Michigan QBs - 2001 To Present - A High-Level Summary

Submitted by LSAClassOf2000 on

With many threads in the past month devoted to the quarterback situation for the Wolverines, I thought it might be interesting to take a holistic view of Michigan quarterbacking going back to a decade or so and compare the performance of our personnel to the average in the conference.

 

One thing that I found illuminating right away is that only in the last three seasons have we remained consistent above the conference average composite rating, if you will. Further, it was also interesting to see one particularly violent fluctuation in the numbers whereas the conference average remained more or less stable.

 

The graph for completion percentage shows that Michigan, for the most part, has stayed within earshot of the conference average in this statistic, typically a few percentage points in either direction, so we essentially trend with the conference.  Interceptions, as I am sure some will note, are definitely trending in a direction other than what we might like, but as has been said repeatedly on this board, there is one game this year which is a total aberration. Remove it, and the story is very different.

 

When it comes to yards per attempt, this is another area in which we’ve been more or less near the conference mean, and actually, in the last couple years, we have slowly improved whereas the rest of the conference has taken a small slide. We have been historically more productive in the area of passing TDs as well, with the only below average years in the studied span being 2008 and 2009.

 

Anyway, below are some thumbnail links to the graphed data.

 

Michigan QBs – Overall Rating – 2001-2012 (to date):

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Michigan QBs – Overall Completion Percentage – 2001-2012 (to date):Photobucket

 

Michigan QBs – Total Interceptions – 2001-2012 (to date):

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Michigan QBs – Yards Per Attempt  – 2001-2012 (to date):

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Michigan QBs – Passing TDs – 2001-2012 (to date):

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Michigan QBs – Passing Yards – 2001-2012 (to date):

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Comments

TESOE

November 21st, 2012 at 10:37 AM ^

Nice... I always enjoy your diaries... what happened in 2008 BTW?  That was so long ago...Oh well... it will come back to me... nice charts.

Less INTs please...

Mich Mash

November 21st, 2012 at 11:43 AM ^

...the Denard effect on interceptions.  The huge divergence from the mean from 2010-2012 is the proof in the pudding, as they say. (Not sure who says that or what it means though) 

Howeva, in my opinion, this has been offset by the Average pass yards per attempt, QB Rating and TD passes during Denard's reign. (Not to mention WINS! Which, Michigan is 4th in the league from 2010-today with 26 wins.  State has 27, Ohio and Wisconsin lead the league with 29 wins.  So we're not too far off from the top of the conference.)

Another interesting chart would be to see Rush Yards per whatever (game, carry, season) for the QB position.  I bet we might see some domination there.

DonAZ

November 21st, 2012 at 11:50 AM ^

I'm intrigued by the "conference" line trending down the last couple of years on nearly every graph.

I wonder if that's a reflection of pass defenses just getting better?

MadMonkey

November 21st, 2012 at 1:32 PM ^

conference average to have less variance over time?  Depanding on the distribution of a population, shouldn't an average from a population be expected to have less variance than a single subject from that population. Caveat: my only stats course was many eons ago.

LSAClassOf2000

November 21st, 2012 at 1:41 PM ^

Yes indeed. The averages are smoothing out a lot of individual bumps from individual teams in the conference - it makes for a more convenient comparison, I think. That being said, there is actually not as much variation in some of the raw data even across teams, depending on the statistic in question, at least in this instance.

The scales on the graph admittedly distort the fact that the variances on some of these, over the period discussed, are actually very tight. Indeed, the variance for the year-over-year conference average for YPA is 0.1% with a standard deviation of 0.26% - Michigan's individual variance is 16.2%. Another example actually is the variance of Michigan's interception totals in this period, which is 10.1, and the variance of the conference averages in this timeframe is 1.9.

PurpleStuff

November 21st, 2012 at 3:27 PM ^

43.3% completions on 141 attempts, 7 TD, 5 INT, good for a QB rating of 105.69

51.0% completions on 200 attempts, 9 TD, 7 INT, good for a QB rating of 105.26

The second numbers are Steven Threet's from his freshman year in 2008.  The first are from Ryan Mallet's freshman year in 2007.  Threet netted an extra 200 yards on the ground as well, while Mallet finished in the red.