TL;DR - Statistics indicate that we should have run the ball a lot more on offense.
--
Perhaps the greatest frustration of this season was the inability of the offensive staff to adapt the system to the personnel, both during games after the initial game plan was rendered ineffective and throughout the season as the offense failed to produce as expected. In retrospect, this should have been fairly obvious as nearly all the offensive personnel that received considerable playing time were recruited by Embree and EB to run a pro-style system. As soon as the Hawaii game, it became clear that running the football was the strength of the personnel. In essence, we replaced two smaller, quicker guards with three bigger, stronger ones. The former were adept as pass pro due to footspeed and experience but struggled to get a push against the Warriors a year earlier, let alone pac-12 competition. The latter were roadgraders who mauled Hawaii front in the ground game but slower feet, inexperience, and troublesome substitution patterns lead to pass protection struggles all game -- and all season. After the demolition of Umass, the adjustments seemed obvious, run the football. However, the offensive staff possessed an unyielding desire to throw. After our best pass protector Jeromy Irwin went down at L-OT against CSU a week later, a run first game plan should have been all but mandatory. Of course that did not happen despite much evidence to the contrary.
Frustratingly, two of our three worst games for sacks allowed (with Liufau at QB) were also games where we had marked success rushing the football in pro-style formations early in the game. Unbelievably we moved away from this success and returned to a pass heavy attack for much of the duration of the game, which unsurprisingly resulted in our demise. As it turned out, throwing in greater volume did not yield better results as rates and counts were often not correlated as expected. What's more, the two games with the most designed runs were also our two best wins of the year, against Oregon State and Umass -- game plans predicated on bulldozing running plays like The Power.
Here are some rushing highlights from those games:
Further, detailed statistical analysis potentially outlines where our efficiencies laid regarding run-pass ratios.
Inferences from this data:
Here is more disconcerting information from footballstudyhall.com:
If before the season, we knew our top six ball carriers would average over 4.0 per carry and most at almost 5.0 yards per carry or greater, think there probably would have been an outpouring to rush the football until the averages start to moderate. Additionally, those that cite they want a dual threat QB but also want Aspay (if between Apsay and Liufau) probably need to acknowledge that that stance is logically inconsistent based on these numbers. When utilized as a running quarterback, Liufau has proven effective and serviceable by his high yards per carry and touchdown rate as a runner.
Okay so we should have run the ball more often and out of heavier formations but how does this potentially solve our red zone and explosiveness issues?
As we see in the above chart, CU did three things well when it came to rushing the football. We stayed ahead of the chains per rush -- success rate, we were stellar at converting first downs on obvious rushing down and distances -- power success rate, and we were rarely stuffed behind the line of scrimmage -- stuff rate. In other words, we could run the ball against defenses expecting us to run the ball. This appears to be an analogous scenario to rushing the football within the redzone. There were not many instances where the offense committed to rushing the football in here, so we'll never know if this hypothesis would have held up. The good news is all the same personnel returns for next year, other than Nembot.
The other metrics in this chart speak to our lack of explosiveness generally. IsoPPP is a direct measurement of explosiveness, think we were 117 in rushing and 118 in passing. We had no longer TD runs this year against FBS competition. Opportunity Rate refers to the percent of the time the OL's blocking produces at least 5 yards. Would need to study the numbers further but think our formations may have limited this as we often ran out of shotgun sets with five blockers, as opposed to having an FB and TE in there in under center formations. S&P+ is an aggregate rating of the five factors of winning football seen here in this chart:
Basically, we could move the football reasonably well under normal circumstances but lacked explosiveness (were one of the worst offenses in the country) and could not finish drives worth damn, which ultimately is also reflected in efficiency. No game better illustrates that situation than the Ucla game. We were modest on yards per play, great at converting until the redzone and then couldn't score TDs. Here is another chart depicting the same:
From footballoutsiders.com, this ranking system basically identifies what offenses do well and where they struggle. From left to right:
Notice the 12 personnel grouping despite the shotgun formation. The defense must honor the threat of the run against a heavier set, which ultimately leaves Fields with a lot more room to work.
The second takeaway is that we need to be true to our personnel. We need to rely on things we do well and not move away from them because it wasn't our intended game plan or philosophy for that game. If it works, it doesn't need to be fixed, make them stop us. Had we continued to pound Hawaii, it's probably a win, and with Arizona State it at least stabilizes the momentum and perhaps allows to finding our footing without subjecting Liufau to a mad pass rush. Both of those defenses utilized aggressive blitz packages with LBs and DBs to generate pressure along with slants and stunts. That can be troublesome to block in pass pro but had we just committed to pounding them, many of those tactics are neutralized as we saw when we decided to run in those games.
