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All PAC-12 teams - stupac2 - 12-02-2014

Here's the list: http://espn.go.com/blog/pac12/post/_/id/81491/all-pac-12-teams-selected

Stanford guys on the 1st team are Peat, Richards, and Henry Anderson. On the second team 2nd are Murphy, Hooper, Tarpley, and Montgomery (returner). On HM list are Kevin Anderson, Carter, Hoffpauir, Martinez, Montgomery (WR), Parry.

Re: All PAC-12 teams - yvonne - 12-02-2014

Wow, I wish I could make HM list!

Re: All PAC-12 teams - Spiny_Norman - 12-03-2014

Stanford's defense this year was perhaps the best of the Harbaugh-Shaw era. 

#2 in scoring defense in the country
#5 in total defense
#8 passing defense (#1 in fewest yards per completion and #2 in fewest yards per attempt)
#12 in rushing defense

This was accomplished against a schedule that had the defense facing eight of the top 28 passers in the country and five 1000 yard rushers.

The fact that 3 members of the defense received 1st or 2nd team recognition and 5 others were HM tells me that the defense's success is a testament to the TEAM.  Yeah, they had a few ill-timed late game breakdowns vs. ND and Utah.  But I loved watching these guys play this year and I am sorry that I will only get to see them once more.  Congratulations to the all conference performers.  But really congratulations to all of the defense on a great season!

Re: All PAC-12 teams - BostonCard - 12-03-2014

I'd like to nominate Parry to the all-snub team.  That a nose tackle in a 3-4 defense was so disruptive is impressive.  That he didn't even get the second team is indefensible.

BC

Re: All PAC-12 teams - OutsiderFan - 12-03-2014

(12-03-2014, 12:22 AM)Boston Card link Wrote:I'd like to nominate Parry to the all-snub team.  That a nose tackle in a 3-4 defense was so disruptive is impressive.  That he didn't even get the second team is indefensible.

BC

I'd actually call it comical.

Re: All PAC-12 teams - CTcard - 12-03-2014

Couple of notes ...

Noting that Parry was very good isn't quite an argument that he should have been first or second team all conference - that would involve evaluating him compared to the others. Personally, I would not have chosen Parry over the 4 DL on the first team (H. Anderson, Nate Orchard, Danny Shelton, Leonard Williams). I think I would have chosen him for second team, but in truth I didn't watch the second team guys enough to have an informed opinion (Buckner, Clark, Odigihizuwa, Wynn).

The All Pac 12 defense would likely outperform the All Pac 12 offense, as they seem to be allowed to put 12 on the field (5 DBs both first and second team).

Despite the extra consideration for DBs, it's rather interesting to see Sua Cravens as a first team DB. He played 3 games as a safety, then 9 games as a linebacker. Those must have been a very good 3 games.

Especially given the five DBs per team, I thought the snub of Carter was likely bigger than the snub of Parry, though again I haven't really compared the guys.

Personally, I would have chosen Kessler as second team QB over Hundley. Perhaps I am overly influenced by their performances against us. Kessler did have better passing stats, Hundley much more of a runner.

Stanford had easily the best defense in the Pac 12. Managed 3 guys first and second team. In comparison, UCLA had 7 guys, Oregon 4, and UW 3. Not sure if that is a sign of snubs, or that Stanford played best as a team. 


Re: All PAC-12 teams - OutsiderFan - 12-03-2014

This All-Conference stuff is political in nature.  Cravens was a 5 star recruit.  Parry was a walk-on.  Enough said.

Re: All PAC-12 teams - Hulk01 - 12-03-2014

Seven UCLA defensive players--seven--made first or second team all conference, and only two failed to make at least honorable mention. 

UCLA's defense allowed a yard more per play than Stanford's, which had only three first or second team players.

Help me here.











Re: All PAC-12 teams - stupac2 - 12-03-2014

(12-03-2014, 09:20 AM)Hulk01 link Wrote:Help me here.

UCLA had a better record.

Re: All PAC-12 teams - stupac2 - 12-03-2014

(12-03-2014, 12:01 AM)Spiny_Norman link Wrote:Stanford's defense this year was perhaps the best of the Harbaugh-Shaw era. 

