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Post by pvillecoach on Apr 6, 2022 16:50:19 GMT -6
Does anyone have a list of meaningful stats - stats that correspond with winning ? Something along the lines of, "turnover ratio: the team that has the fewest turnovers wins ?? % of the time". Also, explosive plays comes to mind.
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Post by larrymoe on Apr 6, 2022 17:14:07 GMT -6
The first thing that popped into my head when I read the thread title was turnovers. For me though, it was much more important to be plus in that category. I don't know if we won a game where we ended up minus in turnovers.
Another for me was time of possession. I know it means absolutely nothing to hurry up no huddle guys, but we were the opposite of that and wanted to have the ball as much as possible to grind away and keep you off the field.
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Post by jstoss24 on Apr 6, 2022 18:07:22 GMT -6
So I don’t have the exact data on win %, but I have a great list of Stats that Win Games that I got from my college HC. He used to spend an hour in a meeting at the start of camp every year going over all the data for these and I wish I had access to it.
1. Turnover Differential
2. 3rd Down Conversion % Differential
3. Points per RZ Trip Differential
4. Special Teams Hidden Yardage Differential
5. Explosive Play Differential (12 yard rush or 16 yard pass)
6. Pre-Snap and Post-Play Penalties (False Start, UC, etc.)
Win % goes up exponentially the larger the differential is.
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Post by macdiiddy on Apr 6, 2022 18:47:16 GMT -6
Number one is turnovers. That being said I think there is only so much one can do to "create" turnovers. You can face diminishing returns if you focus too much on these.
Secondly I would say is explosive plays. Runs over 10, passes over 15.
Limit or exploit these and I think you have a pretty good chance of wining.
Lastly, as a special teams guy, I am always looking at the hidden yardage. That little chart everyone has where there is a 5 percent of scoring if you start on your -5 and like a 50 percent chance of scoring if you start on the + anything is important to understand. Most of the starting field position is put on the special teams, but obviously if the offense fumbles the ball or goes 4 and out, this can really contribute to the win's and losses.
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Post by Defcord on Apr 7, 2022 5:54:25 GMT -6
Score. 100% of the time the team that scores more wins.
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Post by coachd5085 on Apr 7, 2022 6:14:54 GMT -6
Score. 100% of the time the team that scores more wins. I would be willing to bet a close second to this would be squat/dead/clean/press totals. While not is iron clad an indicator as score, I i’m fairly confident that teams at the high school level with higher squat, deadlift, clean and press numbers when far more often than they don’t. Yes both of our replies are somewhat tongue-in-cheek, however as is always brought up when this thread topic comes up on the board- are those other stats process or outcome related. I love to point out silkyice ‘s Great example of explosives being outcome based. One year fullback trap was his most explosive play I believe, the reason being is fullback was an SEC Signee. I am betting explosive runs (over 10 yards as defined in this thread) occur far more often to teams that have superior squat clean press dead lift numbers. All of the differentials referenced by jstoss above are far more likely to be “outcome related”. Meaning the bigger,stronger,faster, better players created those differentials far more often than they can be manufactured. In other words, those are things you see when better teams play lesser talented teams. There are countless examples of coaches taking turnover circuits during clinic season after leading the league in turnover margin one year only to find themselves quite ordinary the next. “Explosives” are far more often the outcome of superior athleticism/ability - which obviously will vary week to week. |
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Post by groundchuck on Apr 7, 2022 6:18:12 GMT -6
Turnover differential is the first thing that comes to mind. After that explosive plays. Obviously points. There was a span when our team's winning percentage was something like .800 if we held our opponent under 20 points. I remember looking back at the losses over that span and every single one we allowed 20 or more points. Twenty points is certainly not elite defense, but it showed if we could hold a team to three scores or less our chances of winning were very high.
