Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - Printable Version
+- The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board)
+-- Forum: C-House! (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-5.html)
+--- Thread: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame (/thread-25188.html)
+- The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board)
+-- Forum: C-House! (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-5.html)
+--- Thread: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame (/thread-25188.html)
Pages:
1
2
Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - msqueri - 10-13-2024
1. This season is a disaster, folks. The one thing that could save it is that we may get to see a new quarterback in the latter part of the season at a time when the schedule gets Charmin soft, which could produce the reality or maybe just the illusion of progress. We can assess in seven weeks whether that happens and if so if it's credible evidence things are moving in the right direction. Where we stand now things are most definitely not moving in the right direction. We didn't lose to Notre Dame quite as badly on the scoreboard as Purdue did but that's not saying much and, based on the totality of the season, are in a pitched battle with the pathetic Boilermakers for the worst Power Four team in America. Halfway into the season, we are in the 86-99 range according to the most credible models, meaning we are almost as bad as last year and worse than any team David Shaw ever coached. We have the Sagarin #99 team, which makes this one of the five worst teams in the history of our program (battling with #109 1960, #104 1983, #104 2006, and #101 2023). It is beyond sobering to think of how much we returned and how debatable it is whether this year's team is better than last year's. Today's team would be favored by one or one and a half points over Walt Harris' infamous one win team. Our games this year have been befitting the #96, #67, #28, #104, #162, and #166 teams in the country. We've had three games in a row playing like just about the worst team in Stanford history. The only game in which we have even really played like a Power Four team was coming off a bye. There is no sugarcoating this. Anybody saying that there are signs of progress or that this is better than last year or better than the worst of Shaw needs to stop. It is not. Taylor needs to show something to be immune from these scathing statements and, frankly, to not be fired.
2. This was our least competitive game of the season, though that itself is not a big surprise since Notre Dame is a legitimate playoff contender and the best team on our schedule. Based on the calculation of garbage time (eight times the number of the losing team's remaining possessions plus one being less than the losing team's scoring deficit at the start of the possession), a whopping 21 minutes and 49 seconds of clock time (and demoralizingly a lot of actual time too given the weather stoppage) happened after the game was decided. In terms of yards per play, total yards, and points, it was the most strugglefest of a game this season for both the offense and the defense, and special teams got outplayed too. One pseudo interesting note is that this ended the streak of the defense playing better than the offense. The offense clearly showed up to play more than the defense did. At least the offense's one point per non-garbage drive made the #8 points per drive defense look somewhat like itself, like the #6 points per drive defense. Notre Dame's five points per non-garbage drive made the #44 points per drive offense look not only like the #1 points per drive offense but the best offense in college football history (2020 Alabama at 4.41 points per drive is the most I've ever seen, though Army and Ohio State are having amazing offensive seasons, though still far less than five freaking points per drive). Analysis of this game has to consider that Notre Dame has the #1 FEI, #6 SP+, #8 scoring defense, and #4 yards per play defense in the country. They're incredible. The Stanford offense can be forgiven this one and actually did better as an offense than Purdue did and similarly to Miami of Ohio and, amazingly, Texas A&M. The defense, on the other hand, doesn't have such an excuse as Notre Dame is merely good on offense. After some signs of tentative progress for our defense, we just gave up seven yards per play against an offense that is not elite. Ugly.
3. The main thing that was ugly was, plainly, the pass defense. That was, needless to say, the best Notre Dame has passed against anybody this year. According to Total QBR, Riley Leonard has been in the top 21 percent of quarterbacks this season and yesterday we made him look top five percent. Stanford's pass defense is sprinting in the wrong direction, with the last two games our worst of the year despite Virginia Tech and Notre Dame being the two worst passing attacks we've played (Leonard is mostly known as a rushing QB, hence the much better Total QBR). Read that again. Think about it. Extremely troubling trajectory. Things are getting very bleak for the pass defense since Green went out and now Manley didn't play either. The run defense also got gashed but that's not nearly as disturbing when accounting for the opponent. Believe it or not, our streak of the run defense doing better on a yard per carry basis than the opponent norm continued this week. Notre Dame has one of the best run games in America and our 5.87 yards per carry allowed was better than their 6.13 average. We did better than Miami of Ohio and Purdue and almost identical to Texas A&M. Fully halfway through the season, we are #55 in yards per carry allowed and #35 in rushing yards per game allowed, which is super impressive considering we've played two of the top eight rushing offenses. We still have reason to believe in our run defense.
