Postgame: ND 31-GT 13

[stinger78]

Yeah, it was that solid of a loss:

What data goes into this metric?

 

[UgaBlows]

Probably not. Boyd might, but I would say we need them mostly when we’re facing 1-2 yards at the GL or 3rd/4th downs. Also, if we’re missing big RB, we have to use what we have. The 80’s Bears used the “Refrigerator,” William Perry.

Efford was a really effective goal-line type rb in High-school

 

[TooTall]

Probably not. Boyd might, but I would say we need them mostly when we’re facing 1-2 yards at the GL or 3rd/4th downs. Also, if we’re missing big RB, we have to use what we have. The 80’s Bears used the “Refrigerator,” William Perry.

Zeek Biggers with the 3 yard plunge into the endzone! With that 2 point conversion, Georgia Tech goes up 15 over uga with less than one minute to play!

 

[Root4GT]

We could use a TE as a power RB if needed. I’d say Boyd might be a good candidate to start with. You could do it from the H-back position if you don’t want to give it away in a I-formation.

There is a huge difference between being a good RB (in any situation) and being some sort of receiver trying to be an RB. The OL play needs to step up for any success on ower run" plays more than anything.

 

[gte447f]

We could use a TE as a power RB if needed. I’d say Boyd might be a good candidate to start with. You could do it from the H-back position if you don’t want to give it away in a I-formation.

Efford was a really effective goal-line type rb in High-school

Zeek Biggers with the 3 yard plunge into the endzone! With that 2 point conversion, Georgia Tech goes up 15 over uga with less than one minute to play!

We’re getting desperate

 

[slugboy]

What data goes into this metric?

That one is success rate (1st or 2nd down making at least half the yardage to a first, or getting a first, or scoring; for 3rd or 4th down, getting a first or scoring). Basically, the per down rate that you stay ahead of the chains.

He is subtracting GT’s rate from Notre Dame’s rate. If you’re better at moving the ball than the other team, you usually win.

On the far left of the chart, you see the teams that lost because they couldn’t kick field goals, fumbled in the red zone, threw a pick six, shanked their punts, or otherwise gave the game away (hello FSU)

 

[g0lftime]

We made too many mistakes on ST, missed tackles, and both OL and DL were dominated against ND. Maybe could have had 6 more points but wouldn't have made any real difference.

 

[stinger78]

We made too many mistakes on ST, missed tackles, and both OL and DL were dominated against ND. Maybe could have had 6 more points but wouldn't have made any real difference.

The more I have reflected, the less I think the term “doninated” applies.

We dealt with their running game reasonably well, and their total yardage was not much more than ours. Nor were their 3rd/4th down conversions. What they did was sustain drives (and extend via fakes) and ate up clock.

On offense, they dominated our run game and pressured ZP, but gave up a lot of passing yardage. Perhaps this was a “pick your poison” decision for them and they chose to shut down the run and the deep ball/YAC chunk plays.

Anyway, they dominated only our running game at the expense of a lot of short/middle passing yards.

 

[bobongo]

That one is success rate (1st or 2nd down making at least half the yardage to a first, or getting a first, or scoring; for 3rd or 4th down, getting a first or scoring). Basically, the per down rate that you stay ahead of the chains.

He is subtracting GT’s rate from Notre Dame’s rate. If you’re better at moving the ball than the other team, you usually win.

On the far left of the chart, you see the teams that lost because they couldn’t kick field goals, fumbled in the red zone, threw a pick six, shanked their punts, or otherwise gave the game away (hello FSU)

Just to point out - fourteen of the teams that according to this metric had lower "net success rates" than their opponents actually won the game.

 

[roadkill]

That one is success rate (1st or 2nd down making at least half the yardage to a first, or getting a first, or scoring; for 3rd or 4th down, getting a first or scoring). Basically, the per down rate that you stay ahead of the chains.

He is subtracting GT’s rate from Notre Dame’s rate. If you’re better at moving the ball than the other team, you usually win.

On the far left of the chart, you see the teams that lost because they couldn’t kick field goals, fumbled in the red zone, threw a pick six, shanked their punts, or otherwise gave the game away (hello FSU)

Do you know if this is the same success rate that gameonpaper.com uses? Gameonpaper expresses it as a percentage, and even if you normalize that to a decimal fraction, it doesn't seem to line up properly with the values in the graphic for our game vs. ND.

