Official Statistical Analysis Thread

[DaddyBigBucks]

While I'm obsessed with numbers, I'm probably even more obsessed with definitions. Most people are very sloppy with definitions; most arguments stem from this in my opinion.

One of these sloppy definitions that most people just accept (and that I have let slide without comment until now) is what we call "Scoring Offense". The number that is kept would be better characterized as "scoring", as it includes scoring done by defense and special teams too, not just scoring by the offense.

The reason I bring this up is that it occurred to me that Ohio State's offense is carrying all of the water for the team in terms of scoring this year. Other teams (looking at you Iowa) are getting a lot more help from defense and special teams. There is also the small matter of Ohio State putting the offense in neutral and coasting for the 4th quarter of most games; the Buckeyes are the only team to have won every game by double digits this year.

So I decided to compile offensive touchdowns scored by each team in the first 3 quarters of each of their games. Below is a table of the top 32 teams in this metric (Offensive Touchdowns per game in quarters 1-3)

Please excuse the sloppy numbering; I didn't bother to indicate ties.

Iowa is dead last in FBS at 0.667 Offensive Touchdowns per game in quarters 1-3.

Ohio State's lead over Tennessee (2nd place) in Scoring is just 1.167 points per game. If you extrapolate the above to 4 quarter games, Brutus is outscoring Smoky at a rate of 7.778 points per game during the first 3 quarters.

The Buckeyes and Vols are 2 of 23 teams that are tied for 41st place in Offensive Touchdowns Scored in the 4th Quarter at exactly 1 per game, so the difference shown above comes purely from the omission of defensive and special teams scores and not at all from the omission of 4th quarter scoring.

The omission of the 4th quarter did affect some teams more than it did the Buckeyes though. The 32nd ranked team in the above graph (tied for 30th actually) is tied for 2nd place in Offensive Touchdowns Scored in the 4th Quarter. That's how they roll I guess.

By quarter, the Buckeye Offense is #1 at scoring touchdowns in both the 1st and 3rd quarters, 41st in the 4th quarter as indicated above, and is in a 5-way tie for 20th place in the 2nd quarter.

EDIT: Based on the above, Ohio State is scoring at a rate of 54.44 points per game during the first 3 quarters of games.

 

[DaddyBigBucks]

Continued from the above...

If I learned anything from running DSA spreadsheets for about 10 years, it was that one of the easiest simplifications that would make the spreadsheets MORE predictive was to delete all week 1 results.

Usually more data is a good thing. But when a sub-set of the data provides more aberrations than any other by a huge margin, it can sometimes improve the predictive power of the data to dismiss the entire sub-set. So it is with week 1 in college football.

Two great examples this year: UGA-Oregon and ND-OSU

UGA is not nearly as good as week 1 indicated, and Oregon is not nearly as bad (more on that below).
ND certainly wasn't top 5 material to start the season and nor are they now, but coming within 11 points of Ohio State is not who they are. At all. That was, in my opinion, just as big an aberration as the UGA-Oregon game.


If we dismiss week 1 results from the analysis above (and restrict this change to the top 10 because it was very labor intensive), the top 10 changes quite a bit.

So as to make the results more easily digestible, I took each team's offensive scoring for the first 3 quarters and extrapolated it to a full game. The results are thus:

First of all... imagine a Scoring Offense ranking chart that looked like that. Since week 1 there has been one dominant offense in college football. Only 1. And it's not close.
Yeah, OK, Tennessee's performance last night was impressive.


Second of all... I slept on Oregon. I had no idea the kind of season that they've been having since they got home from Georgia. No, they are in no danger of beating Georgia if they played again, but they are clearly better than they showed that day.

Third: No, if I'd gone farther down the list Alabama would not have stayed in the top 10. That's a great collection of athletes, but I'm not sure B.O'B. has learned as much from Saban as some of his former reclamation projects have. If you pinned me down today, I'd say they're going to miss the playoffs.

Finally... Yeah... the giant gap between #1 and #2 at the top of that chart deserves another look. That is proof positive that NO ONE is kicking ass and then coasting like Ohio State is this year. And don't look for Iowa to slow them down either. More on that in the Iowa game thread over the next 6 days...

 

[DaddyBigBucks]

Jim Knowles did not name a player of the game on defense.
Ryan Day said several times during his press conference that he needs to see more consistency from the defense.
The coaches are coaching the players hard and are not satisfied.

I like it.

I like seeing them not settle for anything less than the best that this team can become.

