SB Nation Atlanta Editor's Pick
1st Down Performance in Losses, Variance in Our Offense, and Other Matters
by Xon on Sep 7, 2011 12:51 PM EDT
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PrintThis google doc lists every offensive play that Georgia ran in its first five games last year. In other words, it shows our 1-4 start. The list covers 355 plays. Above the list of plays are two tables. One table shows UGA's yards per play and standard deviation for each of those first five games individually. It also shows the number of possessions we had in each game, and the number of three and outs we have.
The second table shows UGA's performance on every down for all five of those games combined, and then again for the four losses only (excluding the UL-Lafayette game, in other words).
Some quick analysis after the jump.
Of course, I'd like to get more games compiled into the sheet, not only for Georgia but for some other teams as well. But you'll notice that in each of those first five games, our standard deviation on yards per play was a little over 8. Whether we won big, lost a heartbreaker, or lost by two possessions when the opponent pulled away late; whether we averaged only 5 yards per play or 7 yards per play (hello, AJ Green!); no matter what, in each game our variance was the same. (Standard deviation is the square root of variance, so both numbers go up and down together).
In the first four games (when we went 1-3, hammering ULL but losing to SC, Ark, and Miss St), notice that our yards per play hovered just above 5. It was at its best in the ULL game, but still wasn't great. (Perhaps that could have offered us some warning, that we blew out a nothing opponent 55-7, yet only averaged 5.6 yards per play?) Then, when AJ came back for the Colorado game we surged to over 7 yards per play (and, I'm sure, we maintained something up around there for most of our games afterward, excepting the Liberty Bowl). Yet no matter what, our variance was similar. We always had a standard deviation of about 8.5 in each of those games. So, in the first 4 games where our yards per play was only about 5.5, that means that over 2/3 of our plays fell in the range of -3 to 14 yards. In the Colorado game, our yards per play jumped up to 7, but the standard deviation remained the same, so 2/3 of our plays fell in the range of -1.5 to 15.5 yards.
I said in the other thread that I suspected that a typical standard deviation is something higher than Boise State's 5.9 from Saturday night, but way below the Dawgs' 13.75. With just these five games from one team having been compiled, I'm even more sure now that I'm right (the sample size is small, yes, but it also isn't really that small. The odds that a "normal" standard deviation is way off from 8.5, but our first five games just happened to cluster around that as an abnormal number, are pretty low).
So, looking at four of our stinker games from last year, we had a similar yards per play to the Boise game, but a much lower and more normal standard deviation (variance). Saturday night was an anamoly, folks. We do not normally do the feast or famine thing like we did with Boise on Saturday night. What conclusions we should draw from that are up for discussion, but I don't think that the data is going to support the idea that we have traded points for a "lot" of 3-and-outs.
That said, do notice that every game can have pretty different results as far as three-and-outs are concerned. But *overall* you can't have a "normal" standard deviation and also have a whole bunch of 3 and outs. Over he course of a season, if you're gaining yards like Georgia gained (after AJ came back especially), and you have a standard deviation that is fairly "normal," then that provides you a statistical prediction regarding how many three and outs you're going to have. And it won't be many. But, the one's you *do* have may cluster in odd ways, because that's just how random variance works. All your bad plays don't follow good plays. Sometimes you have streaks, and that's true of *all* teams.
Looking at the 3nOut column, we notice a few things. First of all, the ULL game really should be 12 possessions and *zero* 3 and outs. All 3 of the three and outs came on the last three possessions of that game, in the 4th quarter, up 55 to 7, starters pulled, and largely running the ball with Munzenmeier over and over again. The bottom line is, we got 3 and outs way less than 20 percent of the time. Closer to 10 percent of the time. That's good!
The one exception was a very, very ugly exception. The South Carolina game. We only had 9 possessions, but we had *five* three and outs. It's no wonder why that game stands out as an exemplar of what's wrong, and particularly as an exemplar of the idea that our offense isn't giving our defense a chance. Because in that particular game, those things are undoubtedly true.
But, again, there are going to be individual games where the stats "clump." That said, for so many to clump into a nine-possession stretch, as happened in the Carolina game, is really freaky. It's worthwhile to look at what we did in that game offensively that was *different* than normal, to see what might have gone wrong. But it doesn't really make sense to look at that game as an example of our *normal* kinds of problems, because that game was a far from normal result.
(Also, we *completed* at least 2 "first and bombs" in that game, so 1st and bomb couldn't have been the problem.)
Looking over at the second table, our 1st down offensive numbers were *even better* in those first five games (and even better still in the four *losses*) than they were over the course of the year! In other words, we really bossed teams around on first down. I don't think there's anything "wrong" with our subsequent numbers on 2nd and 3rd down, either, though that's probably the next specific thing that should be looked into.