 

[4shotB]

Just to point out - fourteen of the teams that according to this metric had lower "net success rates" than their opponents actually won the game.

Seems very probable if a team with the lowere success rate can force TO's while not turning the ball over themselves. 3 yards and a cloud of dust has won a lot of games over the years.

 

[g0lftime]

Seems very probable if a team with the lowere success rate can force TO's while not turning the ball over themselves. 3 yards and a cloud of dust has won a lot of games over the years.

Woody Hayes says hi.

 

[slugboy]

Just to point out - fourteen of the teams that according to this metric had lower "net success rates" than their opponents actually won the game.

Those are the real “the game was closer than it looked; we could/should have won” cases. Those are the cases where the fans are justified in saying “we gave the game away”. Auburn shot themselves in the foot to lose their game.

For the rest of them (like us), it was a “yeah, they really did beat you that badly”.

 

[slugboy]

Do you know if this is the same success rate that gameonpaper.com uses? Gameonpaper expresses it as a percentage, and even if you normalize that to a decimal fraction, it doesn't seem to line up properly with the values in the graphic for our game vs. ND.

It looks like he calculates it differently. For him, it’s percentage of plays that you had an EPA > 0.



Typically, you calculate it like this:

A play is defined as successful if:

• It gains at least 50% of the yards required to move the chains on first down
• 70% of yards to gain on second down
• 100% of yards to gain on third or fourth down

To calculate success rate, simply divide the number of successful plays (as defined by down and distance above) by total plays.

It can be used for both offenses and defenses.


This is mostly in fun, and there are a lot of stats guys who don’t like this interpretation. It’s quick and easy (and fun).

 

[bobongo]

Those are the real “the game was closer than it looked; we could/should have won” cases. Those are the cases where the fans are justified in saying “we gave the game away”. Auburn shot themselves in the foot to lose their game.

For the rest of them (like us), it was a “yeah, they really did beat you that badly”.

But it's just focusing on one aspect of the game, and it looks like about 1/3 of the time doesn't even accurately reflect the winner.
It seems a stretch to say that 1/3 of the time the losing team should have won, based on a cherry-picked stat.
The team that should have won the game is the team that did win the game.

 

[slugboy]

But it's just focusing on one aspect of the game, and it looks like about 1/3 of the time doesn't even accurately reflect the winner.
It seems a stretch to say that 1/3 of the time the losing team should have won, based on a cherry-picked stat.
The team that should have won the game is the team that did win the game.

You’re missing the point

 

[bobongo]

You’re missing the point

You're right, I am.

 

[JacketOff]

But it's just focusing on one aspect of the game, and it looks like about 1/3 of the time doesn't even accurately reflect the winner.
It seems a stretch to say that 1/3 of the time the losing team should have won, based on a cherry-picked stat.
The team that should have won the game is the team that did win the game.

It’s not really trying to say that the losing team should have won, just that the losing team had a good chance to win and they failed to do so for various reasons. It’s basically a summation of the box score boiled down to 1 stat. Look at FSU vs Duke for example

Total yards
FSU: 291 - Duke: 180
Yards per play
FSU: 4.4 - Duke: 3.1
First downs
FSU: 16 - Duke: 10
Turnovers
FSU: 4 - Duke: 0
Penalties
FSU: 9(65) - Duke: 5(44)

FSU clearly was the more effective team on offense and defense, but their penalties and turnovers cost them the game. Not all of the games will look like this, some of them the team with the higher EPA will actually look worse in the box score stats. But it gives a good idea of what “actually” happened throughout the course of the game, and if the game should’ve been closer/had a different outcome on paper.

 

[slugboy]

You're right, I am.

As far as I know, there's only one stat that's 100% aligned with winning--point differential. If you score more than the other guy, you win all the time.

The other stats are there to be predictive and explanatory.

This chart is mostly for fun, and I think it probably got invented because the author kept hearing people say "we were really in this game, but the score doesn't really show it".

So, what he did was take the percentage of plays that each team did something net positive and calculate the difference. It's not scientific, but when you take out acts of god, gusts of wind blowing the ball to the side of the upright, bounces off of someone's helmet for an interception and a pick six, the team that consistently does more things right tends to win. There were 14 games there where the team that consistently won each down still lost the game--because when they did lose the down, they lost it bigtime.

In our case, you could say on offense or defense we won about 42% of the plays, and Notre Dame won about 58% of them--that's a pretty solid win.

That's back of the napkin kinda math, though.

But again, this is mostly "Hey, fan. Yeah, I know that you thought you were in it, but nah, you really weren't".

More scientifically, you can look at post-game win expectancy -- we're at 0.4%. The Notre Dame game wasn't close. Neither were Syracuse or Louisville.

264	19-Oct	Non	0	Georgia Tech	H	Notre Dame	13	31	0	-18	0.4%	-21.3

The games we won, we won solidly. The games we lost, we lost solidly.

====

Now, there's some real stats work here: https://www.footballstudyhall.com/2014/1/24/5337968/college-football-five-factors
The SP+ stats are based on it (and that's explained at https://www.sbnation.com/college-fo...ge-football-advanced-stats-analytics-rankings)

Success rate is what I listed above. I've seen some different definitions, but here are a couple:

Success Rate​

A common Football Outsiders tool used to measure efficiency by determining whether every play of a given game was successful or not. The terms of success in college football: 50 percent of necessary yardage on first down, 70 percent on second down, and 100 percent on third and fourth down.

Success Rate+​

An opponent-adjusted version of Success Rate. As with most other "+" measures, it is built around a baseline of 100.0. Anything over 100.0 is better than average, anything below 100.0 is worse than average.

If you win the Success Rate battle, you win 83% of the time. So, it's a really good predictor of whether you deserved to win (and it doesn't include a lot of the miraculous or "lucky" stuff)
If you win the Explosive Plays battle, you win 86% of the time (but it does include the "lucky" plays that people say "if they hadn't had that pick six, we would have won")
If you win the Finishing the Drive battle, you win 75% of the time (i.e. when you get more points per trip inside the opposing 40)
If you win the Field Position battle (using average starting field position), you win 72 percent of the time.
If you win the Turnover battle (using turnover margin), you win 73 percent of the time.

We didn't win any of those--especially not "Finishing the Drive". The first is being consistent and efficient. The second is getting quick wins. The third is closing the deal.

And, crap, we've been pretty lucky this year, and looking back at it the Syracuse, ND, and Louisville games really show it. As good as our offense is--and it's good--it's not doing as well in success, explosiveness, or finishing as it needs to (it's been good at finishing EXCEPT in three games). Special teams has been losing field position battles for us.

The bad news is, we have a lot of room to improve. The good news is that we can get a LOT better.

It’s not really trying to say that the losing team should have won, just that the losing team had a good chance to win and they failed to do so for various reasons. It’s basically a summation of the box score boiled down to 1 stat. Look at FSU vs Duke for example

Total yards
FSU: 291 - Duke: 180
Yards per play
FSU: 4.4 - Duke: 3.1
First downs
FSU: 16 - Duke: 10
Turnovers
FSU: 4 - Duke: 0
Penalties
FSU: 9(65) - Duke: 5(44)

FSU clearly was the more effective team on offense and defense, but their penalties and turnovers cost them the game. Not all of the games will look like this, some of them the team with the higher EPA will actually look worse in the box score stats. But it gives a good idea of what “actually” happened throughout the course of the game, and if the game should’ve been closer/had a different outcome on paper.

Right on, brother.

 

[roadkill]

@slugboy - I know you've posted some of this stat stuff previously, but a great post regardless. Thanks!

And, crap, we've been pretty lucky this year, and looking back at it the Syracuse, ND, and Louisville games really show it. As good as our offense is--and it's good--it's not doing as well in success, explosiveness, or finishing as it needs to (it's been good at finishing EXCEPT in three games). Special teams has been losing field position battles for us.

I think Buster has done a pretty good job of improving our success rate since he came on board. I also think there can be a bit of a trade-off between maximizing the success rate (just keeping the chains moving) and the need for explosives, which seem to me to come with a higher risk.

In any case, the chronically underrated special teams performance is a key to both the third and fourth success factors. When they fail, it's hard to win games. Key absolutely has to get that fixed.