They are already pretty good though. They are dominating more than anyone in the country, and it's not close.

To show this let's take a look at one of my favorite stats: yards per play. Of the old, traditional, raw stats, it tells more of the story than most.

So I ranked every team in the country by Yards Per Play Ratio (YPPR), which is their YPP on offense divided by their YPP on defense.

The top ten looks like this:



That gap between #1 Ohio State and #2 is bigger than any gap between teams separated by 3 spots in the rankings, anywhere in the rankings, in all of FBS.

Other Observations:

* Michigan State is #23 in this metric. They are still far from the 23rd best team because their QB, Aidan Chiles, has thrown multiple interceptions against every FBS opponent he's faced.

* As you can see above, Indiana is #6 in the country in this metric. Much farther down on the spreadsheet is Texas A&M. They are 70th.
* Texas A&M is ranked. Indiana is not.
* If you hid the names, which would be ranked?
* If you swapped resumes, who would be ranked where?

* The Cheaters are #63 in this metric

 

[Zurp]

So I ranked every team in the country by Yards Per Play Ratio (YPPR), which is their YPP on offense divided by their YPP on defense.

That's the worst way I've ever heard to analyze a team. I mean, hold the other team to negative yards and you get a negative score on this? Lame.

(and in case my sarcasm isn't pointy enough, let me just point out that, yes, I know that no one will ever hold its opponents to net negative yards for a season. I never thought about this, but it'd be cool to see how each team ends up, and how it relates to playoff success.)

 

[shetuck]

Jim Knowles did not name a player of the game on defense.
Ryan Day said several times during his press conference that he needs to see more consistency from the defense.
The coaches are coaching the players hard and are not satisfied.

I like it.

I like seeing them not settle for anything less than the best that this team can become.

They are already pretty good though. They are dominating more than anyone in the country, and it's not close.

To show this let's take a look at one of my favorite stats: yards per play. Of the old, traditional, raw stats, it tells more of the story than most.

So I ranked every team in the country by Yards Per Play Ratio (YPPR), which is their YPP on offense divided by their YPP on defense.

The top ten looks like this:

View attachment 46295

That gap between #1 Ohio State and #2 is bigger than any gap between teams separated by 3 spots in the rankings, anywhere in the rankings, in all of FBS.

Other Observations:

* Michigan State is #23 in this metric. They are still far from the 23rd best team because their QB, Aidan Chiles, has thrown multiple interceptions against every FBS opponent he's faced.

* As you can see above, Indiana is #6 in the country in this metric. Much farther down on the spreadsheet is Texas A&M. They are 70th.
* Texas A&M is ranked. Indiana is not.
* If you hid the names, which would be ranked?
* If you swapped resumes, who would be ranked where?

* The Cheaters are #63 in this metric

pretty cool…

now i’m curious how the rankings look just in terms of ypp given up on defense. i’m being lazy to ask, but i’m guessing that you already have that ranking as well and maybe you can share it (no sarcasm here like in zurp’s post ).

 

[DaddyBigBucks]

pretty cool…

now i’m curious how the rankings look just in terms of ypp given up on defense. i’m being lazy to ask, but i’m guessing that you already have that ranking as well and maybe you can share it (no sarcasm here like in zurp’s post ).

 

[shetuck]

View attachment 46354

wow… still not close, especially the gap after bama.

and then there’s a salivating DSS discussion around what will happen to sparty’s whopping 4.25 ypp after saturday’s game with the good guys. even more-so given sparty’s significantly weaker passing defense (relative to their running defense). gonna be heisman moment in waiting for chill will and hartline’s crew.

 

[Bestbuck36]

View attachment 46354

This is an excellent picture of the season in my opinion. Look at the anomaly right in the middle , Duke. They are sitting at 4-0 but they have not played good opponents. They are giving up more ypg than many teams ranked below them ypp. The are either scoring so fast that the other team gets the ball more or, they aren't always getting off the field and giving the ball back to their Offense even though the ypp is small. 276 plays against is huge in a 4 game span, against bad opponents. I think they are about to get a dose of reality soon.

Alabama has played a little better schedule and they are right on the same kind of pace as Duke. They are bending like crazy but there has been no break yet only 26PA on the season looks like a great red zone defense and they are scoring quickly as well. This week UGA/Bama is going to effect this list needless to say. One might actually look at this list though and make better decisions on their weekly picks and upset picks, if they were so inclined to do so.

