Moving the (Stati)Sticks: Week Four

[Upchurch]

The mark on my elbow is still there. It’s smaller now; what once was about the size of a nickel is smaller than a dime, but it persists. I felt the stinging sometime in the fourth quarter and immediately turned to Ace to show him, not because I wanted attention for my accidental self-inflicted narrative device but because this thing on my elbow happened because of that thing that we were watching on the field. I was using the elbow as a pivot point, and so many incredible things had happened for which I needed to quickly cover my mouth to preserve the thin veneer of professionalism over the roiling excitement inside that the skin just rubbed off.

The numbers from last Saturday don’t provide as visceral an experience as what we saw on the field, but they show just as much dominance. Michigan jumped 15 spots in overall S&P+ from 25th to 10th, while the defense moved up to fourth. FEI has Michigan 26th, which is 10 spots higher than they were after week three. F/+ (which combines S&P+ and FEI) has Michigan 16th.

FEI uses preseason projections that includes things like last year’s performance (/shudders) and a five-year FEI rating with diminishing weight until week 7, when they’re dropped completely. You can see why Michigan’s digging out of a hole here. Every week, though, Michigan’s a little closer to shedding the baggage of the past, and that has felt true both literally and metaphorically.

The first three weeks of the season felt like the cold open of a new restaurant; there were kinks expected and, all things considered, the operation got off to a relatively smooth start. Week four was the grand opening; the curtain was pulled back, and the conversation shifted from how much potential the new joint has to how good it is right now. This new place is great. Just remember to keep your elbows off the table.

[After THE JUMP: Less about flesh wounds, more about numbers]

The Mathlete’s Four Factors:

Once again, a quick reminder of what the factors mean:

Conversion rate = [1st Downs gained]/[1st Down plays (including first play of drive)]. A three and out is 0/1. A one play touchdown is 1/1. Two first downs and then a stop is 2/3, etc.

Bonus Yards = [Yards gained beyond the first down line]/[Total plays from scrimmage]

This is an adjustment to how I have previously calculated, to account for the plays a team runs.

Field Position = The expected point difference per game for where a team’s offense starts and where a team’s defense starts. Each drive is given an expected value based on the start of scrimmage, all of the drives for the offense and defense are totaled and compared. This accounts for all elements of field position: turnovers, special teams, drive penetration etc.

Red Zone: Points per red zone trip (TD’s counted as 7 regardless of PAT)

Offense:

Defense:

The Four Factors paint a picture of a truly dominant defense that has improved in every category every week with the exception of Red Zone. But hey, if your opponent never gets there, it’s hard to decrease that number.

Offensively, seeing Conversion Rate rebound after a bit of a dip is encouraging in terms of offensive efficiency, while Bonus YPP’s consistent increase is indicative of an offense that has started to pick up some big gains. (We’ll look at Bill Connelly’s Explosiveness stats later. Spoiler: The offense is getting more explosive.)

The weekly drop in Field Pos. was something that I was concerned about last week, but this week I was so worried/confused after Michigan put up 31 points and dropped not just nationally but also to the bottom of the Big Ten that I had to talk to The Mathlete. In his words:

So field position is a bit tricky. It really is a way of comparing what your offensive opportunity is instead of just output. A Michigan team scores 28 ppg (3.5 points above field position) would indicate a much better offense than 28 ppg from Penn St (2.6 points below field position). Michigan's low number indicates that the offense has had a bad combination of starting field position and fewer total drives in their games thus far. One note, the 24.5 is 1.4 ppg above the defensive number meaning that Michigan is winning field position in their games, even if their overall offensive number is on the low side.

Ah, The Mathlete. The cool, calm voice of reason in a storm of angry, aggressive numbers.

