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Non Offensive Touchdown Statistic

FrancisSawyer

FrancisSawyer

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Inspired by a @DMoney post on average yards per carry differential between offense and defense I began to think about team stats and which would be considered hallmarks of elite teams.

I remember back in 2000-2001(I think it was 2001) during one of our games late in the season the broadcast team mentioned that we led the NCAA in Non Offensive Touchdowns(Special Teams and Defensive TDs) . That got me thinking if that statistic is one that is officially tracked. I'm sure that information is out there but so far I have not been able to find anywhere where one can find that particular statistic for all FBS teams.

It also really drive home the crucial importance of being able to score on Special Teams and how that relates to overall team success. Obviously the ability to score on Special Teams is mainly driven by your ability to score on punt returns. This is an area where I feel that the UM program should shine given the abundance of quick, twitchy and fast athletes with ball skills in the Tri-county area.

If you look at this offense right now one can see that we are clearly trending upwards in terms of scoring potential. Without going into specifics, everything on offense points towards an upwards trend and I don't think mamy would argue that.

Defensively in the Diaz era we have seen that we are more than capable of fielding a defense that is always a threat to score. Scoring on defense is obviously driven by the ability to create turnovers and they have been a staple of every good defense we have seen in the last 5 years. I think that an objective look at this defense with all variables taken into account like staff upgrades, Diaz going back to DC and personnel, would lead one to also conclude that this defense is trending in a positive direction. Given the type of style that Diaz likes to employ, when a Diaz defense trends upwards it is only logical to expect to see a significant improvement in creating turnovers which in turn creates scoring opportunities for the defense.

Without going into all of the specific areas that this squad as a whole could stand to improve upon, I would submit that generally speaking, the ability to score on Special Teams or at least create scoring opportunities for the offense could have the potential to thrust this program back into contention assuming of course that the offense and defense do indeed continue to trend upwards. The simplest way to accomplish this goal on Special Teams is to go back to having legitimate and explosive scoring threats returning punts.

PS. If anyone can find any statistics on Non-Offensive Touchdowns, I would greatly appreciate it.
 
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FrancisSawyer said:
Inspired by a @DMoney post on average yards per carry differential between offense and defense I began to think about team stats and which would be considered hallmarks of elite teams.

I remember back in 2000-2001(I think it was 2001) during one of our games late in the season the broadcast team mentioned that we led the NCAA in Non Offensive Touchdowns(Special Teams and Defensive TDs) . That got me thinking if that statistic is one that is officially tracked. I'm sure that information is out there but so far I have not been able to find anywhere where one can find that particular statistic for all FBS teams.

It also really drive home the crucial importance of being able to score on Special Teams and how that relates to overall team success. Obviously the ability to score on Special Teams is mainly driven by your ability to score on punt returns. This is an area where I feel that the UM program should shine given the abundance of quick, twitchy and fast athletes with ball skills in the Tri-county area.

If you look at this offense right now one can see that we are clearly trending upwards in terms of scoring potential. Without going into specifics, everything on offense points towards an upwards trend and I don't think mamy would argue that.

Defensively in the Diaz era we have seen that we are more than capable of fielding a defense that is always a threat to score. Scoring on defense is obviously driven by the ability to create turnovers and they have been a staple of every good defense we have seen in the last 5 years. I think that an objective look at this defense with all variables taken into account like staff upgrades, Diaz going back to DC and personnel, would lead one to also conclude that this defense is trending in a positive direction. Given the type of style that Diaz likes to employ, when a Diaz defense trends upwards it is only logical to expect to see a significant improvement in creating turnovers which in turn creates scoring opportunities for the defense.

Without going into all of the specific areas that this squad as a whole could stand to improve upon, I would submit that generally speaking, the ability to score on Special Teams or at least create scoring opportunities for the offense could have the potential to thrust this program back into contention assuming of course that the offense and defense do indeed continue to trend upwards. The simplest way to accomplish this goal on Special Teams is to go back to having legitimate and explosive scoring threats returning punts.

