The Sports Arsenal

Other recent posts about football at The Citadel:

– Inside the Numbers, Part 1: The Citadel’s 2018 run/pass tendencies and yards per play statistics, with SoCon/FCS discussion as well

– Inside the Numbers, Part 2: The Citadel’s 2018 4th down decision-making, plus Red Zone stats, 3rd down conversion info, etc.

– Football attendance at The Citadel (and elsewhere) — an annual review

– 2019 preseason rankings and ratings, featuring The Citadel and the rest of the SoCon

– During the 2019 football season, which teams will the Bulldogs’ opponents play before (and after) facing The Citadel?

– Homecoming at The Citadel — a brief gridiron history

—

Additional links about the Bulldogs’ upcoming gridiron campaign:

– Hero Sports previews The Citadel

– Five questions as The Citadel opens fall practice

– WCSC-TV was at the first fall practice

– What about a preview of the Bulldogs’ first opponent, Towson?

—

What follows is mostly (but not exclusively) about the “Five Factors” of college football. This is the third straight year I’ve written about The Citadel and the Five Factors; you can read my previous efforts here and here.

Later in this post I’ll discuss a few stats not directly related to the Five Factors, but we’ll start with the 5F. First, here is Bill Connelly of ESPN (formerly of SB Nation; he moved to the four-letter about a month ago) on what the Five Factors actually are. This is from 2014, but it still applies:

…I’ve come to realize that the sport comes down to five basic things, four of which you can mostly control. You make more big plays than your opponent, you stay on schedule, you tilt the field, you finish drives, and you fall on the ball. Explosiveness, efficiency, field position, finishing drives, and turnovers are the five factors to winning football games.

• If you win the explosiveness battle (using PPP), you win 86 percent of the time.

• If you win the efficiency battle (using Success Rate), you win 83 percent of the time.

• If you win the drive-finishing battle (using points per trip inside the 40), you win 75 percent of the time.

• 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.

Connelly later adjusted some of the formulas that result in the five factors, but the basic principles are the same.

—

I’ve already discussed a lot of other statistics in my annual post on per-play numbers, conversion rates, etc. (see Part 1 and Part 2, linked above), but these are slightly different types of stats.

They are “advanced” statistics for the Bulldogs’ 2018 season. Is there a really convenient spreadsheet that goes with this post? You bet there is!

Keep in mind that these stats are for SoCon games only. Eight games. Sample size caveats do apply.

Also, please remember that the stats were compiled by me, so they may not be completely perfect. However, finding “ready-made” FCS stats for these categories is not easy. Actually, it’s just about impossible. I’m not complaining…okay, maybe I am complaining.

Since there are no readily available equivalent stats online for FCS teams, I will occasionally be using FBS data for comparisons. With that in mind, let me quote something from last year’s post about advanced stats.

Now, you may be wondering whether or not FCS stats would be similar to those for the FBS.

For the most part, they should be — with a couple of possible caveats. I asked Bill Connelly a question about FBS vs. FCS stats and potential differences, and he was nice enough to respond. Here is what he had to say about it on his podcast:

…The one thing you will notice is the further down you go, from pro to college, from FBS to FCS, Division II to high school and all that…the more big plays you’re going to have, and the more turnovers you’re going to have. That’s going to be the biggest difference, because you’re going to have more lopsided matchups, and you’re just going to have more mistakes. And so if you go down to the FCS level, it’s not going to be a dramatic difference with FBS — but that’s going to be the difference. You’re going to have more breakdowns, you’re going to have more lopsided matchups to take advantage of, you’re not going to have quite the same level of proficiency throughout a defense, and so there will be more mistakes on defense, and I think the reason North Dakota State has been so good is that they’re about as close as you can get to kind of being mistake-free in that regard.

As long as an FCS team plays in a league in which most, if not all, of the teams are competitive (such as the SoCon), statistical variance should be relatively normal, so I feel reasonably confident that there is validity to the numbers I’m about to present.

Okay, time for the Five Factors.

—

Field position

Annual reminder: the key to evaluating and understanding this category is that an offense’s effectiveness (in terms of field position) is measured by the starting field position of its defense (and vice versa).

Special teams play is obviously critically important for field position as well. Net punting, kickoff coverage, the return game — it all counts. Last year, The Citadel benefited from strong special teams play.

The FBS national average for starting field position in 2017 was the 29.6 yard line. Unfortunately, I was unable to determine the average starting field position for 2018, but it is probably similar. There may have been a very slight uptick due to the rule change for fair catches on kickoffs.

-Average starting yard line of offensive drives-

The Citadel won the field position battle in six of eight league contests. The exceptions were Mercer and ETSU.

However, the numbers for the Mercer contest do not include Rod Johnson’s game-winning 94-yard kickoff return for a TD. That is because this statistic only reflects where offensive drives started, and the Bulldogs did not have an offensive drive after Johnson’s return (because he scored).

There is a similar issue with Dante Smith’s touchdown in the Western Carolina game, which came directly after a blocked punt by Bradley Carter. This isn’t a flaw in the statistic, but just something that has to be kept in mind.

The Citadel’s net punting average in SoCon play was 38.3 (third-best, behind Mercer and Furman). The league average was 35.5. Trust my numbers on that, as the net punting averages on the SoCon website are incorrect.

The Bulldogs were fourth in both punt return average and kickoff return average in conference play. The Citadel was third in kickoff return coverage, with a touchback rate of 43.2% (second-best in the SoCon). That TB rate is in line with the 2017 average (46.7%).

A corollary stat to field position is “3-and-outs+”, which is forcing an offense off the field after a possession of three plays or less that does not result in a score.

