Offensive Review...yes FootballThis one of those things I have been meaning to do for a long time....more or less since we jogged off the Glass Bowl turf. But, you know, the season ends in December, you're real busy for Christmas, and then the NFL playoffs start. So this is a good time--sure, there's hoops, but we're also in the worst six weeks of sports in the year. Except for the Super Bowl, we're just out of fresh dramas until March Madness starts. Then baseball starts, and away we go.
So, I wanted to review the offense first. Defense will come later, followed by special teams (no gaping please). Note that I printed the MAC stats out on New Year's Eve, so there's OU and WMU's bowl games are not included. So there.
Essentially, by any overall measures, this was our least productive offense in the Brandon/Meyer era (hereafter referred to as B/M). Even to a casual observer, that should not qualify as a surprise.
We scored 19.5 points per game. No other B/M team ever averaged less than 30. Now, MAC scoring was down this year...CMU led scoring with just under 30 ppg. I think, really, that the MAC itself was down--and that should be kept in context. This team performed worse against a worse conference than before. We were eighth in the MAC in scoring.
Ok, let's get a little deeper. I believe the single most important stat is yards per play. You can sometimes commit totally to running and look a little better than you really are, and vice versa with passing. But yards per play (and, of course, scoring) are in my opinion the key stats.
Our yards per play was 4.9. That was 6th in the MAC. Our glory years showed this average to be over 6. Only UM was close @ 5.1. We just didn't have the high octane offense we have had in the past.
And most of that comes from passing. Our spread offense, when working right, is a mix of passing and running. Sometimes we forget that you have to run in this offense, but this year, we saw what happens when you can't pass out of it--at key times, the opponents will shut you down.
We completed 56% of our passes, which was tied for 6th in our league. This is comparable to the % we had in UM2. The difference is that we only got that % by being extraordinarily careful. Our yards per passing attempt--an excellent proxy for how adventurous your passing attack is--was 5.8, ninth in the conference. In other words, in a very conservative offense we completed only 56% of our passes. Think more of the kind of numbers Bruce almighty got throwing bubble screens and short passes.
Anyway, our 28 passing attempts a game were typical of what we had under UM, but much lower than under GB1-3. (So much for critics who say we forgot our playbook).
We kept our sacks down--we were only sacked 20 times, which was third in the MAC. Again, though, that is modified by low attempts and short drops/quick releases.
We had 12 TD passes over 11 INT--the lowest ratio, by a lot, during the B/M era. The 11 INT's might look OK, but again, with 28 passes a game, they represent an INT on 3.2% of our passes, a number exceeded in B/M only by UM1.
Overall, we were eighth in the MAC in passing efficiency (based on the bizarre numerical formulas used in the NCAA).
Obviously, passing offense falls on the QB. Well, not so obvious, but it does. Falcon fans screamed in agony all year with the play of Anthony Turner who was in his first year as a starter. And he struggled. No one in football looks better than a backup QB, so fans had all kinds of ideas. True FR. Tyler Sheehan did get plugged in a couple times, but he was not really any better.
I continue to be an AT supporter. I think you will see him come around next season. If you want to see an encouraging sign, look at this stat line from the Toledo game.
Turner, Anthony 21-35-0. 3 Tds. 212 yards. 0 sacks. 6.08 yards per attempt.
If he can do that consistently--or even just a little better--we can score enough to win.
There is, however, a myth floating around the Falcon Nation that Turner is at the same point in his development as Josh Harris was. That, in fact, is not true. You can argue that they are similar QBs at this point. And, Harris was a change of pace QB for most of his (true) SO season, with Andy Sahm starting. But, by the end of the sophomore year, Harris had led supercharged efforts over Northwestern and Toledo and clearly established himself as a top flight QB. To compare the Harris who led BG to a dismantling of the Rockets in his second year in the program to an AT in the third year is just not right.
Before we leave the notion of passing, let us not forget the role of the receivers. No QB in the B/M era has had to work with such a shortage of talent as Turner did. Yes, Partridge is good and Barnes is skilled (but raw), but the rest of our receiving corps was poor this year. If we can improve at all there, it will help AT as well.
This year, lacking confidence in the passing attack, we focused on the run like no GB team has. Yes, we led the MAC in yards per game, but we also ran the ball more than any other team, even OU, and they played one more game than us, not even counting the bowl game. On the vital yards per rush, we were third in overall average @ 4.2.
Chris Bullock ran the ball effectively--4.8 yards per carry, though he seemed to run out of gas as the season came to an end. I hope he will be helped by the JUCO transfer Ransom. The expected starter--Dan Macon--who we redshirted mid-career, never seemed to get untracked (72 carrries, 5.4 average ??). In this offense, especially the way we ran it, the QB is an RB. Turner, in fact, was second on the team in carries and had 480 yards. This averaged to 3.4 per carry. He loses yards for sacks, but I think overall his running was workmanlike, but he wasn't the game breaking change of pace you expect from a running QB in this offense.
Some other things to look at:
We led the MAC in 3rd down conversions, at 40.9%. Even so, during UM2-GB2, we were above 45% each year. Still, I believe third down is football's make or break down, and we continued to make plays on that down. It is a credit to the playcalling.
4th down was another matter. People always talk about crazy Tommy Amstutz going for it on 4th all the time, but we actually went 33 times this year, and UT went 36, so Brandon is almost as crazy as Tommy. My guess is that we wanted to avoid, however possible, getting into a punting or field goal formation--you will see why during the review of the special teams. We made it 48.5% of the time--5th in the MAC. (higher than third down because it is usually shorter).
In the red zone, we scored 71% of the time, the lowest in the B/M era and 10th in the MAC. During the early years of the run, we were freaking deadly--I mean sick, ruthless--in the redzone. I think that average points per redzone trip is a better stat, because it doesn't treat a FG and TD the same. UM2 we were 5.38 per trip--are you shitting me? Now we are down to 4.03, a little higher because we only tried 9 FG's all season.
Finally, turnovers were not our issue. We lost 18 turnovers, and only Ball State lost fewer. So, at least being risk adverse accomplished one of its objectives.
I believe the running game will be back strong, with Bullock and Ransom. I hope the WRs are improved, with Partridge healthy and Barnes learning. And I hope the line can continue to play well under a new coach. And I hope AT turns into the player we think he can be. We simply are not going to win @ 19 points a game, especially with next year's schedule.
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