Our 1st down offense is so good that it *is* tempting to conclude that there's something *bad* about being good on 1st down. But that really can only be said as a joke, not as a serious concern. Scoring points correlates to wins, and gaining yards correlates to points. If you gain a lot of yards but are *also* losing games, then something is definitely wrong. And it may be something with your *offense*, too. Issues of timing, play-calling, toughness, etc., may all be holding you back from getting the score when you need it most, or something like that. That's reasonable. But what wouldn't be reasonable would be to somehow think that first down play-calling *is* itself the problem. I'm sorry, but there ain't nothing wrong with gaining 10 yards on first down!
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Great stuff, Xon.
I’m glad someone is staying rational while most of us are on 24-hour watch.
by Spears on Sep 7, 2011 1:37 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
this is how I avoid 24 hour watch!
by Xon on Sep 7, 2011 4:48 PM EDT via iPhone app up reply actions
from your doc...
what it looks like to me is if Bobo was as effective on play calls on 2nd and 3rd downs, as he is on 1st Downs, a lot of our opponents would’ve been running back to mommy with their tail’s between their legs and the Dawgs in hot pursuit. It looks like there’s a significant drop in YPP for both rushing and passing on 2nd and 3rd downs. That is, if I’m looking at it correctly.
It might be useful to see if other team’s effectiveness drop in a similar fashion on 2nd and 3rd downs.
Back off, man. I'm a scientist.
Scarlet Y
We should make Bobo wear a Scarlet colored Y for all of the Yards that he has us missing out on 2nd and 3rd downs.
No
Absolutely not. It’s supposed to help us think about what exactly Bobo’s problem is. I’m all busy and stuff, but I want to address the dropoff on 2nd and 3rd downs later. For now, everyone needs to realize that there is always going to be a dropoff there. So we are going to have to study the details of how much and compare to other teams.
by Xon on Sep 7, 2011 4:31 PM EDT via iPhone app up reply actions 1 recs
Thanks again, Xon. This is a useful and illuminating discussion.
This is all great stuff, and I apologize in advance for responding to it in an overly simplistic way, but I wanted to address this from a game theory perspective, as it relates to the problem of averaging.
At the most basic level, let’s say two relatively equally matched football teams are facing one another in a game. I am the offensive coordinator for one, and tankertoad is the offensive coordinator for the other.
On his team’s first four offensive possessions, tankertoad calls a hot pass on first down. All four passes are completed five yards past the line of scrimmage, and, on each play, the receiver picks up four yards after the catch, so that each of tankertoad’s four first-down plays picks up nine yards.
On my team’s first four offensive possessions, I go for broke. I send my receivers streaking downfield and have my quarterback throw a long bomb on first down. Three of these four first-down passes fall incomplete. The fourth is caught for a 40-yard gain.
In four first-down plays, tankertoad’s team has gained a total of 36 yards and averaged 9.0 yards per attempt. In four first-down plays, my team has gained a total of 40 yards and averaged 10.0 yards per attempt. Statistically, my offense has outperformed his, by a full yard per pass, in fact.
However, tankertoad’s offense has faced four second-and-one situations, putting his team in an excellent position to run the ball, throw a short pass, or attempt to hit something downfield. His team’s likelihood of going three-and-out after a nine-yard pickup on first down is very low.
I, on the other hand, have picked up one huge first down and put my team in three second-and-ten situations. My second-down play-calling is considerably more limited, and, if I call a pass play on second down that falls incomplete, my chances of converting on third down are extremely low. By contrast, if tankertoad calls a pass play on second and short, and it falls incomplete, he still has a strong likelihood of moving the chains on third and one, and he still has the option of running or throwing the ball on third down.
The eyeball test tells me Mark Richt’s play-calling more nearly matched tankertoad’s and Mike Bobo’s play-calling more nearly matches mine. Coach Bobo’s and my offenses are statistically superior, but Coach Richt’s and tankertoad’s create more options, sustain more drives, and more than make up for the fact that they score fewer points by taking time off the clock (tankertoad’s four nine-yard pickups on first down all left the clock continuing to run, while my three incompletions and one pass for a first down all stopped the clock) and thereby reducing the total number of possessions in a game. This limits the need of Coach Richt’s and tankertoad’s offenses to score as many points as Coach Bobo’s and mine, because their offenses are reducing both teams’ total possessions (thus limiting their opponents’ opportunities to score) and resting their own defenses (thus improving the likelihood that their defenses will get critical stops on the fewer occasions on which the other team has the ball).
Am I wrong?
Go 'Dawgs!
by T Kyle King on Sep 7, 2011 4:42 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I don't see how anyone would think you are wrong Kyle
and that is precisely why Bobo makes my hair fall out.
by JRL on Sep 7, 2011 4:50 PM EDT up reply actions
Very well put.