#2 in scoring defense in the country
#5 in total defense
#8 passing defense (#1 in fewest yards per completion and #2 in fewest yards per attempt)
#12 in rushing defense

This was accomplished against a schedule that had the defense facing eight of the top 28 passers in the country and five 1000 yard rushers.

The fact that 3 members of the defense received 1st or 2nd team recognition and 5 others were HM tells me that the defense's success is a testament to the TEAM.  Yeah, they had a few ill-timed late game breakdowns vs. ND and Utah.  But I loved watching these guys play this year and I am sorry that I will only get to see them once more.  Congratulations to the all conference performers.  But really congratulations to all of the defense on a great season!

Not that I don't think this defense is great, but according to F+ this is actually our second-worst defense since 2010, trailing only 2011's. We're ranked #10, whereas we were top-10 in 2010, 2012, and 2013 (the raw number has the same pattern, this is the second-worst since 2010 only above 2011).

Again, that's not to say this defense is bad, just that it's not actually the best we've seen relative to competition.

Re: All PAC-12 teams - yvonne - 12-03-2014

It's Shaw's fault.

Re: All PAC-12 teams - CrazedZooChimp - 12-03-2014

(12-03-2014, 09:20 AM)Hulk01 link Wrote:Seven UCLA defensive players--seven--made first or second team all conference, and only two failed to make at least honorable mention. 

UCLA's defense allowed a yard more per play than Stanford's, which had only three first or second team players.

Help me here.

Votes were submitted before Kevin Hogan tore them apart?  :P

Re: All PAC-12 teams - BostonCard - 12-03-2014

The problem with evaluating Parry is that the Nose Guard in a 3-4 is not meant to get tackles or sacks.  If he is doing a great job, then the linebackers are getting lots of tackles.  So, if you look at the raw numbers, Parry with 4.5 sacks and 7.5 tackles for a loss (and not in the top-48 in tackles) does not look exceptional.  But if you remember that he's a nose tackle and that his job is to occupy blockers then it is pretty exceptional.  Perhaps the best metric of how good Parry was is that opponents averaged 3.22 yards per rush against Stanford, easily the best run defense per play of any in the Pac-12.  The 3.5 sacks and 7.5 tackles for a loss are just cherries on top.

I also think we missed having him at 100% against ASU, where he went out with an injury and Oregon, where he played a limited role.

BC

Re: All PAC-12 teams - Hulk01 - 12-03-2014

This may not have been the best Stanford defense of the last six years, but I can't imagine there is a metric that suggests it was not the best Stanford defense relative to other Pac-12 teams.  We allowed about a yard less per play, and about seven fewer points per game, than the second best defense. 

Parry's absence from the second team makes me strongly suspect that msot voters just check the available stats and choose the front seven players with the most sacks and tackles for loss.  Parry was the center, and the key centerpiece, of the best-by-far defense in the Pac-12. Wynn and Owa O were not nearly as valuable or effective.

I also don't get the omission of Marcus Peters.  It makes me suspect that several voters saw Montgomery's best play of the year, when he KO'd Peters and two other Husky defenders en route to the end zone, but totally missed at least two similar plays on which Ekpre-Olumu got blown up. 



Re: All PAC-12 teams - stupac2 - 12-03-2014

(12-03-2014, 01:55 PM)Hulk01 link Wrote:This may not have been the best Stanford defense of the last six years, but I can't imagine there is a metric that suggests it was not the best Stanford defense relative to other Pac-12 teams.  We allowed about a yard less per play, and about seven fewer points per game, than the second best defense.

Well, I have this fun dataset of F+ ranks for the whole PAC going back to 2009, and the defense's best performance relative to the PAC-12 median was actually in 2011 (this says more about the state of the PAC in 2011 than anything else, though). By your metric, difference between the first and second teams in the PAC you're right, this year is by far the most we've lead by. What's interesting to me is that we've actually only lead the PAC in defense twice, this year and last year (and last year we barely edged USC). The best defense in those other years, according to F+? Oregon, mostly. I found that surprising, and it makes me wonder if the difference between Oregon in 2010/2011 and more recently is actually defensive regression rather than offensive. I could look at that with this dataset but meh.

Re: All PAC-12 teams - BostonCard - 12-03-2014

I wonder if the defense this year was penalized in the F+ by the paucity of turnovers generated (at least until the Cal game).  WE ranked 9th in the Pac-12 in turnovers gained (sixth in interceptions, dead last in fumbles forced).

