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Post by jgordon1 on Nov 11, 2015 14:41:02 GMT -6
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Post by Defcord on Nov 11, 2015 16:58:27 GMT -6
This was a great article. I think this stat is better showing big picture how all three phases work together. When people start disecting this stat
, i think we will start to see a refocus on time of possession and turnover margins as that will help limit possessions.
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Post by fballcoachg on Nov 11, 2015 17:26:07 GMT -6
I get the stat but to me it seems like a longer way of saying the team that scores more than their opponent wins. If I could find a way to make that stat a sure thing in my program I'd be a happy man! To me it's a lot like the "big play" stat, yes it leads to wins but how do you do it consistently?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 11, 2015 19:10:07 GMT -6
I was just thinking about this the other day: the best measure of an offense or a defense isn't points, but how many points per play or possession it allows. It's a more sensible way to look at things and compare things apples to apples, IMO. Giving up 21 points defensively on 6 possessions is a heck of a lot more of an indictment of that defense than giving up 28 on 12 possessions and vice versa for the offense.
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Post by Chris Clement on Nov 11, 2015 23:59:39 GMT -6
This has been a crusade of mine for years.
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Post by coachfloyd on Nov 12, 2015 6:25:03 GMT -6
I think this is a great stat and probably more valuable than any other. We had a game this year where we only scored 30 points but it was on 5 of 8 possessions. Our HC was pissed because we only had 14 at halftime but we only had the ball 3 times and the 3rd one was with 1:45 left on the clock. We barely got two.
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Post by groundchuck on Nov 12, 2015 9:21:03 GMT -6
What's a good number for points per possession?
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Post by spreadattack on Nov 12, 2015 10:09:28 GMT -6
It's all part of a general move towards efficiency stats and away from totals stats, in part because you can't really compare teams apples to apples anymore with different style of play, and it also helps you focus on the right things, i.e., the interplay of field position with drive efficiency, etc. Also highlights making smart fourth down decisions and other factors -- are you conceding points by punting? how good is your kicker? are your special teams giving your opponent good field position which means you are giving up more points per drive than your defense would otherwise be allowing? I don't know about it making time of possession more important, though points per possession (further) highlights how important turnovers are because it's a way of stealing possessions (same with things like onside kicks and also how valuable end of half possessions are, etc). Go to the last chart on this page labeled "Drives" for NFL data from this season, including average starting position, yards per drive, plays per drive, etc. www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2015/Also that football scoop article is really just pulled from Brian Fremeau's excellent writeup on the subject for CFB here: www.bcftoys.com/2015-ppd/ |
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Post by coachfloyd on Nov 12, 2015 11:02:41 GMT -6
Would points per play be an easier way to gauge this? I can look at that stat right now but if I want to look at possessions I have to go back and count them each game. Can I get the same thing this way?
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Post by CoachMikeJudy on Nov 12, 2015 11:30:02 GMT -6
I guess- here we are thru 9 games:
O 475 plays @ 484 total points - 1.01 pts/play
D 479 plays @ 150 pts against - .313 pts/play
It was startling when I calculated it. I knew we were scoring in bunches, but we are scoring a point a play! Thats pretty freaking good offense!
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Post by joris85 on Nov 12, 2015 11:33:53 GMT -6
I would love to see it presented in a percentage as well.
Offense would score 100 pct when scoring a TD + PAT on every drive
(if you'd go for 2 and make it, you could "up" your stats there)
Defense would score 100 pct when shutting out the offense.
(maybe pick 6's could be added to this stat, making it possible to score above 100% as well)
Would there be a way to measure special teams efficiency as well?
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Post by CoachMikeJudy on Nov 12, 2015 11:35:40 GMT -6
We did a breakdown last year-
Our offense scored at 94% if we had a drive with no penalties or turnovers...94%!
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Post by joris85 on Nov 12, 2015 12:11:04 GMT -6
I think the points per drive say so much more than points per play and I'm pretty sure run based and control the clock type offenses agree.
Scoring at 94pct at 94pct is huge though!
