ANALYTICS & STATE OF THE PROGRAM : PART 1 (TALENT & BLUE CHIP AVERAGE)

[DTP]

I just don't see it with FSU. I look at their roster and see a ton of overrated kids.

That's why OP is doing two more parts to this thread covering coaching and development. There's definitely reasons why certain schools recruit at elite levels but it doesn't translate to winning at elite levels.

 

[Hemsleysalmons]

Our head coach is an analytics nerd. I guess he has no life.

Dumb post. It is Diaz job to do anything that he feels will make the Canes team better. If it is analytics, fine. Op probably not employed by Canes. As for op, seems to me that he can spend his precious time on more productive things. Op no doubt spent many hours on attempting to advance his agenda. This long dissertation on an anonymous forum that is populated by a good percentage of people that are barely literate is a wasted exercise.

 

[Hemsleysalmons]

What a ****ty comment. You are probably one of the guys that argues to oblivion re uniforms or cleats or unimportant **** like that and cannot understand appreciate or delight in the OP's data and conclusions.

To then OP sensational work. Thank you. MOAR of this. Look forward to Part 2 and 3.

Your comment and majority of posts concerning our team means very little. Everybody has an opinion. Sit back, take a deep breath and wait till 8/24. After game you guys can post your heads off about results of game and what happened in a positive or negative nature during game.

 

[duke4heisman]

Dumb post. It is Diaz job to do anything that he feels will make the Canes team better. If it is analytics, fine. Op probably not employed by Canes. As for op, seems to me that he can spend his precious time on more productive things. Op no doubt spent many hours on attempting to advance his agenda. This long dissertation on an anonymous forum that is populated by a good percentage of people that are barely literate is a wasted exercise.

Just like how you spend all your time downvoting posts here and porsting your OPINION about everyone else?

 

[JD08]

Op a new cis nerd who seems to be someone that has absolutely nothing going for him except analytics. You can bet he does the same thing with other sports related issues. **** of a way to run a life.

OP added value with his post. When have you?

 

[Hemsleysalmons]

Just like how you spend all your time downvoting posts here and porsting your OPINION about everyone else?

Wrong. Exaggeration by you “Spend all your time downvoting.....”. I go days without even looking at this forum. When I do look, I only review subjects that appear worth reviewing. Then I look and sometimes react to comment. I would guess when I’m on forum it is an average of 15 minutes a day. Cis is not a priority in my life unlike the majority of nerds that post here. Therefore so I don’t offend your warped logic, I will place you on ignore and you should put me on ignore.

 

[KingB02]

OP has a loooottttttttttttt of free time

Nikka stop hatin'

 

[Andrew]

A few of the NC winning QB's have had at least some NFL success:

Vince Young - 2 Pro Bowls (Hard as that is to believe)
Deshaun Watson - 1 Pro Bowl
Jameis Winston - 1 Pro Bowl
Cam Newton - 3 Pro Bowls & 1 NFL MVP

The weaker QB's have had 2 Elite playmakers on their teams:

Greg McElroy = Mark Ingram & Julio Jones
AJ McCarron = Eddie Lacy & Amari Cooper
JT Barrett = Ezekiel Elliot & Michael Thomas
Jacob Coker = Derrick Henry & Calvin Ridley
Jalen Hurts = Josh Jacobs & Calvin Ridley

Between QB/RB/WR - NC winning teams almost always have at least 2 big time NFL talents at the skill positions

Ken Dorsey would be on the bottom list, except he had more playmakers then any other QB in the history of college football.

 

[Andrew]

I'm curious to know what kind of engineer you are.....I'm actually a Data analytics major at UM myself and was tossing around ideas on a ML algorithm with my compsci friend (who's also a die hard football fan like me) that would use a series of underlying webscrapers to pull 100m times, combine reports, weightlifting meet results, and game stats to identify talent in rural areas of the country. Our kids down here have the fortune of being able to be seen by a scout at any given HS game, but statistically speaking you know there's gotta be hundreds of all Americans the system misses because of a lack of info and limits on the amount of ground scouts can cover in a given year. I'm picturing the
Walter Jones' and Ray lewis' of the world who might of have been missed simply because they live in podunk, Arkansas.

One challenge is a lot of these kids don't go to camps, so you are going to have a hard time scraping data for them.

 

[Canemang]

Nikka stop hatin'

I'm white

 

[WhatTheHell]

Good post, Dave.

What this tells me and all the fans is that anything other than a Coastal title this year should be seen as a failure by Manny.

