2009 Football Statistics: Big Ten Play Only
While researching a response on another post, I came across some interesting statistics about Michigan's 2009 season that I haven't seen posted here.
If you consider Big Ten games only:
- Our offense, while improved, still had the worst average yards-per-play in the conference (4.7 Yds/P).
- Our defense also had the worst average yards-per-play (6.0 Yds/P) in the conference.
- Our net punting led the Big Ten (42.2 Yds/P). The league average was somewhere around 37 Yds/P, and we punted 5 times per game.
- We were the least penalized team in the league last year, losing an average of 34.1 yards per game. In net, we lost an average of 13.4 yards per game last year less than our opponents.
- Our turnover margin was last in the Big Ten by 0.74 turnovers per game, a huge amount.
My own analysis:
- Much of the perception of our improved offense comes from our performances against ND and our patsies. (I'm not going to address if ND is a patsy!) Our offense was still very bad in Big Ten play, but hopefully that changes with Molk back, running backs healthy, O-line developing further, and quarterback play improved.
- We probably lost our three best players (Graham, Brown, and Warren) on the Big Ten's worst defense. The growth on that side of the ball will be critical.
- Mesko was a huge weapon for us and helped alleviate our yardage disadvantages on both sides of the ball (perhaps 25 yards per game). Even if Will Hagerup is an average Big Ten punter his freshman year, we will be losing all that hidden yardage.
- Like Mesko, penalties were another hidden advantage for us. I've never read anything about Rodriguez's teams being particularly well-disciplined, but 13.4 yards per game helps.
- Turnovers were bad again, and let us pray for a regression to the mean.
http://www.bigten.org/sports/m-footbl/stats/2009-2010/confonly.html
I feel less optimistic about next season. I'm guessing 62 on DSU really helps out overall numbers.
This discussion really (at least momentarily) tempered my expectations for next season: http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/big-ten-post-spring-power-rankings
That being said, I'm still anticipating a big jump next year both offensively and defensively. Offensive improvement is expected, obviously, and provided the defensive can run the system properly, that'll go a long way to improving overall performance. I'd rather have a bunch of mediocre players running the system correctly than 3 good players and 9 lost players out on the field.
if we got away with 12 players on the field, I think that would be better. Just a thought.
Haha, touche.
that having one more linebacker standing there waiting for the play to develop, and finish, before moving would really help anything.
easy with your truth... it's painful
I understand the argument that turn overs are random, but to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I reallly buy it. Yes, most turnovers would be considered random, but when a team has near-constant, game-crushing turnovers for two seasons in a row, that points to something more systemic. If turnovers were truly random, there would be no point in talking about RBs with fumbling problems or QBs with high INT rates. (Not to mention that there'd be no point in telling players to HOLD ON TO THE GODDAMN BALL.) I think it's fair to say that the past two seasons, this team has had a problem with turnovers, and that problem is not simply random bad luck. (Which should actually be a good thing, since if it's systemic, it's fixable, if it's random, we just have to sit on our hands and hope for the best.)
I think it can be pretty clearly established that young offenses commit a lot of turnovers. Young QBs force a lot of passes into coverage, and young ballcarriers often don't protect the ball sufficiently. We should not expect a young team to commit turnovers at an average rate.
For a veteran team, OTOH, turnovers are fairly random. Why did Griese throw 3 INTs in the '97 Iowa game when he only threw three others the rest of the year? Why did Hart lose two fumbles against Florida. Just one of those days. Fortunately, we survived.
Thanks for the concise information. Those numbers are quite telling. Hopefully we get a giant leap in most of those categories this fall.
I'm not using our 2009 Big Ten offense as an indicator of our 2010 offense. First of all, we return a lot of players and with that many returning starters, especially young ones, it's hard to know how much they'll improve, because it could be a lot. Secondly, we had injuries to so many key positions last fall that it's hardly worth comparing. Tate was hurt a lot and DRob wasn't ready to really lead the offense, Molk was out most of the B10 season, Brown and Minor were hurt a lot and the receivers took turns getting dinged up. Had those players from last year been healthy, or been hurt half as much as they were, we may have won 2 more games, and we can probably expect improvement from that. How would our per-play average look had we not hiked the ball over Tate's head 10 times?