The last conclusion is that we need to be more explosive. This doesn't always mean throwing down the field, but rather being more creative in finding match-ups to isolate those players. Against CSU, the three longest running plays were runs to the outside, two of which were sweeps by the WR in motion. It's been proven time and again that we have more speed than CSU but we simply refuse to try to put that speed in space to let it flourish. A week after we ran over Umass, CSU was expecting us to try to pound the middle. The sweeps were a great wrinkle but we only ran three of them all game for like 10+ yards per carry. Again, we need to stay with what works because eventually one of those will break for a long play or the defense will be forced to overcompensate and will be exposed elsewhere.
I'll leave the conclusions about the offensive staff's job security up to others, but there is certainly a ton of to be learned from this year's struggles and follies on offense.
--
Perhaps the greatest frustration of this season was the inability of the offensive staff to adapt the system to the personnel, both during games after the initial game plan was rendered ineffective and throughout the season as the offense failed to produce as expected. In retrospect, this should have been fairly obvious as nearly all the offensive personnel that received considerable playing time were recruited by Embree and EB to run a pro-style system. As soon as the Hawaii game, it became clear that running the football was the strength of the personnel. In essence, we replaced two smaller, quicker guards with three bigger, stronger ones. The former were adept as pass pro due to footspeed and experience but struggled to get a push against the Warriors a year earlier, let alone pac-12 competition. The latter were roadgraders who mauled Hawaii front in the ground game but slower feet, inexperience, and troublesome substitution patterns lead to pass protection struggles all game -- and all season. After the demolition of Umass, the adjustments seemed obvious, run the football. However, the offensive staff possessed an unyielding desire to throw. After our best pass protector Jeromy Irwin went down at L-OT against CSU a week later, a run first game plan should have been all but mandatory. Of course that did not happen despite much evidence to the contrary.
Frustratingly, two of our three worst games for sacks allowed (with Liufau at QB) were also games where we had marked success rushing the football in pro-style formations early in the game. Unbelievably we moved away from this success and returned to a pass heavy attack for much of the duration of the game, which unsurprisingly resulted in our demise. As it turned out, throwing in greater volume did not yield better results as rates and counts were often not correlated as expected. What's more, the two games with the most designed runs were also our two best wins of the year, against Oregon State and Umass -- game plans predicated on bulldozing running plays like The Power.
Here are some rushing highlights from those games:
Further, detailed statistical analysis potentially outlines where our efficiencies laid regarding run-pass ratios.
Inferences from this data:
- In our three wins, we passed the ball less than thirty (30) times. In our losses, we passed the ball more than forty (40) times with the exception of Stanford. This was not a byproduct of trailing the in game. The intent of the game plan in many of these games was to throw the football.
- When Liufau's sack rate was greater than 5.00%, it was a certainty that he would throw an interception. As a team that wanted to try to limit mistakes, risking sacks and interceptions by virtue of throwing the ball often appears like a poor choice. Sidenote: In this data set, USC is the outlier here, as there was a change in quarterback when Liufau was injured on the first sack of the game. Apsay's season sack rate was double that of Liufau. So we may be able to infer from that Liufau probably would have thrown at least one interception against SC and Utah, because Apsay's sack rate if halved was over 5.00%. Liufau may have been a good match up for Wazzu because of Apsay's lower sack rate there. This is a different conclusion that most purport who felt Liufau probably would have lead us to wins against 'SC and Utah. Of course, that conclusion also presumes that Liufau would have had the same game plan as Apsay, probably not the case.
- Arizona State and Oregon were our two worst performances in terms of sacks allowed with Liufau as the starting QB. This should not be a surprise as Jeromy Irwin was injured during the CSU game a week before. It took two games for the new OL combination to come together. That's why it is especially mystifying as to why the game plan was not schemed around the run, particularly ASU where we had marked success running the football in the first quarter.
- The Shay Fields injury completely submarined our passing attack. Liufau only threw one TD pass after Fields went down and did not have a TD pass in four straight games after that. This is a player who at one time had thrown a TD in something like eighteen straight games.
- Based on the above data, it's arguable that Fields and Irwin were the biggest injury losses of the season, considering both factored in heavily in the passing offense.
Here is more disconcerting information from footballstudyhall.com:
If before the season, we knew our top six ball carriers would average over 4.0 per carry and most at almost 5.0 yards per carry or greater, think there probably would have been an outpouring to rush the football until the averages start to moderate. Additionally, those that cite they want a dual threat QB but also want Aspay (if between Apsay and Liufau) probably need to acknowledge that that stance is logically inconsistent based on these numbers. When utilized as a running quarterback, Liufau has proven effective and serviceable by his high yards per carry and touchdown rate as a runner.
