ESPN PAC-12 O-Line rankings
- Thread starter chinookpirate
- Start date
I read this yesterday and found it dubious and somewhat bizarre. Team A has to replace two or three of their starters from last year but they have a proven running back so the O-line must be O.K. Huh? WSU's offense gave up 36 sacks so they suck. Huh, again? Considering the number of times we passed thirty six sacks is not too bad at all. Our running game numbers were bleak so the O-line is bleak. Is it unfair to consider that Halliday rarely called running plays and that had something to do with the lack of running yardage? Cal was "inconsistent" but they have Goff back with some good receivers and a decent running back or two therefore their O-line is way better than Wazzu's. It has been over forty years since I took my logic class but this article has some strange conclusions. These guys are good therefore those affiliated guys must be good.
Lists are often a poor man's journalism and this article demonstrates that. Very little research or logical reasoning to be seen.
That said, I am fine with it. Good bulletin board material to piss off and inspire our guys.
Lists are often a poor man's journalism and this article demonstrates that. Very little research or logical reasoning to be seen.
That said, I am fine with it. Good bulletin board material to piss off and inspire our guys.
Well they said before 2014 started UCLA was "in good shape" and at #4 and now are saying "That being said, if someone had read these rankings last October, they’d have deemed us lunatics" .... so they are essentially calling themselves lunatics.
For the offense we ran we had less sacks then UCLA their #1, and Arizona their #10 this year they had at #2 last year bragging about how few sacks they allowed the year before.
Basically this guy is going by sacks only and running game, and since we don't run like other teams do he doesn't know how to measure it, and they were totally wrong last year.
Last year we were #8 in the Pac-12 in sacks allowed and are returning all 5. We are definitely not 11.
So to have a little fun. What I am going to do is look at a stat I'm sure they didn't calculate.
number of sacks in relation to number of attempts.
We threw it 771 times and had 36 sacks. Now I'm adding these numbers together because a sack isn't counted as an attempt, but it is in terms of passing just an attempt where you get sacked. So out of 807 passing situations we were sacked. 4.4% of the time.
How does that stack up to everyone else?
Colorado 4%
WSU - 4.4%
Cal - 4.8%
Stanford - 5.69%
Oregon 6.1%
USC 6.5%
Washington 6.5%
Arizona 6.6%
Oregon State 7%
Utah 7.5%
ASU 7.8%
UCLA 8.4%
So given how much passing is part of the offense we actually did an excellent job and are returning all 5.
If I were to guess where we rank? Probably in the top quarter. We don't run much and sacks negatively affect the numbers.
Rush Receiving
Morrow had 800+ yards
Wicks had 300+ yards
Obviously more production from the run game is where we need the most improvement, but as far as the line goes it's much much higher than they ranked us.
For the offense we ran we had less sacks then UCLA their #1, and Arizona their #10 this year they had at #2 last year bragging about how few sacks they allowed the year before.
Basically this guy is going by sacks only and running game, and since we don't run like other teams do he doesn't know how to measure it, and they were totally wrong last year.
Last year we were #8 in the Pac-12 in sacks allowed and are returning all 5. We are definitely not 11.
So to have a little fun. What I am going to do is look at a stat I'm sure they didn't calculate.
number of sacks in relation to number of attempts.
We threw it 771 times and had 36 sacks. Now I'm adding these numbers together because a sack isn't counted as an attempt, but it is in terms of passing just an attempt where you get sacked. So out of 807 passing situations we were sacked. 4.4% of the time.
How does that stack up to everyone else?
Colorado 4%
WSU - 4.4%
Cal - 4.8%
Stanford - 5.69%
Oregon 6.1%
USC 6.5%
Washington 6.5%
Arizona 6.6%
Oregon State 7%
Utah 7.5%
ASU 7.8%
UCLA 8.4%
So given how much passing is part of the offense we actually did an excellent job and are returning all 5.
If I were to guess where we rank? Probably in the top quarter. We don't run much and sacks negatively affect the numbers.
Rush Receiving
Morrow had 800+ yards
Wicks had 300+ yards
Obviously more production from the run game is where we need the most improvement, but as far as the line goes it's much much higher than they ranked us.
Not quite fair to use sack as percentage of passes attempted because we do so many quick passes, which are essentially running plays, and make it all but impossible to be on the receiving end of a sack.
- Well they are mentioning sacks and have us ranked at 11 when we were ranked at 8 and have all 5 coming back.
- To see a more complete picture of pass protection you have to look at the % because it's proportional to how often you throw.
- If you only throw it a little then pass protection isn't that important, but if you throw it a lot it's critical. So in pass protection blocking how often a sack is to occur is the best determining factor.
- Using running game production to create a list can't accurately measure us at all because of our type of offense.
- So to get an accurate assessment the factors should be sacks in relation to attempts, rushing yards per carry.
Teams have different types of offenses, Stanford likes a power running/blocking scheme, Oregon likes a mobile pulling lineman running system, we use wide splits and pass block. etc. So just going by a single progress number isn't enough. What you need is a number that's in relation to what you are doing. So ypc is important because it shows what happens on an average carry/run play.
There is no stat like that for pass blocking except if you calculate the average occurrence of a sack.
I'll do back to 2008 of us alone for fun.
2014 - 4.4%
2013 - 4.06%
2012 - 8.37 % - wow pretty bad here
2011 - 7.31%
2010 - 11.72% - holy crap.. wow.
2009 - 12.4% - ... it got worse. I had no idea it could get that bad.
2008 - 10.42% Still awful, but at least it wasn't more than 12.4%
So this kind of coincides exactly with what people saw. Our O-line currently is allowing fewer sacks in passing situations than in a long time and we have 5 people coming back.
To give you an idea for how bad 12.4% is. If we had a sack every 12.74% of the time in 2014...we would have had 95.4 sacks.
Good stuff. I think it might even be improved if you factored in yards per catch by sack. In other words, I think it's relevant to wonder about a line that cannot protect for short timing passes when they are quicker release time involved. Or, put another way, did cougs' offense suffer (or was it affected by) the line's (in)ability to protect Halliday for the extra time needed to throw longer routes (even though those are not Leach's bread and butter), so thereby negatively affecting the offense? (= the line's weakness took plays out of the playbook). Not saying it did, but it's worth considering.
It seems relevant that if the cougar's line was allowing X % of sacks for 3 step drop passes, then that is worse than another team who allows the same % of sacks for 5 or even 6 step dropback passes. Just a thought.
It seems relevant that if the cougar's line was allowing X % of sacks for 3 step drop passes, then that is worse than another team who allows the same % of sacks for 5 or even 6 step dropback passes. Just a thought.
Thinking about that as well. A quick check into Graham Harrell's stats from 2007....shows the exact yards per completion as last year from both QB's.....which- may be surprising. The top 3 RB's from TTU's 07' team only rushed for 5 more attempts per game, yet scored 20 TD's for the season compared to WSU's measly 4 last year. From there...I guess you could check rushing TD's within 5-10 yards vs what happened last year. On a purely selfish note.....I'd really like to them demonstrate some confidence in this line and punch that f'n ball in from within the 10 yard line. It might be considered a landmark decision.
