Grading the team's performance: Week 1

Hpslugga

Hpslugga

2,500+ Posts
Back by popular (somewhat) request, here's the Landry grading sheet for the 08 Horns in their first game of the season.

Offense

-Win-check
-35+ points-check
-100% Green Zone scoring-check
-450+ yards total offense-check
-40% or better on 3rd downs-check
-1 or fewer turnovers-check
-Four plays 20+ yards long-check
-60%+ pass completions-check
-No sacks allowed-check
-Eliminate foolish penalties-no check
-Win the 4th quarter-check

10/11. Every now and then, I'll forgive foolish penalties if we keep them to a minimum and we're perfect on the rest, but I just can't do that. Too many false starts in this game to forgive that, but an all around excellent performance by this offense we have.

Defense

-Win-check
-17 or fewer points-check
-Force 2+ turnovers-check
-Give offense the ball twice or more inside the 50-check
-Force five 3-and-outs-check
-No run over 20 yards-check
-No pass over 25 yards-no check
-49% or worse completions-check
-Goal line or 4th and short stop-check
-Less than 200 yards passing-no check
-Less than 100 yards rushing-check
-Less than 300 yards total offense-check
-Score on defense-no check
-Shut out-no check

10/14. Very concerned about the pass defense, but the bright side is that we shut down the run and we didn't let them finish drives. There's a lot of work to do here to say the very least.

Special Teams

-No penalties-no check
-No blocked punts allowed-check
-No blocked PAT's/FG's allowed-check
-No fumbles-check
-No more than 10 yards per return covering punts-check
-Catch all fieldable punts-check
-Average 10+ yards per return on all fieldable punts-no check
-Return 1 kickoff past our own 40-no check
-No kickoff return past their own 35-no check
-PAT's 100%-check

6/10. We actually played better here than we graded, though we do need to keep an eye on the things we didn't check on. I was disappointed in the returns I saw and I didn't like the kick coverage we had against the wind. Tucker's a good kicker, but you can't ask him to hit touchbacks every time, especially not in this new kickoff era where he hits it from the 30. Tucker would have to inject himself with the DNA of Brad Daluiso daily in order to do that.

Overall: 26/35 (74%)

This is a very good grade for an opening game against any team that won a bowl game last year. In openers at the college level, you're really supposed to be satisfied with a 60% score (21/35), but we got over 70 (and were near perfect offensively), so that's very encouraging especially if we can build off this. Yeah, I know FAU isn't a very good football team, but Arkie State wasn't very good last year either and we graded like **** against them.
 
heres me thoughts from seeing the game in person

colt: played great. dont run so much against inferior teams, unlike last year, he's our most important offensive player, and cant really afford to lose him.

run blocking: really good. a couple times, i thought to myself "if our back was 1 step quicker, he woulda taken it to the house". i dont really think vondrell is suited for this offense, but he had a solid game though. did have a single running play out of the ace formation?

pass blocking: didnt look as good. not sure why. colt never seemed to have time to check his 3rd or 4th option. one time bucker was WIDE open in the end zone, but colt was already avoiding the pressure.

secondary: they hustled at least. they missed quite a few tackles, but showed their athleticism and hustle by catching up to the guy (even if it was way down the field). reminded me of cedric griffin catching an arky player from behind in a game where the secondary played pretty poorly too. i was a big fan of his after that.

coaching: no reason to put chiles in at qb for entire drives. i dont mind him situationally, but entire drives is a bit much, hopefully this wont happen in big 12 play. didnt really stretch the field, would have liked to seen a shot to williams or buckner, but this wasnt a big deal. we moved the ball at will.

fans: impressed with the student section. seemed more into the game than usual for an opener. unfortunately i left before the aggy score was announced, would have liked to see the reaction.
 
The offensive checks to me look a little bit easier to obtain than the defensive checks. Perhaps this is because offense is more powerful now relative to defense than when Landy coached?
 