After a sizable edge in this stat in 2016 (a 7.7% positive margin), the Bulldogs’ differential in during the 2017 campaign was -2.5%. Last year, The Citadel rebounded in a major way, with a differential of almost 9% (33.70% – 24.73%). It helped that the offense reduced its number of 3-and-out drives by a significant margin (though there were occasional struggles in this area).

Toledo (+8.2) and Syracuse (+7.6) ranked 1-2 in field position margin for FBS. Other teams that had sizable edges in field position included Michigan, Marshall, Ohio State, LSU, and Auburn.

Florida State, with a FP margin of -9.3, was the worst FBS team in the category. It was a tough year in Tallahassee.

—

Efficiency

For defining efficiency, a stat called “Success Rate” is useful. Via Football Outsiders:

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.

The FBS average for Success Rate in a given season is roughly 40%.

-Success Rate-

The Citadel was 3-5 in the efficiency battle in league games, coming out ahead against Mercer, ETSU, and Western Carolina. (Yes, VMI edged the Bulldogs in Success Rate, and by more than you might think.)

Two years ago, The Citadel had a differential of -4.24% in Success Rate, so 2018 was an improvement. That said, the Bulldogs have to stay “on schedule” on offense with their triple option attack, and 40% is not quite good enough.

During the 2016 season, The Citadel had an offensive Success Rate of 45.4%. Last year, such a percentage would have resulted in about 30 more “successful” plays in league action for the Bulldogs, or 3.75 per game. Three or four more successful plays per contest, whether they were long gainers or just helped move the chains, could have made a difference in several close games.

In FBS, Alabama led the way in offensive Success Rate, at 56.2%. Oklahoma ranked second, at 54.9%. Other squads that fared well in this sphere included Ohio, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Wisconsin, and Missouri. Army was also solid (22nd nationally).

Rice, Central Michigan, and Rutgers (130th and last) were the most inefficient offensive units in the subdivision.

UAB ranked first in defensive Success Rate. Another C-USA team, Southern Mississippi, was second, followed by Michigan and Cincinnati. Alabama, Fresno State, and Appalachian State also finished in the top 10.

It should come as no surprise that the worst defensive teams in this category were Louisville, Oregon State, and cellar-dweller Connecticut, with the Huskies in particular having a historically bad defense.

In terms of margin, Alabama dominated (+22.0%). Clemson was second. Also in control from a marginal efficiency perspective: Wisconsin, Florida, Mississippi State, and Ohio State.

—

Explosiveness

Here is an explanation of “IsoPPP”:

IsoPPP is the Equivalent Points Per Play (PPP) average on only successful plays. This allows us to look at offense in two steps: How consistently successful were you, and when you were successful, how potent were you?

The triple option offense does not lend itself to explosive plays, as a rule. Now, big plays are certainly important to the overall success of the offense. However, the modest-but-successful plays generally associated with the attack tend to cancel out the “chunk” plays when calculating the stat.

The Bulldogs only came out ahead in this category in one of eight league contests, the third consecutive season that was the case. That one game was against Samford.

-Explosiveness (IsoPPP)-

The averages are slightly worse than last season, with the largest discrepancy the defensive rate at home (it was 1.05 in 2017).

FBS rankings are from Football Outsiders, which also includes “IsoPPP+”, which adjusts for opponent strength. However, I’m just going to list the unadjusted IsoPPP averages here.

The FBS national median for Explosiveness was 1.17. Oklahoma led the subdivision, at 1.46, followed by Maryland (in a bit of a surprise), Memphis, Houston, and Alabama.

As would be expected, the triple option (or triple option oriented) teams were all below average in explosiveness, with the notable exception of Georgia Southern (1.19, 53rd overall). Navy was 111th, New Mexico 112th, Georgia Tech 113th, Air Force 120th, and Army 129th (next-to-last, only ahead of Central Michigan).

BYU was the champion when it came to defensive IsoPPP (0.90). The rest of the top five: Iowa, Georgia, Washington, and Wyoming. Clemson was 8th, South Carolina 12th, and Georgia Southern 15th.

Last season, Georgia Southern was next-to-last in defensive IsoPPP, so there was a dramatic improvement on defense for that program. Beautiful Eagle Creek shimmered in the moonlight again.

On the wrong end of too many explosive plays: Virginia Tech, Coastal Carolina, South Alabama, East Carolina, Georgia State, and (of course) Connecticut, which had a defensive IsoPPP of 1.50. Yikes.

Imagine what would have happened if Oklahoma had played Connecticut last season…

—

Finishing Drives

This category calculates points per trip inside the opponent’s 40-yard line, based on the logical notion that the true “scoring territory” on the field begins at the +40.

The FBS national average for points per trip inside the opponent’s 40-yard line in 2017 was 4.42.

-Finishing Drives-

This was a big improvement over a terrible 2017, when the Bulldogs struggled to put points on the board while in the Red Zone or the Front Zone.

The margin in 2018 might have been modest, but it was much more respectable than the -2.64 put up the year before. The defense does need to do a better job of bending (as opposed to breaking) when on the road, but that unit still improved by over a point in this category from 2017.

• Scoring margin per game in SoCon play, 2016: 11.1
• Scoring margin per game in SoCon play, 2017: -6.6
• Scoring margin per game in SoCon play, 2018: 2.0

There are usually a lot of close games in the Southern Conference (five of the Bulldogs’ eight league games last season were decided by 7 points or less). That makes it all the more important, when approaching the goal line, to put the pigskin in the end zone.