4. It's harder to find things to believe in on the offense. However, the lack of a QB looms higher than Hoover Tower and this game was without Ford, Rogers, and Wright, so if you couple that with facing a much tougher counterpart than April's side of the ball, it's clear the offense had much more to excuse their performance yesterday. Clearly they struggled and were not really close to scoring all game after the first drive (which made the horrendous end of half clock management by Taylor and Daniels even more damaging....after all the years of criticism of Shaw's in-game decisions, some were should acknowledge Taylor may be even stupider in-game). As a reflection of how little hope Taylor has in the offense right now, we ran 59 plays yesterday. We are not quite slowing it down like Shaw's valleys but we are getting there. This was tied with Big Game last year for the fewest plays Taylor has bothered running in a game at Stanford. Based on rate stats, this was a middle of the road game for our passing game, about identical to the Syracuse effort, and it was middle of the road based on what Notre Dame normally allows. We were actually passing more effectively than Texas A&M, Purdue, and Miami of Ohio had. The Domer pass defense is just that extraordinary. But those stats mislead and the bigger story is how little we passed, only 18 attempts including all that garbage time. That is our lowest since we had 17 in the 2018 Sun Bowl against Pitt. My guess is that reflects an intentional game plan considering Notre Dame has among the most dominant passing defenses in the nation, our passing game is a season-long disaster, and Daniels was coming off injury. I think Taylor didn't see any percentage in leaning on Daniels' passing or decision-making and as the game played out our previously encouraging pass blocking totally breaking down reinforced that instinct. At first I entertained a thought that we should have passed more considering we weren't doing worse than teams normally do against Notre Dame, but then I considered that more passing would have meant even more sacks and, I am almost positive, interceptions. This game plan wisely protected Daniels in a no-hoped (and yet he still came out worse for the wear....simply not a fair fight). On the run game side, Notre Dame has a good run defense but not that good that it should have kept us under three yards per carry for the first time this season. We did about a yard per carry worse than anybody other than Purdue has done against Notre Dame this year. I am going to chalk this up as a throwaway game considering that Ford, Rogers, and Irvin were out and we were facing a defense we had no prayer against.
5. With so little to be encouraged by this season, the main narrative is going to be about how you can't do anything without a QB. That's certainly the biggest story and deserves its reflection. After last night I also wonder whether some will push an injury narrative. I would be exceedingly cautious about any such narrative used to explain why this team is so disappointing. Halfway through the season I don't think we've had an inordinate number of key players miss time. At the moment, I am calculating 1.67 key player absences per game. The last three seasons we've ended up in the 3+ range. I bet our injury absences will go up as the season goes on - we have some walking wounded who will miss upcoming games, plus football gets dangerous when you're as overmatched as we are - but I don't view it as at all an excuse for our last six games. We have actually been pretty healthy among our most key players. That being said, the defensive secondary is going through it right now and that is impacting the team. But that's a position notorious for injury prevalence in football in general and we have so little quality there that it's hard to say the injuries are taking out our defense's most key players (especially since Wright has been healthy). I think one can say the roster lacks talent and thus injuries sting more than they would for other teams but that's different than saying we are experiencing a lot of injuries. To the extent this team is one of the worst in Stanford history it has much more to do with QB play on offense and general lack of quality across the roster.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - msqueri - 10-13-2024
6. It's a minor thing when we're getting run out of the building by several dozen points, but I continue to cast a wary eye at Taylor's in-game decisions. Aside from clock management, the most obvious place this manifests is fourth downs. We went one of four on fourth downs yesterday. Fourth and 5 from the 41 is one where generalized analytics may say go for it but no way should applying one's brain to these specific belligerents/this situation - what is likely to happen with our offense going against that defense - lead one to think we should go for that fourth down at that time in a tie game. We deserved to get sacked. Fourth and 3 from the 44 is two yards less stupid but probably still not using your brain to account for opponent and it being a one score game. At what point does the riverboat gambler mentality cease being a ballsy way to show you play to win and start being bush league desperation. We're probably there. In many of the individual cases (including both above), one can credibly defend Taylor's analytics and/or circumstance-driven decisions, but in the aggregate we are the #73 fourth down team yet go for it #3 of any team in the country (Baylor and Air Force also go for it too much). That seems to leave points and field position on the table. I suspect we are a worse team than we would be if Taylor were more conservative. I also am starting to wonder if the aggression is even a coherent and credible part of our personality. For example, we continue to not commit penalties (we're elite in at least one respect!) but it doesn't mean much when you're so overmatched in the most fundamental ways. We may end up viewing this team as too aggressive in our game management and too buttoned up in our style of play. Heck, I know a lot of fans who feel that way with the predictability of the Lamson package (though I think there are many things to criticize first/more forcefully than that).