The talent disparity between us and our divisional opponents is significant.

 

[954Cane'21]

One challenge is a lot of these kids don't go to camps, so you are going to have a hard time scraping data for them.

That's very true and valid, which is where the track/weightlifting results which are normally posted by the school district and huddl stats would have to come into play. It's not perfect by any means but if you approach un-starred recruiting like seed/angel stage investing, you plan to fail on 99 in the hopes you hit on that one.

 

[Andrew]

That's very true and valid, which is where the track/weightlifting results which are normally posted by the school district and huddl stats would have to come into play. It's not perfect by any means but if you approach un-starred recruiting like seed/angel stage investing, you plan to fail on 99 in the hopes you hit on that one.

The track and field sites would be excellent to scrape.

 

[clg003]

The problem with data analytics is that the conclusions are only right 17.67464 % of the time and wrong 96.5 % of the time.

 

[bacane]

Appreciate the time and effort pulling this together, but analytics are just a part of the whole picture. Lost me when suggesting that Clemson's blue chip rating or whatever ranked 14th last season. That's crazy. Problem is predicated on recruiting services ranking of 17-18 year olds, which remains a wild crap shot.

12. Notre Dame	12.50	INDEPENDENT
14. Clemson	12.00	ACC - Atlantic

 

[David Vamos]

Dumb post. It is Diaz job to do anything that he feels will make the Canes team better. If it is analytics, fine. Op probably not employed by Canes. As for op, seems to me that he can spend his precious time on more productive things. Op no doubt spent many hours on attempting to advance his agenda. This long dissertation on an anonymous forum that is populated by a good percentage of people that are barely literate is a wasted exercise.

I appreciate the constructive criticism. No, I am not employed by the Canes. Yes, I did spend some "precious time," but not all my time on this little side project. I don't have an "agenda." Personally, I've been a big Jarren Williams fan since he stepped onto campus. This "exercise" maybe wasted to you and you are entitled to your opinion. Football games are won on the field, not on a analytical data sheet. But a analytical data sheet can reveal a lot about a football program and their counterparts. Especially the past as well as the current trends. Whomever wins the QB Battle will be the right choice and in Manny Diaz I trust. IT'S GREAT TO BE A MIAMI HURRICANE!

 

[Canesfan84]

Dumb post. It is Diaz job to do anything that he feels will make the Canes team better. If it is analytics, fine. Op probably not employed by Canes. As for op, seems to me that he can spend his precious time on more productive things. Op no doubt spent many hours on attempting to advance his agenda. This long dissertation on an anonymous forum that is populated by a good percentage of people that are barely literate is a wasted exercise.

I appreciate the constructive criticism. No, I am not employed by the Canes. Yes, I did spend some "precious time," but not all my time on this little side project. I don't have an "agenda." Personally, I've been a big Jarren Williams fan since he stepped onto campus. This "exercise" maybe wasted to you and you are entitled to your opinion. Football games are won on the field, not on a analytical data sheet. But a analytical data sheet can reveal a lot about a football program and their counterparts. Especially the past as well as the current trends. Whomever wins the QB Battle will be the right choice and in Manny Diaz I trust. IT'S GREAT TO BE A MIAMI HURRICANE!

Well said, sir. Well said. Appreciate the insight. It definitely makes you look at things from a different perspective

 

[Home Slice]

It's a new season. A new era. A NEW MIAMI. But how do we make sure that we don't repeat the shortcomings of the past? In fact, what has caused us to fall so far from grace? Has our recruiting been bad? Is it the coach's fault? Are we not developing the players right? You need THREE things to be SUCCESSFUL: TALENT, COACHING, DEVELOPMENT. Let's take an in-depth, analytical look at The U.

TALENT

​

"Talent" is defined in the dictionary as natural aptitude or skill. When you think of Miami, you should think of speed and skill. Playmakers. How have the Canes stacked up against the other competition?

Bud Elliott wrote an article on Blue Chip Ratio. Blue Chip Ratio is the percentage of your roster that has Blue Chip (4 & 5 Star) players. If your Blue Chip Ratio is 50% or better, you are considered a national title contender. 13 teams reached that plateau last season. Spoiler: Miami wasn't one of them. To me, this was a good starting point. But it didn't get to the of the equation. It was still too vague. So, I began to research & put in a lot of work & hours to dissect & analyze the root value of everything.

So here we go...