Oklahoma led FBS in finishing drives (offense) last year, with a borderline-ridiculous 5.7 points per trip inside the 40-yard line. UCF was 2nd, followed by Utah State, Houston, Clemson, and Washington State. The worst team at finishing drives was UTSA.

The best defense inside the 40-yard line was Clemson, which allowed only 3.0 points per trip. Other stout defensive units in this area included Mississippi State, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Miami (FL), Kentucky, and Appalachian State. The worst defense inside the 40 was also the worst defense outside the 40, or on the 40, or above the 40, or anywhere — Connecticut.

As you might imagine, Clemson topped the charts in finishing drives margin, at +2.4. As succinctly noted in Athlon’s college preview magazine, that meant opponents needed to create twice as many chances as Clemson to score as many points. That never happened, obviously.

Mississippi State (+2.1) was second. In last place was Louisville, at -2.0, but at least the Cardinals were consistent — they finished 126th in finishing drives (offense), and 126th in finishing drives (defense). Louisville’s scoring margin from 2017 to 2018 dropped by an incredible 35 points per game, a monumental collapse.

—

Turnovers

First, a table of the actual turnovers:

This was the second year in a row the Bulldogs didn’t fare well at home in the turnover department.

The next table is the “adjusted” or “expected” turnovers:

As mentioned in previous posts, the expected turnovers statistic is based on A) the fact that recovering fumbles is usually a 50-50 proposition, and B) a little over 1/5 of passes that are “defensed” are intercepted. The “passes defensed” interception rate is calculated at 22%.

Essentially, The Citadel’s turnover margin was almost exactly what you would expect it to be. There was a bit of “turnover luck” both at home and on the road, but it all canceled out in the end.

The luckiest FBS team by far, at least in terms of turnovers, was Kansas — which makes one wonder how bad the 3-9 Jayhawks would have been if they hadn’t received a friendly roll of the dice when it came to takeaways.

Also fortunate in 2018: FIU, Maryland, Arizona State, and Georgia Tech. Among those teams not so lucky: ULM, Connecticut, UTEP, Tulane, Rutgers, and Florida State, with the Seminoles having the worst turnover luck in the country. Did I mention it was a tough year in Tallahassee?

—

How did The Citadel fare in the “Five Factors” head-to-head with each opponent in league play?

• at Wofford: 2-3, with sizable edges in field position and turnovers, but a terrible efficiency number
• Chattanooga: 2-3, again winning the field position battle, and with a slight edge in finishing drives
• at Mercer: 2-3, coming out ahead in efficiency and turnover margin
• ETSU: 1-4, with only an edge in finishing drives (though with most categories closely contested)
• at VMI: 2-3, with an enormous edge in field position (and committing one fewer turnover)
• Furman: 1-4, again having a field position edge, but not in front in any other category
• at Western Carolina: 4-1, only trailing in explosiveness
• Samford: 3-1-1 (neither team committed a turnover), with The Citadel playing its best 30 minutes of football all season in the 2nd half

—

There are three other statistical categories that I’ll mention here. All of them are included in tabs on the linked spreadsheet (and all reference SoCon games only).

-First down yardage gained per play-

• The Citadel’s offense averaged 6.21 yards on first down in 2016
• The Citadel’s offense averaged 5.83 yards on first down in 2017
• The Citadel’s offense averaged 6.01 yards on first down in 2018

In 2017, the margin in this category was -0.23; last year, it flipped (in a good way) in the other direction. The Bulldogs’ first-down defense was better on the road in 2018 than it had been the previous season.

—

-3rd down distance to gain (in yards)-

The margin in 2017 was 1.64, while it was 2.49 in 2016. Thus, last year was a nice rebound, but there is room for improvement.

In FBS, Army’s offense averaged 5.4 yards to go on third down, best in the nation. Army’s opponents averaged 8.4 yards to go on third down, also best in the nation.

In related news, Army won 11 games last season.

—

Definition of “passing downs”: 2nd down and 8 yards or more to go for a first down, 3rd/4th down and 5 yards or more to go for a first down

-Passing down success rate: offense-

Last season, the Bulldogs ran the ball 79.2% of the time on “passing downs”, a dramatic increase from 2017 (65.6%), and actually a higher percentage than in 2016 (75.6%). The success rate declined by more than ten percentage points, though.

I think this is an area that needs work. I will say that the emphasis on running the ball on passing downs — even more so than might be expected from a triple option team — may at least in part have been an attempt to position the offense for a more manageable 3rd-down or 4th-down play. This is not a bad idea (Army last year was extremely effective with a similar philosophy).

Still, that success rate has to increase.

-Passing down success rate: defense-

This isn’t bad; the passing attempts success rate against the Bulldogs’ D was 32.0%. That 26.8% success rate for opponents when running the ball on passing downs was too high, though.

—

No matter how “advanced” the statistics are now or might become in the future, the essence of football remains the same. Run. Throw. Catch. Block. Tackle. Kick.

That is why people love watching the game. It was true 100 years ago, and it is still true today.

It is almost time for another season. It cannot come soon enough.

Filed under: Football, The Citadel | Tagged: Bill Connelly, Chattanooga, East Tennessee State, Five Factors, Football Outsiders, Furman, Mercer, Samford, SB Nation, SoCon, The Citadel, VMI, Western Carolina, Wofford | Leave a comment »

Other recent stats-related posts:

– Part 1 of Inside the Numbers (The Citadel’s 2017 run/pass tendencies and yards per play numbers)

– Part 2 of Inside the Numbers (The Citadel’s 2017 fourth-down decision-making and plenty of other statistics)

– League-only statistics for the SoCon in 2017 (all teams), plus assorted observations you can’t live without

—

This is a post primarily about the “Five Factors” of college football. For what it is worth, I made a similar post last season about The Citadel’s 2016 season.