7. If fourth down decisions and in-game management are meaningful things on the margins, the blaring size 32 font we're dealing with in the middle of the page is of course the QB play. This wasn't actually that bad by Daniels, but that itself is extremely telling. I had been talking about a positive reversion to the mean seeming almost inevitable for Daniels and believe it or not we saw that yesterday, which was basically exactly on Daniels' Total QBR mean from last year, making it his best game this season (but still not as good as his five best last year). Adjusted for the terrifyingly tough opponent, he did ok. Daniels was #69 of 107 in Total QBR this week. He had his best game and it still turned out how it did, and his best game through five tries this season is still sub-par. I mean, the pitch to a defender (albeit a great play by a player on a great defense) and the play air mailing Ayomanor on a deep sideline route are just not plays that can happen at this level. And that's on his best day of 2024. On the season, it's beyond ugly: #123 of 129 nationally and the dead last worst in Power Four. In other words, we are in the place we have been for weeks just waiting for Elijah Brown to get healthy and feeling sorry for ourselves (or mad at ourselves/somebody?) for Brown being on the shelf for a practice contact injury. On some level it feels like the season starts when Brown gets to face an FBS opponent. It's not fair to put these pressures on a true freshman QB but we have so little hope right now that it's palpable how Brown is becoming the vessel.
8. There really isn't much to say about offensive personnel otherwise. I'm glad Daniels' running ability translated even against a good opponent, Lamson didn't fumble (but Daniels did! WTF with our QB play this year is the tl;dr for the season), and Davis had a modestly encouraging game in light of the factors I mentioned above that made this a throwaway game. Even still, we just had a game without a single running back-produced first down and were back to the QB run as a crutch. The Ayomanor disappearance is terrible to watch. He's gone from 20th in the nation in receiving last year to not even in the top 100 this year (16th in the ACC). [Moving the chains (first down) leader board: Daniels (4), Lamson (3), Ayomanor (2), Cisse (2), Mosley, B. Farrell, Blackburn] Hoping to get a full RB complement out there by the time we play the soft part of the schedule and, between that and presumably a new QB1, can find some success to build on. But we can't put all of our hopes in Brown being a miracle worker and revelation. Not only is QB a hard position where he is likely to experience his share of failure, but there's also the matter of our offensive line. To this point of the season, PFF views us as #95 in pass blocking and #124 in run blocking. Atrocious, especially with everything returning. Yesterday was a breakdown that one might fear could erode fragile confidence. The way House got abused and Leyrer, Baklenko, Roush, and Davis struggled (we gave up four sacks on 27 drop backs, coupled with the aforementioned lack of trust in Daniels and his health, probably made it the right decision to throw as little as we did. Very rude awakening for House in particular. The relative bright spot, according to PFF, was Maikkula having the best game of his career. He has had a shaky start to the season coming off his health issue so if he could have a good second half that would raise confidence heading into next year.
9. Fewer players came to play for the defense than any game yet this season. I only count five players who showed up with multiple positive box score plays (Frausto-Ramos, Leigber, Bernadel, Tafiti, and Patterson), and one of those (Patterson) didn't do anything outside of garbage time and another (Tafiti) had a Jekyll and Hyde game that while making a few plays was on the whole an abomination in PFF's view. Very disappointing for the faces of our defense, Sinclair and Wright, to be so quiet on arguably our biggest stage of the season (by the way, haven't talked about that aspect of how disappointing yesterday was....yikes!). The main story around Bailey continues to be the intrigue/frustration of why he doesn't play more (23 snaps in this game, tied for his most in the last four games), especially with struggles most weeks from Tafiti and Cooper (no impact yesterday except for the roughing penalty that effectively ended the game) and yesterday the injury to Aybar. Anyway, that's enough on what's disappointing. The standout performance by miles was Frausto-Ramos. So nice to see him make the most of his injury-produced opportunity, not only by making our play of the game on his forced fumble/fumble recovery strip, but also make multiple run stops and a tackle before the sticks on 3rd down. With the injuries in the secondary he has earned a start next week and hopefully this great performance is not a complete aberration.
10. Kenney opening up the game with an out of bounds kickoff (always an infuriating mistake) set the tone for a game in which we wouldn't be getting advantage from special teams. Due to the offense's ineptitude Kenney didn't have any chance to place kick (can't blame Taylor's riverboat gambling for that as the fourth down tries were in punt or go for it territory). Flintoft had net punts of 36 to 35 (horrible), 46 to the 17 (good), 40 to the 36 (only ok due to out-kicking coverage), and 36 to the 40 (a bit worse, also due to out-kicking coverage). Bachmeier's second half kickoff situation was unfortunate and, while I am not going to torture myself by rewatching that play over and over again, we may have gotten the raw end of a call that cost a lot of field position in a situation we couldn't afford that to be the case. This game is a hold-your-nose one for picking the game ball. I'll give it to a guy who has to play on teams each week without any fanfare and only attention when something goes horribly awry, but to be honest I have no idea if he even had a good game because, like I said, I'm not about to go and rewatch this one. Giving a coaching game ball is an equally hold-your-nose exercise in a game like this.
