Let's Look At Some Big Ten Running Back Stats
Chris Evans acquiring highlight yards [Bryan Fuller]
Football Study Hall published an array of stats on running backs nationwide, so let's drill a little bit deeper to see what they might tell us about the state of Big Ten running games in 2017. There are a ton of caveats involving offensive lines and sample sizes, so let's just take those as read. These are rough metrics.
Bill Connelly has two main RB-related stats above and beyond plain old YPC: "opportunity rate," which is the number of rushes that get you five yards and presumably allow you to flash your skills instead of grind into the line, and "highlight yards per opportunity," which is the number of yards you gain after the 5 yard benchmark is cleared. Here are a couple tables of these stats for returning Big Ten players with at least 40 rushes to their name. There are 28 of these gents in the league. I left in De'Veon Smith for comparison's sake. Also I did not realize that Ke'Shawn Vaughn had transferred to Vandy, so ignore him.
First, opportunity rate:
RK | Player | Offense | OppRate |
---|---|---|---|
1 | John Moten IV | Northwestern | 50.9% |
2 | Chris Evans | Michigan | 47.2% |
3 | Ty Johnson | Maryland | 45.5% |
4 | Lorenzo Harrison | Maryland | 45.5% |
5 | Brian Lankford-Johnson | Purdue | 43.8% |
6 | Akrum Wadley | Iowa | 43.5% |
7 | Bradrick Shaw | Wisconsin | 43.2% |
8 | Ty Isaac | Michigan | 43.2% |
9 | Karan Higdon | Michigan | 43.1% |
10 | Mike Weber | Ohio State | 42.9% |
11 | Devine Ozigbo | Nebraska | 41.2% |
12 | LJ Scott | Michigan State | 40.8% |
13 | Demario McCall | Ohio State | 40.8% |
14 | Reggie Corbin | Illinois | 40.7% |
15 | Rodney Smith | Minnesota | 38.8% |
16 | Robert Martin | Rutgers | 38.8% |
17 | Kendrick Foster | Illinois | 37.3% |
18 | Devine Redding | Indiana | 35.8% |
19 | Markell Jones | Purdue | 35.7% |
20 | Shannon Brooks | Minnesota | 35.5% |
21 | Saquon Barkley | Penn State | 35.3% |
22 | Josh Hicks | Rutgers | 33.3% |
23 | De'Veon Smith | Michigan | 33.1% |
24 | Gerald Holmes | Michigan State | 33.0% |
25 | Justin Jackson | Northwestern | 32.2% |
26 | Tre Bryant | Nebraska | 31.8% |
27 | Devonte Williams | Indiana | 31.3% |
28 | Ke'Shawn Vaughn | Illinois | 26.7% |
29 | Tyler Natee | Indiana | 26.2% |
This is not entirely fair to Smith because his heavy usage means he was light on carries against the Rutgerses of the world. There's a distinct tendency towards workhorses at the bottom of this list: Devine Redding, Saquon Barkley, and Justin Jackson got more touches than anyone else in the league and they're 18, 21, and 25 here.
Highlight yards:
RK | Player | Offense | Hlt/Opp |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Ty Johnson | Maryland | 12.39 |
2 | Ke'Shawn Vaughn | Illinois | 10.33 |
3 | Saquon Barkley | Penn State | 8.24 |
4 | Lorenzo Harrison | Maryland | 8.17 |
5 | Brian Lankford-Johnson | Purdue | 7.46 |
6 | Kendrick Foster | Illinois | 7.29 |
7 | Reggie Corbin | Illinois | 7.25 |
8 | Chris Evans | Michigan | 7.11 |
9 | Justin Jackson | Northwestern | 7.03 |
10 | Akrum Wadley | Iowa | 6.31 |
11 | Gerald Holmes | Michigan State | 6.31 |
12 | Karan Higdon | Michigan | 6.2 |
13 | Mike Weber | Ohio State | 5.59 |
14 | De'Veon Smith | Michigan | 5.54 |
15 | LJ Scott | Michigan State | 5.3 |
16 | Bradrick Shaw | Wisconsin | 4.98 |
17 | John Moten IV | Northwestern | 4.87 |
18 | Robert Martin | Rutgers | 4.79 |
19 | Ty Isaac | Michigan | 4.68 |
20 | Rodney Smith | Minnesota | 4.56 |
21 | Devine Redding | Indiana | 4.42 |
22 | Shannon Brooks | Minnesota | 4.41 |
23 | Demario McCall | Ohio State | 4.18 |
24 | Tyler Natee | Indiana | 3.6 |
25 | Tre Bryant | Nebraska | 3.24 |
26 | Devonte Williams | Indiana | 3.21 |
27 | Markell Jones | Purdue | 3.02 |
28 | Josh Hicks | Rutgers | 2.88 |
29 | Devine Ozigbo | Nebraska | 2.81 |
It should be noted that Ke'Shawn Vaughn and Lankford-Johnson are working with very small sample sizes here. That's about 16 Vaughn attempts and 20 Lankford-Johnson attempts.
