AE 87
Helluva Engineer
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For a brief introduction to my PPDvP5 stat see https://gtswarm.com/threads/points-per-drive-vs-pwr-5-rankings.27422/
State of the program: The trend in PPDvP5 gives us reason to be optimistic for this season in both offense and defense. We will first look at Georgia Tech over the last ten years and then, for tentative insight into our new DC, we will look at Duke over the last 5 years, focusing on 2023 as Santucci’s one year as DC.
GT, the Last 10 Years
Position Group and Team Rankings, obviously, are only relative to the number of teams who played a sufficient number of qualifying games. This is typically 70 to 80 teams rather than the 130 or so FBS teams.
Duke’s rankings over the last five years:
The Tech data help to quantify how dramatically we improved in offense last year and how we continued to struggle in defense. According to these stats, 2023 looks comparable to 2016 and 2017. Interestingly, our record in 2016 was 9-4 with 3 W’s by a combined 7 pts, and our record in 2017 was 5-6 with 3 L’s by a combined 8pts. The Duke data help to quantify the improvement not only of the whole team under Elko but also of the Defense under Santucci in 2023.
Now, let’s look at the 2023 season in more detail. The following tables compare the per game performance of GT and Duke against that team’s season average. The more an Offense Ratio is greater than 1.00 and the more a Defense Ratio is less than 1.00 the better.
I haven’t done much work with these ratio stats, so I don’t really know how to judge their significance. Still, I’ll try.
On offense: The GT data quantify our inconsistency on O. However, if we look at the four games where GT’s Offense Ratio was less than 1.00, we see what appears to be a common factor. In those four games, we lost 12 turnovers (11 interceptions). We had 7 turnovers (5 interceptions) in our other 8 FBS games combined. Our average Off PPD against those 8 opponents was 2.89, which would’ve been good for the #12 Offense if it were for the season.
On Defense: The GT data similarly quantify our inconsistency on D, but they also suggest a significant improvement/better-preparation in D against georgie and UCF. In our games against Wake Forest, Miami, and Virginia, our D gained 13 turnovers (5, 5, and 3), more than half of our turnovers gained vs Power 5 teams. For what it’s worth, our D was tied with Michigan for the most turnovers gained (23) against Power 5 opponents. The Duke data interestingly show what seems to be a consistently strong performance against a nice spectrum of teams over the first half of the season. However, this performance seems to fall off a bit for the second half, and I don’t know if they had significant injuries which might explain this. Also, Duke’s Defense Efficiency doesn’t appear to be as tied to turnovers as ours.
CONCLUSION: I think we have good reasons to believe we will be a much-improved team in 2024. Offense: Most of our much-improved-in-2023 Offense is returning. Still, we will go as Haynes King goes. In 2023, he was famously one of two players (with LSU’s Jayden Daniels) with 2700 passing yards, 600 rushing yards, 25 TD passes and five TD runs. However, King also threw 16 interceptions, compared to Daniels’ 4. At A&M, King averaged 1 interception/game in 2021 and 2022. Defense: Okay, I place our strong reason for optimism here significantly on Santucci whose one year at Duke showed improvement over the previous year which also had Elko as head coach. Also, Duke’s strength over the first half of last season looks legit. We also seemed to fill some gaps well from the transfer portal. On the downside, GT has not had a D ranked inside the top 40 (by my stat) in the last 15 years.
Go Jackets!
State of the program: The trend in PPDvP5 gives us reason to be optimistic for this season in both offense and defense. We will first look at Georgia Tech over the last ten years and then, for tentative insight into our new DC, we will look at Duke over the last 5 years, focusing on 2023 as Santucci’s one year as DC.
GT, the Last 10 Years
Position Group and Team Rankings, obviously, are only relative to the number of teams who played a sufficient number of qualifying games. This is typically 70 to 80 teams rather than the 130 or so FBS teams.
Duke’s rankings over the last five years:
The Tech data help to quantify how dramatically we improved in offense last year and how we continued to struggle in defense. According to these stats, 2023 looks comparable to 2016 and 2017. Interestingly, our record in 2016 was 9-4 with 3 W’s by a combined 7 pts, and our record in 2017 was 5-6 with 3 L’s by a combined 8pts. The Duke data help to quantify the improvement not only of the whole team under Elko but also of the Defense under Santucci in 2023.
Now, let’s look at the 2023 season in more detail. The following tables compare the per game performance of GT and Duke against that team’s season average. The more an Offense Ratio is greater than 1.00 and the more a Defense Ratio is less than 1.00 the better.
I haven’t done much work with these ratio stats, so I don’t really know how to judge their significance. Still, I’ll try.
On offense: The GT data quantify our inconsistency on O. However, if we look at the four games where GT’s Offense Ratio was less than 1.00, we see what appears to be a common factor. In those four games, we lost 12 turnovers (11 interceptions). We had 7 turnovers (5 interceptions) in our other 8 FBS games combined. Our average Off PPD against those 8 opponents was 2.89, which would’ve been good for the #12 Offense if it were for the season.
On Defense: The GT data similarly quantify our inconsistency on D, but they also suggest a significant improvement/better-preparation in D against georgie and UCF. In our games against Wake Forest, Miami, and Virginia, our D gained 13 turnovers (5, 5, and 3), more than half of our turnovers gained vs Power 5 teams. For what it’s worth, our D was tied with Michigan for the most turnovers gained (23) against Power 5 opponents. The Duke data interestingly show what seems to be a consistently strong performance against a nice spectrum of teams over the first half of the season. However, this performance seems to fall off a bit for the second half, and I don’t know if they had significant injuries which might explain this. Also, Duke’s Defense Efficiency doesn’t appear to be as tied to turnovers as ours.
CONCLUSION: I think we have good reasons to believe we will be a much-improved team in 2024. Offense: Most of our much-improved-in-2023 Offense is returning. Still, we will go as Haynes King goes. In 2023, he was famously one of two players (with LSU’s Jayden Daniels) with 2700 passing yards, 600 rushing yards, 25 TD passes and five TD runs. However, King also threw 16 interceptions, compared to Daniels’ 4. At A&M, King averaged 1 interception/game in 2021 and 2022. Defense: Okay, I place our strong reason for optimism here significantly on Santucci whose one year at Duke showed improvement over the previous year which also had Elko as head coach. Also, Duke’s strength over the first half of last season looks legit. We also seemed to fill some gaps well from the transfer portal. On the downside, GT has not had a D ranked inside the top 40 (by my stat) in the last 15 years.
Go Jackets!
