Comparison of GT Versus Clemson, UGAg and FSU Football Outsiders Stats -- And Hope

[GTNavyNuke]

Using Football Outsiders statistics I wanted to go a little deeper and see how the rushing and passing O and D of UGAg compared to ours. I also included the Clemson stats and FSU stats for comparison.

Since these stats are for neutral field, you have to give the advantage to the home field. We had a big home field advantage over Clemson. UGAg with their hooligan fans have an advantage in the cesspool. And FSU will be on a neutral field that I suspect will have more GT fans based on how close we are to ATL and FSU expecting more than a mere ACC championship.

But the summary below shows how big our challenge will be. But there is hope when you read the last post.

First the overall standings: note that I have our O or D rating on one side and then the oppositions D or O rating. It should be a shoot out as both O’s should be able to score on the Ds.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

Looking at the details of the line play, there is nothing to doubt that the running game won’t work for either team. Again, I have GT first and then the opposing teams line next in rankings. While the UGAg D isn’t nearly what Clemson’s was, the UGAg O is far more fearsome than Clemson’s . Thus the shootout continues.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

STs can play a really big part of any game. I was surprised by how good the UGAg punt and KO return teams were. These stats show that Butker better get every damn ball out of the end zone. And we shouldn’t punt unless we have to. Go for it on fourth down anywhere on their side of the field, set up fake punts. Throw a 50 yard int, whatever it takes.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

So the game is advantage UGAg (duh they are 14 points favorites). To win, we have to control the ball and score more points. I think this year we can control the ball the entire game since our conditioning has been much better in the fourth quarter this year than last. Our OL will wear their DL down big time.

So we have to win the turnover battle. These stats gave me real hope. UGAg has fumbled 18 times this year and only lost the ball 4 times – 22% loss ratio. The average is about 50% and Football Outsiders has shown that fumble recoveries are luck overall and mean reverting. In other words, the lucky horse shoe jammed up UGAg’s *** will come out at some point. Let’s hope it is this week!

 

[AE 87]

Thanks, @GTNavyNuke Very interesting. I think this seems to confirm what many of us have thought and that is that we should be fairly successful on offense. Their D is not what CU's D was. I just wish we could get some of these numbers for our D over the last 4 games. It would be great to be able to quantify the improvement of our D in some of these categories. I think we are better than these numbers suggest, but I'm not sure by how much.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

We are better now than these numbers suggest since we have gotten much better during the season. But so has UGAg which is why they are at about 7th with two losses. There is no easy way to get our performance over the last four weeks that I could think of unless you have saved the data from every week and figure the difference between now and then to get the recent performance. I was thinking about writing to Connelly that a 4 or 5 week moving average would be nice .....

I didn't say this, but next week I'll talk about FSU. I think we match up against them better. This week is all about beating UGAg.

 

[GTMD]

Thanks nuke. I hope we grind clock and keep their o off the field

 

[GTNavyNuke]

We have to get the turnovers. Fumble recovery is luck based ..... here's a Michigan article on how fumbles are random. He only looks at year to year, but shows that the correlation year to year is negligible as compared to say offensive yards gained or defensive yards lost. http://mgoblog.com/diaries/turnovers-and-randomness

Note that I didn't go after the high number of interceptions; they are somewhat correlated year to year. I expected this as the secondary skill and DL pressure should be repeatable to some extent. But not a lot ..... what should be most repeatable of total yards only had a year to year correlation coefficient (R2) of 24%. And interceptions were 6%.

And then I found this where the Michigan guy is still obsessed with fumbles. http://mgoblog.com/content/maximizing-your-fumble-luck Here are his conclusions:

• Sacks produce fumble at an obscene rate compared to any other play
• Don’t skimp on the fundamentals, poor snaps and hand-offs are a major source of fumbles
• Positive plays are good for the offense, getting past the line of scrimmage greatly reduces the chance that a fumble occurs, but increases the defense’s chances at a recovery if one is forced
• Hitting ball carriers behind the line of scrimmage is a good way for a defense to generate fumbles
• HOLD ON TO THE DAMN BALL! Punt returns are the most likely play to result in a lost fumble.
• Not all fumbles are created equally, defenses recover nearly 70% of fumbles that are forced and only 45% when they are not.
• Quarterbacks are fumble prone but their teams are better at recovering them than other players’ fumbles

So unless UGAg starts passing and we get sacks, we have to hope that they are careless with the ball. They have fumbled 18 times this year, or about 1.5 times a game. So us recovering 1 to 2 fumbles would be huge ...... as well as not giving any up ourselves ...... and we've had 16.

