Explosive Plays
In his $Mailbag this week, Stewart Mandel talks about Penn State's lack of explosive plays. They actually rank dead last in FBS. This is going to cause a major problem for them going forward.
He also notes that all four CFP teams last year ranked in the top 20, although Michigan was last out of the four at #17. This year, according to CFBstats, we are #39 currently in long scrimmage plays (20+ yards). I'm hoping this is a result of choking out lesser competition, and saving some of those big plays for "real" competition, but it will be interesting to keep an eye on it going forward.
October 11th, 2023 at 7:42 AM ^
I think people underestimate how dominating everybody has hurt us in some of these types of stats. Our starters sitting 25-30% of the football games have greatly limited their opportunities to have big plays. We also have had minimal incentive to use our best plays that would have a higher probability of hitting for 20+. I don’t have any stats to back it up, but it seems a lot of our big plays last year occurred in the 2nd half after wearing teams down.
October 11th, 2023 at 7:52 AM ^
This. We were such a "second half team" last year the starters weren't being pulled like they are this year.
October 11th, 2023 at 8:09 AM ^
It's also worth noting that Michigan has been affected by the new clock rules far more than most teams because of our style of offense. Cumulative stats are down in all areas.
October 11th, 2023 at 8:49 AM ^
Very True. Michigan currently ranks as the second slowest team on offense in the country only behind Air Force, and we're still destroying teams.
If we ran an average amount of plays (approx. 70, vs the 60 we run now), that would extrapolate to tied with Georgia at 15.
October 11th, 2023 at 11:07 AM ^
Michigan ran their offense on the strength of 43 snaps last Saturday night in Minneapolis. That's a lot of production for 38 points especially when you consider the first string offense took the 4th quarter off again and Michigan stopped trying to score with 9-plus minutes left.
October 11th, 2023 at 9:11 AM ^
"Cumulative stats are down in all areas."
Somebody here was posting stats about the various single season records and how far away current players are from breaking them. Unless we suddenly up our tempo, I bet those records are all safe.
October 11th, 2023 at 9:13 AM ^
Yeah the only record in danger this year I think is not cumulative. JJ's 10.4 yards per attempt would break 1986 Harbaugh's record of 10.1. JJ would be 24th all time.
Also kind of crazy that Lincoln Riley coached 5 of the top 12 on that metric (counting this year which has Caleb Williams at 12th and Penix at 5th), including 2016-2019 Oklahoma being 2, 3, 4, and 9.
But even more crazy is that Grayson McCall averaged 11.9 yards per attempt (!!!) in 2021.
October 11th, 2023 at 11:20 AM ^
Michigan is tied at #17 (with Florida State) in yards per play with 6.95. So it's a productive offense on a per play basis, but not necessarily elite.
October 11th, 2023 at 11:33 AM ^
Michigan is #4 in third-down conversion percentage though. So maybe not elite on a per-play basis, but perhaps on a per-drive basis?
October 11th, 2023 at 2:16 PM ^
smart football stats guys tend to favor per-play stats as more predictive, I do think per-drive shows a bit more of how consistent we are but also is probably a bit more opponent dependent. I think our YPP is top ten though?
October 11th, 2023 at 10:44 AM ^
This. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but if memory serves correctly we had plenty of explosive plays last year against the teams we clearly took most seriously: PSU, OSU, and TCU.
October 11th, 2023 at 1:58 PM ^
We took TCU seriously?
*ducks*
October 11th, 2023 at 11:19 AM ^
Also, we are letting the clock run. We're getting fewer offensive plays in than the average team.
October 11th, 2023 at 2:38 PM ^
Now do Washington at #6 who has had one final score within 3 TDs....
October 11th, 2023 at 7:43 AM ^
Boa constrictor doesn’t need explosives. Boa constrictor is inevitable.
October 11th, 2023 at 7:50 AM ^
Is that thing eating a dog?
October 11th, 2023 at 8:04 AM ^
Looks like
October 11th, 2023 at 8:09 AM ^
Ideally...a bulldog
October 11th, 2023 at 8:10 AM ^
Whatever it is, it's too big for the snake. Sure does look like a dog, though...
October 11th, 2023 at 8:35 AM ^
Looks like a deer (fawn) to me.
October 11th, 2023 at 8:37 AM ^
100%, that is a deer (which in the majority of instances are larger than dogs)
October 11th, 2023 at 10:50 AM ^
I thought it was an ostrich.
October 11th, 2023 at 11:59 AM ^
Mean Joe better watch his ass.
Those are tree climbers.
October 11th, 2023 at 2:25 PM ^
No trees. We're torching his habitat.
October 11th, 2023 at 9:02 AM ^
I think it might be a deer or deer like animal
October 11th, 2023 at 10:32 AM ^
It’s definitely a deer. Doe, a deer, a female deer!
October 11th, 2023 at 8:13 AM ^
As always I think we keep the playbook pretty vanilla until the big games, so these stats make sense for the moment. With the talent we have I fully expect to see some explosive plays against Ohio State and Penn State.
October 11th, 2023 at 8:35 AM ^
What about the flea flicker rankings? Let's see those.
October 11th, 2023 at 8:36 AM ^
I'm sure Penn State will "move way up the ranks" - after they face powerhouse UMass this weekend.
October 11th, 2023 at 8:40 AM ^
Our running game was not hitting its stride in the first several games this season. I would be curious to see how many runs over 20 yards we had in the first 6 games last year vs this year. Now that Blake and The Don are back in form we should see them pop more of those 'explosive play' carries.
October 11th, 2023 at 9:02 AM ^
IIRC we were kind of grinding things out until the PSU game last year too.
October 11th, 2023 at 10:12 AM ^
cfbstats conveniently has monthly splits (but not, unfortunately, run/pass splits so it doesn't quite answer your question).
Through five games this year we had 25 plays of 20+. Through five games last year we had 26. Season started a bit later two years ago but through four games we had 21. 2020 we didn't have a September. 2019 it was 21 in four games. 2018 it was 27 in five games.
The lack of variance is weird but otherwise this is at least two patties short of a nothingburger.
October 11th, 2023 at 10:51 AM ^
Well, Blake, at least, is back in form.
October 11th, 2023 at 9:04 AM ^
No worries, I'm sure Frames will feed his team a whole bunch of beans before the game and there will be explosive plays all over the field.
October 11th, 2023 at 10:31 AM ^
Thanks Don..... this was one of my most used Gifs a few year back, but I lost it. Glad to have it back, like seeing an old friend for the first time in years.
October 11th, 2023 at 2:58 PM ^
You're welcome, I guess.... do you know what movie it's from?
October 11th, 2023 at 3:53 PM ^
I don't know...... it seems like someone did name the movie, but my memory is about as long as a gif to begin with.
October 11th, 2023 at 9:12 AM ^
For a serious reply on this topic:
Thru 6 games this year: Michigan has 31 plays of 20+ yards. 5.1 per game
For all 14 games of 2022: Michigan had 78 plays of 20+ yards, so 5.6 per game.
I couldn't find a specific RB ranking by year to compare, but I did find an article from last Sept. which pointed out Blake led the country in 20+ runs at the time with 8 at that stage in the season.
My guess is that given the above, our RBs have been a little less explosive than last year, we've been mercying teams by the 3rd quarter this year, and the rest of college football may be a little more designed for big play, fast hitting offense than we are.
October 11th, 2023 at 10:40 AM ^
I've been rewatching some games from last season and I had forgotten just how close some of them were. We were playing starters all the way until the end more than a few times.
Last year we were a second half team. This year we're a beat the snot out of you early then take a nap team.
I'll be interested to see what it looks like when we don't lift off the gas.
October 11th, 2023 at 11:50 AM ^
Except not taking our foot off the gas this year is being done with the entire bench. While we very well may take a step back next year I don’t anticipate falling off a cliff. Hell, the D could possibly be better.
October 11th, 2023 at 2:30 PM ^
offensively we're going to lose like, 10 starters tho right? the entire OL, QB, 2 RBs, top 2 WRs - our 3rd RB looks good, we bring back 3 TE/FB types, and I dont expect a major dropoff from receivers but do expect a major dropoff at QB - and while the 2nd OL is good, I think replacing all 5 at once would portend a step back. Trente, Raheem, Crippen, and Hinton does sound like a 4/5 of a pretty good OL though
QB is the x factor and it will be a lot of new faces. D can def hold it down though - we'll lose mikey, wallace, rod moore, barret and likely colson and Jenkins and Harrel? 5 returning starters, experienced backups stepping up at all of those positions except nickel/2nd corner, and either Walker/Hill should hit at one of those. Yea i'm feeling pretty good about the D.
October 11th, 2023 at 5:22 PM ^
‘… This year we're a beat the snot out of you early then take a nap team.’
More like …‘ beat the snot out of you early then kiss the girlfriend team’
October 11th, 2023 at 9:12 AM ^
These sorts of stats are so biased by the opposition that the early season rankings are not useful.
Consider the Denard Robinson era teams. During the first month (3 non-conference games usually), he would rip off many 20+ yard runs and passes but at the end of the year against the better Big Ten teams, it was a different matter.
As a metric for professional teams, which are more consistent in the rosters and skill level, this may make more sense.
Let's see how this looks for teams as they enter conference play.
October 11th, 2023 at 2:38 PM ^
One thing though is, how you play against crappy teams is instructive of how you will do. In 2019 we beat MTSU comfortably but right off the bat you could see this O hadn't figure itself out. We struggled against Army and got toasted by Wiscy, and it wasn't until halftime against Penn State that we looked good. In 2021 watching us blowout WMU and NIU (in addition to a bad Washington) let us know that it was going to be a good year - although how good may not be clear, taking care of bad teams gives you some idea. Being threatened by Rutgers did portend that we had a ceiling, and 2022 we weren't really threatened by anybody in the 4th quarter except Illinois. So far we've not really been threatened by anyone in the 2nd half.
Those early games do show just how well-oiled of a machine you are - it was clear right away how much better in '22 JJ was at the helm of the offense against CSU than Cade was. There's something to that, and to those who're trying to quantify it.
October 11th, 2023 at 9:53 AM ^
I don't think we or PSU should worry about it while playing with the minnows.
Meanwhile, how is OSU doing with tough guy plays? Not great, Bob.
October 11th, 2023 at 11:53 AM ^
I now see that OSU has moved on from ND being a great win to every team they’ve beaten has been undefeated. Stuart Smalley is alive and well with coach Day and the fanbase.