PS. If anyone can find any statistics on Non-Offensive Touchdowns, I woyld greatly appreciate it.
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I got you pimp:

Last season we were tied for 40th in Def TDs (which was w/ 40 teams). We had 1 Def TD which was a fumble. We didn’t have a TD on ST, but we did rank 60th on KO returns, 121st in PR, 101st in KO coverage (1 TD given up).
 
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Go Canes!! said:
It's not the same game it was in 2000. Special teams have all been neutered.
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We can agree to disagree. Regardless of how the game has changed the significance of having a legit scoring threat on Special Teams remains. I would also point out that doing well in a statistic like Non Offensive Touchdowns will correlate to wins no matter the era.
 
Go Canes!! said:
It's not the same game it was in 2000. Special teams have all been neutered. Blocking is now hands up as players just get in the way and kickoffs are usually touchbacks.
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I unno man; Boise St led the nation in ST TDs (5), but there were a lot of teams that had at least 2 ST TDs this past season. Bama led the nation in Def TDs (4).
 
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Rellyrell said:
I got you pimp:

Last season we were tied for 40th in Def TDs (which was w/ 40 teams). We had 1 Def TD which was a fumble. We didn’t have a TD on ST, but we did rank 60th on KO returns, 121st in PR, 101st in KO defense (1 TD given up).
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Thank you my man! However I was looking for a combined Non Offensive Touchdown statistic that is officially kept. It would be very interesting to look at that list and how it correlates to overall team success. I think we would find that most of the elite teams would be higher up on the list. I also think that having an explosive scoring threat at PR has an even greater effect on the win column than we might expect.
 
FrancisSawyer said:
Thank you my man! However I was looking for a combined Non Offensive Touchdown statistic that is officially kept. It would be very interesting to look at that list and how it correlates to overall team success. I think we would find that most of the elite teams would be higher up on the list. I also think that having an explosive scoring threat at PR has an even greater effect on the win column than we might expect.
Click to expand...

OK, got you. Well Bama was 2nd in total non offensive TDs, Boise St was 1st. If you go to the FBS statistics site, the break down is (defensive TDs, Punt Returns (and you can highlight the TD portion, and KOs (again, highlight the TDs)).

I will say this: 3 of the 4 CFP participants had 3+ non offensive TDs which were in the top 10 in the nation.
 
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Rellyrell said:
I got you pimp:

Last season we were tied for 40th in Def TDs (which was w/ 40 teams). We had 1 Def TD which was a fumble. We didn’t have a TD on ST, but we did rank 60th on KO returns, 121st in PR, 101st in KO coverage (1 TD given up).
Click to expand...
Thanks for researching. Man, those are some ugly stats. We all knew our PR and KO coverage were bad, but I didn’t know they were to that level.
 
FrancisSawyer said:
We can agree to disagree. Regardless of how the game has changed the significance of having a legit scoring threat on Special Teams remains. I would also point out that doing well in a statistic like Non Offensive Touchdowns will correlate to wins no matter the era.
Click to expand...
I don't think @Go Canes!! would disagree with your point of significance of having a legit threat to house it every time they touch the ball ala Hester, but he did make a very valid point that the days of returns in kickoff/punts changing the game are all but gone.
 
Any time you can get extra scores from defense or special teams, it’s great. But it’s not some important metric in the grand scheme. It doesn’t really correlate to winning games that much.

Alabama tied for first in defensive touchdowns. You know who they were tied with? Buffalo, LSU, Mississippi State, Oklahoma State and Troy. Not exactly murderers row. Technically, Buffalo should be first here because they had four defensive touchdowns in only 7 games. Alabama played 13.

Clemson, Ohio State and Georgia were all part of the group who finished tied for second. Along with Arkansas, Army, Ball State, Kentucky, Syracuse, TCU, Tennessee, Texas Tech, Tulane and Wake Forrest.

What does that tell you? Good teams score defensive touchdowns...and so do bad teams.
 
Boise and Georgia Southern shared the top spot for punt return touchdowns with 3. Kansas State, Liberty, TCU and Notre Dame all had 2.