I created some new terms and will explain each of them as we come across them. The Blue Chip Ratio doesn't include Transfers. Talent is Talent. You cannot ignore the Transfer Portal. I included Transfers in my data. My source for the information is 24/7 Sports since they average all the other recruiting services as well.

Instead of Blue Chip Ratio, we will use Blue Chip Average (BCAvg). BCAvg is the Average of the School's Blue Chip Prospects Enrolled/Signed per Signing Year. This is the BCAvg for the upcoming 2019 College Football Season.

SCHOOL​	BCAvg​	CONFERENCE / DIVISION​
1. Alabama​	20.75​	SEC - West
2. Georgia​	18.75​	SEC - East
3. Ohio St.​	18.50​	BIG 10 - East
4. Texas​	15.25​	BIG 12
5. LSU​	14.75​	SEC - West
6. Michigan​	14.50​	BIG 10 - East
7. Oklahoma​	14.25​	BIG 12
8. USC​	13.50​	PAC 12 - South
9. Auburn​	13.25​	SEC - West
10. Florida St.​	13.00​	ACC - Atlantic
10. Penn St.​	13.00​	BIG 10 - East
12. Florida​	12.50​	SEC - East
12. Notre Dame​	12.50​	INDEPENDENT
14. Clemson​	12.00​	ACC - Atlantic
15. MIAMI​	11.50​	ACC - Coastal
16. Texas A&M​	10.75​	SEC - West
17. Washington​	10.25​	PAC 12 - North
18. Tennessee​	9.00​	SEC - East
19. Oregon​	8.75​	PAC 12 - North
20. Stanford​	8.00​	PAC 12 - North
21. Ole Miss​	7.25​	SEC - West
21. UCLA​	7.25​	PAC 12 - South
23. South Carolina​	6.25​	SEC - East
24. Nebraska​	6.00​	BIG 10 - West
25. Arkansas​	5.75	SEC - West

So what do these ratings translate to? Is that good Miami is 11.50? Last year, Clemson was an 11.75 when they defeated Alabama (19.00). The lowest BCAvg National Champion was the 2010 Auburn Tigers at 8.25. The lowest BCAvg to make the College Football Playoff was the 2015 Michigan State Spartans at 4.25, which ranked 28th that season. The farthest back we can track the data is the 2005 season which includes the 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002 Recruiting Classes, respectfully. The 2001 Class is sketchy from a star rating perspective & mostly just names the recruits who signed & enrolled only. So it's unusable.

How have the past recruiting classes done? If the bare minimum to win the National Championship is an 8.25, how many would qualify? What was their BCAvg & Ranking?

View attachment 92456​

BOLD - Teams above 8.25 BCAvg.

Let's return our focus to the upcoming 2019 Season. How does the rest of the conference stack up to the Canes?

View attachment 92457​

Talent wise, Miami has the clear advantage in the Coastal Division. In fact, there hasn't been a year where they didn't. Under Richt, Golden, Shannon & Coker, Miami has been the CLEAR FAVORITE from a talent perspective. But we will get into coaching in our PART 2: COACHING segment. The 2019 Canes will be the best Roster to hit the field since 2010. Almost a full decade. So how good are Miami's chances to win it all? Is there even a chance? Let's look back at the top 25 for the upcoming 2019 season.

School​	BCAvg.​	Conference / Division​
Alabama	20.75	SEC - West
Georgia	18.75	SEC - East
Ohio St.	18.50	BIG 10 - East
Texas	15.25	BIG 12
LSU	14.75	SEC - West
Michigan	14.50	BIG 10 - East
Oklahoma	14.25	BIG 12
USC	13.50	PAC 12 - South
Auburn	13.25	SEC - West
Florida St.	13.00	ACC - Atlantic
Penn St.	13.00	BIG 10 - East
Florida	12.50	SEC - East
Notre Dame	12.50	INDEPENDENT
Clemson	12.00	ACC - Atlantic
MIAMI	11.50	ACC - Coastal
Texas A&M	10.75	SEC - West
Washington	10.25	PAC 12 - North
Tennessee	9.00	SEC - East
Oregon	8.75	PAC 12 - North
Stanford	8.00	PAC 12 - North
Ole Miss	7.25	SEC - West
UCLA	7.25	PAC 12 - South
South Carolina	6.25	SEC - East
Nebraska	6.00	BIG 10 - West
Arkansas	5.75	SEC - West

Let's strictly stick to the data that has been provided for us. So we know the from earlier that the 2010 Auburn Tigers were the lowest BCAvg (8.25) team to win it all. So any school BELOW 8.25 we can eliminate. Goodbye Stanford, Ole Miss, UCLA, South Carolina, Nebraska & Arkansas. So now we have 19 Schools Eligible. Let's look at the previous schools from 2005 - 2018 to win the National Title.