And the one meme that needs to stop is "we lost the three best players from our defense last year." We lost our best player, no doubt about it. We also lost our best DB. I know everyone was impressed with Stevie Brown's improved play last year, but neither him nor Warren were better than Mike Martin, or probably even Craig Roh (maybe Warren was). I'm not sure Stevie Brown was better than RVB. Last year our defense was bad, but it was also young, and we return just about everyone from it, and the people we're adding are already looking solid additions. I'm not saying the defense will dominate, but it won't be as bad as you suggest.
Mike Martin is a good player, but I'd trade him for Donovan Warren or Stevie Brown this year.
The "we lost our 3 best defensive players" theme is purely subjective. Person A may think that to be true. WolvinLA2 obviously doesn't think so. So you can't really say it should "stop" because it's someone else's opinion.
Craig Roh had 2 sacks and an INT, along with a handful of tackles. He was good for a freshman - and he probably WILL be better than Brown, at least - but last year he was just a good freshman, not really a good college player.
There's a difference between saying "IMO, Brown, Warren and Graham were our three best defensive players last year" and stating that they were as if it's an accepted fact, as many people do. Take out Roh, Mike Martin was more important to our defense last year than Brown was. If it wasn't for the fact that Warren didn't really have back-up, the same could have been said for Warren as well.
To David above, I doubt you'd truly trade Mike Martin for Stevie Brown this year. I bet the combination of guys we'll have at the Spur/Bandit will do a better job starting that whoever ends up backing up MM (who then wouldn't have a back-up. Bottom line, the Spur/Bandit spot is a deep,albeit young, position group (especially with Furman and MRob this fall), and DT is certainly not. Plus, MM is probably our best defensive player this fall.
1. "We probably lost our three best players" doesn't sound like me stating a fact.
2. You write:
I bet the combination of guys we'll have at the Spur/Bandit will do a better job starting that whoever ends up backing up MM.
Greg Banks has been getting a lot of praise in camp this spring. He'd probably be an adequate if unspectacular replacement for Martin. Moreover, our spur candidates (T. Gordon, MRob, and Furman) are all freshmen. MRob and Furman haven't even completed a college workout yet. I doubt this position will be average-level for the Big Ten.
The point is not that you or I are definitely right, but that the point can be argued by reasonable people. Would I trade Mike Martin for Stevie Brown? Maybe; I'd sure think about it.
Mike Martin's backup is Greg Banks or William Campbell.
Steve Brown's position is going to be filled by Thomas Gordon, Floyd Simmons, Mike Williams, or Josh Furman.
I think Martin is an excellent player, but I'd rather have Banks/Campbell on the field than freshmen or a walk-on.
Martin for Brown might be a trade that I would make - not as players overall, but for their value to the defense.
From what I understand, Will Campbell and Mike Martin are both starters at different positions, at least that's what the depth chart says. If we lose MM, we start Greg Banks at DT, but then who do we have there? DT is not a spot we have ample bodies, and none of the freshman we have at those spots will be ready to go.
I don't know, agree to disagree, I guess.
The mods at Rivals are saying that Martin will continue to play NT and Banks will be the DE/DT like Van Bergen was last year. They seem to think that Campbell will still be a backup.
So with Campbell and Sagesse as backup interior linemen, I'd say those would be pretty good fill-ins for Martin.
6 yards per play for opposing offenses? Our D was bad, but I didn't think it was that bad.
Rushing Defense giving up 203.4 yards ypg?! If the defense is going to get better, it starts right there.
thats the funny thing about AVG's... they are hard to think in.
that caught my eye. Dead last in Red Zone O and D.
Defense:
- Opponents scored 96% of the time they crossed our 20. Only MSU was about as bad.
- We got exactly 1 turnover (on downs) in our defensive red zone.
- We gave up 20 TDs (in 31 opportunities) and only Indiana was worse (20 in 32).
Offense:
- Only 12 TDs in 30 opportunities. (Tied Indiana for 2nd most opportunities, BTW, but that may be more indicative of lack of big plays, other teams scoring more from beyond 20 yards out, than it is Michigan's ability to move the ball. Dunno.) Wisky was frickin' methodical about putting in in the end zone (24 TDs in 32 opps)
- Worst is Michigan's 10 turnovers inside the red zone. No one was close to this outside of NU who wasn't really close with 6.