11. Game balls: Maikkula, Frausto-Ramos, Warford, Agnew
12. Next week is a gut check opportunity to show the world and, equally importantly, ourselves, that we are better than the train wreck of recent weeks. I know Taylor has built a long-term growth mindset and a culture geared toward mindfulness and resilience, but this level of failure can be corrosive to morale of even the toughest teams. We need to stop playing like one of the worst teams in history, for numerous reasons. I also know fans have basically written off the majority of the season and are essentially putting all emotional eggs in the basket of whatever glimpses of Brown we get, but this remains a complicated, team game and all of it matters. We need to see something that produces belief in this coaching staff among players, recruits, and fans. Against SMU it's unlikely to be a win but I really want to see us try to hold a good team within a few scores. Whether we get throttled next week or not, our two games after that are two of the three worst non-Stanford Power Four teams in the nation. We may not get an easier conference back-to-back than that the rest of our lives, and we may get a Brown sighting in one of those games. There's something to look forward to at some point, I guess.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - JohnR34231 - 10-13-2024
Yeah, the last three weeks have been a train wreck, but at least two of them have been to two of the better teams in the country. I predict another one against SMU, but then we get the softer part of the schedule, and Brown coming in to perform the way everyone hopes he will,
So you can plan next Saturday as a day to clean out the proverbial sock drawer, but after that Stanford will (hopefully) be worth paying attention to.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - Goose - 10-13-2024
(10-13-2024, 12:04 PM)msqueri Wrote: 6. We went one of four on fourth downs yesterday. Fourth and 5 from the 41 is one where generalized analytics may say go for it but no way should applying one's brain to these specific belligerents/this situation - what is likely to happen with our offense going against that defense - lead one to think we should go for that fourth down at that time in a tie game. We deserved to get sacked. Fourth and 3 from the 44 is two yards less stupid but probably still not using your brain to account for opponent and it being a one score game. At what point does the riverboat gambler mentality cease being a ballsy way to show you play to win and start being bush league desperation. We're probably there. In many of the individual cases (including both above), one can credibly defend Taylor's analytics and/or circumstance-driven decisions, but in the aggregate we are the #73 fourth down team yet go for it #3 of any team in the country (Baylor and Air Force also go for it too much). That seems to leave points and field position on the table. I suspect we are a worse team than we would be if Taylor were more conservative.As always, I enjoy your thoughtful examination of the previous game. Indeed this one must have been very discouraging when all aspects of the game were painfully poor. I would appreciate any "analytics" that you (or anybody else) have regarding the 4th down plays. I am familiar with the work done in the NFL and the papers published on that subject, but I am unsure of exactly what analytic "data" (if any) is driving TT's decisions. I totally agree with you that going for it in the two cited cases was a very bad choice.
IMO there are all kinds of potential problems with using "statistics" to guide decisions in football, the main one being the applicability of aggregate population values to a specific population (Stanford's team) that is in no way "typical" of the general population. As you point out, we are unfortunately way out on the "tail" of the distribution in both offense and defense. What may "typically" work for a "middle of the pack" team probably will not for the bottom 1-2%.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - CardinalSagehen - 10-13-2024
(10-13-2024, 01:19 PM)Goose Wrote:(10-13-2024, 12:04 PM)msqueri Wrote: 6. We went one of four on fourth downs yesterday. Fourth and 5 from the 41 is one where generalized analytics may say go for it but no way should applying one's brain to these specific belligerents/this situation - what is likely to happen with our offense going against that defense - lead one to think we should go for that fourth down at that time in a tie game. We deserved to get sacked. Fourth and 3 from the 44 is two yards less stupid but probably still not using your brain to account for opponent and it being a one score game. At what point does the riverboat gambler mentality cease being a ballsy way to show you play to win and start being bush league desperation. We're probably there. In many of the individual cases (including both above), one can credibly defend Taylor's analytics and/or circumstance-driven decisions, but in the aggregate we are the #73 fourth down team yet go for it #3 of any team in the country (Baylor and Air Force also go for it too much). That seems to leave points and field position on the table. I suspect we are a worse team than we would be if Taylor were more conservative.As always, I enjoy your thoughtful examination of the previous game. Indeed this one must have been very discouraging when all aspects of the game were painfully poor. I would appreciate any "analytics" that you (or anybody else) have regarding the 4th down plays. I am familiar with the work done in the NFL and the papers published on that subject, but I am unsure of exactly what analytic "data" (if any) is driving TT's decisions. I totally agree with you that going for it in the two cited cases was a very bad choice.