On a slightly related note, the use of low percentage plays handicaps talented players’ abilities. You can get the ball into your playmakers’ hands on nearly every play with quick slants, shallow crosses, toss sweeps, swing passes, etc. If your athlete can make even one person miss, you’re going to have a huge gain, but even if the defense holds, you still pick up a couple of yards, which, as noted, keeps the playbook wide open.
On the other hand, if you’re calling lower percentage plays like streaks, fades, or deep crosses, you’re actually decreasing the number of touches your athletes get and decreasing their ability to make plays and pick up extra yards.
In other words, if you have a player that you know is faster than every single person on the defense, do you call a play that gets him the ball 99% of the time or the one that gets him the ball 50% of the time?
by Spears on Sep 7, 2011 5:23 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Thank you
You and Kyle above, that was excellently stated regarding time of possession and big plays not necessarily being just as good as more methodical plays.
But your point is one that I hope we touch on. Get the ball to Mitchell, Charles, and Crowell in the middle of the field, or on quick routes and see what they can do with it after they have the ball. It infuriated me how many times Murray got blitzed that we didn’t counter even once, that I recall, with a screen pass. Isn’t that rudimentary offensive play calling when you’re being blitzed? Or you do quick slant routes, posts, etc? You have to make them fear the ball sailing right past their head enough that they keep more guys back in coverage and only rush 3 or 4. Heck, even our line could block 3 or 4, I think.
Boise was rushing 4 most of the night.
Their DL is built with 4 DEs, so they’re wicked good at pass rushing. So that explains why we set up in the shotgun and waited for them to come after us… right?
I want to see a focus on positive plays this week: can we string together a drive that takes what we’re being given? If we can execute run plays where we open a hole in the defense and block the first linebacker, I’ll be darn happy. If we can do that, Crowell and crew will blow one up sooner or later and Charles will benefit and we’ll get better match-ups outside. Please, this is really basic and I desperately need it to be true.
by first and thom on Sep 7, 2011 6:03 PM EDT up reply actions
60% of the time, it works 100% of the time.
"One thing I will never do as long as I’m at Georgia is lose to Florida." - Herschel Walker
by chuckdawg on Sep 7, 2011 7:18 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
standard deviation
Is what basically helps assure us that your 2nd and long offense is not what’s happening. This is precisely why standard deception is useful in this discussion. You’re right, not wrong. But Bobo’s stdev has a tankertoad look, not a teamkyle look.
At least, I think it does. Gotta check into it more.
by Xon on Sep 7, 2011 5:48 PM EDT via iPhone app up reply actions
Thanks.
I know I was responding to your insightful examination with a very rudimentary (and not very realistic) example, which I hope did not come across as flippant. I share your desire to understand what is going wrong, and why (as well as sharing your sentiment that such efforts might prove therapeutic), so I appreciate your detailed exegesis, and your attempt to explain statistical realities to me, a liberal arts guy whose SAT verbal score seriously outstripped his SAT math score.
Go 'Dawgs!
Do you then use an undersized back to run the dive play on 2nd down out of the spread formation?
Frankly, both your teams suck! Line-up in the damn I with Isiah and run the power off-tackle and toss sweep until the other guy stops you!
/ warmed-up to watch the Herschel special now….
Run Lindsay Run!
by ausdawg85 on Sep 7, 2011 6:40 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Your ability to take my thoughts and translate them to words people can understand is amazing. Thank you.
"One thing I will never do as long as I’m at Georgia is lose to Florida." - Herschel Walker
I realize there would be a
dropoff for 3rd & 2nd downs. After all, many WRs are taught to make a cut right past the 1st down marker, but that big of a dropoff? And should we really be losing yards on 3rd down rushing attempts? It was like -21 yards I believe. I mean, seriously, Murray could just kneel down under the center and we would’ve lost less yards. I’m not 100% sure, but I doubt other teams lose yards on 3rd Down rushes.
Back off, man. I'm a scientist.
I think that speaks to predictability.
If any given game situation is a yardage loser, either you’re calling a truly horrible play, or you’re calling a play the other side knows is coming and is prepared to stop, or both.
Go 'Dawgs!
3rd down is the cast majority of your passing downs
And thus the vast majority of your sacks.
by Xon on Sep 7, 2011 9:26 PM EDT via iPhone app up reply actions
So, what should we do to not be in long 3rd down situations?
"One thing I will never do as long as I’m at Georgia is lose to Florida." - Herschel Walker
How about doing the same analysis
with the teams listed in your spreadsheet i.e. S.C., Ark, M.S.
