2014 Final Offense Stats
I took a look at the final stats this morning and as we are all aware, this offense was statistically bad. The team had 10 total touchdown passes, the fewest since 1986.
All of this data is not exactly comparable as it is season totals which for 2009 and 2014 will not include bowl games. Otherwise it is a visual comparison of the last 11 Michigan offenses.
This team had 859 fewer yards than last year...
...and the points fell along with it, scoring 27 touchdowns, fewer even than the 28 scored in 2008:
Rushing yards were up...
...as were YPC, but YPA fell dramatically:
Of course the most damning thing for this offense was the turnovers. I don't have stats for fumbles but the TD/INT ratio tells you enough:
Data:
November 30th, 2014 at 9:34 AM ^
The best thing we can say about the offense this year is that they didn't go backward as much. But of all the things Hoke did wrong, the failure to develop a single competent QB may have done him in more than anything.
November 30th, 2014 at 9:36 AM ^
This must of taken a long time, +1
November 30th, 2014 at 9:37 AM ^
Great post. Thank you for this.
November 30th, 2014 at 9:39 AM ^
I could be wrong but I think that the YPC rushing yards should be blue and passing yards red...
outside of that you did a great job.
thanks,
jdon
November 30th, 2014 at 9:45 AM ^
Thanks, good catch.
November 30th, 2014 at 9:44 AM ^
November 30th, 2014 at 9:50 AM ^
What is shocking is the yardage and TD's thrown by Gardner from last year to this. He threw for nearly 3000 yards last year.
November 30th, 2014 at 12:36 PM ^
Fire Borges
November 30th, 2014 at 9:54 AM ^
This is excellent work! Thanks for taking the time to do this and post this.
If there are small victories to be gleaned from the numbers this season, one of them might be the reduction in negative plays on the ground. Last year, there were 510 yards of negative rushing (which includes sacks, of course), but it fell about 40% this year to 300 yards of negative rushing. This translated to what you see - a 16% jump in net rushing despite having close to the same amount of total positive yards (2,144 in 2013, 2,254 this season). Buried in there, I would say, is some improvements on the offensive line.
November 30th, 2014 at 8:29 PM ^
The impact of negative plays is probably overstated. If the cost of getting them out of your offense is that you lose explosive plays too, the cost might not be worth paying.
November 30th, 2014 at 9:55 AM ^
A very nice job --- thanks for this.
1986 might have seen just a few TD passes, but that 11-2, BIG Co-Champ team didn't need them. They won all three rivalry games. Jamie Morris ran behind a great offensive line (Husar, Dames, Vitale, Hammerstein, Elliott). The D featured such players as Mark Messner, Billy Harris, Andy Moeller and Garland Rivers. The only time they got outplayed was by a pass-happy Arizona State team in the 1987 Rose Bowl. Bo might have realized then that the game had somewhat passed him by (pun intended). He retired after the loss to USC in the 1990 Rose Bowl.
The quarterback for the 1986 team was also voted the team's most valuable player: a guy by the name of Jim Harbaugh.
November 30th, 2014 at 11:31 AM ^
Interestingly, Harbaugh finished 3rd in the Heisman voting despite those 10 TD passes. He averaged an insane 9.9 YPA that season.
November 30th, 2014 at 10:00 AM ^
I know people hated Borges (I was done with him at the end of last year, too), and he did get worse every year from the chart above, but he had us at a respectable 8.37 and 8.15 YPA... Almost on par with RR his last year here. I think if he had been retained we would have seen DG have a good year and we go 10-2, losing only to OSU and Staee, which is still unacceptable, but I missed big Al this year...
All things considered after this season: I fully expected Nuss to improve the offense over the course of the season, but he did not have it firing on all cylinders at the end, which is unacceptable. Would rather have had Borges with DG another year to see how that panned out.
November 30th, 2014 at 11:32 AM ^
With better QB play, we may well have beaten OSU. Remember that Gardner's two turnovers led to 14 OSU points.
November 30th, 2014 at 10:10 AM ^
I miss Chad Henne and I miss Denard Robinson.
November 30th, 2014 at 10:47 AM ^
In addition to them, I miss Dennis Franklin, Rick Leach and Elvis Grbac.
November 30th, 2014 at 10:14 AM ^
November 30th, 2014 at 10:47 AM ^
It's totally possible you guys!!! /s
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November 30th, 2014 at 10:21 AM ^
November 30th, 2014 at 10:38 AM ^
Well, when you throw mostly bubbles to your 6'4 WR, your YPA is probably going to suffer.
November 30th, 2014 at 10:39 AM ^
November 30th, 2014 at 10:44 AM ^
This O-Line was good enough for this team to win 8-9 games this year and showed marked improvement. Give them a coaching staff next year that figures out that there job is to exploit the other team's weaknesses and I give the O a decent chance to be very good. And I do not fear our QB situaton nearly as much if intelligent coaching is present. This is COLLEGE ball, not the NFL, examples of young QBs abound. Eliminating our coaching disadvantage will improve this. There are enough solid pieces around next year's QB to work with here. Bank it.
November 30th, 2014 at 10:48 AM ^
Announcer said this was the worst turnover margin since 2007. For the entire conference.
Devin was the major cause of a lot of it but the defense didnt create many turnovers at all. We had 5 fumbles recovered and 5 INTs all year. PSU had I believe 5 INT vs Gary Nova in 1 afternoon (maybe it was 4).
Lewis was the only CB to have an INT all year - with 2. Our DL had 2. One LB had 1. That's it. So our DL had as many INT as our DBs.
This conference is so bad that just reducing the turnover margin by 8 this year (1 per conf game) and we probably win 3 more games. Not that it would have fixed all the other issues but this was a historically bad year for turnovers.
November 30th, 2014 at 10:50 AM ^
Turnover margin just killed us.
November 30th, 2014 at 10:50 AM ^
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November 30th, 2014 at 10:53 AM ^
November 30th, 2014 at 11:06 AM ^
Every time David Brandon fired an OC, yardage went down the next year. What a fucking putz...
November 30th, 2014 at 11:39 AM ^
Sooooo Nick Sheridan and Steven Threet had more passing TDs than 5th-year Devin Gardner. That's neat.
November 30th, 2014 at 11:50 AM ^
November 30th, 2014 at 12:42 PM ^
These are great charts- and they point out a pattern that is hard to ignore:
Gardner killed us this year
lower passing yards, interceptions and fumbles (he had a few), sacks for loss
Pass blocking was actually better this year- as was run blocking
The regression of DG explains a lot of this season
November 30th, 2014 at 2:01 PM ^
is it Nuss' fault for that regression? Genuinely curious. I thought he was supposed to be a qb guru, and coming from Sabans staff a can't miss right? Devin's play this year was the binding constraint on the season and I find it perplexing.
November 30th, 2014 at 12:43 PM ^
November 30th, 2014 at 8:23 PM ^