It's harder to play defense than offense. That's just the nature of football as well as team sports in general. And knowing that, it's harder to play a "perfect" defensive game than it is a "perfect" offensive game.
 
rewdog,

I think the Chiles situation will have worked out one way or the other by the time Big 12 play starts. After the first couple of times Chiles was out there, I was ready to promote Harris to #2 and move to Chiles to RB (we need more speed at RB). However, Chiles settled down on that last TD drive. Still did not look great to me but still better.

We need Chiles to play in some relevant drives against UTEP and Rice. If he cannot cut it, we will not see this in Big 12 play. If he can, then he brings a special athleticism.

Against Arkansas we will see the coaching philosophy on whether Chiles will play whole drives or not. I would like to see Chiles come in earlier as a change of pace similar to what he did for us in the early 4th quarter against Nebraska. He came in for one play, and Nebraska knew what was coming. When Colt came back in the next play, everyone was expecting pass. Instead Colt runs for >20 yards around the left side. That was when the momentum changed in the game.
 
Thanks, Hp. I was looking forward to seeing this post today. Offhand, do you know what our overall percentage was against Ark. State last year?
hookem.gif
 
I'll be disappointed if it's not better considering we're playing a team that got the crap kicked out of it by freaking Buffalo
 
Thanks HP. I'm one of the popular requesters. I'm hoping your next grading post reflects that big positive bounce from game 1 to game 2!
hookem.gif
 
Since you don't have a line for scores by special teams, perhaps that ought to count as a defensive score. (It certainly is a "defensive" play, in the sense of defending the opponent's fourth down.)
 
I doubt Chiles will get full drives during Big 12 play.

The staff wants him out there getting real experience against another team's 1's, not coming in when the game is over and handing the ball off up the middle 3 times.
 
"less than 150 yards passing" is nearly an impossible threshold these days.

Heck, Rice even may be able to accomplish that.

I'd rather see a "fewer than x pass plays of +20 yards" standard.

Otherwise, good stuff.
 
HP, great post, I loved these last year. Thanks for bringing them back. I agree that there could be some modifications to make it easier to compare offense vs defense efficiency. I guess since the point is not to compare offense vs. defense then that's somewhat immaterial, though.

Now, not to hijack this thread, but seriously --

In reply to:
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1) jamaal singlehandedly won several games last year while colt had a poor year based on standards he set during freshman year.

2) running game was serviceable, but it was against fau. i dont think its a slight to current guys to say they are slower than charles and might not be perfectly suited to this offense. would like to see vondrell run more out of the ace formation.

3) maybe its different being at the game, but it seemed like colt was pressured at times. if he really had all day i wouldnt think he'd run for 100 yards, many of which were on scrambles after being pressured.

4) i tried to say something positive about the secondary. i figured there would be plenty of people ripping them for giving up 250 yards in the first half.
 
I am thrilled about the RB play. I saw 3 guys all look very strong and quick to the hole. I don't care if they get run down by DBs. With Colt looking as good as he did, the run game doesn't need to do anything but keep the chains moving. The big plays will come when the D has to adjust to getting pounded with a rotation of talented backs. Irby is good, and has to stay healthy.

I was not impressed with Chiles at QB. His passing is not precise. The ball gets there, but you never know where he will hit the receiver. I understand why he is currently the #2 QB, but it wouldn't surprise me if he finishes the season at another position(s).

The DBs are a little shakey, but they are mostly kids. A lot of potential and I think coach boom wants the most talented to ultimately be the most experienced. I don't know what to think about Palmer. Sometimes I'm glad he's there and sometimes I'm not. The young guys will end up being one of the best secondaries in the country with a season or two of playing together. I anticipate painful growth durring several games this season, but the future is incredibly bright.
 
Appreciate the breakdown, slugga. Being a bit of a stat monkey, it's always fun to see on-the-field performance abstracted into on-the-paper analysis.