I think Bobo’s problem is he is in way over his head. He talks the talk but…………Sometimes when I watch his offense work I think he must game plan based on his experience in PlayStation football. I keep hearing about his skill with QB’s yet his current QB holds onto the ball far to long. He gets props for coaching Stafford but I suspect Stafford would have excelled under CPJ over on the flats.
By the way thanks for the great analysis even if it is beyond my abilities to comprehend.
In regards to Stafford:
I think with Stafford and MoMass my mother would eventually get a TD. If anything, he became under coached and misused. We and he never learned field and clock control. But we scored, we won, people were happy. Except when the pressure was on, when out backs were against the wall, we lost against UF, and lost what should have been an NC.
Not sure if you blame it on Richt or Bobo, but we have lived on skill in the last 5 years rather than coaching.
"One thing I will never do as long as I’m at Georgia is lose to Florida." - Herschel Walker
AJ was probably the primary culprit for the last 2 years.
That guy came down with anything in his zip code. I’m not even sure how to test something like this, but I’d imagine that he turned bad playcalls into good results more often than not.
And, to agree with Xon a bit, throwing the ball to your playmaker is a good thing.
However, as I point to 2010 UGA – AU repeatedly, our OC failed to get the ball to AJ after we went up 17-0 and we only threw a handful of passes across the middle (which were successful). If we kept AJ on the post against AU we may have gone 31-0. But we stopped. And I call that bad coaching, whereas the “stat” says we scored all these points. But we lost the game.
Kind of like everyone saying, it’s like CMB said “well, surely they will expect a throw to AJ, so I better do something different.” I don’t know if this is true or not, but what I do know is we stopped throwing to him in the second half, and we basically never threw across the middle.
"One thing I will never do as long as I’m at Georgia is lose to Florida." - Herschel Walker
by chuckdawg on Sep 7, 2011 7:34 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
That is it precisely.
Say what you will about Vince, he cannot be accused of underutilizing Herschel.
Go 'Dawgs!
Very true.
I guess a better way to get at what I was trying to say is: A good coach puts his players in the best position to succeed. Our playmakers were bailing out our coaches bad decisions. I can’t find the quotation, but one of our linemen said that our former o-line coach’s instructions to him were, “Just try to fall down on your man and Moreno will take care of the rest.” Assuming that’s true, imagine how much more effective Knowshon could have been with a properly instructed line blocking for him.
by Spears on Sep 7, 2011 8:08 PM EDT up reply actions 2 recs
Having watched our offensive line, . . .
. . . I have absolutely no doubt that our lineman were told exactly that.
Go 'Dawgs!
A good coach puts his players in the best position to succeed. Our playmakers were bailing out our coaches bad decisions.
Again – taking what I am trying to say and putting in better words. Thank you.
"One thing I will never do as long as I’m at Georgia is lose to Florida." - Herschel Walker
A.J., Knowshon, Herschel
I also would suggest that there’s a big difference between having a running back as your playmaker and having a receiver as your playmaker. Fumbles aside, the worst thing that can happen with a running play is lost yardage, while with a passing play, there’s the danger of interception. But more to the point, if your playmaker is a running back, you chew clock, and effective strategy coincidentally piggy-backs onto star reliance. And good strategy should never be a coincidence. If you don’t have a playmaker RB, it seems to me that you have to scheme for some short-to-medium gains on early downs (at least once in a while, surely) instead of relying on Knowshon or Herschel to get those for you through sheer star power. Otherwise, you may pick up huge chunks of field (and points) when you need them, but your defense is worn out.
This is what was so beautiful about watching Herschel after his freshman year when defenses knew what was coming: two yards here, six yards there, five for first down; four yards, two, then either BOOM 60 YARDS TO THE ENDZONE, punt for good field position (or FG), or grind it all the way down to the goalline for a leap over the linemen.
Without a Herschel and without an A.J., you have to try to get the similar results, but instead of hammering with the stud RB, you pick up 2, 5, 7 as you can with RBs (rushing and receiving out of the backfield), TEs, slants, etc., the. The BOOM comes from the play-action (or, again, punt for field position or get 3).
by NCT on Sep 8, 2011 10:13 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions 1 recs
A receiving playmaker just takes the right system
for Richt, see how he used Peter Warrick, in screens, on slants,on reverses, etc as well as on bombs, where his physical tools could show. If only we did that with AJ. With a receiver as big and skilled as AJ, he can create a lot of space and does a great job attacking the ball, which really reduces the chances of picks.
http://sportsandgrits.com/
by Mr. Sanchez on Sep 8, 2011 12:07 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Mitchell might be able to fill that Peter Warrick role.
Quick, someone take Richt’s FSU playbook, spray-paint it green, and place it in Bobo’s office!
Stats:
I have debated with myself all day whether or not to go down this road, as it is rather morbid, but Kyle and I both mentioned Patton and I just keep coming back to this. And military history and leadership is something I know.