I was hoping there would be some stats on plays over 20 yards but didn't see this level of detail. I would guess Michigan ranked pretty low on both O and D in this category as well in conference.
This was the key to the season. With better redzone performance, we'd have been a bowl team.
(That said, we were somewhat unlucky in that our opponents went a perfect 11-11 on redzone FGs. No other conference team's opponents were perfect on redzone attempts. OSU, meanwhile, saw its opponents go 3-6. Lucky bastards.)
You guys are depressing me ....
I'm sure the quality of our competition had something to do with the offensive numbers dropping against Big Ten opponents, however, did you consider the decrease in offensive production might have had something to do with Tate's injury? Just a thought.
This discussion has done nothing to change my expectations for this year. We can wallow in last year's misery all we want, but the bottom line is that it doesn't really matter what happened last year anymore. It is over. Dwelling on it really serves no purpose in my eyes, though others will disagree.
What matters now is how well the team can play this fall. I am as excited for this fall as I was before reading this. The only validity I will give to last year is that it was better than the year before and therefore fits in with RR's pattern at other schools. By the pattern of his entire career and by the pattern of the last forty years of Michigan football, the team will improve again this year.
To me, the only question is whether we will continue to see gradual improvement or of this will be a "quantum leap" year. I am guessing that the patterns converge at eight or nine wins and a spanking of Sparty.
I have heard a lot about Tate's injury, but I didn't see much if anything that looked directly attributable to it. His accuracy was still very good, but his ball security and decision making were bad. If Tate simply eats the ball against OSU a few times then the turnover and pass efficiency numbers look better.
If you look at Tate's long ball at the beginning (WMU and ND) and what it looked like at the end, it's night and day. His injury didn't hurt his short throws much, and I agree with you that his decision making is a different problem completely from his shoulder, but against OSU, had be had the same zip on his passes as he did at the beginning of the season, a few of those wouldn't have been picked off.
Tate wasn't nearly as "swoll" last year as he is now.
(I hope I used that correctly...)
Look at the jump our offense took last year against "baby seal U" teams as compared to 2008...and that is mainly because we inserted a true freshmen QB. We lost to Toledo and barely beat Miami (OH) in 08 but beat our MAC opponents 76-24 in 09. I fully expect our offense to do much better without a freshman QB running it......for the first time in 3 years.
You are sort of onto something here. I think if we wanted to try and use the BT only stats to actually guage improvement (i.e., to the OP's notion of "has the offense really improved?") then i think we need to compare all those same depressing stats from BT 2008 to BT 2009. I'm not sure the results...but I'm guessing that some of the raw numbers (not rankings) did improve.
stats can be deceiving.
theres no way the 2010 team will be as good as the 2006 Michigan team, but i do think there is potential for this years team to have similar progression to the 2006 team.
improvement starts with the team staying healthy. an injured Forcier, Minor, and Molk contributed largely to the lack of success of the offense had at times last year. this year Michigan should have its OL anchor back in Molk, a fully prepared Denard, an experienced QB, and a bevy of pretty solid specialty players.
this offense may not have a Braylon Edwards, but many average to good teams beat past Michigan teams with less offensive talent than our offense has now.
this brings us to the kicking game and defense. i cant even begin to talk about the kicking game except to say that im very worried it will cost us games this year. i could totally see 1 or 2 less wins because of missed fg's. definitely hope that doesnt happen.
defensively, Michigan should be solid. im crossing my fingers Dorsey gets in and Christian arrives ready to contribute. the lack of secondary talent and depth scares me right now. i have faith in our DL and yes, even our LB's to come together despite losing BG. im excited to see guys like Roh, Banks, and Patterson step up.
we'll know a lot about Michigan's team between the outcomes of UConn, ND, and MSU. imo if Michigan beats all 3 then they could very well get 8 wins. on the other hand, the kicking game woes, injuries, and questions in the secondary could keep it around 6 wins.
we'll see.
For the last two years we have been terrible when it comes to turnovers. We really need to start ending that trend this fall.