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Post by bulldogsdc on Apr 7, 2022 6:21:12 GMT -6
Does anyone have a list of meaningful stats - stats that correspond with winning ? Something along the lines of, "turnover ratio: the team that has the fewest turnovers wins ?? % of the time". Also, explosive plays comes to mind. Points Given up vs Points Scored |
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Post by rsmith627 on Apr 7, 2022 6:33:13 GMT -6
# of times my D1 RB carries the ball.
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Post by coachd5085 on Apr 7, 2022 6:35:03 GMT -6
# of times my D1 RB carries the ball. actually, in the spirit that the OP intended this thread, this could be a meaningful statistic. tracking the amount of times your best player was able to get the ball |
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Post by rsmith627 on Apr 7, 2022 6:36:08 GMT -6
# of times my D1 RB carries the ball. actually, in the spirit that the OP intended this thread, this could be a meaningful statistic. tracking the amount of times your best player was able to get the ball Yeah, no question. Have to get the ball to dudes. The best defenses we see might not be the most talented, but they are able to find ways to limit some of the touches that dudes get. |
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Post by morris on Apr 7, 2022 6:52:19 GMT -6
I’ve heard Kevin Kelly and Noel Mazzone give different stats. I might have some of this wrong.
Kevin Kelly
Explosive plays
Turnovers
Negative plays
Mazzone had some type of 12% rule
Sacks
Presnap penalties
Dropped passes
If that was 12% or less of your total snaps it was something like 80% win percentage.
For HS I think Kelly’s is pretty accurate. Now the why those things happened could be related to a number of the things others have mentioned. You can win a lot of games being stronger and not screwing it up in the game. The same thing can be said for feeding the stud.
Get strong. Do simple things really well. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot.
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Post by Defcord on Apr 7, 2022 7:06:43 GMT -6
I’ve heard Kevin Kelly and Noel Mazzone give different stats. I might have some of this wrong. Kevin Kelly Explosive plays Turnovers Negative plays Mazzone had some type of 12% rule Sacks Presnap penalties Dropped passes If that was 12% or less of your total snaps it was something like 80% win percentage. For HS I think Kelly’s is pretty accurate. Now the why those things happened could be related to a number of the things others have mentioned. You can win a lot of games being stronger and not screwing it up in the game. The same thing can be said for feeding the stud. Get strong. Do simple things really well. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot. Mack Brown said in one of the Nike Clinic books at Texas they were something like 50-1 or 50-2 when they won Takeaways and Time of Possession in the same game. I believe that’s pretty powerful. But if you dig deeper I bet most of those games were against the 1-AAs and Kansases of the world. |
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Post by Defcord on Apr 7, 2022 7:13:33 GMT -6
I think it’s pretty important to have both goals and indicators. Goals being actionable and indicators being probable or desired occurrences.
For instance:
Goal: 20+ Noticeable Ball Pressures on Film
Indicator: 3+ Takeawys
Goal: 50+ Violent Block Destructions
Indicator: 12+ Havoc Plays (TFLs + Sacks)
Goal: 55 or Less Loafs
Indicator: No Big Play TDS
The goal is 100% in control of the players. The indicators are not.