Patton wasn’t too concerned about stats, he wanted to take ground, race to Berlin, and kick ass. Not many people know this, but Gen Patton and Gen Eisenhower didnt get along well. Patton wanted to go, Ike wanted to report back to HQ. One man won the war, the other became a politician.
Now for the more morbid compare and contrast. In the Vietnam war, Gen Westmoreland reported weekly (daily?) to the president on body counts. Not ours mind you, theirs. I won’t post the numbers because then it really would be morbid, but the US virtually never lost a battle in Vietnam. The overall body count (which is a stat) would be around 150 to 1. Day to day, worst case, 10 to 1. That’s a big time ass kicking stat. So Gen Westmoreland could tell his boss every week what a great job we were doing. Westmoreland was fired, Nixon was impeached, and we lost that war. But, damn, we had some great stats.
Leaders use a “stat” as an indicator. But they don’t substitute a stat with actual leadership. And what this UGA team has lacked, from coaches to players, is leadership. We need a little more Patton and a little less Westmoreland.
To take it even further, the British kicked the colonists ass during our revolutionary war. Gen Washington wasnt worried about that stat, he was worried about how to lead his mean in the face of adversity and find an edge. Another thing most people don’t know: General Washington wasnt that good a General as a strategist. He actually lost a battle as a confused Captain early on. But he figured out how to keep his men focused, and he figured out how to find an edge. He is still to this day our most famous founder and president, even though his stats sucked.
"One thing I will never do as long as I’m at Georgia is lose to Florida." - Herschel Walker
by chuckdawg on Sep 7, 2011 7:53 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Well said.
Stats are a means to an end, not an end unto themselves. It’s why offensive balance should not be a goal—-Nebraska’s offenses were not balanced in the Cornhuskers’ heyday—-but it might be a means for realizing your goal.
It’s all about identifying what you want to do, finding the best way to do that with the personnel you have, and doing it in such a way that it serves your ultimate goal. At the end of the day, the only stat that matters is a W; the other stats serve to tell us how we are doing that, and how well or poorly we are doing it, but they are units of data in pursuit of an objective, not objectives themselves.
Go 'Dawgs!
Actually, apologies, Nixon resigned before impending impeachment.
"One thing I will never do as long as I’m at Georgia is lose to Florida." - Herschel Walker
I agree with the spirit behind this
I myself am very fond of Godwin’s Law. Most correlations cannot be focused on, or you lose the correlation. A thriving economy produces large volumes of output both in terms of tonnage and as units, but as the Soviets learned when trying to manage an economy, you can’t focus on tonnage or on units and get a thriving economy. Factory managers would be given goals for units, and would produce lots of lots of tiny nails. Then they would be given goals for tonnage, and they would produce too many mammoth unusable nails. (And the joke some of us have probably heard goe that then they were given goals in terms of market value, so they made nails of solid gold.) In fact, I posted on FB about six months ago that I hoped Bobo knew about Godwin’s Law. People reason this way all the time; we tend to win when we rush for X yards, so let’s just shoot really hard for that stat. Or, “balance”. Don’t get me started.
Heck, going personal-political, I’m an Austrian schooler on economics (Yeah, Ron Paul and all that). Not trying to debate it hear, just saying: I am deeply skeptical of mathematical modeling in economics, for crying out loud.
But stats do serve an important purpose, and they do so in a thing like sports more than anywhere. Sports is one of the few things that really does have easily quantifiable results. The point of football is to score points, and yards do generally lead to points, etc. In baseball, you win by scoring runs, and you score runs by getting baserunners, etc.
When a team’s “stats” say that they should win 85 games in baseball, and they actually win 75, what happens? They almost always improve their record the next year. The right stats (that’s key of course: you have to find the right stats) are actually a better predictor of wins next year than the actual wins you got this year. It’s crazy, it’s almost magical, it’s true.
You do have to be very careful about correlations. Like I said (Godwin’s Law), most of them will weaken and even disappear if you try to focus on them. But not all of them.
Using the Patton/Westmoreland example, Patton had “stats” just as much as Westmoreland did. The question is, which state corresponds better to actually winning a war? Is it body count ratio (Westmoreland’s stats)? Or is it strategic ground taken? Some things are harder to quantify, too, but in principle we can say “there’s a stat for that.”
by Xon on Sep 8, 2011 12:03 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Knowing this is really a grammar and tennis blog now...
I apologize profusely for all the spelling and grammatical errors. All my previous comments were done on my iphone earlier in the day. But the above comment does not avail me even of that excuse.
Been there.
"One thing I will never do as long as I’m at Georgia is lose to Florida." - Herschel Walker
FWIW -
I was really proud of my “war leader” post. It’s one of my better ones. I have to pat myself on the back because I have a self esteem issue.