Okay so we should have run the ball more often and out of heavier formations but how does this potentially solve our red zone and explosiveness issues?
As we see in the above chart, CU did three things well when it came to rushing the football. We stayed ahead of the chains per rush -- success rate, we were stellar at converting first downs on obvious rushing down and distances -- power success rate, and we were rarely stuffed behind the line of scrimmage -- stuff rate. In other words, we could run the ball against defenses expecting us to run the ball. This appears to be an analogous scenario to rushing the football within the redzone. There were not many instances where the offense committed to rushing the football in here, so we'll never know if this hypothesis would have held up. The good news is all the same personnel returns for next year, other than Nembot.
The other metrics in this chart speak to our lack of explosiveness generally. IsoPPP is a direct measurement of explosiveness, think we were 117 in rushing and 118 in passing. We had no longer TD runs this year against FBS competition. Opportunity Rate refers to the percent of the time the OL's blocking produces at least 5 yards. Would need to study the numbers further but think our formations may have limited this as we often ran out of shotgun sets with five blockers, as opposed to having an FB and TE in there in under center formations. S&P+ is an aggregate rating of the five factors of winning football seen here in this chart:
Basically, we could move the football reasonably well under normal circumstances but lacked explosiveness (were one of the worst offenses in the country) and could not finish drives worth damn, which ultimately is also reflected in efficiency. No game better illustrates that situation than the Ucla game. We were modest on yards per play, great at converting until the redzone and then couldn't score TDs. Here is another chart depicting the same:
From footballoutsiders.com, this ranking system basically identifies what offenses do well and where they struggle. From left to right:
- OFEI is an opponent adjusted ranking system based on overall scoring efficiency. Negative numbers are bad. Good offenses are positive 1.0+.
- OE is an offensive efficiency metric that measures points per drive. Again negative numbers are bad in this case.
- OFD measures how well an offense is able to convert at least one first down per drive. We were middle of the pack here, again not the issue that brought our average down.
- OAY measures the percent of yards gained per drive against the total available yards. We are reasonably bad here, and sort of speaks to OE in that we are unable to finish drives with touchdowns, therefore always leaving a percent of yards un-gained.
- OEx meaures the percent of drives that averaged more than 10 yards per play. So these are drives that usually results in TDs by way of chunk yardage or explosive plays. Again, we were really bad at this.
- OMe measures the percent of drives that had 10 or more plays. This again speaks to our efficiency rating to convert first downs. We were actually really damn good (#16 nationally) at picking up small chunks of yardage for first downs -- again think the Ucla game as the prime example. Other offenses that were really productive in this category were Michigan State, Navy and Wazzu.
- OVa is the percent of drives that require 50 yards or more for a TD, basically starting in one's territory, and drive to at least the 30-yard line of the opponent. Again, not terrible there, we could not convert once we reached that part of the field.
Notice the 12 personnel grouping despite the shotgun formation. The defense must honor the threat of the run against a heavier set, which ultimately leaves Fields with a lot more room to work.
The second takeaway is that we need to be true to our personnel. We need to rely on things we do well and not move away from them because it wasn't our intended game plan or philosophy for that game. If it works, it doesn't need to be fixed, make them stop us. Had we continued to pound Hawaii, it's probably a win, and with Arizona State it at least stabilizes the momentum and perhaps allows to finding our footing without subjecting Liufau to a mad pass rush. Both of those defenses utilized aggressive blitz packages with LBs and DBs to generate pressure along with slants and stunts. That can be troublesome to block in pass pro but had we just committed to pounding them, many of those tactics are neutralized as we saw when we decided to run in those games.
The last conclusion is that we need to be more explosive. This doesn't always mean throwing down the field, but rather being more creative in finding match-ups to isolate those players. Against CSU, the three longest running plays were runs to the outside, two of which were sweeps by the WR in motion. It's been proven time and again that we have more speed than CSU but we simply refuse to try to put that speed in space to let it flourish. A week after we ran over Umass, CSU was expecting us to try to pound the middle. The sweeps were a great wrinkle but we only ran three of them all game for like 10+ yards per carry. Again, we need to stay with what works because eventually one of those will break for a long play or the defense will be forced to overcompensate and will be exposed elsewhere.
I'll leave the conclusions about the offensive staff's job security up to others, but there is certainly a ton of to be learned from this year's struggles and follies on offense.
Last edited:
