Penalties, 2020 Edition

[CuseJacket]

There is no question in anyone's mind, including Head Coach Geoff Collins', that penalties need to be addressed and cleaned up asap.

Last year, any number of things within GT's control would have won the FCS game. I've alleged better time management would have helped. But probably most concretely, dead ball penalties were ridiculous. Lot of 15-yard after-the-play variety as well as others where we extended The Citadel drives before the snap or after the play was over. It directly enabled scoring drives that otherwise would have been stopped.

Saturday @ Syracuse was more of the same where we needed to control the controllables and failed. Per the GT SID, Saturday's 15 penalties were the second-most that Tech has committed in a game in program history (record: 19 vs. Florida State, Sept. 9, 2000). Who was the coach in 2000? Was he nasty enough?

2020: Per Team Rankings.com (https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/penalties-per-game), of the 72 teams who have played a game, GT ranks #62 in penalties per game at 10.7/game. Not good. (the team 70 miles east of Atlanta is #68 after their first game).

2019: How does that compare to 2019? Using the same exact table, GT ranked #9 overall in the country in fewest penalties per game at 4.5/game. That is outstanding.

So what's the difference? What's the takeaway? For me:

• The outlier games tend to stick in heads. I am guilty of this.
• Sometimes those outlier games actually affect a W vs. L. That is a real issue.
• Overall we were remarkably good at minimizing penalties in 2019
• Something that I am choosing to characterize as uncharacteristic (so far) has happened early in the 2020 season. This is the real question. What has changed?

To that last question, I do not know the answer. Nor does anyone here. Nor do our coaches, otherwise I'm sure it would have been corrected (though they probably have a better directional sense). If forced to state a position, I'm inclined to believe that this offseason and lack of reps/cohesion affected us, especially if we were overly cautious in practice.

Did the offseason also affect others? Based on my quick and dirty Excel spreadsheet math with the teamrankings data, penalties are up across the board by .6 penalties/game/team. UCF, our week two opponent who is now two games into their season, averages 13.5 penalties/game so far (vs. 8.7/game in 2019). Oklahoma is at 10/game (vs 6.8/game in 2019). I don't think those highly respected HC's became incapable.

Long story short, I think it's too soon to draw conclusions on penalty performance 3 games into the year. It obviously needs to improve for us to have success, given our low margin for error. But I'm not taking 2020 in a vacuum, given a full year of precedent in year 1 where we were outstanding.

What do you think?

 

[gville_jacket]

I am so glad you put this together! This is very informative. I think this has been a perfect storm for our team to really play poorly in a few key metrics, like penalties. People want to claim that GT looks uncoached, but that's exactly what has happened! Spring practice was cancelled, summer workouts were done at home with whatever they team had available (and NOT with teammates), then we had a very limited fall camp. I read an article that Collins split the team upper/lower classman for fall camp to help not have the whole team together. That means our Oline barely practiced together as a unit. I think we see a huge improvement after the bye week with some time for the coaches to, well... COACH.

 

[stech81]

I have not been to one practice so anything I say is only a guess. But when CGC talks about practice he will say how it is hectic and they try and get everyone the most plays they can in that time. To me that is asking for problems , maybe its better to work on things and slow down and work and see the mistakes at practice and go over those mistakes at practice and not the game. Is it really that important to make sure a 3rd unit OL gets as many plays at practice as the 1st and 2nd units that will play.

 

[billga99]

False starts are a huge problem. The other ones are at least plays in motion. Syracuse blitzed a lot and I think it was reflected in both penalties and interceptions. When you have a pure freshman QB, he has to prove he can adjust at the line of scrimmage to either get max protection (which is tough to do with 4 wideouts) or a quick pass outlet, draw, something else other than a standard pass play. How that affects false starts is OL trying to adjust to pick up the blitzers. Even if they didn't blitz, they faked the blitz to confuse our linemen. And to be fair, this is a lot on the coaches. They need to have the players better prepared for standard defenses and blitzing defenses. We really, really struggled with the blitzes. I would fully expect all of our future opponents to continue down the same path until we prove we can handle the pressure and hurt them blitzing.

 

[CuseJacket]

I have not been to one practice so anything I say is only a guess. But when CGC talks about practice he will say how it is hectic and they try and get everyone the most plays they can in that time. To me that is asking for problems , maybe its better to work on things and slow down and work and see the mistakes at practice and go over those mistakes at practice and not the game. Is it really that important to make sure a 3rd unit OL gets as many plays at practice as the 1st and 2nd units that will play.

Incidentally, that is one of the changes that CGC made this fall camp. He and the players specifically mentioned before the season that there is less chaos and more controlled transitions in practice in an effort to prevent Covid contact/transmission. Same reason for the split practices.

That is obviously counterintuitive to what you're calling out as the root cause, but maybe the takeaway is that fewer reps leads to more issues on gameday. Obviously we're all speculating.

 

[ibeattetris]

Just adding additional numbers from team rankings.
Last year penalties per play 0.03
This year: 0.07

There is no sugar coating how bad that is, but the fact that last year was so low leads me to believe we are suffering more from COVID related practice issues (how often did all 11 players get to take snaps at live speed preseason?) as opposed to systemic issues with regards to discipline. It's possible I'm mistaken, but the remaining games will be proof of that. I hope the bye weeks cleans up some of the easy procedural issues.

 

[Ash]

The amount of penalties has been concerning. We used to be better at that. I am especially sensitive to seeing the illegal formation/false start penalties pile up. Those are the ones that my HS coahes deemed "fixable" with extra conditioning...I guess I have a little bit of PTSD.

 

[Coloradojacket]

Well, just to provide more data, it is not like our opposition so far has played a clean game. In fact UCF had more penalties for more yards than us.
UCF 8 for 56 yards
FSU 8 for 55
Cuse 7 for 85

Now ours might be coming at really bad times but that could probably be said about our opposition as well.
And with all the football I watched most teams had too many.
UGA had 12 for 108 and Arkansas had 10 for 53

 

[InsideLB]

Cuse I think the rush from the 3-3-5 really ate us up. Some of the false starts were from that.

Other than that I have no idea what happened this game or is happening this season. Could be sample size + anomaly. Could be something we can clean up. Could be COVID measures altering practice, or coaches haven't been emphasizing as much for whatever reason.

Whatever the case, it's weird we were one of the least penalized last year and are among the most penalized this year. Reversion to the mean? I guess we will know more when we come to the end of the season. Glad we have a bye to do some extra conditioning in light of these penalties and get this sloppy play hopefully cleaned up.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Well, just to provide more data, it is not like our opposition so far has played a clean game. In fact UCF had more penalties for more yards than us.
UCF 8 for 56 yards
FSU 8 for 55
Cuse 7 for 85

Now ours might be coming at really bad times but that could probably be said about our opposition as well.
And with all the football I watched most teams had too many.
UGA had 12 for 108 and Arkansas had 10 for 53

Penalties are bad, but to your point, the difference to who we're playing against didn't really cost us games. The turnovers are the big ones.

We've had 41 possessions.

We've had 12 turnovers.

We've scored 2 points per drive, excluding the turnovers. So the turnovers have cost us roughly 2*12/3 = 8 points per game. Or, if we could just cut our turnovers in half to 2 per game (its unreasonable to expect 0 turnovers), we'd likely score 4 points more per game.
Our kicking problem (including missed PATs) has cost us 13 points (4+ points per game).

So fixing our kicking and cutting our turnovers in half should see us score 8 points per game more. If you're scoring around 30 points per game, you can win a lot of games.

 

[CuseJacket]

Penalties are bad, but to your point, the difference to who we're playing against didn't really cost us games. The turnovers are the big ones.

We've had 41 possessions.

We've had 12 turnovers.

We've scored 2 points per drive, excluding the turnovers. So the turnovers have cost us roughly 2*12/3 = 8 points per game. Or, if we could just cut our turnovers in half to 2 per game (its unreasonable to expect 0 turnovers), we'd likely score 4 points more per game.
Our kicking problem (including missed PATs) has cost us 13 points (4+ points per game).

So fixing our kicking and cutting our turnovers in half should see us score 8 points per game more. If you're scoring around 30 points per game, you can win a lot of games.