IMO there are all kinds of potential problems with using "statistics" to guide decisions in football, the main one being the applicability of aggregate population values to a specific population (Stanford's team) that is in no way "typical" of the general population. As you point out, we are unfortunately way out on the "tail" of the distribution in both offense and defense. What may "typically" work for a "middle of the pack" team probably will not for the bottom 1-2%.
Agree. Moreover, there's no reason why an analytics system can't be tailored to a specific matchup prior to or even during a game. I know nothing about being a football coach, but if it were my job, I'd have a really smart statistician in the booth feeding analytics and time management to me constantly.
Somewhat off-topic - take a look at Kyle Smith's message and depth around analytics. It sounds like "Moneyball" for hoops - his staff tracks over 50 additional stats that are not normally tracked. (I'm assuming these include actions like defelections on defense and successful screens on offense.) These stats are categorized into winning and non-winning plays, and players receive very nuanced feedback on their performance at all times. It seems like a much better, more nuanced and more actionable version of the +/- system. Smith also has a lot to say about shot selection based on analytics.
I'd love to know more about the analytical basis for Taylor's 4th down decisions. I suspect it's based on the generic studies and data, combined with a feeling that our chances of winning are extremely low either way, so we have to pull out all the stops. I do find it ironic that we've gone from one end of the spectrum (Shaw) to the other extreme end (TT) in terms of 4th down aggressiveness and reverence for field position. Between the two, I prefer TT's approach, but it all depends on what kind of team you have.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - Nobadeer - 10-13-2024
The upcoming home game, no travel, jet lag, etc. will be good for the players and staff. LSJU has made three round trips to the Eastern time zone in 4 weeks!? Has any other power 4 football team been subjected to that back and forth and back and forth. And has any other LSJU football team ever traveled as far in a month? Not an excuse for the W/L record, but it can't have been an advantage. Welcome to the ACC. (Does ACC stand for Airplanes Cross Country??)
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - martyup - 10-13-2024
Thanks Matt.
![[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.tenor.com%2FvBntk...ipo=images]](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.tenor.com%2FvBntkZV-cDcAAAAC%2Flong-story-short-tyler-oakley.gif&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=cbc608bca6ef4b34d199f4a0d54b72ed90d7da6ccdbe661f506d13e4a9ad913c&ipo=images)
![[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia1.tenor.com%2Fimag...ipo=images]](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia1.tenor.com%2Fimages%2F43b2e3aaf466255909edab55f23aef4b%2Ftenor.gif%3Fitemid%3D4846273&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=f54945933eb726537d43cf22c0ef45fef18263c5fed6001dbef4e68940601225&ipo=images)
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - Goose - 10-13-2024
(10-13-2024, 02:18 PM)CardinalSagehen Wrote: Agree. Moreover, there's no reason why an analytics system can't be tailored to a specific matchup prior to or even during a game. I know nothing about being a football coach, but if it were my job, I'd have a really smart statistician in the booth feeding analytics and time management to me constantly.I think there are very good reasons this tailoring is impossible. For each opponent you can possibly get "tendencies" based on some level of "history". However, each year is potentially very different. Including data from the past in a time-varying system may tell you nothing at all about the opponent's intentions today. OTOH using "recent" data suffers from lack of numbers (very small "N"). What happened in one or two cases may tell you nothing about what the opponent is going to do on the next play. On top of all that, your opponent evaluates your team and will play against you differently than he does other teams in ways the "past" cannot predict. There are many internal states in the system that are not observable. In order to get reasonable "N" about a particular opponent the statisticians often must group plays together as "the same" when in reality they are not. In any given situation those differences are submerged and the numbers tell you nothing at all. Add injuries into the mix and things get even murkier. Your opponents "favorite play" may be impossible for them to run because the guys they need to run it aren't available.
Quote:I'd love to know more about the analytical basis for Taylor's 4th down decisions. I suspect it's based on the generic studies and data, combined with a feeling that our chances of winning are extremely low either way, so we have to pull out all the stops. I do find it ironic that we've gone from one end of the spectrum (Shaw) to the other extreme end (TT) in terms of 4th down aggressiveness and reverence for field position. Between the two, I prefer TT's approach, but it all depends on what kind of team you have.I have no idea what "data", if any, TT uses to make his decisions to "go for it". It seems it is almost a matter of principle rather than a case-by-case basis. I too would like to know more about the process. Shaw at least could explain why he did what he did. He too (mostly) behaved based on a "theory" about field position and risk avoidance. Sometimes we didn't agree with it, but at least we knew why he did what he did. So far, TT hasn't given his theory of the case regarding 4th downs. He always says (more or less) that we do it in order to establish that we play to win the game. I find that a little thin, but I am unsure we will ever get more than that :-).
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - needle - 10-13-2024
Quote: We still have reason to believe in our run defense.