The gauntlet of powerhouses who tied for the national lead in kickoff return touchdowns reads like this: Ohio University, San Jose State, FIU, Baylor, Boise State, Rutgers, Louisiana and Kansas.

Special teams touchdowns mean almost nothing in the big picture. If your offense is garbage and you have a really good defense ala UM in 2003-2004, these kinds of score can make a big difference. Otherwise you’re talking about 1 or two extra touchdowns over the course of an entire season.
 
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FrancisSawyer said:
Inspired by a @DMoney post on average yards per carry differential between offense and defense I began to think about team stats and which would be considered hallmarks of elite teams.

I remember back in 2000-2001(I think it was 2001) during one of our games late in the season the broadcast team mentioned that we led the NCAA in Non Offensive Touchdowns(Special Teams and Defensive TDs) . That got me thinking if that statistic is one that is officially tracked. I'm sure that information is out there but so far I have not been able to find anywhere where one can find that particular statistic for all FBS teams.

It also really drive home the crucial importance of being able to score on Special Teams and how that relates to overall team success. Obviously the ability to score on Special Teams is mainly driven by your ability to score on punt returns. This is an area where I feel that the UM program should shine given the abundance of quick, twitchy and fast athletes with ball skills in the Tri-county area.

If you look at this offense right now one can see that we are clearly trending upwards in terms of scoring potential. Without going into specifics, everything on offense points towards an upwards trend and I don't think mamy would argue that.

Defensively in the Diaz era we have seen that we are more than capable of fielding a defense that is always a threat to score. Scoring on defense is obviously driven by the ability to create turnovers and they have been a staple of every good defense we have seen in the last 5 years. I think that an objective look at this defense with all variables taken into account like staff upgrades, Diaz going back to DC and personnel, would lead one to also conclude that this defense is trending in a positive direction. Given the type of style that Diaz likes to employ, when a Diaz defense trends upwards it is only logical to expect to see a significant improvement in creating turnovers which in turn creates scoring opportunities for the defense.

Without going into all of the specific areas that this squad as a whole could stand to improve upon, I would submit that generally speaking, the ability to score on Special Teams or at least create scoring opportunities for the offense could have the potential to thrust this program back into contention assuming of course that the offense and defense do indeed continue to trend upwards. The simplest way to accomplish this goal on Special Teams is to go back to having legitimate and explosive scoring threats returning punts.

PS. If anyone can find any statistics on Non-Offensive Touchdowns, I would greatly appreciate it.
Click to expand...
If you ever want more detail than you'll know what to do with, you can go here.

CollegeFootballData.com

collegefootballdata.com collegefootballdata.com
 
All this Voodoo economics is fun, but ya still need the O-Line to make the run - T-shirt coming soon
 
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Angry Ibis said:
Does CIS have an API that will automatically skew the data to mope or slurp or do we still have to do that manually?
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Lol. Data doesn't lie. It's all in the model and presentation.

NeverArgueWithTheData.gif
 
Angry Ibis said:
Does CIS have an API that will automatically skew the data to mope or slurp or do we still have to do that manually?
Click to expand...
I just spit my drink out, thank you for that! Yes, the API scrubs the data and sends versions to MI (Mope Intelligence) or SI (Slurper Intelligence) for data breakdown packed with every graphical output you can think of to tell any story you want!
 
DTP said:
Any time you can get extra scores from defense or special teams, it’s great. But it’s not some important metric in the grand scheme. It doesn’t really correlate to winning games that much.

Alabama tied for first in defensive touchdowns. You know who they were tied with? Buffalo, LSU, Mississippi State, Oklahoma State and Troy. Not exactly murderers row. Technically, Buffalo should be first here because they had four defensive touchdowns in only 7 games. Alabama played 13.

Clemson, Ohio State and Georgia were all part of the group who finished tied for second. Along with Arkansas, Army, Ball State, Kentucky, Syracuse, TCU, Tennessee, Texas Tech, Tulane and Wake Forrest.

What does that tell you? Good teams score defensive touchdowns...and so do bad teams.
Click to expand...

Well, U’re definitely right; however, Buffalo, Ball St, Army, & OKSt weren’t bad teams this season. But U’re right.
 
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