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Post by morris on Apr 7, 2022 8:19:18 GMT -6
I’ve heard Kevin Kelly and Noel Mazzone give different stats. I might have some of this wrong. Kevin Kelly Explosive plays Turnovers Negative plays Mazzone had some type of 12% rule Sacks Presnap penalties Dropped passes If that was 12% or less of your total snaps it was something like 80% win percentage. For HS I think Kelly’s is pretty accurate. Now the why those things happened could be related to a number of the things others have mentioned. You can win a lot of games being stronger and not screwing it up in the game. The same thing can be said for feeding the stud. Get strong. Do simple things really well. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot. Mack Brown said in one of the Nike Clinic books at Texas they were something like 50-1 or 50-2 when they won Takeaways and Time of Possession in the same game. I believe that’s pretty powerful. But if you dig deeper I bet most of those games were against the 1-AAs and Kansases of the world. Take aways I think you can use but time of possession might be one of the most skewed stats. A team can get rolled and win TOP. It used to be a big stat people looked to but I think over time people have realized it’s not the best indicator. In the same category to a degree is the Guz Malzahn stat of having some crazy high winning percentage when they hit a certain amount of plays in a game. I believe both number of plays and TOP are more the results of other indicators that have a larger impact on the outcome of a game. |
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Post by mariner42 on Apr 7, 2022 8:27:06 GMT -6
Score. 100% of the time the team that scores more wins. I would be willing to bet a close second to this would be squat/dead/clean/press totals. While not is iron clad an indicator as score, I i’m fairly confident that teams at the high school level with higher squat, deadlift, clean and press numbers when far more often than they don’t. Yes both of our replies are somewhat tongue-in-cheek, however as is always brought up when this thread topic comes up on the board- are those other stats process or outcome related. I love to point out silkyice ‘s Great example of explosives being outcome based. One year fullback trap was his most explosive play I believe, the reason being is fullback was an SEC Signee. I am betting explosive runs (over 10 yards as defined in this thread) occur far more often to teams that have superior squat clean press dead lift numbers. All of the differentials referenced by jstoss above are far more likely to be “outcome related”. Meaning the bigger,stronger,faster, better players created those differentials far more often than they can be manufactured. In other words, those are things you see when better teams play lesser talented teams. There are countless examples of coaches taking turnover circuits during clinic season after leading the league in turnover margin one year only to find themselves quite ordinary the next. “Explosives” are far more often the outcome of superior athleticism/ability - which obviously will vary week to week. I noticed a while back that our best performers in 1v1s were the kids with the better squat maxes, it was as powerful a predictor as I've seen. It's important to understand that things strongly correlated w/ winning are not necessarily predictive, which is what coachd5085 is touching on with the 'outcome related' notion. S&C Example: an athletes ability to do chin ups is VERY strongly correlated w/ a fast 40 time. Do chin ups do anything at all for your 40? Absolutely not. But someone with a great strength:body weight ratio is probably pretty fast. At the end of the day, the stats will show that you'll win a lot of games if you: 1) play great defense, 2) are efficient on offense. The more you can do one of those things, the less you need the other, but it's best that you do both as well as possible. rsmith627: We gave up 1 TD all year when my starting QB was playing OLB for us. Problem was I couldn't afford to play him all the time because I had NOTHING behind him at QB. |
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Post by 44dlcoach on Apr 7, 2022 8:55:28 GMT -6
Hard to track for other teams but for your own purposes I think "blown assignments" will have a strong correlation to negative outcomes.
The big majority of the negative plays we have on defense involve some sort of blown assignment whether that is a misalignment, bad eyes, whatever the case may be. Same with negative plays on offense whether that's a bad read, allowing a free runner in the backfield, etc.
I don't know how to present that using statistics but we try hard to impress on our kids that our results are mostly going to be based on how well we can do our things than they are on any other factor.
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Post by Defcord on Apr 7, 2022 8:58:56 GMT -6
Mack Brown said in one of the Nike Clinic books at Texas they were something like 50-1 or 50-2 when they won Takeaways and Time of Possession in the same game. I believe that’s pretty powerful. But if you dig deeper I bet most of those games were against the 1-AAs and Kansases of the world. Take aways I think you can use but time of possession might be one of the most skewed stats. A team can get rolled and win TOP. It used to be a big stat people looked to but I think over time people have realized it’s not the best indicator. In the same category to a degree is the Guz Malzahn stat of having some crazy high winning percentage when they hit a certain amount of plays in a game. I believe both number of plays and TOP are more the results of other indicators that have a larger impact on the outcome of a game. I agree and understand but I think he was trying to emphasize the importance of the two together. If you can control the clock and get the ball back both it’s a major influencer of success. |
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Post by fantom on Apr 7, 2022 10:01:33 GMT -6
Let's not forget that there are two sides of each of these coins. It's true that luck can play a role in how many balls your defense takes away (Although you do get luckier if guys run hard to the ball). You can't always control it. Good offensive teams, though, can limit the risk of giving the ball away.
