaching! Good coaching reduce any advantage a home field has.
September 9th, 2014 at 8:14 AM ^
Pretty much every team in the 5 "power" conferences schedules multiple "cupcakes" at home each season. UM is not exceptional in that regard.
September 8th, 2014 at 5:45 PM ^
This is front page material, IMO.
September 8th, 2014 at 6:02 PM ^
September 8th, 2014 at 6:09 PM ^
And in line with what Average Joe pointed out, something occurred to me over dinner tonight: How do you explain Hoke's tremendous success here his first year, with players he didn't recruit, and a system he didn't run? It struck me that there was almost certainly less of an emphasis on technique and execution (not enough time to prepare), and more of an emphasis on going onto the field and playing football with pride, heart, and gut.
As Hoke began to implement his philosophy of toughness, technique, and execution, and with Gorgeous Al's utopian dreams of pro ball on college fields, the players became increasingly self concious of making mistakes and not executing. This debilitating condition has been much less evident at home, where just playing football, in front of 115,000 people, most fans, can bail you out of mental and technical errors.
It's obvious that the players have been hesitant, uncertain, uptight, and more on the road. The difference in physiognomy between our home wins against quality opponents and our road losses against such suggests that, as Average Joe pointed out, we need to go on the road with a different attitude. I would suggest a looser one.
September 8th, 2014 at 8:32 PM ^
You cannot teach toughness, Brady
It does no good to preach it, Brady.
Do not bother to talk about it, Brady.
You have to put your team through the wringer and see who comes out the other end.
Some will not make it.
You have to be tougher on your team than the opposing team will be.
See: Easy Company, 101st Airborne, and Currahee Mountain.
See: Bo Schembechler, UM, 1969
This is the difference between Bo and Brady.
September 8th, 2014 at 9:18 PM ^
This diary led me to do my own research into some of these home/road anomalies that we seem to be faced with, and I've found some interesting pieces to add as well.
Michigan Offensive 3rd Down Conversions, Home/Road:
2011: 48.39 / 45.33
2012: 57.53 / 45.00
2013: 52.22 / 26.37
I'd like to point out, those home numbers look pretty great, while it is no wonder we struggled so mightily on the road (looking at 2013).
Michigan Defensive 3rd Down Conversions, Home/Road:
2011: 35.58 / 37.68
2012: 42.42 / 27.85
2013: 46.00 / 32.97
Those are some pretty great road numbers, while it is curious to see how poorly they have performed at home. I have the road games broken down in an excel chart, and only 2011 MSU and 2013 MSU/KSU have done better than their season average against the D on the road.
My interpretation of this data is: Hoke is a defensive minded coach, and he and Mattison seem to get the most out of the defensive players on the road. The guy in charge of the offense for the first 3 years is now out, and we have a new OC installing his system. If Nuss can get things turned around on the offensive side of the ball, we could very easily see a large improvement in that road record.
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