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Post by spreadattack on Nov 12, 2015 13:45:46 GMT -6
I also liked the data on the NFL page showing the percentage of drives that ended with a turnover. That's an important one to control.
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Post by coachwilliams2 on Nov 12, 2015 13:46:29 GMT -6
We shoot for anything under 2 points per possession (Defensively speaking). We average 10-12 Drives on defense per game. That's 20-24 points. Should win the majority of those games.
Teams that no huddle may get 15 possessions. Holding them to 20 points means a lot more than a ground and pound team who only gets 8-9 possessions against you.
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Post by fbs on Nov 12, 2015 14:10:22 GMT -6
the whole measure here is how many possessions your defense has to defend. It's a brilliant stat to keep that should probably supercede most of the others. the more possessions you are on the field, the more points you will end up giving up. It's a statistical lesson for offensive coaches to start understanding that 3 and outs that take off 15 seconds from the game clock will cost you games against good competition.
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Post by coachwilliams2 on Nov 12, 2015 14:19:50 GMT -6
Correct. It also gets away from the traditional "Hold them under 100 rushing, 150 passing, and 21 points. "
If you are a hurry up no huddle team thats fine, but you better be scoring more points per possession than your opponent.
It comes back to the changing of today's stats.
1. Be great on 3rd down
2. Create Turnovers!
3. Force Field Goals in the redzone.
The rest is fluff.
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Post by fbs on Nov 12, 2015 14:25:20 GMT -6
100% agree. football has become very selfish in the way that offenses think that their only job is to score points, when it's actually so much more complex than that. The burden of game management is solely on the offense, as I can't think of one situation where you want your defense to stay on the field longer. therefore it's the offenses job to find a way to score points but to do it in a way that is best for the team to win the game. think mike leaches tech teams from the 2000's when they would lose 70-63 or the like... sure they were fun to watch, but their already untalented defense was made even less effective by the offense scoring in 3 plays or going for it on 4th down from their own 30 or crap like that. I'm an offensive guy, but I do see the light in that ego has become too much of offensive philosophy. I would much rather win a game 10-7 than lose 50-43.
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Post by agap on Nov 12, 2015 15:12:20 GMT -6
Our defense is on the field for 4-5 more drives per game than a few years ago, which is why I don't care about the number of yards we give up anymore. Even if the offense gets 2 first downs on each of those drives and we make them punt, they already have 100 yards more than they would if they didn't have those extra possessions.
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Post by spreadattack on Nov 12, 2015 15:34:01 GMT -6
Correct. It also gets away from the traditional "Hold them under 100 rushing, 150 passing, and 21 points. " If you are a hurry up no huddle team thats fine, but you better be scoring more points per possession than your opponent. It comes back to the changing of today's stats. 1. Be great on 3rd down 2. Create Turnovers! 3. Force Field Goals in the redzone. The rest is fluff. My issue with your list of 3 is not that they don't determine the outcome of games -- they clearly do -- it's that there is a huge amount of variance in how successful teams are at those three things game to game and season to season, i.e., there appears to be a lot of luck involved. I've seen teams lead the country in turnover margin one year and then the next, with basically the same lineup and same schemes, drop to the bottom of the country. People ask what happened, but a lot of it is just luck. There's a bunch of research showing that fumble recoveries is almost all luck driven, which makes sense since so much of which team recovers a fumble depends on how the ball bounces, and while there is slightly less luck with interceptions as some defenses/QBs/schemes are better, there's still a ton of luck there whether the ball bounces straight up or down or a kid catches it or drops the pick. I guess what I'm saying is that I agree you need to emphasize all those things but a lot of the coaches I've seen emphasizing them have had wildly disparate luck (both good and bad), and the best defenses (and often the ones who do well in those categories) are also the best defenses in terms of points per possession, yards per play, and all those normal metrics. I will say third down percentage is a huge one because it really tells you both how good your pass defense is but also your run defense as your percentage gets better the more long yards third down situations you force. Anyway, it's all a good discussion to figure out stats that really matter. Doesn't have to be all "analytics" to just find some comon sense useful metrics that aren't just total yards. |
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Post by coachwilliams2 on Nov 12, 2015 20:20:31 GMT -6
Notice it didn't say 'get turnovers'. It says 'create' turnovers. Strip sacks, forced fumbles, INTs. Things we work and drill.
