ND/Brian Kelly TOP-Possibly a Big Factor?
Coming into the UConn game, I don't think anyone thought that Michigan would lead in TOP. But they killed it! And it seems like something we should be able to do semi-consistently as long as we are efficient on offense.
With that being said, I saw this blurb on ESPN today:
"Brian Kelly's defenses play a lot. Cincinnati finished last in the nation in 2009 with an average time of possession of 25 minutes, 46 seconds. Notre Dame couldn't match even that, holding the ball for only 24:55 in its 23-12 victory over Purdue on Saturday. The Irish defense plays longer, yet defensive tackle Ian Williams said they got plenty of push against the Boilermakers' offensive line in the fourth quarter. Here's why: Williams weighs 305, 10 pounds more than last year, yet his body fat dropped from 20 percent to 18 percent."
The Ian Williams crap aside, if we can control the ball like we did this week, I have a hard time seeing ND keeping pace and scoring enough points to beat us. Like some UConn fan said, UConn has to score on every drive because every time Michigan gets the ball they keep it for 8 minutes (paraphrased).
I know replication of Saturday's performance will be tough, especially on the road. But what do you guys think about the possibility of Michigan becoming a ball possession offense with big play ability? Me like!
September 5th, 2010 at 4:55 PM ^
Given that ND's offense is going to be better than UConn's, I expect the TOP to be a bit more even. That said, since it'll likely be a shootout, the more possessions we can get, the better. Considering that we only punted once and at least attempted to score on most (if not all) the other drives, if we can control the TOP, we'll win.
September 5th, 2010 at 7:53 PM ^
Is ND's offense definitely better than UConn's? I think it's up for debate.
September 5th, 2010 at 8:32 PM ^
It will be against us.
September 5th, 2010 at 4:59 PM ^
Kelly doesn't care much about it. It is important to us though, because our lack of depth makes it much more difficult to make good substitutions, so we don't want our defense on the field all the time and getting tired.
September 5th, 2010 at 5:33 PM ^
vs. ND. Other than that I don't think we will see a change in pace (IMO only.) Up tempo is a key to the O's effectiveness. Good clock management by RR and DRob vs UConn! RR mentioned he wanted to use clock instead of kick a field goal late (in the post game presser). Leads change everything...including our D.
September 5th, 2010 at 5:36 PM ^
It might matter if it gets nice and warm. Although right now we're looking at 78 degrees and scattered thunderstorms
September 5th, 2010 at 5:38 PM ^
... if they don't, it's loofah time in the shower with the big guy after the game; you definitely fear TOP there:
September 5th, 2010 at 6:36 PM ^
Brian Kelly's head on Charlie Weis's body...We are going to be in trouble saturday!!!
September 5th, 2010 at 5:44 PM ^
I get the sense that TOP was a byproduct of strategy and not the end goal. It seemed like they knew they could run against UCONN and push their line around all day and so they did that. The offence seemed very safe and vanilla, which is just fine at this point as far as I am concerned. But Coach Rodriguez said it himself after the game that he would have liked to have scored more. IIRC on of the features of the RR offence is to play fast, score fast and increase the score by scorning more on more quicker drives, gaining 2-3 extra chances to score per game or something like that.
September 5th, 2010 at 6:00 PM ^
From what I remember UM didn't have the best field position (several drives were 90+). That, while being a testament to our offense being able to handle such long drives, is still a comment that TOP may not be as great for us next week if we can hopefully start with better field position.
I'd like to see a statistic called Avg. Time Per Offensive Play or ATPOP for short (ha, not very short) that could be an additional useful indicator. Maybe Mathlete has this info already...or perhaps there is a stat already for this?
Overall I wouldn't expect RichRod to be well-known over time for TOP with a hurry up offense. A lot of it had to do with conservative, yet exciting and effective play calling (QB run, QB run QB run) that UConn was able to stop just enough to make us battle through many 3rd downs.
September 5th, 2010 at 6:26 PM ^
We're seeing two coaches from the Big East which was RR's home for many years. He's familiar with these guys and their tendencies. We're in good hands.
In RichRod we trust.
September 5th, 2010 at 6:39 PM ^
TOP will probably not be as big of an advantage for us for a couple of reasons:
1. Notre Dame's offense is way better than UConn's.
2. Notre Dame is much deeper than UConn. They rotated a lot of guys in and out against Purdue.
That said, I do still think it can work in our favor. If we can stop ND on 3rd down around the same percentage that we did against UConn, we'll be in god shape.
September 5th, 2010 at 7:37 PM ^
TOP is a completely discredited statistic, IMO. TOP is historically a good predictor of winning teams because teams that are winning try to run out the clock, and to a lesser extent because teams that are winning tend to have long drives, while losing teams go 3 and out. The whole "keeping the other team's offense off the field" this is silly, because possessions always alternate. A 1 minute drive and a 10 minute drive still max out at 7 possible points.
In short, TOP is what happens when you're winning, not what you do in order to win.
September 5th, 2010 at 8:14 PM ^
"Keeping the other offense off the field" is not just some dumb sports announcer's platitude. There is something to it.
First, the longer one team has the ball, the longer the other offense has to stand on the sidelines and wait. QBs hate that. They can lose their rhythm. Sometimes you see a QB who's been waiting a long time to get back out there start to press when he comes back, because he's so eager to make up for the lost time. In last year's MSU game, our offense couldn't seem to get into any kind of rhythm until the fourth quarter. That may have had a lot to do with us having an unusually low number of possessions in the first three quarters, and MSU haing the ball for very long stretches, forcing Forcier & Co. to sit tight forever.
Second, if you're ahead, you want to shorten the total number of possessions in the game. When we got back the ball after Ezeh's fumble recovery, there were a few minutes left in the third quarter. Plenty of time for UConn to come back from 24-10, right? But we produced another long, clock-eating drive that ended in a TD. By the time UConn got the ball back, it was the fourth quarter and the odds of them even having three possessions - much less scoring three times - were remote.
September 5th, 2010 at 8:16 PM ^
TOP has absolutely nothing to do with predicting winning teams.
September 5th, 2010 at 8:10 PM ^
I agree that TOP isn't a really important stat. ND plays a 3-4 and they were able to consistently beat the Purdue o-line. Rittenberg didn't rank the Boilers O-line amongst the top 5 in the conference so that might be why they struggled but the interesting thing is when they brought in their backup QB and ran some option-y plays Purdue picked up big chunks of yards on the ground. So that bodes well for Michigan's spread 'n shred. The Purdue backup is a very weak imitation of what Denard brings to the football field.
As far as ND's offense goes they had success through the air and on the ground. They have much better receivers than UConn and have comparable running backs. Both Armando Allen and Ciere Wood looked very good. The Irish are going to be a tough matchup for our back 8. The only TOP type thing that could work in our defense's favor would be our long drives on offense combined with Notre Dame's shortish drives could keep the defense reasonably fresh late in the game and they might be able to come up with a key stop. I could also see our offense wear them down late in the game.