View attachment 92458​

Hmmm...what's the most important position on the football field? QUARTERBACK. Who were the starting quarterbacks for the majority of the season for National Championship Teams and what were they rated coming out of High School?

View attachment 92460​

This is probably the time some of you might be pointing out that Tua Tagovailoa came in the national championship game for Jalen Hurts in 2017 to win it. Or that Cardale Jones was the starting QB for Ohio St.'s 2014 National Championship team. You are right on both statements. But neither QB played more snaps than the original starter. That's where the data takes us, so that's where we will follow. So the LOWEST rated PRO STYLE QB is #14 (Jacob Coker) & the LOWEST rated DUAL THREAT QB is #4 Jalen Hurts. How do the three QBs battling for the starting job match up with these ratings?

QUARTERBACK	STYLE	H.S. GRADUATION	OVERALL QB RANKING
Tate Martell​	DUAL #2​	2017​	#5​
N'Kosi Perry​	DUAL #7​	2017​	#15​
Jarren Williams​	PRO #5​	2018​	#18​

Only 2 Quarterbacks fit the criteria. Tate Martell & Jarren Williams. Sorry N'Kosi. How about the rest of the remaining 19 schools? Let's take a look.

View attachment 92462​

Now we can eliminate LSU, Florida St., Notre Dame & Oregon. Oregon? Justin Herbert? Potential #1 QB in the 2020 NFL Draft Justin Herbert??!! Yup. Put your emotions to the side & we are following the data. So now we are down to 15 College Programs capable of winning the 2019 National Championship. Can we eliminate more teams from this list? Let's look at the previous 14 National Champions Quarterback List again.

View attachment 92463​

Hmmm...wait...on the National Champion QB List, ALL the LOWEST RATED QBS played for Nick Saban.

YEAR	SCHOOL	QUARTERBACK	STYLE	H.S GRADUATION	OVERALL QB RANKING
2015​	Alabama​	Jacob Coker​	PRO #14​	2011​	#32​
2009​	Alabama​	Greg McElroy​	PRO #13​	2006​	#18​
2007​	LSU​	Matt Flynn​	PRO #12​	2003​	#17​
2012​	Alabama​	A.J. McCarron​	PRO #7​	2009​	#9​
2011​	Alabama​	A.J. McCarron​	PRO #7​	2009​	#9​
2017​	Alabama​	Jalen Hurts​	DUAL #4​	2016​	#13​

Nick Saban has 6 out of the 14 National Championships. Maybe it's not so much the QB for Saban, but his system. Then that leads to our next question. How good were the other QB's that BEAT Saban? If they didn't play Saban, how good were those other 8 Quarterbacks. Let's see.

YEAR	SCHOOL	QUARTERBACK	STYLE	H.S. GRADUATION	OVERALL QB RANKING
2018​	Clemson​	Trevor Lawrence​	PRO #1​	2018​	#1​
2016​	Clemson​	Deshaun Watson​	DUAL #1​	2014​	#2​
2014​	Ohio St.​	J.T. Barrett​	DUAL #2​	2013​	#10​
2013​	Florida St.​	Jameis Winston​	DUAL #1​	2012​	#1​
2010​	Auburn​	Cam Newton​	DUAL #2​	2007​	#5​
2008​	Florida​	Tim Tebow​	DUAL #1​	2006​	#3​
2006​	Florida​	Chris Leak​	PRO #2​	2003​	#2​
2005​	Texas​	Vince Young​	DUAL #1​	2002​	#1​

BINGO. All these 8 QBs have one thing in common. They were ELITE. They were each respectfully either the #1 or #2 PRO / DUAL in their class. They can either win with their arm or with their athleticism, but regardless these 8 are PROGRAM CHANGERS. Let's trim our list one last time.

