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2014 Philosophy - By the Numbers

DiegoCane said:
LuCane said:
dg151 said:
LuCane said:
dg151 said:
I don't really understand the relevance of the offensive part. We're 4th in the country in yards per play. It's not like we're Stanford and Wisconsin and running it 40/50 times a game. Also what is Miami 38th in on defense?
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That was actually the point, as stated in the original post. It's relevant because we're NOT running 40/50 times a game trying to play a particular brand of football and highly ranked on defense like they are. Yet, we're still at the bottom of the barrel in plays.
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But we're inefficient on offense and are good at chunk/big plays. We run a relatively slow pace with how much we check at the line, so we do slow the game down, but we're still going to have those big plays on offense unless we run power every time which would be kinda stupid. Was your criticism just that the offense didn't match the defense, or was there something specific you think the offense should do from a philosophical stand point that would help the team?

I'm still curious what Miami is ranked 38th in on defense because I can't find it.
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It wasn't a criticism necessarily. When I went to look at stats, I didn't know exactly what to expect. It was an observation of a statistic I had thought we'd improve. We should be running more plays. Outside of that early period that seems scripted (I don't know if it is, but looks like it), we're very slow to get plays in and have little rhythm.

As for the defense being 38th (as of 10/21), see image:

View attachment 26631
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Lu used all stats vs FBS opponents only. That is why there is the confusion.

Its a more accurate view of things.
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Ah, yes. Thanks for answering for me. I think it's a fairer way to judge numbers.
 
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Total stats in college are generally worthless because of the huge variance in opponents even in FBS. The FEI/S&P stuff does a decent job with it.
 
dg151 said:
Total stats in college are generally worthless because of the huge variance in opponents even in FBS. The FEI/S&P stuff does a decent job with it.
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I agree, generally. These stats, combined and mixed with some other observations, at least provide a look into the results of our choices. It's a scary combination to have nearly the least amount of plays per/game in all of FBS and yet run a style of defense that allows your opponent to get safe yards.
 
RiDLer80 said:
Anybody familiar with Football Studyhall?

It's a really good site that delves deeper into numbers than just basic total yards, passing yards, rushing yards etc.

Somebody should e-mail Bill C. and see if he'd be interesting into looking at yards per play variance.
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FEI has 22% of drives as explosive (10+ypp), which is 13th in the country. 3% on methodical drives (10+ plays on a drive), which is 128th of 128.
 
dg151 said:
RiDLer80 said:
Anybody familiar with Football Studyhall?

It's a really good site that delves deeper into numbers than just basic total yards, passing yards, rushing yards etc.

Somebody should e-mail Bill C. and see if he'd be interesting into looking at yards per play variance.
Click to expand...

FEI has 22% of drives as explosive (10+ypp), which is 13th in the country. 3% on methodical drives (10+ plays on a drive), which is 128th of 128.
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wow, I remember you posted last week on how Miami is reliant on the big play and theres the tell all, thats why I dont like this Thursday, al Bud Foster has to do is take away the big play
 
On defense we're 13th in explosive drives allowed (6%), and 109th in methodical drives (20%).

VT on defense is 88th and 2nd. They're 118/41 on offense.
 
dg151 said:
On defense we're 13th in explosive drives allowed (6%), and 109th in methodical drives (20%).

VT on defense is 88th and 2nd. They're 118/41 on offense.
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so the game comes down to UM big plays vs VT drives, sounds standard, we will be fighting TOP again and putting pressure on O to be flawless
 
dg151 said:
On defense we're 13th in explosive drives allowed (6%), and 109th in methodical drives (20%).

VT on defense is 88th and 2nd. They're 118/41 on offense.
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So what this tells me is that VT's defensive weakness plays right into our strength?
 
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The defensive stats/philosophy is so mind blowing that it almost seems like the coaches are intentionally sabotaging the program and its players.

SFla has literally the best football players in the nation. They grow up playing aggressive downhill football. But the coaches decide its best strategy is to allow free yards and hope the other teams offense makes a unforced mistake. We put zero pressure on opposing offenses.

I simply will never understand the rationale where the defense is designed to essentially keep our offense off the field.

I'd rather give up 55 points quickly then have us give up 28 but only have the ball for 46 plays and 19 minutes. UNC has one of the worst defenses in D1, gave up 611 yards to GT but still won. Why? Because they had the ball for 88 plays, 28 minutes and put up 48 points and outscored them. And UNC doesn't have close to the talent and athletes on the defensive side of the ball.

I've never been this frustrated as a Miami fan. Not 97, not the Coker or Shannon years. Not only do we stink but we play a terrible brand of football. I don't think there is another staff in the big 5 conferences that I wouldn't trade for right now. I honestly believe every single coach would have us playing better then we are right now.
 
Here's another stat that supports Lu's point:

We are 113th in the nation in Tackles for Loss/game. 53rd in the nation is Sacks/game.


We put 0 pressure on an offense, allow them easy first downs. Only way we make stops is when a team makes an unforced error.
 
Our bend but "don't break" defense and our inefficient 3rd down offense has created a nightmare scenario for both the offense and defense, especially against the option/read option offenses that are so popular in college football today. As discussed in this thread and many others, and affirmed by our defensive coordinator's quote from this weekend regarding the progress of our defense based on yard per play, our defense is designed to give up 4 yards a play but prevent the big play.

Many teams, and particularly GT, are happy to take the 4 yards per play all the way down the field if it's available. It was unbelievable to see Nebraska and GT control the clock and the game with their running attacks and without any big plays. Both those teams were happy to play keep away and we were happy as long as they weren't gashing us for big plays. Both teams stayed on schedule, resulting in a ton of easily convertible 3rd and shorts, which we of course didn't challenge by bringing guys closer to the line. Nope, we wanted to continue to make sure they didn't gash us on 3rd and 2, even if it meant giving up 3rd downs.

The long drives given up by our defense puts enormous pressure on our offense. They basically have to score whenever they get it, as if they don't, they may not get it back for 5+ minutes. Obviously, for one reason or another, which I actually think is harder to figure out than our defensive struggles, we cannot stay on the field on 3rd downs (and couldn't last season either). We have one of the best RBs in college football, an NFL caliber TE, several NFL caliber WRs, a few NFL caliber OLs, and a QB who is much more accurate and able to use the field than our previous QB. However, 3rd down is our cryptonite. Whether it's the play calls on 3rd down, or on 1st or 2nd down, or something, we can't sustain drives. We end up relying on the big play on offense for points, and when we don't get any big plays, our offense stalls, and we have to put our passive defense back on the field.

It's not surprising that our offense doesn't run a ton of plays, but it is surprising that we run so few plays, especially given that we're not a ball control offense and we're not the Miami of old, with frequent 2 minute drives. With the defensive scheme we run, we simply can't have our defense on the field for this many plays.
 
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