And you come back with some cosmic stuff I have never heard of. It reminds me of debating Spears – I am trying my hardest, and losing, but damn, I am trying. It’s like Forrest Gump (thats me) versus Carl Sagan.
We may or may not have come to an agreement on Bobo, but I hope we can agree that we sure as hell went at it, proudly, and it would be nice if the people in DC did the same.
The reason i said “scoreboard” in that post was from anger. It was also because, as I tried to describe above, sometimes it doesn’t matter how good your Stats are, its the W-L ledger. And we aren’t beating ranked teams lately.
"One thing I will never do as long as I’m at Georgia is lose to Florida." - Herschel Walker
The answer to your question is easy for a military officer:
Leadership and wins. How many people are behind the leader, regardless of the crazy call, and how much victory did he obtain? Patton wanted to win. Westmoreland wanted to keep his job.
"One thing I will never do as long as I’m at Georgia is lose to Florida." - Herschel Walker
Right on, Xon.
I appreciate how much work you’re putting into helping us figure out what the right stats are. A lot of the stats suggest that Coach Bobo is a pretty good playcaller. But my eyes keep telling me that that’s not right, as do the results in the W-L columns. This probably means that a lot of the stats that we’re looking at aren’t the right ones.
by Spears on Sep 8, 2011 12:41 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
By the way
Patton was on the ground fighting a war. Westmoreland was in DC. Patton didnt have the stats, he was in Europe war planning, but he had leadership (even if he was as asshole many a time).
So what I am saying is what we are lacking isnt stats, but leaders.
"One thing I will never do as long as I’m at Georgia is lose to Florida." - Herschel Walker
by chuckdawg on Sep 8, 2011 12:56 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
But leaders produce stats, no?
Battles won per attempt? Strategic positions taken? Etc.
by Xon on Sep 8, 2011 1:14 AM EDT up reply actions
yea, and Patton's sat is winning WWII, Westmoreland's stat is..we don't even get to talk about him.
leadership. Stats are what scientists worry about. Leadership is about what happens live.
"One thing I will never do as long as I’m at Georgia is lose to Florida." - Herschel Walker
by chuckdawg on Sep 8, 2011 1:17 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
But along the way to helping win WWII
Patton produced other quantifiable “stats” that tend to correlate to winning wars. Right?
I’m not denying the importance of leadership. I’m looking for what information we can possibly find to help identify it, or to assist a good leader in figuring out what to fix when such fixing is necessary.
by Xon on Sep 8, 2011 1:27 AM EDT up reply actions
Leadership isnt about stats, otherwise we would all be great leaders
Leadership is about finding positive motivation for the people that either are required to believe in our or want to believe in you.
There is no stat for this. Only history.
The 1980 team believed in Herschel. There is no stat for that. There is no stat for faith, believe, hope. There is only the fact that wen all out for a year and a young man.
The military has been trying to define leadership for 3000 years. They have yet to create a stat. Charisma, belief, work ethic, faith, there is no stat. There never has been, there never will be.
But the man that gets on the field and gets his men behind him, and they believe, they tend to win. That’s a stat. We need a team that wants to be bulldogs, believes in its coaches, and believe winning is as a team is more important that “being a premier running back”.
Spartacus had ever single thing against him. He was out manned. Out coached. Out positioned. No money, no fan base. Yet he is still remembered as one of the best leaders ever. And if the Persians didn’t sell him out, he would have won.
Leadership isnt a stat. Its what you see. Patton is seen as a leader. Westmoreland isnt. There is no stat for leadership – their is only results.
"One thing I will never do as long as I’m at Georgia is lose to Florida." - Herschel Walker
by chuckdawg on Sep 8, 2011 1:41 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
horrible editing - tired.
"One thing I will never do as long as I’m at Georgia is lose to Florida." - Herschel Walker
Territory...
he took a sh!tload of territory in a very short amount of time. The Third Army is famous for its surprisingly quick advances.
Back off, man. I'm a scientist.
A bit off topic but..................
those astronomical stats from VN were grossly over stated we also lost more than a few battles. Stats are used as a crutch far to often and frequently to mask actual failure – look at GT and the run yardage they amass.
For the record
I’m zeroing in on my own personal theory about what’s wrong. It’s not really earth-shattering. It’s in the same vein as what many of us are saying already. I think Bobo needs a few “swing keys” (I am from Augusta, after all). I don’t think our problems are systematically with our offense, and I really, really don’t think we want to become Tubberville disciples and long for 3 yards and a cloud of dust simply because it has lower variance. I think our problems are almost entirely (if not entirely) about in-game decision-making and adjustment sorts of issues. I think the things we need to “shoot” for to do better relate to those kinds of in-game/strategic concerns.
