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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.
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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