I’m also going to mention three other not-so-advanced stats later in this post, but we’ll start with the Five Factors. As I did last year, let me quote Bill Connelly of SB Nation on what the Five Factors actually are:

…I’ve come to realize that the sport comes down to five basic things, four of which you can mostly control. You make more big plays than your opponent, you stay on schedule, you tilt the field, you finish drives, and you fall on the ball. Explosiveness, efficiency, field position, finishing drives, and turnovers are the five factors to winning football games.

• If you win the explosiveness battle (using PPP), you win 86 percent of the time.

• If you win the efficiency battle (using Success Rate), you win 83 percent of the time.

• If you win the drive-finishing battle (using points per trip inside the 40), you win 75 percent of the time.

• 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.

Those percentages were based on 2013 FBS data. It’s now 2018, but there is no particular reason why they shouldn’t still be valid. Connelly made adjustments to some of the formulas that go into the five factors (especially the “explosiveness” category), but the basic principles are the same.

—

I’ve already gone over a bunch of statistics in my annual post on per-play numbers, conversion rates, etc., (see Part 1 and Part 2), but these are slightly different types of stats.

What follows is a package of advanced statistics for the Bulldogs’ 2017 season. It comes with its very own spreadsheet.

Keep in mind that these stats are for SoCon games only. Also, please remember that the stats were compiled by me, so they may not be absolutely perfect. You don’t get a refund if there are any mistakes, though.

I’ll be using some FBS numbers for comparison purposes, as there are no readily available equivalent stats online for FCS teams. Now, you may be wondering whether or not FCS stats would be similar to those for the FBS.

For the most part, they should be — with a couple of possible caveats. I asked Bill Connelly a question about FBS vs. FCS stats and potential differences, and he was nice enough to respond. Here is what he had to say about it on his podcast:

…The one thing you will notice is the further down you go, from pro to college, from FBS to FCS, Division II to high school and all that…the more big plays you’re going to have, and the more turnovers you’re going to have. That’s going to be the biggest difference, because you’re going to have more lopsided matchups, and you’re just going to have more mistakes. And so if you go down to the FCS level, it’s not going to be a dramatic difference with FBS — but that’s going to be the difference. You’re going to have more breakdowns, you’re going to have more lopsided matchups to take advantage of, you’re not going to have quite the same level of proficiency throughout a defense, and so there will be more mistakes on defense, and I think the reason North Dakota State has been so good is that they’re about as close as you can get to kind of being mistake-free in that regard.

As someone who has watched various levels of football for a long time, I tend to agree with that idea. I will add, though, that while there may be a slightly wider variance in terms of overall quality in FCS as opposed to FBS, it is probably less prominent in most intra-conference games, like those for the SoCon, where for the most part eight of the nine teams were very competitive last season.

Now that I’ve got all that out of the way, let’s look at the Five Factors.

—

Field position

The key thing to remember here is that you measure an offense’s effectiveness (in terms of field position) by the starting field position of its defense (and vice versa).

Special teams play is obviously critically important for field position as well. Net punting, kickoff coverage, the return game — it all counts.

The FBS national average for starting field position in 2017 was the 29.6 yard line.

-Average starting yard line of offensive drives-

The Citadel won the field position battle in five of eight league contests. In a bit of an anomaly, in games played by the Bulldogs, the team with the edge in field position only won twice.

The Bulldogs had similar field position numbers at home in 2016, but were significantly better on the road that season.

A corollary stat to field position is “3-and-outs+”, which is forcing an offense off the field after a possession of three plays or less that does not result in a score. Last season, The Citadel’s offense had a “3-and-outs+” rate of 27.5%, while the Bulldogs’ opponents had a rate of 35.2%. That 7.7% differential was excellent.

In 2017, however, The Citadel had a negative differential in 3-and-outs+, with an offensive rate of 34.4% and a defensive rate of 31.9%. (For anyone interested, this year I have included a tab on the spreadsheet breaking down the game-by-game numbers in this category.)

The Citadel’s net punting average in SoCon play was 35.1; the league average was 36.4. The Bulldogs were slightly below league average in yards per punt return, and slightly above average in yards per kick return.

On kickoffs, The Citadel had a touchback rate of 46.7%, well above the conference average (28.8%) and second in the league, behind only East Tennessee State (which had a very impressive touchback rate of 72.7%).

Stanford (+9.1) and Alabama ranked 1-2 in field position margin for FBS. Kansas, with a FP margin of -9.2, was far and away the worst FBS team in the category.

—

Efficiency

With efficiency, we’re talking about a statistic called “Success Rate”. Here is its definition, via Football Outsiders:

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.

The FBS national average for Success Rate in 2017 was 40.3%; the median was 41.8%.

-Success Rate-

The Citadel split the efficiency battle in league games, coming out ahead four times, but falling short by a big margin in two of the other four games.

For a few more details, see the tab on the spreadsheet.

Last season, The Citadel’s offense had a success rate in league play of 45.4%, while the defense was also better in the category (39.9%).

The nature of the Bulldogs’ offense is such that Success Rate is particularly important. The Citadel has to remain “on schedule”, and consistently staying in good down-and-distance situations is paramount.

In FBS, Oklahoma led all teams in offensive Success Rate, at 53.2%. Army ranked second, followed by Ohio State, UCF, and Washington. Navy was 10th, Clemson 16th, Alabama 17th, and South Carolina 65th.

As for the remaining triple option teams, Air Force was 27th, Georgia Tech was 45th, New Mexico was 98th, and Georgia Southern was 119th. UTEP was last nationally, with an offensive Success Rate of only 32.7%.