BC

Re: All PAC-12 teams - stupac2 - 12-03-2014

(12-03-2014, 03:20 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:I wonder if the defense this year was penalized in the F+ by the paucity of turnovers generated (at least until the Low APR U game).  WE ranked 9th in the Pac-12 in turnovers gained (sixth in interceptions, dead last in fumbles forced).

BC

Entirely possible, but while there's much randomness in turnover generation it still had a big impact on our season to that point, so I think it's justified if we were.

Re: All PAC-12 teams - CTcard - 12-03-2014

(12-03-2014, 02:26 PM)stupac2 link Wrote:Well, I have this fun dataset of F+ ranks for the whole PAC going back to 2009, and the defense's best performance relative to the PAC-12 median was actually in 2011 (this says more about the state of the PAC in 2011 than anything else, though). 

The next step is to think about F+ and what does it really measure versus everything else one could use to measure a defense.

F+ does seem to have some strengths, but there are several things that concern me. One is that while they describe the metric in some depth in words, I don't believe they have published enough detail that one could reproduce their numbers on one's own.

More fundamentally, I am suspicious of two things that are done here: one any statistic that is too complicated to simply understand [inherently what does a defensive F+ of 14.3% mean?]; and I also think that a complex, qualitative question like "how good is a defense" cannot be answered by one number regardless of the algorithm. 



There are some things we can certainly say about the recent Stanford defenses.

Against the pass, and versus the competition faced, 2014 was the best overall defensive performance by a lot - this is true in opponents' pass rating, yds/attempt, and yds/game. It's not really close.

Against the run things are more complicated. In both yds/gm and yds/rush Stanford gave up more in 2014 than in 2013, 2012, and 2011 but was a little better than 2010.

In 2014 Stanford was generally less aggressive, blitzing less than recently and also producing fewer turnovers.
Sacks weren't down much, only behind 2012 in sacks/game. I should really check sacks per opponent pass attempt but that is too much work for right now.
Tackles for loss per game are down from 2012 and 2013.
Turnovers gained were 1.25 per game, the second worst since 2008 (better than 2009). This is way behind the 2.3/game from 2010. And a full 1/3 of the turnovers gained in 2014 were from the weenies.

Overall, the actual yds/gm and yds/play were both significantly better this year versus any other over the past seven (which is the timeframe of cfbstats.com).

In scoring, Stanford allowed fewer yds/gm than any recent year (16.0). However, Stanford has been slowing down pace of play. Apparently points per drive allowed was a little behind 2012 and 2010.
http://www.bcftoys.com/2014-ppd
[There aren't links to all years, put the year you want into the URL.]

-----------------
I probably take all of this to mean that 2014 was the best Stanford defense of recent years compared to the opposition they faced. However, I haven't thought much about how good the opposing offenses were in each year - a difficult question to answer with any certainty.

Re: All PAC-12 teams - BostonCard - 12-03-2014

Quote:Sacks weren't down much, only behind 2012 in sacks/game. I should really check sacks per opponent pass attempt but that is too much work for right now.

Our sack percentage (sacks over pass attempts + sacks, since sacks don't officially count as pass attempts for the NCAA) was 9% (9.03%, if you want to be overly precise), which was second only to Utah in the Pac-12 (11.1%).

BC

Re: All PAC-12 teams - stupac2 - 12-03-2014

(12-03-2014, 03:26 PM)CTcard link Wrote:The next step is to think about F+ and what does it really measure versus everything else one could use to measure a defense.

F+ does seem to have some strengths, but there are several things that concern me. One is that while they describe the metric in some depth in words, I don't believe they have published enough detail that one could reproduce their numbers on one's own.

More fundamentally, I am suspicious of two things that are done here: one any statistic that is too complicated to simply understand [inherently what does a defensive F+ of 14.3% mean?]; and I also think that a complex, qualitative question like "how good is a defense" cannot be answered by one number regardless of the algorithm.

Well, right, no one number can tell you anything. But at least F+ adjusts for the competition (which I think is useful for inter-seasonal comparisons on a question like this), and since it came to a similar conclusion as Hulk's raw data that seems to indicate that it's a reasonable metric.

Basically I use F+ because it's the only game in town, and because DVOA is really useful. Is that a rigorous reason to trust it completely? No, but we're talking about sports stats, not putting a man on Mars.