On offense, if it was easy to draw up explosive plays everybody would do it. They're all trying but you can't just make them happen. On defense, though, you can do things to limit your risks of giving up big plays. We always preach to our players that you give up big plays for three reasons: Mental errors, poor tackling, or poor pursuit (That can be laziness or poor angles). It's true that tackling a great player or calculating a pursuit angle on a really fast guy are harder or that being in the right spot in coverage won't stop the 6'3" WR from outjumping your 5'8" CB but bad teams aren't bad because great players make plays against them. They're bad because they allow average players to make big plays.
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Post by bobgoodman on Apr 7, 2022 11:04:21 GMT -6
Does anyone have a list of meaningful stats - stats that correspond with winning ? Something along the lines of, "turnover ratio: the team that has the fewest turnovers wins ?? % of the time". Also, explosive plays comes to mind. I don't think it's possible to come up with any such meaningful stats (other than comparing the teams' total scores), because you can't tell which way cause and effect run. When one side dominates, you don't need stats. When the game is close, it's never the same thing that determines it. Football just ain't that simple. Even soccer and wrestling aren't. Baseball, even less so. |
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Post by morris on Apr 7, 2022 11:11:20 GMT -6
Does anyone have a list of meaningful stats - stats that correspond with winning ? Something along the lines of, "turnover ratio: the team that has the fewest turnovers wins ?? % of the time". Also, explosive plays comes to mind. I don't think it's possible to come up with any such meaningful stats (other than comparing the teams' total scores), because you can't tell which way cause and effect run. When one side dominates, you don't need stats. When the game is close, it's never the same thing that determines it. Football just ain't that simple. Even soccer and wrestling aren't. Baseball, even less so. Yet baseball gave us Money Ball. I know that will probably be apples to oranges but baseball is the sport that at least to appears to have really gotten the analytics ball rolling. |
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Post by fantom on Apr 7, 2022 11:20:08 GMT -6
I don't think it's possible to come up with any such meaningful stats (other than comparing the teams' total scores), because you can't tell which way cause and effect run. When one side dominates, you don't need stats. When the game is close, it's never the same thing that determines it. Football just ain't that simple. Even soccer and wrestling aren't. Baseball, even less so. Yet baseball gave us Money Ball. I know that will probably be apples to oranges but baseball is the sport that at least to appears to have really gotten the analytics ball rolling. Well, there's boxing where they figured out long ago that taking a dive for the cash was a higher percentage move than hoping for a win. |
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Post by bulldogsdc on Apr 7, 2022 11:21:20 GMT -6
If you get a chance to hear Rob Ash speak on analytics- do it.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2022 11:30:20 GMT -6
While explosive plays and turnovers are huge, I’d also say that negative plays are a bigger deal than most in this thread have admitted. Most of the time, 1 negative play in a series will lead to a 3rd and long situation with reduced odds of conversion or scoring,
With HUNH offenses these days, I think a more meaningful stat than TOP or points scored is points per possession. Killing a lot of clock with long scoring drives is good. Scoring quickly in a couple of plays or on defense and ST with almost no TOP is good. Going 3 and out, turning it over, or having long drives that bog down inside the 20 is not.
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Post by coachstephen13 on Apr 7, 2022 11:48:45 GMT -6
I got this off Navy a few years ago and have used it with my defense. They says that a combination of six three-and-outs, turnovers and fourth-down stops translate into a win.
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Post by carookie on Apr 7, 2022 12:30:08 GMT -6
This type of thread pops up every couple years or so, and most point to turnovers. However, I this this mostly reflects the NFL, and probably D1, where talent level is pretty homogenous as are systems. At the highest levels, where talent is roughly even, and everyone is trying to move the ball via roughly the same system (no DTDW, no Flexbone, etc) then the margin for victory/error is razor thin. Ergo, turnovers tend to be that tipping point.
