AE 87
Helluva Engineer
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In another thread, I posted my opinion that we have an "efficient" offense. In that thread, several people offered the assessment that our offense is "not efficient."
I'm interested in anyone who is willing to offer a rational argument in support of the claim that we are "not efficient": (1) a definition of "efficient" and why it's helpful; (2) a way of rationally assessing efficiency; and (3) a standard by which this efficiency can be labeled good or not good.
In support of the claim that we "are efficient," (1) I define "efficient" as points/drive (PPD). A team that scores 3o points in 15 drives is equally as productive as a team that scores 30 points in 10 drives; however, the second team is 1.5 times more efficient (3 ppd vs. 2 ppd). I consider this definition helpful because what matters in football is having more points than your opponents at the end of the game, not the season, and different games have different number of drives. If team 1 and team 2, from my example, play each other, they'll get the same number of drives, so defenses being equal team 2 will score 1.5 times more.
(2) PPD:
Points: 7*#rushing and passing TDs + 3* FGs made; This number normalizes the points in a way attributable to the offense.
Drives: The sum of rushing touchdowns, passing touchdowns, FG attempts, failed 4th down conversions, punts, lost fumbles and interceptions. [This calculation ignores drives ending in safeties (safeties often reflect starting-position problems which were not the fault of the offense) and may introduce false drives resulting from fumbled returns. However, when you consider the 140-180 possessions in a season, the error in drives is likely not significant.]
PPD=Points/Drives
(3) It seems to me that four main factors affect efficiency: scheme (including play calls), talent, execution, and opposition efficiency. Each one of these factors is difficult to quantify independently. (Although, an industrious person might try to quantify opposition efficiency through some opponents of opponents algorithm and use some sort of recruiting class ranking to quantify talent).
Of these four factors, three are attributes of the team: scheme, talent and execution. Still, the raw points/drive average would still be meaningful if you assume that opposition efficiency would largely average out across the season (for examination of one game, you'd have to look at opposition efficiency).
For example, by my calculations, the top 5 offenses for 2012 in PPD were Louisiana Tech, Texas A&M, Oregon, Alabama, and Kan St. Now, I think that when typical college football fans think about the top offenses of 2012, teams 2-4 on that list would probably get an "I can see that" response while many might still question how LTech got ranked #1 (though they did average 51.5 pts/game and were #1 in Scoring Offense, productivity). By comparison, footballoutsiders' efficiency rank (FEI) which does account for opposition and excludes garbage time, ranks these teams as 11, 2, 6, 5, and 21 respectively (apparently K State's opponents were not as good as LTech's on D). The FEI #1 for 2012, Baylor, was #6 in my raw PPD stat. So, I think that my raw PPD stat is a pretty decent indicator of efficiency in both Off ppd (OPPD) and Def ppd-allowed (DPPD).
Now, let's look at GT's OPPD (rank) and DPPD (rank) from 2009 to 2012 (note: rankings are based on more than 2 significant digits for convenience):
OPPD: 3.22 (3), 2.24 (57), 2.99 (14), 2.81 (23); Combined: 2.82 (11)
DPPD: 2.27 (86), 2.15 (66), 2.26 (80), 2.37 (77); Combined: 2.27 (83)
By looking at these numbers, it should be pretty clear that our offense has been pretty efficient while our defense has not been over the last four years.
Now let's consider some baseline numbers, #10 and #20 OPPD and DPPD, for 2009 - 2012.
OPPD #10, #20: 2.899, 2.649; 3.122, 2.802; 3.159, 2.732; 3.097, 2.915
DPPD #10, #20: 1.256, 1.477; 1.422, 1.552; 1.375, 1.520; 1.331, 1.500
From these numbers we might generalize:
Top 20 OPPD would be about 2.77 and Top 10 about 3.07
Top 20 DPPD would be about 1.51 and Top 10 about 1.35
So, I label our current offense as efficient or good because after 9 games, I feel we have enough data to get a feel for where we are.
GT 2013 (with three games left):
OPPD average is 2.89
DPPD average is 1.57.
From these numbers, it seems that we have a top 20 Offense in scoring efficiency and are sniffing close to a top 20 in Defense scoring efficiency. Of course, the trick is getting both teams to play to their potential for each game. (By way of comparison, GT's 2007 D, #21 in scoring D at 20.8 pts/game allowed, also had a DPPD of 1.57. Our 2007 OPPD was 2.01.)