Michigan had the top defensive Success Rate in FBS, at 30.6%. The top 5 also included Clemson, Wisconsin, Northern Illinois, and Auburn. Others of note: Alabama was 7th, Georgia 11th, Notre Dame 18th, South Carolina 59th, and East Carolina last (with a defensive Success Rate of 50.6%).

—

Explosiveness

As was the case last year, I think an explanation of “IsoPPP” is necessary. Again, from SB Nation’s Bill Connelly:

IsoPPP is the Equivalent Points Per Play (PPP) average on only successful plays. This allows us to look at offense in two steps: How consistently successful were you, and when you were successful, how potent were you?

The Citadel will never be a national leader in “Explosiveness”, due to the nature of its offense. That isn’t to say big plays aren’t a key feature of a successful triple option attack, as they certainly are. However, the (hopefully large) number of relatively modest-but-successful plays tends to cancel out those long gainers when the statistic is calculated.

The Bulldogs only came out ahead in this category in one of eight league games. That was also the case last season, so I wouldn’t be overly concerned about it, at least on offense. Defensively, the Bulldogs allowed too many big plays on the road, and that is reflected in the numbers.

-Explosiveness (IsoPPP)-

The FBS national average for Explosiveness was 1.17. Memphis led the division in offensive IsoPPP, at 1.48, just ahead of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. Mississippi was 4th, and UCF 5th.

This is just the umpteenth example of how amazing Oklahoma’s offense was last season. Finishing 1st in Success Rate and 2nd in Explosiveness is just an incredible statistical combination.

The triple option teams were all below average in IsoPPP, with the exception of New Mexico (53rd overall). Georgia Southern ranked last (0.93), just behind Army. Given that the Black Knights won 10 games last season, I don’t think Jeff Monken is too worried about his squad’s offensive IsoPPP numbers.

Washington was the national FBS standard-bearer for defensive IsoPPP (0.93). The rest of the top 5: Fresno State, Clemson, Michigan State, and Wyoming. Alabama was 8th and South Carolina was 19th (a key factor in the Gamecocks’ improved record last year).

The bottom two teams in defensive IsoPPP were Georgia Southern and Air Force, with the Falcons trailing the field (1.46).

Georgia Southern was last in offensive IsoPPP, and next-to-last in defensive IsoPPP. In related news, it was a tough year in Statesboro.

—

Finishing Drives

This category calculates points per trip inside the opponent’s 40-yard line. It’s a supersized version of the “Red Zone”, with the theory being that the true scoring territory on the field begins at the +40.

The FBS national average for points per trip inside the opponent’s 40-yard line in 2017 was 4.42.

-Finishing Drives-

This is beyond ugly. The Citadel’s opponents had the edge in this category in seven of eight games, with the exception being Wofford.

Yes, even VMI, which scored just three points against the Bulldogs, did better in finishing drives. Of course, one reason for that was the Keydets had only one such drive during the game, scoring those three points on it.

The Citadel, meanwhile, averaged 1.4 points per drive inside the 40 against VMI.

The Bulldogs’ offense actually had one more opportunity inside the 40 in conference play last season than it did in 2016. However, it averaged 4.53 points per such drive in 2016, as opposed to a measly 2.95 points in 2017, a difference of 1.58 points per drive.

That’s an enormous differential. If you extrapolate those numbers, The Citadel’s offense scored eight more points per game in “inside the 40” situations in 2016 than it did last year. That is a huge difference.

The defense also did not fare as well last year in preventing opponents from finishing drives with points. The point differential from 2016 to 2017 for the Bulldogs’ D was about four points per contest inside the 40.

In 2016, The Citadel had a scoring margin per game in conference play of 11.1. In 2017, that number was -6.6, for a differential of 17.7 points.

The difference in the “finishing drives” category alone amounted to 12 points per league contest.

The trouble the Bulldogs had in plus territory, both offensively and defensively, wasn’t the only thing (in terms of quality of play) that separated The Citadel’s last two seasons. It was a major factor, however.

Florida Atlantic led the nation in finishing drives (offense) in 2017, with a stellar 5.5 points per trip inside the 40-yard-line. Lane Kiffin leaned on running back Devin Singletary to carry the freight in scoring territory, and the sophomore delivered, leading FBS in rushing touchdowns with 32 while rushing for 1,920 yards.

The team with the best defense inside the 40 was Troy, which allowed only 3.13 points per drive in those situations.

Ohio State ranked first in finishing drives margin (combining offense and defensive numbers), at +1.8 points per drive inside the 40. Wisconsin was 2nd, followed by Washington and Alabama.

On the opposite end of the spectrum was Kent State, which had the worst finishing drives margin in FBS (-1.88). Also in the bottom five: San Jose State, UTEP, Tennessee, and Oregon State.

—

Turnovers

First, a table of the actual turnovers:

Those home turnovers were decidedly unpleasant. More than a few of them happened when it looked like the Bulldogs were about to score.

This next table is the “adjusted” or “expected” turnovers:

The expected turnovers statistic is based on A) the idea that recovering fumbles is a 50-50 proposition, and B) a little over 1/5 of passes that are “defensed” are intercepted. In other words, if a defensive back breaks up four passes, the fifth one he get his hands on would likely be a pick.

The “passes defensed” interception rate is calculated at 22%.

Basically, the Bulldogs committed too many turnovers, and were a little lucky to finish with a break-even mark in turnover margin.

Some teams in FBS were a lot luckier, however. Stanford had a -3.8 expected turnover margin, but actually finished with a turnover margin of +16. Other squads that had good fortune in this area: Purdue, Iowa State, Wyoming, Alabama, and Louisiana Tech.