But I agree, some is luck. We measure points per possession, yards per rush, per pass attempt, 3rd downs etc. but those are our 3 ''rallying cries'
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Post by coachd5085 on Nov 13, 2015 3:03:28 GMT -6
Notice it didn't say 'get turnovers'. It says 'create' turnovers. Strip sacks, forced fumbles, INTs. Things we work and drill. But I agree, some is luck. We measure points per possession, yards per rush, per pass attempt, 3rd downs etc. but those are our 3 ''rallying cries' But to spreadattack 's point, those teams that lead the league,conference,nation etc in turnovers one year, and run middle of the pack the next work and drill those things. It may vary a bit more at HS and younger levels, but I have never worked on a high school or college staff, nor have I visited a college or pro practice that didn't have a "turnover" circuit emphasizing "creating turnovers" or didn't constantly preach "ball security". Yet one year a team is one of the top teams regarding turnovers, and the next year they are average. My question is always (since stats, goals, metrics etc. comes up a lot here) how does what you measure change what you do daily? I see so much analysis here, but nobody has every really provided a convincing argument as to how all of this data mining has provided an insight such that it changed what they did on a daily basis that wouldn't have otherwise been obvious from just being observant. All of this data might be good for gambling and predicting outcomes in Vegas, or to give talking points for sports radio, podcasts, and the growing onslaught of sports TV network (read: data for people not involved in the actual contests) but I don't really see a tremendous amount of value or influence in changing the outcome the data predicts. For example, does knowing that CoachMikeJudy 's team is scoring a point per play change anything? Does one need data mining to say "hey, we are better than this opponent, maybe we should try to run a little faster tempo and increase our opportunities to score, since we are better and therefore we have an advantage each play"? One of my favorite posts here came when we were talking about the ooh so sexy "explosive play" stats, and silkyice succinctly pointed out that one year belly and trap were "explosive plays" for him according to the data because the ballcarrier was headed to the Big 12 (I think) and the next year neither were "explosive plays" because the ball carrier was an average HS running back? He didn't need any data mining to figure that out. The offense and defense combined have one job, and that is to ensure that when the game is over, your team has scored more points than the opponent. The BEST way to do that, is to execute your assignment to the best of your ability, and (hopefully) that will be better than your opponent executes their assignment. I am just looking for someone to show me how all of these comparatives help a squad do that. The only use for COACHES that I can see is for resume building. For someone like Nick Aliotti be able to say "hey, I was the defensive coordinator at Oregon, and although we gave up ____ points, when you look at these circumstances, you can see the unit performed as well as these defenses that are considered "tops". So hire me" |
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Post by coachfloyd on Nov 13, 2015 6:29:50 GMT -6
Correct. It also gets away from the traditional "Hold them under 100 rushing, 150 passing, and 21 points. " If you are a hurry up no huddle team thats fine, but you better be scoring more points per possession than your opponent. It comes back to the changing of today's stats. 1. Be great on 3rd down 2. Create Turnovers! 3. Force Field Goals in the redzone. The rest is fluff. My issue with your list of 3 is not that they don't determine the outcome of games -- they clearly do -- it's that there is a huge amount of variance in how successful teams are at those three things game to game and season to season, i.e., there appears to be a lot of luck involved. I've seen teams lead the country in turnover margin one year and then the next, with basically the same lineup and same schemes, drop to the bottom of the country. People ask what happened, but a lot of it is just luck. There's a bunch of research showing that fumble recoveries is almost all luck driven, which makes sense since so much of which team recovers a fumble depends on how the ball bounces, and while there is slightly less luck with interceptions as some defenses/QBs/schemes are better, there's still a ton of luck there whether the ball bounces straight up or down or a kid catches it or drops the pick. I guess what I'm saying is that I agree you need to emphasize all those things but a lot of the coaches I've seen emphasizing them have had wildly disparate luck (both good and bad), and the best defenses (and often the ones who do well in those categories) are also the best defenses in terms of points per possession, yards per play, and all those normal metrics. I will say third down percentage is a huge one because it really tells you both how good your pass defense is but also your run defense as your percentage gets better the more long yards third down situations you force. Anyway, it's all a good discussion to figure out stats that really matter. Doesn't have to be all "analytics" to just find some comon sense useful metrics that aren't just total yards. Sounds like we need an article detailing the stats that are most telling in wins and losses! |
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Post by coachfloyd on Nov 13, 2015 6:42:35 GMT -6
We did a breakdown last year- Our offense scored at 94% if we had a drive with no penalties or turnovers...94%! This is why I emphasize big plays. The more plays you run the more likely you are to have something that puts you behind the chains. I always think back to 3 years ago when we had a 19 play drive that ended in a fumbled snap (under center mind you). |
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Post by blb on Nov 13, 2015 7:05:12 GMT -6
The only stat I really cared about was I wanted to lead (or be darn close to leading) our league in Fewest Points Allowed.