SCHOOL	QUARTERBACK	STYLE	H.S. GRADUATION	OVERALL QB RANKING
Alabama​	Tua Tagovailoa​	DUAL #1​	2017​	#3​
Georgia​	Jake Fromm​	PRO #3​	2017​	#4​
Ohio St.​	Justin Fields​	DUAL #1​	2018​	#2​
Texas​	Sam Ehlinger​	DUAL #4​	2017​	#8​
Michigan​	Shea Patterson​	PRO #1​	2016​	#1​
Oklahoma​	Jalen Hurts​	DUAL #4​	2016​	#13​
USC​	J.T. Daniels​	PRO #2​	2018​	#3​
Auburn​	Bo Nix​	DUAL #1​	2019​	#1​
Florida​	Feleipe Franks​	PRO #5​	2016​	#5​
Clemson​	Trevor Lawrence​	PRO #1​	2018​	#1​
MIAMI​	TATE MARTELL JARREN WILLIAMS​	DUAL #2 PRO #5​	2017 2018​	#5 #18​
Texas A&M​	Kellen Mond​	DUAL #3​	2017​	#7​
Washington​	Jacob Eason​	PRO #2​	2016​	#2​
Tennessee​	Jarrett Guarantano​	DUAL #1​	2016​	#7​

Goodbye Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Texas A&M & Jarren Williams. WE have a QB that fits this criteria. Here's the full and FINAL list of teams and their quarterbacks who match this data.

SCHOOL	QUARTERBACK	STYLE	H.S. GRADUATION	OVERALL QB RANKING
Alabama​	Tua Tagovailoa​	DUAL #1​	2017​	#3​
Ohio St.​	Justin Fields​	DUAL #1​	2018​	#2​
Michigan​	Shea Patterson​	PRO #1​	2016​	#1​
USC​	J.T. Daniels​	PRO #2​	2018​	#3​
Auburn​	Bo Nix​	DUAL #1​	2019​	#1​
Clemson​	Trevor Lawrence​	PRO #1​	2018​	#1​
MIAMI​	TATE MARTELL​	DUEL #2​	2017​	#5​
Washington​	Jacob Eason​	PRO #2​	2016​	#2​
Tennessee​	Jarrett Guarantano​	DUAL #1​	2016​	#7​

So there are 9 teams that fit the 14 year data. This doesn't mean that more than one of these teams will make the College Football Playoff. As I mentioned earlier on this post, the 2015 Michigan St. Spartans made the playoffs with a 4.25 BCAvg. They MADE the playoffs, but DIDN'T WIN. This data is for potential National Champions. If a team breaks this trend and sets a new one, then we will follow it. But until then, there's a 99.9% chance that one of these 9 schools will be holding up the trophy if these QBs play the majority of the snaps for their respective programs.

View attachment 92367​

So YES.........MIAMI HAS A CHANCE.



In PART 2: COACHING...We will look into:

• What separates a Great Coach, a Good Coach & a Bad Coach
• "With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility."
• ENWP (Expected/Neutral Win Percentage) & other NEW Analytical terms to find every Head Coach's TRUE VALUE.
• Dissecting the 2019 Miami Hurricane Schedule and their opponents
• The Past: Richt, Golden, Shannon & Coker

This is some pretty extensive ****. Enjoyed reading it.

 

[gabednconfused]

I'm curious to know what kind of engineer you are.....I'm actually a Data analytics major at UM myself and was tossing around ideas on a ML algorithm with my compsci friend (who's also a die hard football fan like me) that would use a series of underlying webscrapers to pull 100m times, combine reports, weightlifting meet results, and game stats to identify talent in rural areas of the country. Our kids down here have the fortune of being able to be seen by a scout at any given HS game, but statistically speaking you know there's gotta be hundreds of all Americans the system misses because of a lack of info and limits on the amount of ground scouts can cover in a given year. I'm picturing the
Walter Jones' and Ray lewis' of the world who might of have been missed simply because they live in podunk, Arkansas.

Im a mechanical engineer, grad of the U like you will hopefully be, and I design F1 cars..

I like the idea of scraping, but I wanted to flip it and scrape P5 rosters to be able to point recruits to the best offer possible.

The real sim we need to do is a monte-carlo type sim where we can create scenarios to help aid playcallers on offense and defense based on probability and historical data. I am thinking of a full game sim so the OC can adjust play-calls to suit starting line of scrimage and time available on the clock. Think it could be big... few companies do this, one of which bama and FAU pay for, if I remember.

Anyways go talk to coach, im in town next week to review.

 

[FrancisSawyer]

Great data! This highlights our talent level. The only call out is you can't put a 99.9% probability on one of those teams based on such a small sample size. I would also call out that you need to BCAvg or rating of the defensive line of those championships teams.

Agreed. Great post and analysis. I very much appreciate the effort OP put into this. However the defensive line is extremely important in an analysis such as this.