On the other hand, Marshall won eight times last season (including a bowl game) despite a -8 turnover margin, when the expected turnover margin for the Thundering Herd was actually +1.9.

—

How did The Citadel fare in the “Five Factors” head-to-head with each opponent in league play?

• at East Tennessee State: 1-4, with Bulldogs dominating TOP but not taking the lead (thanks to miscues) until the fourth quarter
• at Samford: 2-3, but never in the game; SU’s combined offensive Success Rate/Explosiveness was quite decisive
• Mercer: 1-4, but the advanced stats were all close except for Finishing Drives
• Wofford: 2-2-1, and the game could have gone either way
• at Chattanooga: 1-4, with some very close numbers; three UTC turnovers outweighed a sizable field position edge for the Mocs
• VMI: 4-1, a frustrating game for the Bulldogs in some ways, but still never really in doubt after the first quarter
• Western Carolina: 1-4, a contest defined by multiple turnovers by the Bulldogs in the Red Zone
• at Furman: 0-4-1, the sole highlight being that The Citadel committed no turnovers

—

There are three other statistical categories that I’m going to mention in this space. All of them are included in tabs on the linked spreadsheet (and all reference SoCon games only).

-First down yardage gained per play-

Not on the spreadsheet, but worth mentioning:

• The Citadel’s offense averaged 6.49 yards on first down in 2015, including 5.94 yards per rush on first down and 11.04 yards per pass attempt on first down
• The Citadel’s offense averaged 6.21 yards on first down in 2016, including 6.14 yards per rush on first down and 6.65 yards per pass attempt on first down
• The Citadel’s offense averaged 5.83 yards on first down in 2017, including 5.39 yards per rush on first down and 7.76 yards per pass attempt on first down

The Bulldogs were better on first down pass attempts in 2017 than the year before, but not really good enough. In a “standard down” situation, a triple option team needs to be considerably better. I would hazard a guess that averaging at least nine yards per pass attempt on first down should be the goal.

The decline in rushing yardage per first down play is also something that has to be reversed for the 2018 campaign.

—

-3rd down distance to gain (in yards)-

That isn’t bad, but not quite as good as last season, when the margin was 2.49.

In FBS, the top three offensive teams in this category were all triple option outfits — Army, Navy, and Georgia Tech. The Citadel would have slotted in nicely behind them in this category, as the 3rd-ranked Yellow Jackets had a need-to-gain average on 3rd down of 5.97.

—

Definition of “passing downs”: 2nd down and 8 yards or more to go for a first down, 3rd/4th down and 5 yards or more to go for a first down

-Passing down success rate: offense-

In 2016, The Citadel ran the ball 75.6% of the time on “passing downs”. Last season, that number declined to 65.6%, a full ten percentage points. The success rate also declined, perhaps not surprisingly.

The Bulldogs were only successful 18.2% of the time when throwing (or attempting to throw) on passing downs. More than fourth-fifths of the time, a pass play in that situation either resulted in an incomplete pass, a sack, or a completion that did not gain The Citadel a first down (or set up 3rd-and-short after a 2nd down play).

-Passing down success rate: defense-

The Citadel’s opponents were a little more successful throwing the ball on passing downs, but not by a huge margin. Only 26 of 100 pass attempts (which include sacks) against the Bulldogs’ D on passing downs resulted in successful plays.

—

No matter how you slice it (and when it comes to football statistics, there are a lot of different ways to use a knife), The Citadel had a somewhat disappointing gridiron campaign in 2017. Some of the improvements necessary to ensure a more successful 2018 are fairly obvious. Others are perhaps a bit more obscure.

Regardless, we’re all ready to see how the team fares this year — as we are every year, stats or no stats.

Filed under: Football, The Citadel | Tagged: Bill Connelly, Chattanooga, East Tennessee State, Five Factors, Football Outsiders, Furman, Mercer, Samford, SB Nation, SoCon, The Citadel, VMI, Western Carolina, Wofford | Leave a comment »

This is a post primarily about the “Five Factors” of college football.

What are the Five Factors? I’ll let Bill Connelly of SB Nation explain:

…I’ve come to realize that the sport comes down to five basic things, four of which you can mostly control. You make more big plays than your opponent, you stay on schedule, you tilt the field, you finish drives, and you fall on the ball. Explosiveness, efficiency, field position, finishing drives, and turnovers are the five factors to winning football games.

• If you win the explosiveness battle (using PPP), you win 86 percent of the time.

• If you win the efficiency battle (using Success Rate), you win 83 percent of the time.

• If you win the drive-finishing battle (using points per trip inside the 40), you win 75 percent of the time.

• 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.

Those percentages were based on 2013 FBS data. It’s now 2017, but they probably still apply. Connelly has made adjustments to some of the formulas that go into the five factors, but the basic principles remain the same.

What I wanted to do was see how The Citadel’s 2016 SoCon season looked when the Five Factors were taken into account. I’ve already gone over a bunch of stats in my annual post on per-play numbers, conversion rates, etc., but this is something I haven’t tried to calculate before.

It wasn’t easy, either. FCS statistics for the categories mentioned above basically don’t exist online (at least, I certainly didn’t find any of consequence). The fact the Southern Conference does not have league-only online stats didn’t help.

However, I put together a small package for The Citadel’s season. It is far from perfect, and may not mean much to some people (perhaps for good reason).

There are still almost two months before the opening kickoff, though. So at the very least, it’s better than not talking about football at all.

—

I’m going to go over the Five Factors now. Afterwards, there are three other statistical categories of note I wanted to briefly discuss. One of them in particular struck me as worth mentioning.