I’m a-workin’ on more of the details, and hope to get something up in the next few days. I know everyone is waiting with baited breath.
These long pass plays on first down are probably a bad thing. (With SCIENCE)
Coach Bobo elects to pass on first down about 55% of the time. Two-thirds of our losses (12/18) since the beginning of the 2007 season have occurred when Coach Bobo elects to pass more frequently on first down than his average. On the other hand, about 60% of our wins (21/35) occur when Coach Bobo elects to rush more often than normal.
Moreover, when Coach Bobo passes on first down more frequently than average, his 3rd down conversion percentage is about 38.5%. When he elects to run on first down more frequently than average, his 3rd down conversion percentage rises to 43.37%. This supports Kyle’s lucid explanation of the folly of going deep on first down. In other words, the simple act of running the ball on first down is probably worth an additional third down conversion per game.
(For the sake of simplicity, I’m assuming that he’s always going for longer passes on first down. Since I can’t really go back and watch every single game to confirm that this is true, my recollection that Bobo goes for longer passing plays on first down will have to do. Plus, this assumption seems to jibe with Xon’s data.)
by Spears on Sep 8, 2011 12:35 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Bobo doesn't pass more on first down than he runs, though
Last year was the largest ratio for passing, and it was still only 42% passing. Even if we add in sacks (which don’t happen often on first down anyway), it’s not going to get up to 50%. I’m not sure where you’re getting that Bobo passes on 1st down 55% of the time?
The comparison of 3rd down completion percentages. I’d like to look at that some more (though I’d like to use Football Outsider’s “leverage” stat instead, but it’s the same idea just more thorough). The difference is to be expected, since passing plays do have greater variance than running plays and thus when you pass you are more likely to end up in second and long than when you run. And then when you’re in second and long you’re more likely to end up in third and long. And when you’re third and long you’re less likely to convert. These are all true a priori predictions we can make before we even look at the actual data, I think. But notice how small the difference really is. 5% is pretty small. I’d wager it’s worth it to have a handful of extra third and longs over the course of a season in exchange for averaging 9 yards or even better on first down.
It’s a very marginal difference, all things considered, to go from a 38.5% third down conversion rate to a 43.37% conversion rate. With 250 third down plays in the entire season, and that 5% difference amounts to a small handful of first downs we get when we’re doing the run-more-than-average thing. Hey, every increase is good, right? Not exactly. We have to compare those to all the first downs we get by passing. Most of which don’t even require us to convert a third down, b/c we get the first down on first or second down. With running, you will have more convertible third downs en route to grinding out a smaller number of first downs when all is said and done.
Not against running. I’m speaking of relative ratios here, just like you are. Running more than we normally do is what I mean. I’m not a newfangled trend guy when it comes to offense. i like pro-style I formation just fine, thanks!
by Xon on Sep 8, 2011 2:39 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
My numbers are from CFBStats.com.
But you’re right that my numbers were a little off. CFB stats count a penalty as an attempt, so actually, Coach Bobo passes on first down even more frequently than I thought. Taking out penalties, Coach Bobo actually passes on first down 58% of the time. More than 72% of our losses occur when Bobo is at his most pass-happy on first down.+
The third down conversion numbers show about the same thing (38.24% conversion rate when passing more often, 42.66% when running more often). That translates to 9 more third down conversions per year, at least 1 more conversion every other game. That’s not insignificant, especially considering how many games we lost within 1 possession last year.
Here’s the link to the data. If that’s wrong, please let me know.
+ – That is, 13 of 18 of our losses occurred when Coach Bobo was at his most first-and-bomb-y.
by Spears on Sep 8, 2011 4:07 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Ah
you are looking at the number of plays on which we got a first down, not what kind of play we ran on first down.
I was about to go crazy, because I tabulated every play one by one so how could I be wrong? :-)
Here is cfbstats link to passing offense on 1st down and here is the link to rushing offense on 1st down.
by Xon on Sep 8, 2011 5:19 PM EDT up reply actions
If leadership is utterly unquantifiable, though
or not connected to anything quantifiable, then we have no rational way to make a decision about a coach (or any other kind of leader). There is only “he’s not winning as much as we like” (though isn’t that a stat? I’m losing the distinction here), and so we replace him with someone else. Eventually, we might find someone who wins to our satisfaction, but who knows why.
There are intangibles, “it” factors. I’m not denying this. I’m questioning the cut-and-dry distinction between them.
The 1980 team produced some stats that most championship teams have in common. (defense, turnovers, etc.) It’s more than the stats, but it’s not completely different than the stats.
No, leadership is not utterly quantifiable, at least in the present.
Jesus Christ lived 30 years, got beat and crucified. He had very few followers. Yet he changed the world. His stats (at the time) sucked. His stats took 2000 years to fully understand.
