538 Analysis of Playcalling Sequences - Don't Run on 1st Down

At first glance and given some oddities in the numbers this might not be a reflection at all of success rates on 1st, 2nd, and third down but rather its only a reflection of how they defined success differently on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd down.  And in that case, the more likely, and obvious, conclusion is that passing is the most successful option if you need to gain 5 yards (1st down success defintion) or 4 yards (2nd down) and running is on short yardage. 

If you strip it down what it's saying is "dont run plays the defense expects." 

Michigan struggles offensively because we believe we can "out execute" other teams even if they know what we're about to do.  With lesser teams that works.  With equal to or better teams it doesnt.

This post made me think about the yards gained on first down plays.  I looked for statistics that ranked teams by "yards gained on first down plays," or "yards to go on 2nd down," but I couldn't locate any that revealed that.  Does anyone know if such a stat exists?

My sense is Michigan faced a lot of 2nd and long.  I think they ran on 1st a lot, but in general did not gain much.  I'd love to see how teams like Clemson did on first down plays (run vs. pass, yards gained on first down) vs. Michigan, but I'm coming up empty.

There's the NCAA stats on "first downs offense":

https://www.ncaa.com/stats/football/fbs/current/team/693

which has Michigan tied for 50th place, but I'm not exactly sure what those numbers are telling me.

Bottom line: I'm pretty sure there's a correlation between "yards gained on first down" and winning the football game.  A team that doesn't face many 2nd and long will face fewer 3rd and long, etc.  So the "run" vs. "pass" thing is really secondary to "how successful were you on that first down play."  But I can't nail down specifics on that.

There is a deminsion or two missing. If an air raid everyone knows it's an air raid. If you are I, everyone knows run. Balances is probably the best given Clemson and Alabamas dominance 

He also had Hillary Clinton with a 99% chance of  winning the 2016 Presidential election.  So take it with a grain of salt.  Stats are skewed to get the results that the statistician wants.  Read the fine print on the graphic above.  

Mike DeBord just threw up in his mouth after reading this and realized his entire life is a lie

Looks like pass pass run is more successful to me overall.

I went through this season's UFR's (no OSU or Florida) to see how Michigan fared by sequence. Success is how often they got a first down or TD, and Frequency is how often they utilized that particular sequence. This is what I came up with:

This is a dumb analysis. Down and Distance my friend.

Show this to Army & Ga. Tech. They seem to have missed the memo. 

Or, they actually focus on perfectly executing their plays and making the most out of the slightest windows that their system opens instead of just trying to out athlete everyone since they know they cannot. 

I’d love to see a UFR of a game like Army v Oklahoma 2018 and watch heads explode when folks see the + numbers on Army’s offense. 

Point being, it all works until it doesn’t. And it should never work but then it does. If there truly was a formula every game would be the same. The only part of a formula that has any level of predictive consistency is execution. How many plays did we execute with Army like perfection and still fail? When I look at UFR’s it’s not many. 

this overly simplified analysis would need to filter through a host of variables; for instance: personnel, mismatches (either way) and defensive sets - to name just a few

I don't care what the best sequence is. Just don't run the fucking ball on first down on every team. It'll work against Central Michigan and Air Force but then as we all keep saying, you get down to Columbus and they kick your ass every damn play you try it because that's your identity and you don't know how to do anything else. I really think and hope we'll see a different identity from Michigan next year. Going to need a ton more of the quick passing game and get the ball out quick to move the chains down the field. None of this 3 or 4 receivers running all of their routes 20 yards down the field. God damn I should've started out with the passion to be an offensive coordinator. I'm probably way overconfident but I bet if I shadowed this new guy that just came in for 2 years for free and he then takes a head coaching job, I could do his job better and be the best OC your university ever saw.

This is interesting. This is a bit of statistical obfuscation though—since runs are expected on 1st, they are less successful. If passing became expected, its efficiency would wane. 

That said, Michigan is a LONG way from being suspected of passing on 1st down a lot. 

It would be fun to see an offense that called pass plays on early downs and checked into runs when the defense was favorable. 

The stats seem to say the data is where first down gets about 5 yards and the second down sets up about 3rd and 1 if it doesn't pick it up.  That seems like a limited data set.

Seems to me that these stats have no value in selecting run or pass on any down except first.     The right call after first down is dependent on the success or failure off the preceding plays.  Running on second and 10 is likely a bad call following an unsuccessful first down pass.  I guess you can compare the first down option as they each have the same initial conditions.  The rest of the info on the sequences is nonsense.

The huge caveat at the bottom skews the data.

The real strategy is to mix up runs and high percentage passes on first down to keep the defense guessing. I hate when we run on first down seemingly every time, and I hate when teams take deep shots on first down.  A 4-5 yard pass on first down is a good play.