I look forward to someone offering their argument for why we're not a good or efficient offense.
I'm interested in anyone who is willing to offer a rational argument in support of the claim that we are "not efficient": (1) a definition of "efficient" and why it's helpful; (2) a way of rationally assessing efficiency; and (3) a standard by which this efficiency can be labeled good or not good.
In support of the claim that we "are efficient," (1) I define "efficient" as points/drive (PPD). A team that scores 3o points in 15 drives is equally as productive as a team that scores 30 points in 10 drives; however, the second team is 1.5 times more efficient (3 ppd vs. 2 ppd). I consider this definition helpful because what matters in football is having more points than your opponents at the end of the game, not the season, and different games have different number of drives. If team 1 and team 2, from my example, play each other, they'll get the same number of drives, so defenses being equal team 2 will score 1.5 times more.
(2) PPD:
Points: 7*#rushing and passing TDs + 3* FGs made; This number normalizes the points in a way attributable to the offense.
Drives: The sum of rushing touchdowns, passing touchdowns, FG attempts, failed 4th down conversions, punts, lost fumbles and interceptions. [This calculation ignores drives ending in safeties (safeties often reflect starting-position problems which were not the fault of the offense) and may introduce false drives resulting from fumbled returns. However, when you consider the 140-180 possessions in a season, the error in drives is likely not significant.]
PPD=Points/Drives
(3) It seems to me that four main factors affect efficiency: scheme (including play calls), talent, execution, and opposition efficiency. Each one of these factors is difficult to quantify independently. (Although, an industrious person might try to quantify opposition efficiency through some opponents of opponents algorithm and use some sort of recruiting class ranking to quantify talent).
Of these four factors, three are attributes of the team: scheme, talent and execution. Still, the raw points/drive average would still be meaningful if you assume that opposition efficiency would largely average out across the season (for examination of one game, you'd have to look at opposition efficiency).
For example, by my calculations, the top 5 offenses for 2012 in PPD were Louisiana Tech, Texas A&M, Oregon, Alabama, and Kan St. Now, I think that when typical college football fans think about the top offenses of 2012, teams 2-4 on that list would probably get an "I can see that" response while many might still question how LTech got ranked #1 (though they did average 51.5 pts/game and were #1 in Scoring Offense, productivity). By comparison, footballoutsiders' efficiency rank (FEI) which does account for opposition and excludes garbage time, ranks these teams as 11, 2, 6, 5, and 21 respectively (apparently K State's opponents were not as good as LTech's on D). The FEI #1 for 2012, Baylor, was #6 in my raw PPD stat. So, I think that my raw PPD stat is a pretty decent indicator of efficiency in both Off ppd (OPPD) and Def ppd-allowed (DPPD).
Now, let's look at GT's OPPD (rank) and DPPD (rank) from 2009 to 2012 (note: rankings are based on more than 2 significant digits for convenience):
OPPD: 3.22 (3), 2.24 (57), 2.99 (14), 2.81 (23); Combined: 2.82 (11)
DPPD: 2.27 (86), 2.15 (66), 2.26 (80), 2.37 (77); Combined: 2.27 (83)
By looking at these numbers, it should be pretty clear that our offense has been pretty efficient while our defense has not been over the last four years.
Now let's consider some baseline numbers, #10 and #20 OPPD and DPPD, for 2009 - 2012.
OPPD #10, #20: 2.899, 2.649; 3.122, 2.802; 3.159, 2.732; 3.097, 2.915
DPPD #10, #20: 1.256, 1.477; 1.422, 1.552; 1.375, 1.520; 1.331, 1.500
From these numbers we might generalize:
Top 20 OPPD would be about 2.77 and Top 10 about 3.07
Top 20 DPPD would be about 1.51 and Top 10 about 1.35
So, I label our current offense as efficient or good because after 9 games, I feel we have enough data to get a feel for where we are.
GT 2013 (with three games left):
OPPD average is 2.89
DPPD average is 1.57.
From these numbers, it seems that we have a top 20 Offense in scoring efficiency and are sniffing close to a top 20 in Defense scoring efficiency. Of course, the trick is getting both teams to play to their potential for each game. (By way of comparison, GT's 2007 D, #21 in scoring D at 20.8 pts/game allowed, also had a DPPD of 1.57. Our 2007 OPPD was 2.01.)
I look forward to someone offering their argument for why we're not a good or efficient offense.