First things first: a spreadsheet! The spreadsheet includes individual game statistics for all of these categories.

Again, a reminder — these stats are for SoCon games only. Also, overtime statistics are not included.

Also, I’m going to use FBS numbers for comparison purposes throughout this post, mainly because there are no FCS equivalent stats online. I’m guessing that if FCS stats were available, they would be similar to those from FBS. At least, I hope so…

—

Field position

I think field position is possibly the easiest of the Five Factors to understand. The one thing to think about with field position is this: you measure an offense’s effectiveness (in terms of field position) by the starting field position of its defense (and vice versa).

Also, special teams play is obviously important. Net punting, kickoff coverage, the return game — all of that matters.

The FBS national average for starting field position in 2016 was the 29.7 yard line.

-Average starting yard line of offensive drives-

The Citadel won the field position battle in five of eight games. One of the things that helped the Bulldogs the most in this aspect of the game was the “three-and-out” differential.

Simply put, The Citadel’s defense did a good job of forcing the other team off the field in three plays or less (the “less” occurring when the Bulldogs’ D created a turnover). The offense tended to have longer drives than its opponents, and that usually tilted the playing field in The Citadel’s favor.

The Citadel’s offense had a “3-and-out+” rate of 27.5%, while Bulldogs opponents had a rate of 35.2%. That 7.7% differential was substantial. It would have ranked in the top 35 in FBS, for example.

The top 3 defenses in FBS in 3-and-out+ differential in 2016 were Temple, Clemson, and Ohio State; each had a differential of more than 17%. Those three teams had a combined record of 35-7, with two league titles and two CFP bids (including the playoff winner).

The Bulldogs also benefited from good special teams, particularly kickoffs.

The net punting does not show up quite as well; I find that frankly puzzling, because The Citadel had a generally solid performance from its punt team all season (with the exception of a blocked punt against Wofford).

My guess is that because there wasn’t as much field to work with a lot of the time (as the Bulldogs often had a territorial advantage in individual contests), that there were only so many net punting yards to be had.

Also of note, The Citadel had significantly better net punt/kickoff numbers at home.

—

Efficiency

With efficiency, we’re talking about a statistic called “Success Rate”. Here is its definition, via Football Outsiders:

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.

The FBS national average for Success Rate in 2016 was 40.9%.

-Success Rate-

As was the case with field position, The Citadel won the efficiency “contest” five out of eight times in 2016 league play.

Incidentally, for the Western Carolina and ETSU games, only first-half statistics were calculated for Efficiency and the next category (Explosiveness). That is because both games were essentially over at halftime.

Bill Connelly, in his book Study Hall, expounds on this line of reasoning:

…The goal of the game for one team has changed from winning to making the game end as quickly as possible…the game is, in effect, over, and what happens after ‘garbage time’ begins is no longer truly evaluative of the teams at hand.

Defining when a game is no longer competitive can be tricky. After all, we’ve all seen big comebacks (The Citadel’s 2011 victory over Chattanooga comes to mind). Still, I think it is fair to consider the WCU and ETSU contests as no longer being in doubt after the first half.

The most efficient opposing offense against The Citadel in 2016 was Samford, which ran a successful play 50% of the time against the Bulldogs’ D. Then there was the game at Wofford, where The Citadel’s offense was only successful on 25% of its plays, by far the lowest percentage for the team all season in league action.

—

Explosiveness

How is this category defined? Well, with something called “IsoPPP”, and believe me, I had no idea what that was myself until I started researching this topic.

IsoPPP is the Equivalent Points Per Play (PPP) average on only successful plays. This allows us to look at offense in two steps: How consistently successful were you, and when you were successful, how potent were you?

This definition doesn’t really benefit The Citadel, because a lot of the Bulldogs’ successful plays last season were of the “move the chains” variety — five yards on first down, two yards on 3rd-and-1, etc. Every now and then, someone would bust a big play, but that was counterbalanced by all the “smaller” good plays The Citadel had.

This is reflected in the numbers, as the Bulldogs only came out ahead in this category in one of eight league games. Even ETSU had slightly higher “explosiveness” despite being out of the game at halftime.

That doesn’t mean this statistic doesn’t matter as far as The Citadel is concerned. Of course it does.

The Bulldogs need more big plays on offense. They can win without them (as they did in the Chattanooga game, when The Citadel’s longest play from scrimmage was Dominique Allen’s 15-yard gain on the offense’s first play of the game), but it’s much easier to move down the field in large chunks.

The FBS national average for Explosiveness was 1.27.

-Explosiveness (IsoPPP)-

—

Finishing Drives

This category calculates points per trip inside the opponent’s 40-yard line. It’s more or less an elongated version of the “Red Zone” concept.

The FBS national average for points per trip inside the opponent’s 40-yard line in 2016 was 4.47.

-Finishing Drives-

The Citadel had the edge in this category in six of its eight SoCon games. Of course, the Bulldogs also had many more opportunities to add to their “finishing drives” totals than their opponents; The Citadel had 40 such drives in league play, while their opposition had 27.

—

Turnovers

First, a table of the actual turnovers:

A net margin of 1.0 turnover per league contest is a good way to win a lot of games. In FBS, Washington and Western Michigan tied for the national best in turnover margin per game, at 1.29. Only six FBS squads had a net of 1.0 turnover per game or higher.

This next table is the “adjusted” or “expected” turnovers:

The difference is that The Citadel had a bit more “turnover luck” than its opponents. The expected turnovers stat is based on A) the idea that recovering fumbles is a 50-50 proposition, and B) that a little over 1/5 of passes that are “defensed” are intercepted. In other words, if a defensive back breaks up four passes, the fifth one he get his hands on probably should be a pick.