 

[SecretAgentBuzz]

Don't forget that our guys have had a tendency to go for the strip towards the end of the play. We have had a strange number of fumbles by the other team overturned because the guys was barely down, and then there was the Pitt game....fumble, fumble, fumble...and most of them caused by good defensive plays. If we could get a fumble or two like that, it would indeed be huge. Thanks for your analysis, Nuke. Good stuff.

THWG!

 

[AE 87]

We are better now than these numbers suggest since we have gotten much better during the season. But so has UGAg which is why they are at about 7th with two losses. There is no easy way to get our performance over the last four weeks that I could think of unless you have saved the data from every week and figure the difference between now and then to get the recent performance. I was thinking about writing to Connelly that a 4 or 5 week moving average would be nice .....

I didn't say this, but next week I'll talk about FSU. I think we match up against them better. This week is all about beating UGAg.

OK, so I do have some interesting numbers. I had downloaded the F/+ table after our loss to UNC. Week 8 average opposition Off F/+ & Ranking and our Def F/+ are from that table. Week 13 numbers for our four games since are from the current F/+ table.

..............ave Opp Off F/+ ........GT Def F/+
Wk 8 ..... 0.55%, #62.3 ........... -10.1%, #98
Wk 13 ... 5.06%, #39.2 .............. 0.3%, #61

So, our Def F/+ has improved 10.4% against better competition (average opposition Off F/+ has also improved 5.51%). I think that suggests a pretty significant improvement on D.

Georgie & FSU numbers are within a few % of where they were after Wk 8.

 

[Jean-Baptiste Rochambeau]

We are better now than these numbers suggest since we have gotten much better during the season. But so has UGAg which is why they are at about 7th with two losses. There is no easy way to get our performance over the last four weeks that I could think of unless you have saved the data from every week and figure the difference between now and then to get the recent performance. I was thinking about writing to Connelly that a 4 or 5 week moving average would be nice .....

I didn't say this, but next week I'll talk about FSU. I think we match up against them better. This week is all about beating UGAg.

Why are we two touchdown underdogs?

 

[forensicbuzz]

Why are we two touchdown underdogs?

Perception of the betting public. If the line were more representative of what the game score would be, there would be too much action on one side. Although the House would probably clean up with this game, they're risk adverse and want 50/50 action on either side of the line. They're rather get their little bit than risk losing their shirt to score big. They're in it for the long haul.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

Why are we two touchdown underdogs?

I expected us to be 8-10 point underdogs since UGAg is playing really well and has a great O. And based on Atomic Football (-10) and J Howell (-8.5) projections. What I think pushes it the extra bit is being in the cesspool. UGAg is averaging about 1 yard more PER PLAY when at home over the last 4 years.

The spread is now about 12.5 to 13. So that's it ......

UGAg is +16 in 11 games (1.45 per game) .... we get to +2 and that is 3.45 drives that UGAg doesn't get which would be expected. That's why I think turnovers are so important. We are no slouch at +10, but our margin is more based on ints than luck based fumble recoveries ..........

I still think we should be an 8 point underdog, but that doesn't mean we won't win. Just need to make some breaks.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

Well, Football Outsiders / Study Hall has us as either 12.7 (new method) or 8.5 (old method) underdogs. Score of about 50-37 which sounds right as far as being a shoot out. http://www.footballstudyhall.com/20...ootball-projections-predictions-week-14-fplus Again, it all comes down to turnovers. We both can't be + for the game.

I predict I'll be drinking a lot.