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Re: Coping with the Spread - terry - 09-02-2013

(09-02-2013, 11:41 AM)garvin link Wrote:
Quote:C'al scored 30 points, which is not all that impressive given the number of plays they ran (99).

Terry, that's just silly. Games aren't decided by average points per play. They're decided on total points. Thirty is a good output in in a regulation game. It should have been enough to win. Whatever weakness the 59ers showed Saturday was on the defensive side, not the offensive.

When a team plays a no-huddle, hurry-up offense, it increases the number of plays, the number of possessions, and therefore the number of opportunities to score -- not just for itself, but for the other team also. Teams at the top of the stat sheet in offensive plays per game also tend to be near the top of the list in defensive plays per game. By running their offenses quickly, they are able to run a lot of plays, but they also give their opponents extra time to run more plays. In general, we can expect both teams to gain more yards and score more points than normal, simply because they will have more chances.

When both teams have more opportunities to score, they usually will score more points. Games will tend to be higher-scoring. It will take more points to win a game than otherwise would be the case.

Garvin says C'al's 30 points against Northwestern was a "good output." Maybe so, for a team playing at a normal tempo. But up-tempo teams often need to score more than 30 to win because their opponents run more plays than normal and score more points than normal. Scoring 30 is not a "good output" when the opponent scores more than 30.

It doesn't do any good to run a lot of plays if it just leads to more punts and turnovers. Running more plays is useful only if those plays result in more points. Points per play is a measure of efficiency -- how good is a team at turning its opportunities into points? Points per possession is another way to get at the same thing. Yards per play also is a useful stat.

C'al ran 99 plays last Saturday. Last season, the FBS median points per play was .387. So an average team that ran 99 plays could be expected to score 38 points. C'al had 16 possessions. The FBS median points per possession last year was 2.24 (adjusted for kneel-downs, etc.). So an average team that had 16 possessions could be expected to score 36 points. C'al scored 30. C'al ran a lot of plays, but wasn't very efficient. Given the number of opportunities it had, C'al's scoring output was below what would be expected for an average team. And of course, it wasn't good enough to win.

Good post, Terry, and more - Mick - 09-03-2013

Terry's right, and let me add a bit more.  You can see that the Bears' defense tired as the game wore on.  The two teams had virtually equal time of possession, yet Northwestern had just six possessions in the first half against nine in the second half.  Northwestern scored an average of 2.2 points per possession over their first nine possessions (TD, punt, INT, TD, FG, Punt, FG, fumble, punt), but scored six points per possession in their last six possessions (TD, punt, FG, TD, INT, TD).

Separately, Northwestern had 70 offensive plays against last year's  average of just over 63 plays per game, but they scored 44 points, a 42% increase over last year's average of 31 points per game.

I will say this, however...Cal is clearly learning, and I think learning quickly. Their first five drives (out of 14) ended in punts.  But they scored two FGs and two TDs in their next five possessions, 4 points per possession...but then, Cal's offense got tired.  Their last four posessions were punt, int, FG, int.

My takeaway is that their true frosh QB is learning and learning quickly.  That Dykes' offense wears out a team, so Cal would require depth to improve.  And nothing can be done about football players faking injury, not that I can see.

Re: Coping with the Spread - LuckE2Bhere - 09-03-2013

I think Terry's point has some validity... notwithstanding the noted shortcomings (like most attempts to capture a multi-faceted competition in a box score).

The key point that I often see ignored when folks often praise a high-scoring or big-yardage-producing offense (while typically criticising the same team's defense) is what I think of as the "self-fulfilling" element of each. For example:

I was very impressed with Jared Goff, for the portion of the game I was able to watch, but he did throw a couple of picks that were returned.  Those are points for which C.al's defense obviously can't be blamed, but they are also free "redos" for the offense, which gets to come right back out on the field to play a tiring defense (I think C.al ended-up possessing the ball for virtually the entire 3rd quarter, and it wasn't because they were excuting a "ball control offense").  Not only did they get more possessions as a result, but the yardage opportunity was effectively increased, because they were "moved back" (and given the ball again with a fresh First Down) by virtue of the ensuing kick-off/return.

As I've suggested in previous posts, sometimes, this dynamic plays against a defense when an offense is "too efficient" (and/or the opponent's defense is porous), because the high/rapidly-scoring offense gives the other offense the ball so many times that it's almost like they're turning it over to them.  Think LMU basketball, back in the Hank Gathers days.

To be clear, I thought Goff did very well (overall) and should only get better, but as CompSci87 noted, it's point-differential that matters, and you can lead yourself to a lot of false conclusions by focusing too intently on what the box score seems to be telling you (or extrapolating one game into perpetuity).