ND had three TD runs of 15+ yards. They easily could have been three TD runs of 30+ yards. StatsBroadcast tallies "Big" plays in the run and pass games, and ND has seven "Big" run plays (defined as 10 yards or more). The run defense for Stanford was horrific against Notre Dame, no two ways about it.
Quote: Fourth and 5 from the 41 is one where generalized analytics may say go for it but no way should applying one's brain to these specific belligerents/this situation - what is likely to happen with our offense going against that defense - lead one to think we should go for that fourth down at that time in a tie game. We deserved to get sacked. Fourth and 3 from the 44 is two yards less stupid but probably still not using your brain to account for opponent and it being a one score game.
Not really trying to change anyone's mind, but I'd guess that about 70% of coaches would have gone for it on fourth down in both of these scenarios. Punting from your opponent's 40-ish often* leads to a touchback. If failing on fourth down results in +20 yards of field position for your opponent, that's rarely the thing that causes you to lose a game. Personally, I'm not going to fault TT for going with "conventional" coach-think (for once).
*Searched online for probability of touchbacks when kicking from between your opponent's 40-45 yardlines, came up empty.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - qwerty49 - 10-13-2024
I always enjoy your analyses, Matt.
Some questions I have from my layman’s POV:
(I realize all of them could possibly be answered by “all of the above.”
1. What is going on with Ayomanor? Is it that other teams have figured out how to cover him, and that our QBs lack the accuracy to get the ball thru a smaller window? Is it part of a larger problem that our O doesn’t provide the right routes against varying coverage?
2. Why do I get the feeling I’m watching a high school offense? Where are the quick routes over the middle that TCU and others constantly exploited with us? Is it lack of talent/depth at TE?
3. All those TFLs seem to be on wide or option plays. Yet Davis and Jones seem reasonably effective running inside on counters. Is there a lesson here? What is causing those wide plays to get busted up so early?
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - SkiBum80 - 10-13-2024
From a non-statistical armchair observation,
I think Coach made some small improvements in OLine, DLine, and RB room compared to last year.
But really disappointed to see several key top returners from last year’s team actually having a worse season so far this year.
They seem to have regressed.
I didn’t expect this.
That coupled with our secondary falling apart, at least those not injured, and it’s pretty depressing at this point.
Hope Coach still has respect of the team and is able to pull a turnaround outta the hat.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - Goose - 10-13-2024
(10-13-2024, 04:43 PM)needle Wrote: Not really trying to change anyone's mind, but I'd guess that about 70% of coaches would have gone for it on fourth down in both of these scenarios. Punting from your opponent's 40-ish often* leads to a touchback. If failing on fourth down results in +20 yards of field position for your opponent, that's rarely the thing that causes you to lose a game.Maybe not directly and immediately. However, we do have some data to evaluate that effect. https://www.bcftoys.com/sfp/ shows the mean (expected value) points per drive (PPD) in college football by year. Using the data from 2022 the PPD for a drive starting from a touchback (20 yard line) is 1.8 pts. The expected value for a drive starting at your own 41 is 2.72. Thus the expected return for your opponent is 151% of what it would be if you punted into the end zone. If you have a good punter and punt team and can get the ball at say the 10 yardline, the benefit rises to 165%. Another way to look at it is that the average team starting at the 20 yard line will score a TD about 25.7 % of the time, while the same team starting at their own 41 would score 38.9% of the time. I would say that is a "significant" difference not to be ignored. Granted the data is also somewhat noisy. Obviously if you do convert the above values don't matter. Unfortunately Stanford did not convert most of the time and arguably the first failure did matter.
Quote:Personally, I'm not going to fault TT for going with "conventional" coach-think (for once).I am willing to wager that TTs decisions are affected not at all by what other coaches think or do.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - BostonCard - 10-13-2024
The full analysis would also look at the expected point value of a first and ten at around the opponent’s forty, multiplied by the probability of converting.
I think it is funny that many of the same people who excoriated Shaw for punting from the opponent’s side of the field are also criticizing Taylor for going for it.
Here’s the bottom line, we lost 49-7. Even under the best of circumstances, where we kick a field goal from the 41 to get us to 10 points, and the extra distance that Notre Dame has to cover makes a difference between a touchdown and no points (happened twice; the third and last time we failed to convert, the game ended on Notre Dame’s ensuing possession). So, even under the best of circumstances that’s a 35-10 Notre Dame win instead of 49-7; still a beatdown. More likely, Notre Dame scores anyway and the game is not markedly different from 49-7.