 

[DaddyBigBucks]

Quarters Coverage​

My fairy godmother stopped by a little while ago and asked if I would like to make a wish to have the Buckeyes be a faster starting team. This immediately resulted in two realizations:
1. I'm due for another CT scan, and
2. The answer to the hallucination's question is so obvious (yes, the Buckeyes do start slow in some ways), that this is clearly a "large effect", and that therefore we are now far enough into the season that we have statistically significant sample sizes to work with. So let's break this down by quarters before my meds kick in and my fairy godmother makes another appearance.

The Offense​

Let's start out with the counter-example to the slow starts. For the most part, the passing game in general and Will Howard in particular tend to start off crisp as a freshly picked cucumber this year. On the other side of that coin, the running game seems to start sluggish. The numbers bear that out in a big way. (The rest is going to be best viewed on a computer rather than a phone)

Rushing_______________________________________Passing​

_______________

10+ means runs of 10 or more yards
20+ means runs of 20 or more yards
15+ and 25+ should be interpreted the same way for passing
The percentages indicate the percentage of plays that are of that length

A first quarter Pass Efficiency of over 195 is spectacular. It only ranks as the 14th best first quarter pass efficiency in FBS, but almost all of the teams ranked higher padded stats against FCS teams.

Now let's talk about that 1st quarter running game. Or not. Yikes. 65th in the country. Not great.

So how does the same team go from 14th best passing team in the first quarter to SEVENTY FOURTH best in the second quarter...
AND go from 65th in the country in the running game (YPC) in the first quarter to NUMBER ONE in the second quarter?

I know what some of you are thinking, but no... the sample sizes are really not that small here.
I know what some of the rest of you are thinking. Yes, Quinshon's 86 yarder was in the second quarter, but those yards contribute well under half of the difference here. The biggest difference is the NUMBER of big runs.

The Buckeyes run for over 10 yards just 10% of the time in the first quarter. There are 96 FBS teams with a higher percentage of 10+ yard runs in the first quarter. In the second quarter, the S&G running game breaks off 10+ yarders 35.9% of the time. There is only ONE FBS team with a higher percentage of 10+ yard runs in the second quarter.

The passing game goes the opposite direction, but not for the same reason. The Buckeyes get the same number of 15+ yard passes in the first and second quarters. The thing that makes the PE take a nose dive after the opening stanza is the completion percentage. For some odd reason, after the teams change ends of the field, Will Howard goes from completing 80% of his passes to just 51%.

Clearly the first halves would be better if the running game could kick into gear earlier and Will and the boys could just keep the momentum going in the second quarter.

The second half is a different story. The passing game has its best quarter in the third with a 6th-in-the-nation PE of 200.843 while the running game keeps humming, but with fewer big plays. Then things fall off a cliff when the backups come in for the 4th quarter. The good news there is that the backups have had a fair bit of playing time and have put a lot on tape to learn from. But just 1 run of 10+ yards out of 42 attempts in the 4th quarter is pretty bad. The only team in the country with fewer long runs in the fourth quarter is Florida State. They have zero. They also have negative 31 yards rushing in the 4th quarter so far this year, so they've got that going for them. The Buckeyes also happen to be 120th in the country in passes of 15+ yards in the fourth quarter. So... Chip... buddy... throw us a bone here. The fourth quarters are slow enough as it is. Let's get some big plays to spice it up a little, huh?

The Defense​

The defense starts out slow both running and passing, but "slow" is a relative term here:

Rushing_______________________________________Passing​

_______________

Slow starts are nothing new for Ohio State's defenses. Way back in 2005 I was already so familiar with the trend that when my brother called me to express disappointment that Northwestern scored on their opening drive, I told him that those would be their only points of the game, and they were. First drives have been the bane of Ohio State's defense for decades. While this year's edition of the silver bullets is keeping that trend alive, they are breaking with tradition in a way that the 2005 Silver Bullets would appreciate. They are better against the run than the pass, unlike most recent Buckeye defenses. So having a first quarter where they are only 28th in the nation in rushing defense is a slow start, but only compared to what they do the rest of the game. They go from 2.91 YPC allowed in the first to less than one YPC in the second, which is Number One in the nation for that period. They are 3rd in the nation in the 3rd quarter (1.38 YPC), while the backups post a respectable 2.23 YPC (15th) in the final stanza.

Even though the defense is really not that bad in the first, It has been especially frustrating watching Ohio State's offense produce only 2 runs of 10+ yards in the first quarter while the defense has given up twice as many (4). That's a very average performance (55th in the nation), for a defense that has yet to give up a 10+ yard run in the second OR the third quarter in any game this year, and the backups have only given up 1 such run in the 4th. If the Buckeyes can just fit the run a little better at the start of games, then they can get down to the serious business of figuring out just what the heck is going on with the pass defense.