Ghandi got beat, killed in the press, and murdered. Yet he remains as one of the greatest leaders of peace ever.
Mother Teresa traveled the world, helping the sick and wounded, giving some of the most famous quotes ever on peace. An amazing leader, changed lives. There is no stat on that. Yet she is undoubtedly a great leader.
Martin Lurther King got beat, organized peace rallies, gave amazing speeches, and got murdered. He changed America. There maybe some stats for that, but they come post posthumously as well.
Leadership is about real time decision making, not post reflection stats. Again, if all we had to do is find the right stat, then we would have 117 great football coaches who all won every game. We would have every business in America succeed. And I am not joking about what I said: For thousands of years the military has sought for a stat and a training manual for “leaders” and has yet to find one. It’s a combination of born ability and good training.
You talk about a “rational way to make a decision about a coach”. Didnt you read what I posted? General Washington wasn’t liked in many circles. He made bad decisions. He lost battles. Yet he is our most famous General and President. I actually consider Vince Dooley an average coach. But he is considered a great one amongst many, and he has the only modern national championship UGA has. Leadership is a big intangible. A huge one, because if we could bottle it up, we would all buy it and all have it. It’s something that some have, it’s something that sometimes just happens, but it isn’t something that you can buy and sell and have a piece of. But it’s something you recognize, you “feel” you “see” and oftentimes winning is stat that goes with it.
You are looking for stats that help us understand Coach Bobo and Coach Richt. Statistically, i can say we are losing games, and fail to beat ranked opponents. Statistically I can say we couldn’t score a TD in our last bowl. But more than stats, my “eye ball test” see’s a team that isnt working and playing well together. See the 1980 footage versus our last year. Herschel gets great stats, but my eyeball sees an entire team blowing up blocks. Statiscally, Herschel set records. But my eyeball sees a team that believed, had faith, had confidence. There isn’t a “faith” or “belief” stat. Many leaders (which is why I mentioned General Washington) had bad stats, yet come out as victors. The only comparable stat right now is Coach Richt isn’t doing so well in the victory column. Which tends to be the final verdict in college football.
"One thing I will never do as long as I’m at Georgia is lose to Florida." - Herschel Walker
by chuckdawg on Sep 8, 2011 6:31 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
We are talking past one another.
I agree leadership is not utterly quantifiable, b/c that would imply that stats tell the whole story. I agree that they don’t. What i said earlier though is that it is not utterly unquantifiable. In other words, it is not hopelessly disconnected from stats. Stats (measurable, observable features) play some significant role.
I said leadership is not completely UN-statsy. You are responding by telling me that it’s not completely statsy.
by Xon on Sep 8, 2011 1:57 PM EDT up reply actions
And, again,
I really feel like what keeps happening here is that folks want to respond to the stats I brought up as though I’m defending Mike Bobo as our playcaller. But that is not what I am doing.
“Stats are great, Xon, but don’t you know that it takes something more to truly be successful?” Yes, I do. I’ve never said otherwise.
The issue here with these stats is this. When somebody offers a hypothesis, you can try to verify that hypothesis. If someone were to say, for example, that our problem under Bobo is that we don’t have a good 3rd down conversion rate (I’m just making something up here), then we can look at our actual 3rd down conversion rate. If it’s actually a good number in the games we lose, then that’s not our problem. That doesn’t mean we don’t have a problem, it just means we haven’t found what it is yet. The person who offered the 3rd down conversion hypothesis cannot, at that point, have a leg to stand on by countering that “Well, stats are great, but I care about leadership.” We all care about leadership, but Bobo’ failure of leadership is not revealing itself in a failure to convert third downs. If it was, we would see it in the numbers.
If someone said Westmoreland’s problem was how many men we lost relative to the enemy, they would be wrong. The stats matter on that particular point, and in a very straightforward but limited way. If Westmoreland actually had a good ratio as far as body count was concerned, then that can’t be what we identify as his weakness. This is an anlogy, understand. At no point have you said that Westmoerland was weak because of body count. No, you have said he was weak because of more intangible factor like leadership, while he actually had good numbers when it came to body counts. So, actually, your view of Westmoreland is like my view of Bobo. We both agree that Bobo is not getting it done. And I’m also saying that the way he’s failing has virtually nothing to do with his first-down playcalling. It has to do with other things, but not that.
All my stats show, assuming that when I run down all the rabbit holes they continue to hold the pattern we’re seeing at this point, is that Bobo’s problem is not first down crazy mad bomberism. This is not a defense of Bobo. It’s an attempt to zero in on what precisely his problem is. To that end, eliminating a popular candidate is useful, and important. That’s what stats can sometimes do, and little more.
by Xon on Sep 8, 2011 2:08 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
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