[ED: Much obliged and frontpaged. Please do this every week, if you can.]

I hope to be able to expand on the target data I did last year. Already, it is much more fun than last year. I’ve started tracking a few different stats – if you have any other ideas for something interesting let me know and I will try to track it. The only thing that gets tough is if it requires me to "watch the film" and track stuff – I’m not sure I have time for that. I may be getting a new job in a few weeks, so that will seriously curtail my stat geek time, but we’ll start with this.

Quarterback and play calling

The first thing I wanted to track is the QB race. After watching the UCA game and reading the practice reports, it looks like Wallace has a solid leg up on Brunetti, but Brunetti played a hell of a game as well. The caveat to all these is that it’s just one game and it was against a FCS foes, we may not be able to tell much yet. With that said, the first thing I wanted to track was which QB "kept us on schedule" – that seems to be a big thing to Freeze. Football Study Hall has a stat called leverage which does a good job of that. Think of it as a 3rd down conversion rate for each down. A first down play is a success if it gets 40% of the yardage needed for a first down, second down requires 70%, and 100% for a 3rd or 4th down play. This still has problems. Obviously success begets success in this, so it’s possible to score with a low rate, but it requires big plays in bad down and distances. Also, it gives the QB credit for work the RB and OL does, but I think that’s fair as well – if a QB is not a passing threat; Defenses can crowd the line making it harder to run. I think it does a decent job of showing which QB led the most efficient drives.

Wallace beat out Brunetti, but not by much. It’s also nice to see Miller get in there and not punch a baby.

Overall as a team, we had 55 standard snaps and we ran the ball on 32 of those for a % of 58.2%. Last year, we were at 66.4% and the national average was 60%. In passing situations, we ran the ball 12 out of 23 snaps for 52.2%. Last year, we were at 38.8% and the national average was 33.3%. We were more likely to throw it on early downs than the average team was last year and more likely to run on a passing down.

The second measure I have for the QBs is more based on their passing. It breaks down each into one of two categories: if the offense is on schedule based on the measure above, it is considered a standard down; if they are ‘behind’ it is a passing down. I broke down each QBs performance in each situation.

Again, both had great nights so it’s tough to say that one really outperformed the other, but it’s nice to see that both stepped up their games in passing situations. One concern I have about Brunetti is his ability to find a receiver in the face of pressure. He dropped back to pass 3 times in passing situations and was sacked once – we’ll have to see if he can improve upon that.

WR Targets

This is the same thing I did last year. I am going to expand it to Standard Down targets vs. Passing down targets.

Overall, we went to Moncrief and Neat the most. Mosley caught everything that came his way and Allen had a little trouble. In all, the TEs had 10 targets verses 27 in all of last year. I think it’s safe to say they will be a bigger part of the offense this year. I was surprised to see that Logan and Sanders didn’t have a big role, but again, it’s tough to tell anything from one data point.

The interesting thing to me in the standard downs is how low Moncreif’s yardage per target was; I guess this is a product of the bubble screens. You have to be pleased with Korvic Neat’s performance. I think he did more in one game than he’s done in 3 years on campus.

It was in obvious passing situations that Moncrief and Mosley did the most damage. It’s nice to know that our QBs could have several targets in tough third downs and defenses can’t just key on Moncrief.

RB and OL

This is another thing I lifted from Football Study Hall – if you’re into this kind of stuff, I highly recommend that site. The thought on this is that the OL’s blocking is responsible for the first yardage gained by a RB, but at a certain point, the OL’s job is done and it’s up to the RB to pick up big yardage, highlight yards. It breaks down like this: the OL gets 100% of the credit for a rush up to 4 yards. The OL and the RB split the yardage between 5 and 10, and then the RB gets 100% of the yardage after that. Again, this isn’t 100% accurate, sometimes the OL blocks crappily, but the RB turns a 2 yard loss into a 2 yard gain. The converse of that, and we’ll call this the ‘Enricky factor’, is that the OL could have opened up a decent hole, but the back plows into the back of a guard and only picks up a yard. It’s not perfect, but no stat is.

Overall, the OL had a sack % of 8.8%. This is a little higher than last year – maybe the factor caused by losing two tackles.

Wallace and Brunetti really carried our running game. Jeff Scott nearly led the nation in this stat 2 years ago. We really need him to get this going. Note that the QBs sack yardage is removed from this.