While the Buckeye pass defense (which led the nation last year) starts a little slow in the first quarter (53rd in the nation in PE), they are even worse in the second, falling to 82nd in the nation in that period. Worse, they are 75th in the nation in percentage of passes that gain 15 or more yards in the first quarter, and 94th in the nation in that metric in the second quarter. This from a defense that has only allowed one such pass in each of the second half periods all year. Hopefully they can use the sideline tablets to start making the right adjustments before halftime. If they do, look out, because the Buckeyes are surrendering pass efficiency of less than 64 in each of the last two periods. That's not just one lock down corner, that's a lock down backfield. For that same defense to be 82nd in the nation in PE in the second period is just bewildering.

Conclusion​

Football teams tend to have periods when they are best. It is common at all levels of the sport. This team is perhaps more streaky than most, but they are not unique in this way. What is unique about them is the utter dominance they display when they are at their best. If the rushing offense and rushing defense can have better first quarters, the passing offense can have better second quarters, and the passing defense can be better in the first half, then we may have to seriously discuss the possibility of the 2024 Ohio State Buckeyes being the greatest of all time.

 

[shetuck]

So how does the same team go from 14th best passing team in the first quarter to SEVENTY FOURTH best in the second quarter...
AND go from 65th in the country in the running game (YPC) in the first quarter to NUMBER ONE in the second quarter? …

Maybe Chip Kelly has two fairy godmothers vying for his attention - a passing fairy godmother, or PFG, and a running fairy godmother, or RFG?

 

[shetuck]

Seriously, though, I think you hit on the potential root cause:

… Hopefully they can use the sideline tablets to start making the right adjustments before halftime…

We’ve all heard about the use of iPads on the sideline… so my guess here is that Hartline and Locklyn have adopted to capitalizing on this tech for in-quarter adjustments than Walton has.

 

[BB73]

Quarters Coverage​

My fairy godmother stopped by a little while ago and asked if I would like to make a wish to have the Buckeyes be a faster starting team. This immediately resulted in two realizations:
1. I'm due for another CT scan, and
2. The answer to the hallucination's question is so obvious (yes, the Buckeyes do start slow in some ways), that this is clearly a "large effect", and that therefore we are now far enough into the season that we have statistically significant sample sizes to work with. So let's break this down by quarters before my meds kick in and my fairy godmother makes another appearance.

The Offense​

Let's start out with the counter-example to the slow starts. For the most part, the passing game in general and Will Howard in particular tend to start off crisp as a freshly picked cucumber this year. On the other side of that coin, the running game seems to start sluggish. The numbers bear that out in a big way. (The rest is going to be best viewed on a computer rather than a phone)

Rushing_______________________________________Passing​

View attachment 46676_______________View attachment 46678

10+ means runs of 10 or more yards
20+ means runs of 20 or more yards
15+ and 25+ should be interpreted the same way for passing
The percentages indicate the percentage of plays that are of that length

A first quarter Pass Efficiency of over 195 is spectacular. It only ranks as the 14th best first quarter pass efficiency in FBS, but almost all of the teams ranked higher padded stats against FCS teams.

Now let's talk about that 1st quarter running game. Or not. Yikes. 65th in the country. Not great.

So how does the same team go from 14th best passing team in the first quarter to SEVENTY FOURTH best in the second quarter...
AND go from 65th in the country in the running game (YPC) in the first quarter to NUMBER ONE in the second quarter?

I know what some of you are thinking, but no... the sample sizes are really not that small here.
I know what some of the rest of you are thinking. Yes, Quinshon's 86 yarder was in the second quarter, but those yards contribute well under half of the difference here. The biggest difference is the NUMBER of big runs.

The Buckeyes run for over 10 yards just 10% of the time in the first quarter. There are 96 FBS teams with a higher percentage of 10+ yard runs in the first quarter. In the second quarter, the S&G running game breaks off 10+ yarders 35.9% of the time. There is only ONE FBS team with a higher percentage of 10+ yard runs in the second quarter.

The passing game goes the opposite direction, but not for the same reason. The Buckeyes get the same number of 15+ yard passes in the first and second quarters. The thing that makes the PE take a nose dive after the opening stanza is the completion percentage. For some odd reason, after the teams change ends of the field, Will Howard goes from completing 80% of his passes to just 51%.