In HS Football your W-L record will usually be pretty close to the number of times you score 21+ points vs. the number of times you allow 21+ points.
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Post by coolhandluke on Nov 13, 2015 7:47:48 GMT -6
I have done a five year study on our team's defense and correlating win percentage by specified parameters on the following categories: Pts/Poss, Yds/Play, Pass Yds/Play, Rush Yds/Play, Red Zone no TD%, Turnovers,3rd Down %, and Explosive Plays. The most indicative stat to winning for our us has been points/possession. When we allow less than 2 pts/possession we have won 92% our our games and when we have surrendered more than 2pts/possession we have won just 14% of those games.
This sort of dovetails with what blb just said, when everyone basically had about 10 possessions per game. But now, your possessions/game will vary according to the pace at which you/your opponent play. This year our offense played slow and grinded things out (one game we only had to defend 7 possessions!) and we defended 108 possessions through ten games.
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Post by blb on Nov 13, 2015 8:14:53 GMT -6
Whenever I read statistical analyses that purport to show how to win, my question is always "Okay, tell me HOW to do that (more TOP, get more TOs, more yards per play, etc.)"
Otherwise the numbers are meaningless. Like breaking down hours of film to determine that your opponent is going to pass 80% of the time on 3rd and Long.
Another fallacy is that by getting turnovers you get more possessions. That's not true. The other team had the ball before turning it over (they otherwise would have given it over after a score, by a punt, or on downs) and will have it again after you.
The only ways you can get more possessions than your opponents are by recovering onside kicks or muffed punts.
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Post by jgordon1 on Nov 13, 2015 8:20:00 GMT -6
We did a breakdown last year- Our offense scored at 94% if we had a drive with no penalties or turnovers...94%! This is why I emphasize big plays. The more plays you run the more likely you are to have something that puts you behind the chains. I always think back to 3 years ago when we had a 19 play drive that ended in a fumbled snap (under center mind you). this has been huge for us this year...in games that we have given up 3 or more plays of 20+ yards we have lost those...those are also the games where our best player didn't play defense the whole game so it could be ancedotal |
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Post by coolhandluke on Nov 13, 2015 8:41:04 GMT -6
Whenever I read statistical analyses that purport to show how to win, my question is always "Okay, tell me HOW to do that (more TOP, get more TOs, more yards per play, etc.)" Otherwise the numbers are meaningless. Like breaking down hours of film to determine that your opponent is going to pass 80% of the time on 3rd and Long. Another fallacy is that by getting turnovers you get more possessions. That's not true. The other team had the ball before turning it over (they otherwise would have given it over after a score, by a punt, or on downs) and will have it again after you. The only ways you can get more possessions than your opponents are by recovering onside kicks or muffed punts. I meant it agrees with what you said, not dovetails. Had not yet had my morning coffee. |
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Post by coolhandluke on Nov 13, 2015 8:46:02 GMT -6
There is one statistic for us that rivals points/possession in terms of win%, and it is average starting field position relative to our opponent. When we have lost the average starting field position battle in the last two years, we are 1-8. Ironically enough, that 1 win came last Friday night.
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