As others have noted, however, I think some of those metrics need updating. Specifically, the yardage figures for offense and defense are mired in the 1970s. A 350-yard outing barely qualifies as average for an offense these days, whereas limiting an opponent to less than 270 yards is excellent, perhaps even elite.

With that in mind, I'd suggest adjusting the defensive metrics to 300 total yards (30-yard increase), 200 passing yards (50-yard increase) and 100 rushing yards (20-yard decrease). For offense, I'd crank that figure all the way to 450 yards (100-yard increase). Cracking 400 is nothing special these days, but 450 is usually a strong indication that your offense moved the ball fluidly and scored regularly.

Just my $0.02 worth.
 
From last year's NCAA stats, no team held the opponent under 150 passing for an average. and only tOSU had an average YPG against of 270.

Averaging less than 17 PPG was top ten. I remember Landry's goal was always 17 pts. given up, because he always felt his team could score that much, or more.

Hard guidelines to achieve with today's rulebook. Of course, if it's not hard, what's the achievement?
 
Stat- What we’re looking for here is a 70% across the board average (look at it as a high school test: we’re looking to simply pass to win an MNC). And when I say “across the board average” I mean I don’t want to average 70% with a wide range between the 3 categories. If we can get 8/11 on offense, 10/14 on defense, and 7/10 on special teams every game, there’s no reason we should ever lose. Any average above that in any of those is really a bonus.

Speaking of bonuses, some of those checks, especially some on the defensive side, are viewed as bonuses by the coaches that go by this. For example, if we win a game 42-3, we obviously don’t get that check for the shutout, but our defensive coaches won’t hold that against us. And if such a score was posted and the defense checked on everything else, the coaches basically treat it like a perfect game. They’d forgive the 3 points. They will live with that one drive that resulted in the FG. But again, a shutout is something your defense can actually do, so that’s why it’s included here and it serves as a bonus. You can’t just leave it off. Also, the "goal line/4th and short" thing may never present itself, so it's not like you could knock a defense for not doing it if it never comes up. I suppose I could add bonus stats to the offense (not sure what that would be) but I am not going to cut out anything on the defensive list for the sake of evening this thing up. It’s not about equality in the number of goals, it’s about gauging perfection and total suckage and all points in between and it’s about the percentages. We want 70’s.

As to the gap between the difficulties, I think it’s the same. Yes, the defense has to prepare to stop more than they did 30-50 years ago, but the offense has to prepare to do more as well. It’s a double edged sword in that respect. In Landry’s day, offense was primarily about running the ball and defense was about stopping the run. Offenses were simple, and in turn, defenses were simple. That’s not always the case anymore, especially not in college. Oh sure, there are some games where these goals apply (like if Ohio State of 2002 were to play North Texas of the same year and all you’d see is teams lining up in the I-formation and running between the tackles), but it’s not as constant as it used to be. For example, when it comes to Tech’s offense and their opponent’s defense, the running game is completely irrelevant. The relevance of the run game has shades of gray now. Back in Landry’s day, football was all about the run game.
In reply to:
Click to expand...
 
@rewdog10:
1. Jamaal had some good games, but he didn't really start dominating until late in the season. Plus, if you honestly think the team would have been better off having to replace Colt with Chiles last year rather than Jamaal with Vondrell, you're nuts.

2. Just about everybody in college football is slower than Jamaal. If you have to have Olympic sprinter speed to be suited for an offense then perhaps the offense needs to change. (Note that I disagree that Vondrell is ill-suited for this offense. Quite the contrary, I think that he's actually better suited than Jamaal was as he runs with more power, an important attribute in the absence of a lead blocker.)

3. Most of his runs were not scrambles due to being pressured. Instead he went through his reads and the timer in his head went off saying throw it or get out and make some yards. How many pressures or hurries did FAU have? I'm going to say maybe 3.
 
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