BC
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - Goose - 10-13-2024
(10-13-2024, 06:02 PM)BostonCard Wrote: The full analysis would also look at the expected point value of a first and ten at around the opponent’s forty, multiplied by the probability of converting.Easy enough to do. The PPD starting at the opponent's 41 is 3.83. If P is the probability of converting, the "break even" point is when P * 3.83 == 2.72 * (1.0 - P). Solving for P yields the break-even probability is 0.415. So, if you thought it more than 41.5% probable you would make a first down on fourth and five, going for it will have a positive expected value. Mentally, I did the same evaluation with the simplifying assumption that P was obviously very close to 0 and could be neglected in computing the expected value :-). I see no way one could rationally estimate P at 41.5% or greater. Fourth and one, yes, P may even be 50% or so.
Quote:I think it is funny that many of the same people who excoriated Shaw for punting from the opponent’s side of the field are also criticizing Taylor for going for it.Indeed, but nothing says sports boards are intellectually consistent :-).
Quote:Here’s the bottom line, we lost 49-7. Even under the best of circumstances, where we kick a field goal from the 41 to get us to 10 points, and the extra distance that Notre Dame has to cover makes a difference between a touchdown and no points (happened twice; the third and last time we failed to convert, the game ended on Notre Dame’s ensuing possession). So, even under the best of circumstances that’s a 35-10 Notre Dame win instead of 49-7; still a beatdown. More likely, Notre Dame scores anyway and the game is not markedly different from 49-7.You are of course correct in the event. ND punted the first time they got the ball and fumbled it once. However, when the decision was made to go for it on fourth and five, none of that was in evidence. The game was tied. You have to play to win the game by making the best possible decisions. IMO we didn't do that. Yes, we were eventually in a beatdown. Even once the game gets out of hand, IMO you still have to maximize your ability to score points. The players are owed that if we expect them not to quit.
BC
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - BostonCard - 10-13-2024
I think the formula is the value for going it if successful times the probability of success minus the value of going for it but failing times (1 - p) has to be greater than the value of punting.
So it becomes 3.83p - 2.72(1 - p) > -1.8 (the value to the other team of having the ball on the 20, if you punt). Solving for p, you get
p > 0.92 / 1.11; p > 83%
It's a bit late, so I could be wrong on the math; I would have thought the breakeven point would be lower, but maybe that's because I would have expected the value of being on the 40 compared to the 20 to be smaller.
BC
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - Goose - 10-13-2024
(10-13-2024, 07:36 PM)BostonCard Wrote: I think the formula is the value for going it if successful times the probability of success minus the value of going for it but failing times (1 - p) has to be greater than the value of punting.UPDATE: Your equation is correct. My short-lived initial response was nonsense :-). I was evaluating play as if there was an option to do nothing. There isn't. If you don't go for it, you have to punt, which has a presumed -1.8 fixed value. 3.83p - 2.72 + 2.72p > -1.8 becomes 6.55p > 0.92 or p > 0.140. That yields a pretty low 14% success probability as the point above which going for it makes sense. My guesstimate of our success probability being zero still says don't do it, but it makes it much more arguable. I have evaluated the formula at p=90% and p= 20% with reasonable results. Of course if one believes the ball can be downed inside the 20 that moves the required success probability up.
So it becomes 3.83p - 2.72(1 - p) > -1.8 (the value to the other team of having the ball on the 20, if you punt). Solving for p, you get
p > 0.92 / 1.11; p > 83%
It's a bit late, so I could be wrong on the math; I would have thought the breakeven point would be lower, but maybe that's because I would have expected the value of being on the 40 compared to the 20 to be smaller.
BC
A more "conservative" result that may have some value as a "worst case" scenario is what does p need to be completely discounting the benefits of not giving the ball back to your opponent. IOW -2.72 (1 -p) > -1.8 or 2.72p > .92. That yields a p of .338.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - old spanish trail - 10-13-2024
Well, the stats are interesting, but I'm thinking of the "here we go again" impact on the players. Early in the game, we are ahead, e.g., and feeling enthused. Then, we give ND the ball around midfield when a well placed punt should have landed them at the 10 at least. We would have even more positive energy. In my earlier days, that mattered.
The analyst on the Sunday night game this eve ventured the fact that Brian Dabol, who went for it on 4th down several times in Giants' territory, was both the head coach and the off coordinator/play caller. might have benefited from a head coach who could overrule the "frustrated" off coach putting the team in a disadvantageous spot. Is that applicable here?
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - Mick - 10-14-2024
I'm a bit worried that our future opponents are going to think they need to crush us, if they want to maintain ratings position. We're seen as what we are...an easy target. Notre Dame had the bad loss against Northern Illinois, so one way to fix their reputation is to crunch Stanford.