And that doesn't account for the point differential from a pick 6 the other direction. Nor putting our D in a bad spot by field position, such as Syracuse's 0-yard drive that ended in 3 points for them. Anyway, I created a separate thread for turnovers and special teams

 

[ibeattetris]

And that doesn't account for the point differential from a pick 6 the other direction. Nor putting our D in a bad spot by field position, such as Syracuse's 0-yard drive that ended in 3 points for them. Anyway, I created a separate thread for turnovers and special teams

Ugh. We gifted them 5 drives inside of our own 50 (and that doesn’t include the pick 6 which would have been close) which in and of itself is a recipe for disaster.

Here is a fun stat. Teams have only scored on us 3 times when we have ended an offensive drive in a punt (2 td 1 fg). We have punted 15 times making it 20%. Offenses over all drives in ncaa are scoring at a 40% rate.

 

[4shotB]

Teams have only scored on us 3 times when we have ended an offensive drive in a punt (2 td 1 fg). We have punted 15 times making it 20%. Offenses over all drives in ncaa are scoring at a 40% rate.

Wow! When I read this I got this great idea.....what if every time we were in FG range we punted instead! We'd be undefeated.

 

[GTJackets]

Wow! When I read this I got this great idea.....what if every time we were in FG range we punted instead! We'd be undefeated.

But we'd have to use someone other than Harvin. The temptation to punt it out onto Bobby Dodd Way (or North Ave.) may be to great from that distance.

 

[orientalnc]

I enjoy the metrics and over an entire season they can be very useful. But, I think the sample size is too small at this point. Also, a fumble at your own 10 yardline is very different from a fumble at midfield. And, a quick 3 & out followed by a 40 yard punt is not very different from an interception 40 yards down field. Both are emotional letdowns for the offense and the defense.

The same logic about penalties applies. A false start on 1st down is frequently overcome by a good offensive series. But on third and 5 it changes the play call and the chance of making a first down.

The penalties are a product of discipline and practice repetitions. Also, a player who is geting beat by his opponent is more likely to try to gain an advantage my moving more quickly at the snap. The false start penalties seemed to come at just the wrong time Saturday.

We are gaining yards a lot easier than last year. That is not our problem. Not finishing drives is just killing us in all three games. Whether it's turnovers, missed/blocked kicks or whatever else, we are not playing with the discipline required on each and every play. I think the elements are there and I refuse to be depressed at this point in the season.

 

[Jacketman99]

Aren't there typically a few practices with refs during the preseason? Wonder if that happened this year. I do not believe so. This spring,off season, and preseason were unlike anything we have ever seen before. It definitely reduced the overall practice time for this young team.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Aren't there typically a few practices with refs during the preseason? Wonder if that happened this year. I do not believe so. This spring,off season, and preseason were unlike anything we have ever seen before. It definitely reduced the overall practice time for this young team.

We definitely need to have some stupid idiotic ****ing Refs at some practices so the team can get used to getting ****ed and not let it distract them during a game situation. (not that they do let themselves get distracted, I just never miss the easy opportunity to complain about refs.)

 

[orientalnc]

We definitely need to have some stupid idiotic ****ing Refs at some practices so the team can get used to getting ****ed and not let it distract them during a game situation. (not that they do let themselves get distracted, I just never miss the easy opportunity to complain about refs.)

I think the officiating has been routinely bad so far. Example: two overturned touchdown calls in the Falcons' game on Sunday. But, I don't blame officials for anything that has gone wrong for the GT football team.

 

[danny daniel]

It is apparent to me that the penalties are a discipline issue. The D cannot get lined up before the snap too much of the time. The ego celebration is interfering with our need to get lined up quickly and focus on our business. The OC has the players moving around before the snap and people are late to find their spot and then some do the foot shuffle as the man in motion starts. (our sloopyness is pervasive and does not always result in a penalty). Part of this is on the QB who starts the motion before everybody is comfortably set...but the OC wants hurry up and without discipline this is what you get.. The coaches need to coach some discipline, particularly with pre-snap on both O and D. Temper fouls should be delt with consistently with some sit time. It would also help of the coaches making substitutions had a better grasp of time and distance and could better count to 11.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Well at least we are in Texas. They have already had 296 yards of plays called back, and the first quarter isn’t even over yet! 7 penalties that reversed all kinds of large plays. Still 2 minutes left in the first LOL.