Advanced Box Score:

Things BYU can hang their hat on: Having the same number of turnovers as Michigan (which was zero). Things BYU did worse than Michigan, statistically: Every other category in the adv. box score. There’s one draw, and that’s in number of drives; both teams had 12. With those 12 drives, Michigan averaged 6.05 yards per play, had six scoring opportunities, and averaged 5.17 points per scoring opportunity. BYU, on the other hand, averaged 2.27 yards per play, had one scoring opportunity, and averaged a nice, round 0.00 points per scoring opportunity. BYU was also starting from farther away (their 22.8 yard line compared to Michigan starting at their 27.9), for what that’s worth. Success Rate is basically a measure of how often you’re on track (i.e. favorable down and distance), and BYU’s was 17% in this game. It’s fair to say Michigan derailed them.

Five Factors and Other Stats:

The story on offense is essentially the same as last week, though Michigan’s moving up in most categories except efficiency (they dropped five spots); they’re now 89th in Explosiveness, 32nd in Success Rate, 23rd in Field Position, and 79th in Finishing Drives.

Defensively, Michigan is third in Explosiveness, 19th in Efficiency, 15th in Field Position, and eighth in Finishing Drives. The ones that stand out to me are Explosiveness and Finishing Drives. Michigan’s defensive line has been so good that they can rely on a six-man front while still stopping the run, and the corners and safeties (and HSP) have been able to cut off anything deep. Michigan hasn’t been gashed consistently or in a specific way, and that lack of a run/pass weakness has been a chief reason they’re able to limit big plays. They’re also only allowing 3.17 points per trip inside their 40, which is unreal. While it’s true that looking 20 yards outside the traditional red zone should keep numbers down a bit, teams are barely averaging more than a field goal when their drive gets that far.

BYU was supposed to be the pass defense’s first big test (especially as far as stifling big plays), and they passed with flying colors. That unit is now ranked 21st in Passing S&P+, 35th in Success Rate, and 9th in IsoPPP. IsoPPP is Bill Connelly’s measure of explosiveness, so that was the prime target for a stat that could have suffered against BYU.

I’ve already droned on about Michigan’s ability to limit opposing big plays, but there’s one more item of interest to look at if we zoom in a bit more. The defense has been good at stopping big plays regardless of the situation; Michigan is third in Standard Downs IsoPPP and 21st in Passing Downs IsoPPP.

One of the weirder things about the offense is that they are definitely more explosive in a certain situation, and it seems counterintuitive. Michigan’s offensive Standard Downs IsoPPP ranks 108th, but their Passing Downs IsoPPP is 15th. If you think you have an idea why that might be hit the comments, because I’ve thought about it for a while and haven’t found a good answer.

One thing that might play into weird passing downs stat is that Michigan hasn’t been in those situations all that often. Michigan’s Passing Success Rate is 46.2% (35th nationally), while their Rushing Success Rate is 49.1% (28th). There’s a great deal of balance there, as Michigan’s well above average at staying in favorable down-and-distance situations whether they choose to either run or pass.

An interesting trend to keep an eye on offensively is Michigan’s increasing S&P+ by down. They go from 99th in the country on first down to 30th on second down and 21st on third down. Defensively, Michigan gets out to a good start (9th in the nation on first down), dips down to 40th on second down, and finishes an impressive second on third down.

Yeah, man, I do read the comments:

This was requested last week and I think it’s a good idea. You can quickly glance through and do a little advanced scouting while also looking at who we beat, which is helpful if you’re trying to keep the season in context. I understand that’s not easy right now.

You can see from the chart above that Maryland isn’t very good, but Jake Troch made a matchup visualization tool that really drives the point home. If you click on the “Advance- Play” or the “Advanced- Drive” tabs you’ll see that Michigan has the advantage in every defensive category he tracks, and it’s usually not even close. The charts are great because they compare offense to defense, so you can get a good feel for overall matchups. I’ll leave you with this, from the “Advanced- Play” tab:

Yes, there are some categories where Michigan’s defense is almost 100% better than the NCAA average when compared with the Terps’ offense. If this plays to the numbers, the weather won’t be the only thing in Maryland that’s ugly on Saturday.