Moving the (Stati)Sticks: Week Seven

[Fuller/MGoBlog]

I thought I got it, but I didn’t really understand until Saturday. I grew up in a house with a dad who referred to football as the sport “where those muscle-bound gland cases run into each other” and a mom who went to Michigan State and spent every Saturday watching her beloved Spartans Sparty No! themselves into oblivion. Being an impressionable little dude I naturally followed along- at least, I did for the first 17 years of my life.

Mom spent a copious amount of time molding my fandom, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that when I told her I was going to Michigan she felt a lot like NFL reporters last December; of course there was a chance, but come on. I think she still spends time replaying the course of events and wondering how things turned so quickly; factor in that Michigan seeped so deeply into my soul that my profession is now entwined with the University and you can see why she feels like she had things so perfectly set up only for them to implode in the most spectacular and unlikely fashion imaginable. I get it now, mom. I saw what happened last Saturday and it was more than just watching something fall apart, it was feeling something fall apart and fall apart in mere seconds.

The funny thing about it is that it was right in front of us the whole time. The numbers, those cut-and-dry harbingers of doom, were gnawing at the back of our minds, telling us that it was a fool’s errand to hope we could run out the clock against fate. That why it stings in such a strange way. Like my mom, Michigan fans got blindsided even after turning our heads and watching it come straight for us. At some point you realize what you’re doing is the equivalent of holding together a heavy box with scotch tape and inevitably everything just spills out, and in a particularly painful but possibly (personally) karmically justified way I have some common ground with my mom once again. We both put our faith in something other than the numbers and got burned; now I know why I like stats so much.

[After THE JUMP: It went better than you thought. It also went worse than you thought.]

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 offense has essentially stagnated, which isn’t the worst thing in the world considering they went up against a pretty good defense. The dip in conversion rate isn’t surprising given how much the offense struggled. (More on that when we get into Success Rate, etc.)

The defense is going to get credit for some of what the excellent special teams unit did, namely Michigan State’s average starting field position of their 24.4. Their conversion rate went up, though that isn’t alarming because seven of their 13 drives saw them pick up a first down but finish by either punting or turning it over on downs (and that isn’t counting any three and outs). Bonus YPP went up because of Connor Cook the non-ironic throw god. When he hit guys it was for 13+ yards; one completion of less than 13 yards is a shining example of a boom-or-bust day. Red Zone looks even worse because someone actually got there this week, and they just had to go and score. State made four trips and came away with two touchdowns.

Advanced Box Score

It’s tilted, and not in the direction is has been for the past few week. Michigan ran 12 fewer plays for 1.9 fewer yards per play (3.69 to 5.59) on the same number of drives (13). Michigan also had one fewer scoring opportunity (5 to their 6) but did have a better pts/opp of 4.6 compared to their 3.5. That, however, is how things should have been, as Michigan’s average starting field position was their 38.3 while Michigan State’s was their 24.4 yard line. Hooray special teams (yes I saw the end just stop).

Both teams’ defenses had a big impact on the game, as neither one came close to the national average for Leverage Rate [which is Std Downs/(Std+Passing Downs)]. Michigan stayed on track more often in the aggregate (62.1% to State’s 58.3%), but State’s big pass plays held them in the game. State’s IsoPPP (which looks at how efficient you are and then how successful you are when you’re efficient and is a proxy for explosiveness) was 1.48 to Michigan’s 1.30. The surest sign that there was a huge difference in passing games can be seen in State’s equivalent points, where the expected points from their passing game was 26.5. Michigan’s was just 16.6. The run games were pretty even, with Michigan’s run game expected to contribute 8.1 points and State’s expected to contribute 7.6 points

Despite that, Michigan’s Success Rate (defined here) in the run game was 40.0% while State’s was just 23.3%. That, however, is a hollow victory, as Michigan State’s passing Success Rate was 38.1% to Michigan’s 25.0%.  

Five Factors

Of the defensive five factors, Explosiveness, Efficiency, and Finishing Drives took a hit. Explosiveness suffered the most, with Michigan’s defense falling from first to 11th. Efficiency fell from fifth to sixth, while Finishing Drives saw Michigan’s points per trip inside the 40 rise from 2.71 (which was second nationally) to 3.25 (seventh nationally). So yes, the defensive stats took a bit of a hit, but no, it wasn’t extreme; Michigan’s still first overall in defensive S&P+.

The run defense held up well; they were ranked fourth a week ago and are still fourth after the MSU game. The pass defense is still great (11th overall), but they were first in Passing IsoPPP and State’s big plays pushed them down to eighth. If you’re thinking of the Lewis-Burbridge matchup and assuming Lewis lost bear in mind that PFF issued a positive grade for Lewis, who had six (!) PBUs and was in Burbridge’s face all day. PFF’s individual grades really, really liked the front seven, but Lewis still graded especially well considering the matchup. Also, letting a fullback rumble for a 70+ yard reception is bad.

Michigan’s run game had a difficult go against State’s defense, and that’s reflected in a decline in Rushing S&P+, including a sharp, almost 20-spot drop in Rushing IsoPPP. Michigan eked out a few yards here and there, but they couldn’t break anything big.

Michigan’s passing stats dropped a little; their Passing Success Rate is now 40.4%, which is exactly the national average. Overall, though, they’re ranked 44th and saw a 27-spot jump in Passing IsoPPP, which means they did get a lot more explosive when faced with MSU’s battered secondary. This may be one of the more disparate live-feel to postgame-look backs we’ve seen in a while; I had to check the stats packet, but four Michigan receivers had receptions of 20+ yards.

Pro Football Focus has made it a point to pin some blame on Jake Rudock, noting that he’s only graded positively in their system once this season. That seems a little harsh, but his stats aren’t exactly jumping off the page; five touchdowns, six interceptions, 61.7% completion rate, and a lackluster 6.0 yards per attempt. Michigan’s pass game is ranked a bit better than average per S&P+, which makes sense. Passes are getting completed, but what’s lost in there are the passes that go for nine yards and a first down when there’s another option open deep that’s a likely touchdown. No receiver with more than 10 targets is averaging more than 8.3 yards per target; Michigan’s top two receivers are averaging 7.6 (Darboh) and 6.1 (Chesson) yards per target. In a sense it’s nitpicking since 100% of that isn’t Rudock’s fault, but it’s still worth tracking the progress of the pass game weekly throughout the rest of the season.

Looking Forward, Looking Back:

It’s week seven, which means that all the preseason projection data has been tossed from FEI (that’s the Fremeau Efficiency Index, which you can learn more about here). Seems like a good time to start a table tracking that as well.

Michigan’s two losses are to teams in the FEI top 15. They don’t face another one until Ohio State comes to town. Things are still set up for Michigan to have a good year, as they should be when your program turns a corner and starts losing to not Maryland.

What about Saturday?

I do not have any numbers that reflect how efficiently you’ll study, how effectively you’ll handle the mall parking lot, how thoroughly you’ll dominate leaf cleanup, or how many times you’ll turnover the channel when flipping through games. Try me again after the Minnesota game.