Yards per play

[beej67]

What can we glean from this: (?)

TOTAL OFFENSE YARDS ND 384 GT 259
Total offense plays ND 78 GT 52
Average Gain Per Play ND 4.9 GT 5.0

 

[ASimPerson]

Well, ND did better than our 20% on 3rd down conversions...total yards per play doesn't matter much if you aren't getting first downs.

 

[JTS]

We get an abnormally large amount of our yardage from a small number of plays (long passes to Calvin) on 1st and 2nd downs that do not result in breakaway TDs.

Not so much in the ND game, but during the Gailey Era, we get a lot of yards on 3rd & long other teams do not because we run alot of draws, screens, and short passes in these situations that have little chance of converting, but still get 5-7 yards. Other teams try to convert an get 0 yards 60-70% of the time.

(Just speculating here) It's easier to get yards between the 20's than in the Redzone. An abnormally large percentage of our plays are between the 20's.

Yards per play is a bad way to tell whether your offense is good. I like this answer the best.

 

[TechGator1066]

What can we glean from this: (?)

I think this is very promising, but the stat that bothers me is our time of possession against ND, which of course accounts for our lower number of plays ran.

 

[gt69er]

Means nothing!!!! Check who had the most sustained drives & who had the most time of possession. They had four sustained drives that gave them four scoring opportunities to our two. Luckily they missed two field goals & only scored 14 points. When you get only two scoring opportunities the best you can do is 10-14 points. Thank goodness we scored on both our opportunities.

Concerned about 3rd down conversions.

 

[mm42]

We had a lot of squandered 2-and-short and 3rd-and-short opportunities.

1st drive: We had 2nd-and-1, Choice lost 3 yards; couldn't convert 3rd-and-4, punt.

2nd drive: N/A

3rd drive: TD

4th drive: 2nd-and-1, incomplete pass; 3rd-and-1, Grant loses 3 yards, punt.

5th drive: FG

6th drive: N/A

7th drive: 3rd-and-1 on ND 49, Choice ran for no gain, punt.

8th drive: N/A

9th drive: N/A

That's 3 drives that could have been sustained by gaining 1 yard.

 

[ncjacket]

3rd down conversions is obviously a telling statistic, but what bothered me more was our ineptitude on 2nd and short. We didn't use it as a waste down really but going for a home run or big play, but we also didn't get the first down. Convert on half those chances and we win the game IMO.

 

[GT65_UGA89]

Very true nc. I think that is what bothered me most about the game, those 2nd and 1 situations where GT ended up with incomplete passes on 2nd down and either got tackled handing the ball off four yards deep in a one-back set or just came up short on 3rd down.

Man, you have got to convert in those situations and keep the drive alive, move the ball downfield, rest your defense and move towards putting yourself in a position to come away with some points. Unfortunately those missed opportunities probably cost GT a win.

 

[ncjacket]

At least if the pass is incomplete on 2nd and short, make it a deep one. That at least helps keep the defense on their toes.

 

[beej67]

That's 3 drives that could have been sustained by gaining 1 yard.

Okay, I have a question:

Of all the downs we played, how many were short yardage downs? What's the ratio?

If we really wanted to, we could extrapolate the stats, give ourselves 3 more plays every time we succeed on third and short, and figure out what our offensive stats would have been if we'd converted 60% instead of 40% or whatever it was.

 

[JTS]

Okay, I have a question:

Of all the downs we played, how many were short yardage downs? What's the ratio?

If we really wanted to, we could extrapolate the stats, give ourselves 3 more plays every time we succeed on third and short, and figure out what our offensive stats would have been if we'd converted 60% instead of 40% or whatever it was.

Let's say that 10% of all offensive plays are short yardage plays. Good teams convert 40-50% of all 3rd downs. We are talking short yardage so I think the conversion rate should be more like 70-80%. I also think that an extra 3 plays is likely the minimum number of bonus plays you would get because you could always get another 1st down and another. Not to mention the fact there is a chance that you could score on any given play and that this chance must increase (maybe even exponentially) with each additional play in a drive. You also are taking a play away from your opponent for every extra play you get.

I also think that there is probably an NCAA average points per play and that would be appropriate to measure the impact. Let's say that the average team scores about 27 ppg on 70 plays so we are talking about 0.4 points per play which you would double because you are taking a play away from your opponent so there is a 0.8 point difference per play lossed. I think 0.8 is probably on the low side because this assumes each play counts equally and as mentioned above I think each subsequent play in a drive would be worth more points. It also does account for the fact that if you are not converting on 3rd & short you are also probably not punching it in from the 1 or 2 yard line and settling for 3 points instead of 7.

My guess is that converting 40-50% of short yardage situations instead of 70-80% probably costs you about 8 plays (2 conversions X 4 plays) and at say 1-1.25 points per play that equates to 8-10 points per game on average. Applied to the ND game, we should have converted 1-2 more 3rd & shorts which would have give us an extra 4-8 plays. Let's call it 6 plays at 1-1.25 points per play equals 6-7 points.

 

[77GTFan]

It is often said that good teams have tendencies, things they know they do well. After week 1 I hope our tendency from here on out will be to get under center and run the ball for first downs on 2nd and short.

The tendency to throw on 2nd and short fooled no one and led to very unsuccessful 3rd and short runs against stacked defenses.

When we gain 9 on 1st down, let's get the first and have the confidence to keep the drive going.