Clearly the first halves would be better if the running game could kick into gear earlier and Will and the boys could just keep the momentum going in the second quarter.

The second half is a different story. The passing game has its best quarter in the third with a 6th-in-the-nation PE of 200.843 while the running game keeps humming, but with fewer big plays. Then things fall off a cliff when the backups come in for the 4th quarter. The good news there is that the backups have had a fair bit of playing time and have put a lot on tape to learn from. But just 1 run of 10+ yards out of 42 attempts in the 4th quarter is pretty bad. The only team in the country with fewer long runs in the fourth quarter is Florida State. They have zero. They also have negative 31 yards rushing in the 4th quarter so far this year, so they've got that going for them. The Buckeyes also happen to be 120th in the country in passes of 15+ yards in the fourth quarter. So... Chip... buddy... throw us a bone here. The fourth quarters are slow enough as it is. Let's get some big plays to spice it up a little, huh?

The Defense​

The defense starts out slow both running and passing, but "slow" is a relative term here:

Rushing_______________________________________Passing​

View attachment 46680_______________View attachment 46681

Slow starts are nothing new for Ohio State's defenses. Way back in 2005 I was already so familiar with the trend that when my brother called me to express disappointment that Northwestern scored on their opening drive, I told him that those would be their only points of the game, and they were. First drives have been the bane of Ohio State's defense for decades. While this year's edition of the silver bullets is keeping that trend alive, they are breaking with tradition in a way that the 2005 Silver Bullets would appreciate. They are better against the run than the pass, unlike most recent Buckeye defenses. So having a first quarter where they are only 28th in the nation in rushing defense is a slow start, but only compared to what they do the rest of the game. They go from 2.91 YPC allowed in the first to less than one YPC in the second, which is Number One in the nation for that period. They are 3rd in the nation in the 3rd quarter (1.38 YPC), while the backups post a respectable 2.23 YPC (15th) in the final stanza.

Even though the defense is really not that bad in the first, It has been especially frustrating watching Ohio State's offense produce only 2 runs of 10+ yards in the first quarter while the defense has given up twice as many (4). That's a very average performance (55th in the nation), for a defense that has yet to give up a 10+ yard run in the second OR the third quarter in any game this year, and the backups have only given up 1 such run in the 4th. If the Buckeyes can just fit the run a little better at the start of games, then they can get down to the serious business of figuring out just what the heck is going on with the pass defense.

While the Buckeye pass defense (which led the nation last year) starts a little slow in the first quarter (53rd in the nation in PE), they are even worse in the second, falling to 82nd in the nation in that period. Worse, they are 75th in the nation in percentage of passes that gain 15 or more yards in the first quarter, and 94th in the nation in that metric in the second quarter. This from a defense that has only allowed one such pass in each of the second half periods all year. Hopefully they can use the sideline tablets to start making the right adjustments before halftime. If they do, look out, because the Buckeyes are surrendering pass efficiency of less than 64 in each of the last two periods. That's not just one lock down corner, that's a lock down backfield. For that same defense to be 82nd in the nation in PE in the second period is just bewildering.

Conclusion​

Football teams tend to have periods when they are best. It is common at all levels of the sport. This team is perhaps more streaky than most, but they are not unique in this way. What is unique about them is the utter dominance they display when they are at their best. If the rushing offense and rushing defense can have better first quarters, the passing offense can have better second quarters, and the passing defense can be better in the first half, then we may have to seriously discuss the possibility of the 2024 Ohio State Buckeyes being the greatest of all time.

[Thump] More detailed info, please. [/Thump]

 

[DaddyBigBucks]

Seriously, though, I think you hit on the potential root cause:


We’ve all heard about the use of iPads on the sideline… so my guess here is that Hartline and Locklyn have adopted to capitalizing on this tech for in-quarter adjustments than Walton has.

Good point, though it would be Locklyn and Lairinaitis, and maybe the young OL coach and old DL coach, that are making best use of the tablets

The running games on both offense and defense are at their best in the second quarter

In that same quarter, the passing games on both offense and defense are at their head-scratching worst

 

[AKAK]

Maybe Chip Kelly has two fairy godmothers vying for his attention - a passing fairy godmother, or PFG, and a running fairy godmother, or RFG?

View attachment 46684

Man, if these two show up, they better not ask me about football stats.

 

[shetuck]

Man, if these two show up, they better not ask me about football stats.

hey… i’d be happy to talk to them about whatever they want as long as they stick around.