In HS, where half the games are decided on inception due to talent disparity, and systems and schemes vary wildly, turnovers may not have the same correlation. I would think that 'big plays', either as a percentage of total plays or as a total count, best correlate to wins and losses at our level. By big plays I mean offensive plays of more than "X" amount of yards.
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Post by groundchuck on Apr 7, 2022 13:29:20 GMT -6
The Noel Mazzone stat is something I used and tracked over several seasons and it was a good indicator. I took that a step farther. I would chart it for every practice. Believe it or not weeks when we had {censored} practices on the offensive side of the ball we also F'd up on Friday night. (Often, not always). I did this to show the players there is a direct correlation to how you practice becomes how you play.
I think I said this earlier, big plays (20+ yards) was a big indicator. Combine that with starting field position. Not many high school teams can drive the ball 80 yards. They need a couple of chunk plays in there to make that happen. So if you can make your opponent start on their side of of the field behind the 30 yard line and then limit getting chunked by the offense you are probably going to have at the very least, a shot.
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Post by chi5hi on Apr 7, 2022 13:33:29 GMT -6
This is what I think. TFL's...pre-snap procedure penalty...turnover.
As I see it in H.S. ball, TFL is big because it can result in a 3rd and long, and so is pre-snap penalty. The difference between a 1st and 5 or a 1st and 15 can be huge!
I regard a 3 and out as a turnover.
My $ .02.
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Post by fantom on Apr 7, 2022 13:49:30 GMT -6
The Noel Mazzone stat is something I used and tracked over several seasons and it was a good indicator. I took that a step farther. I would chart it for every practice. Believe it or not weeks when we had {censored} practices on the offensive side of the ball we also F'd up on Friday night. (Often, not always). I did this to show the players there is a direct correlation to how you practice becomes how you play. I think I said this earlier, big plays (20+ yards) was a big indicator. Combine that with starting field position. Not many high school teams can drive the ball 80 yards. They need a couple of chunk plays in there to make that happen. So if you can make your opponent start on their side of of the field behind the 30 yard line and then limit getting chunked by the offense you are probably going to have at the very least, a shot. Average starting field position is huge. Would have added it to my earlier post but got tired of typing. |
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Post by spreadattack on Apr 7, 2022 17:24:58 GMT -6
Does anyone have a list of meaningful stats - stats that correspond with winning ? Something along the lines of, "turnover ratio: the team that has the fewest turnovers wins ?? % of the time". Also, explosive plays comes to mind. One of the issues is that there are descriptive stats and predictive stats, and also stats that are more or less within a team's control. (There is another issue that most of the studies get done with NFL/college teams, so query how applicable it is to a high school team.) But turnovers is a big one. At least at the NFL level (see above), turnover margin is both extremely important for deciding individual games - no kidding -- but there's also not much data that turnover margin is sustainable long term and it tends to mean revert for teams over the course of seasons and from season-to-season. This isn't to say that some teams aren't better or worse at giveaways/takeaways, but there is a lot of "noise" in the data -- the errant pass that is dropped, the unfortunate fumble luck or bounce of the ball, etc -- so for all of the turnover circuits and ball security drills, there's a lot of randomness in the data. So while your turnover margin might decide whether you win or lose a game, it's very difficult to predict or control over time. Of course it's also common sense that some teams are better at taking care of or taking away the football, but just know that from game to game there's a lot of randomness. Then there are other stats which are both controllable and predictive, though there are causation/correlation issues like rushing attempts or even pass defense, which can be highly situation specific. So I'm not at all saying that stats don't matter or aren't useful, but using them correctly or helpfully is a bit tricky. The ones that jump out to me beyond the obvious like turnovers (or score) are explosive plays, offensive/defensive yards per play on first down, negative plays on defense and success rate/lack of negatives on offense, starting field position/hidden yardage. Really the big "insights" (whoopdie doo) being that the more yards you gain on early downs the easier it is to keep drives alive (that's just arithmetic), and it's hard to drive the field so explosives and field position matter a lot, and negative plays are drive killers. So the stats say be good and don't harm yourself.  |
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