College Football Power Rankings: Ole Miss plummets, Notre Dame ticks up after dramatic Week 7 slate (msn.com)
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - CardinalSagehen - 10-15-2024
(10-13-2024, 08:36 PM)Goose Wrote:(10-13-2024, 07:36 PM)BostonCard Wrote: I think the formula is the value for going it if successful times the probability of success minus the value of going for it but failing times (1 - p) has to be greater than the value of punting.UPDATE: Your equation is correct. My short-lived initial response was nonsense :-). I was evaluating play as if there was an option to do nothing. There isn't. If you don't go for it, you have to punt, which has a presumed -1.8 fixed value. 3.83p - 2.72 + 2.72p > -1.8 becomes 6.55p > 0.92 or p > 0.140. That yields a pretty low 14% success probability as the point above which going for it makes sense. My guesstimate of our success probability being zero still says don't do it, but it makes it much more arguable. I have evaluated the formula at p=90% and p= 20% with reasonable results. Of course if one believes the ball can be downed inside the 20 that moves the required success probability up.
So it becomes 3.83p - 2.72(1 - p) > -1.8 (the value to the other team of having the ball on the 20, if you punt). Solving for p, you get
p > 0.92 / 1.11; p > 83%
It's a bit late, so I could be wrong on the math; I would have thought the breakeven point would be lower, but maybe that's because I would have expected the value of being on the 40 compared to the 20 to be smaller.
BC
A more "conservative" result that may have some value as a "worst case" scenario is what does p need to be completely discounting the benefits of not giving the ball back to your opponent. IOW -2.72 (1 -p) > -1.8 or 2.72p > .92. That yields a p of .338.
Coach TT addressed this question directly in today's presser at this timestamp: https://youtu.be/tTYW3dpIEVA?t=386
He said that there's an analytics person who runs numbers for fourth down based on everything including "the book", our strength up until this game, and the opponent's strength up until this game. This person provides a number such as "3", which means the analytics favor going for it in this situation with 3 or fewer yards to go. But sometimes the differences in win probabilities between "go" and "punt" are very close (e.g., within 2%), and TT says that he sometimes overrides the recommendation based on other in-game factors.
If the system is everything he says it is, it's similar to what I imagined and was trying to describe above, in that it personalizes "the book's" recommendation based on the relative strength of this offense and this defense. But I somewhat doubt that the system is really everything he says it is.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - SkiBum80 - 10-15-2024
(10-15-2024, 02:59 PM)CardinalSagehen Wrote:(10-13-2024, 08:36 PM)Goose Wrote:(10-13-2024, 07:36 PM)BostonCard Wrote: I think the formula is the value for going it if successful times the probability of success minus the value of going for it but failing times (1 - p) has to be greater than the value of punting.UPDATE: Your equation is correct. My short-lived initial response was nonsense :-). I was evaluating play as if there was an option to do nothing. There isn't. If you don't go for it, you have to punt, which has a presumed -1.8 fixed value. 3.83p - 2.72 + 2.72p > -1.8 becomes 6.55p > 0.92 or p > 0.140. That yields a pretty low 14% success probability as the point above which going for it makes sense. My guesstimate of our success probability being zero still says don't do it, but it makes it much more arguable. I have evaluated the formula at p=90% and p= 20% with reasonable results. Of course if one believes the ball can be downed inside the 20 that moves the required success probability up.
So it becomes 3.83p - 2.72(1 - p) > -1.8 (the value to the other team of having the ball on the 20, if you punt). Solving for p, you get
p > 0.92 / 1.11; p > 83%
It's a bit late, so I could be wrong on the math; I would have thought the breakeven point would be lower, but maybe that's because I would have expected the value of being on the 40 compared to the 20 to be smaller.
BC
A more "conservative" result that may have some value as a "worst case" scenario is what does p need to be completely discounting the benefits of not giving the ball back to your opponent. IOW -2.72 (1 -p) > -1.8 or 2.72p > .92. That yields a p of .338.
Coach TT addressed this question directly in today's presser at this timestamp: https://youtu.be/tTYW3dpIEVA?t=386
He said that there's an analytics person who runs numbers for fourth down based on everything including "the book", our strength up until this game, and the opponent's strength up until this game. This person provides a number such as "3", which means the analytics favor going for it in this situation with 3 or fewer yards to go. But sometimes the differences in win probabilities between "go" and "punt" are very close (e.g., within 2%), and TT says that he sometimes overrides the recommendation based on other in-game factors.
If the system is everything he says it is, it's similar to what I imagined and was trying to describe above, in that it personalizes "the book's" recommendation based on the relative strength of this offense and this defense. But I somewhat doubt that the system is really everything he says it is.
Sounded like, if I heard Coach right, that the analytics calculation does not take into account the stats of the current game so far. So that seems a significant limitation to it. Your calculation might say you should average a 3 yard gain per run play for this situation for that opponent based on their defensive history, but does it take into account one of our own key OLineman is out injured and that one of their key DLineman is just returned having missed games, and that so far this game you've averaged no gain on such run plays?