This is more evidence in Chris Evans's favor here: he, Isaac, and Higdon all got about the same ratio of legit carries to second-half-against-Rutgers carries, and Evans grades out better in both metrics than his other competitors. Isaac is well behind Smith in highlight yards, which is a bad place to be when you're competing with two guys significantly above him. Evans's combination of many successful runs and not-quite top-tier explosiveness is highly encouraging. Multiply these two items together to get a "highlight yards per run" (as opposed to opportunity) and he's third in the league behind only the two little Maryland lightning bolts. This metric is essentially a measure of your ability to get chunk runs, and the high rankings of Barkley and Akrum Wadley are a good sanity check for the measure:
Player | Offense | Hlt/Att | |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Ty Johnson | Maryland | 5.6 |
2 | Lorenzo Harrison | Maryland | 3.7 |
3 | Chris Evans | Michigan | 3.4 |
4 | Brian Lankford-Johnson | Purdue | 3.3 |
5 | Reggie Corbin | Illinois | 3.0 |
6 | Saquon Barkley | Penn State | 2.9 |
7 | Ke'Shawn Vaughn | Illinois | 2.8 |
8 | Akrum Wadley | Iowa | 2.7 |
9 | Kendrick Foster | Illinois | 2.7 |
10 | Karan Higdon | Michigan | 2.7 |
11 | John Moten IV | Northwestern | 2.5 |
12 | Mike Weber | Ohio State | 2.4 |
13 | Justin Jackson | Northwestern | 2.3 |
14 | LJ Scott | Michigan State | 2.2 |
15 | Bradrick Shaw | Wisconsin | 2.2 |
16 | Gerald Holmes | Michigan State | 2.1 |
17 | Ty Isaac | Michigan | 2.0 |
18 | Robert Martin | Rutgers | 1.9 |
19 | De'Veon Smith | Michigan | 1.8 |
20 | Rodney Smith | Minnesota | 1.8 |
21 | Demario McCall | Ohio State | 1.7 |
22 | Devine Redding | Indiana | 1.6 |
23 | Shannon Brooks | Minnesota | 1.6 |
24 | Devine Ozigbo | Nebraska | 1.2 |
25 | Markell Jones | Purdue | 1.1 |
26 | Tre Bryant | Nebraska | 1.0 |
27 | Devonte Williams | Indiana | 1.0 |
28 | Josh Hicks | Rutgers | 1.0 |
29 | Tyler Natee | Indiana | 0.9 |
Takeaways: Maryland's running game is majorly underrated because they split carries so heavily, OSU is going to miss Curtis Samuel immensely unless Damario McCall steps up big (survey says: he probably will), and we should be optimistic about Chris Evans and Karan Higdon going into 2017. Also, Justin Jackson is back?! How many PhDs they gonna give that guy before his eligibility expires?
uh oh watch out for the ire of Michiganman14 after this post
Interesting that Higdon is right above Weber on both measures and 2 spots above Weber on the combined measure.
Is Higdon practicing in Rome? I saw a video of RBs going through a drill and didn't see him in the group.
Higdon did not make the trip to Rome
That's that. Too bad.
that's got to be disappointing for him, and any other guys who couldn't make the trip for academic or other reasons. I read that some of the guys just arrived Tuesday night (or early Weds?) because of their finals schedule.
April 28th, 2017 at 12:07 AM ^
Sooooo Higdon > Weber. Good to know.
Weber wearing a Michigan shirt on Twitter when he hit the gym yesterday.
Too soon?
#NeverForget
Yep. Higdon > Weber. Confirmed by science.
Higdon > Weber means Weber < Higdon implicitly. Redundant explicit conclusion is unnecessary. Higdon > Weber .and. Higdon = Weber is a null set {}.
Still not sure WTF it means, or has any practical use.
this might not be the best blog for you
I expected more from a 4.0 student and Harvard Law Grad.
You make Bo sad.
The Terp numbers have to do with those backs being good, and also a lot to do with the nature of Maryland's offense. They spread 3 or 4 receivers (usually 4) WAAAAAAY outside where the only possible passing game is a WR screen.
So they're consistently running into 5-man boxes, 6 at most. It's basically selling out everything for the run game, which gets their backs some mondo opportunities in space whenever they can crack the front, but gives the offense a definite ceiling. It was a great idea given Ty Johnson is a bitch to cover in open space (Lorenzo Harrison is Ty Johnson lite) since passing downfield was just an invitation to Perry Hills and PIGGY(!!!) to throw 30 interceptions a season again.
They also used a lot of Ohio State-like power option tricks to make those cracks:
That's 10-15 extra chunk yards because most of the secondary had to line up a mile away from the play.
They spread 3 or 4 receivers (usually 4) WAAAAAAY outside where the only possible passing game is a WR screen.
But the most likely possibility for their passing game in sack-adjusted offense is a sack.
and running backs in the same sentence, I immediately think of Poor Damn Toussaint.
I look forward to the days ahead when I do not think that.
was not disappointed.
jokes?
sounds like we've got a pretty powerful 1-2 punch and both should get lots of opportunities this fall
Would like to see how Drake Johnson compares.
I think Jackson is slightly above average. B- back.
has to be Saquon Barkley who is a potential 1st round pick and Akrum Wadley. Both are big plays waiting to happen. I wonder if Kirk Ferentz wised up and give the majority of the workload on Wadley.
Justin Jackson is Just a Guy to me. Nothing too special and is a by product of volume stat padding that makes him look better than he appears to be.
I see you, Isaiah
Let's be honest. This entire post was done so you could highlight how Higdon is better than Weber, but then you tried to throw us off by never mentioning it in your article...You sly little devils!
April 28th, 2017 at 10:10 AM ^
Both Evans and Higdone have been impressive with their ability to find holds and make big plays, which is something we seem to have been lacking for a long time at RB. I don't know how much of that has been poor blocking.
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