In case anyone is interested, I calculated the “passes defensed” interception rate at 22%.

Just because the Bulldogs may have had a bit of good fortune in the turnover department last season, that doesn’t mean a regression is imminent. They start on the same playing field as everyone else this year.

—

Now, let’s see how The Citadel did in the Five Factors on a game-by-game basis in league play:

• at Mercer: The Citadel won 3 of the 5
• Furman: The Citadel won 4 of the 5
• at Western Carolina: The Citadel won all 5
• Chattanooga: The Citadel won 2, UTC won 2, and there were no turnovers
• at Wofford: The Citadel won 2 out of 5
• ETSU: The Citadel won 3 out of 5, but 4 of 5 in the decisive first half
• Samford: The Citadel won 0, Samford won 4, and there were no turnovers
• at VMI: The Citadel won 2, VMI won 2, and each team had one turnover

As for the “what happened?” results, a few explanations:

– Chattanooga: a close game, obviously, that The Citadel won at home

– Wofford: went to OT; field position doesn’t account for the “Pitch 6”

– at VMI: the Keydets’ turnover resulted in a defensive TD; also, The Citadel crushed the “Efficiency” category

– Samford: went to OT, and, uh…

Two of the four categories that favored Samford were very close (Efficiency and Explosiveness). I think one takeaway from that game might be that when one team runs a lot more plays from scrimmage (86-64), it could have a “hidden” edge in efficiency no matter the numbers.

As it was, Samford was up 10 points with six minutes to play in the game. Then the tide suddenly turned on a Cam Jackson run on third-and-long. One TD later, one three-and-out later, one quick field goal drive later, and the game was headed to OT.

—

We move on from the “Five Factors” (well, at least I’m moving on) and wrap this up with three other statistical categories that I think could be of some interest.

-First down yardage gained per play-

To be honest, I was inspired to look these numbers up while perusing Athlon’s 2016 college football annual, which included statistical tidbits for all 128 FBS teams. Some highlights:

• Western Kentucky’s offense led FBS in average yards gained on first down, with 8.9. That was well ahead of second-place South Florida (8.1).
• The worst FBS squad in this category was Fresno State (just 4.4 yards gained on first down on average).
• Minnesota’s defense topped FBS in allowing first down yardage, with its opponents averaging 4.3 yards.
• I don’t know which team was worst in FBS, but FIU’s defense was 126th out of 128, allowing 7.5 yards per opponent first down. Butch Davis needs to bring in some players.

I also went back and took a look at The Citadel’s 2015 conference numbers in this area, for comparison.

• The Citadel’s defense allowed an average of 6.09 yards on first down in 2015, including 5.47 yards per rush on first down and 6.80 yards per pass attempt on first down
• The Citadel’s defense allowed an average of 5.59 yards on first down in 2016, including 3.29 yards per rush on first down and 7.98 yards per pass attempt on first down

The Bulldogs’ D just shut down the running game on first down in 2016. It allowed a bit more per pass attempt, but not enough to prevent an improvement from the year before of a full half-yard.

Okay, we’re leading up to something that is not on the spreadsheet, but which is important.

• The Citadel’s offense averaged 6.49 yards on first down in 2015, including 5.94 yards per rush on first down and 11.04 yards per pass attempt on first down
• The Citadel’s offense averaged 6.21 yards on first down in 2016, including 6.14 yards per rush on first down and 6.65 yards per pass attempt on first down

This is something that needs to change in 2017. The Citadel doesn’t throw often, but when it does, it has to make it count. That is especially true on a “standard down”, i.e. a down in which the opponent would not normally expect the Bulldogs to pass. First-and-10 is definitely one of those downs.

Averaging 11 yards per attempt is outstanding, but it is also something that you would almost expect to see in a well-oiled triple option offense. In a typical game, the Bulldogs may throw the ball on first down 2 or 3 times. With the element of surprise, at least one of those passes needs to go for long yardage.

—

-3rd down distance to gain (in yards)-

Air Force’s offense led FBS in yards to go on 3rd down, needing on average 5.5 yards to move the chains. I don’t have the complete list (or even a partial list), but I would suspect that 5.68 would put a team somewhere in the top 15 range, maybe the top 10.

Massachusetts had the worst offensive numbers in this category, needing on average 8.4 yards to make a first down.

—

Definition of passing downs: 2nd down and 8 yards or more to go for a first down, 3rd/4th down and 5 yards or more to go for a first down

-Passing down success rate: offense-

I think it is safe to say that not many teams in D-1 ran the ball 76% of the time on “passing downs”. That success rate may not look good, but it combines fairly well with the Bulldogs’ effort on defense.

-Passing down success rate: defense-

The Citadel’s defense was very good at stopping a receiver from picking up the first down after the catch, assuming he was still short of the sticks when he received the ball. This explains why opponents only had a success rate of 45% even on completed passes.

—

I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on any of what I just posted. This is the first time I’ve tried to perform some of these calculations; it’s possible I may not be 100% correct on everything.

However, if I thought it was all a bunch of garbage, I wouldn’t have posted it. I do have some standards, mediocre as they may be.

Any comments, suggestions, or corrections are appreciated. Also, if someone could hit the fast-forward button to football season, that would be nice.

Filed under: Football, The Citadel | Tagged: Bill Connelly, Chattanooga, East Tennessee State, Five Factors, Football Outsiders, Furman, Mercer, Samford, SB Nation, SoCon, The Citadel, VMI, Western Carolina, Wofford | Leave a comment »