Category Archives: Football

September 9, 2013 · 7:50 pm

BYU vs Texas – Statistical Extract


The surprisingly dominant victory over 15th ranked Texas provides for a lot of great little statistical tidbits this week:

  • The 19 point margin of victory is the 7th largest winning margin for a BYU victory over a ranked opponent.  The largest also came against Texas in 1988, when the Cougars crushed 19th ranked Texas 47-6.
  • BYU’s 550 rushing yards broke their old record of 465 set in 1958 vs Montana.  It was also the most rush yards Texas had ever allowed.
  • During the Bronco Era, BYU is 2-3 at home against ranked teams, 2-0 vs ranked teams at neutral sites and 1-10 vs ranked teams on the road.
    • Of the 10 road losses to ranked teams, 3 were by only 1 point, 1 was by 3 points and 1 by 7 points
  • That means that only 5 of the 18 games against ranked teams were at home.  This is not a new phenomenon.  BYU has only had 24 home games vs ranked teams, compared to 61 games at road or neutral sites.
    • 10-14 at home
    • 8-32 on the road
    • 8-12-1 at neutral sites
  • Jamaal Williams is 2nd in the nation in rushing yards with 326 and 1st in rushing attempts with 63
    • The BYU record for rushing attempts in a season is 252 by Ronney Jenkins.  Williams is on pace for 410 rushing attempts.  The NCAA record for most rushing attempts in a season is 450.
  • Taysom Hill’s 259 rushing yards was the 2nd most in BYU history, 13 yards behind Eldon “The Phantom” Fortie’s record 272 set in 1962.
    • Hill has run for 522 yards in 4 career starts, or 130.5 yards per game, averaging 8.42 yds/carry.
    • Taysom Hill has a career rushing average of 7.7 yds per carry, the highest of any BYU football player with more than 50 rushing attempts.
  • BYU had 550 yards rushing versus Texas.  It took BYU until the 6th game of the 2011 season to rack up a season total of 550 yards rushing.
  • There have been only 13 other teams who have run for more than 550 yards since 2001.
  • BYU has averaged 43.5 ppg against Texas in Provo, winning 40-21 in 2013 and 47-6 in 1988.
    • BYU threw for 402 yards in 1988, making BYU possibly the only team to both throw and run for over 400 yards against Texas.
  • BYU’s 679 yards of total offense is the 3rd most in the Bronco Era, behind 694 against Tulsa in 2007 and 683 vs Air Force in 2005.
    • BYU had 211 yards of offense in the 4th quarter vs Virginia.  Spanning the 4th quarter of the Virginia game through the end of the 3rd quarter, BYU had 825 yards of total offense and scored 49 points on 119 plays.
      • The 119 plays would have been an NCAA record (currently 115).
  • Since 1977, BYU is 13-4 against teams that currently or were previously members of the Big12 conference.
    • Against the triumvirate of Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma, BYU is a combined 7-2.

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September 2, 2013 · 11:32 am

BYU vs Virginia – Statistical Extract


So here are the statistical highlights and (mostly) lowlights from the Virginia game:

  1. Jamaal Williams had 33 carries for 144 yards. The 33 carries were the most in the nation for week 1, the 144 yards ties him 12th in rushing yards.f
  2. Jamaal’s 33 carries were the most by a BYU running back since freshman Curtis Brown ran for 217 yards on 33 carries as part of rallying from 27 points down to defeat Utah State 35-34 in 2002.
  3. Ross Apo’s 52 yard reception on the last play of the game was his 2nd longest of his career. His longest was a 53 yarder vs Idaho in 2012.
  4. BYU and Virginia combined for 24 punts, which is the highest punt total in a game since at least 2001, which is as far back as the NCAA has published individual game statistics.
  5. BYU punted 11 times last weekend, but punted only 24 times for the ENTIRE SEASON in 1983.
  6. BYU had 23 3rd down attempts. Only 12 non-overtime games since 2005 have featured more 3rd down attempts — and only 2 of them involved teams that had the ball for less than 30 minutes.
  7. BYU completed only 13 of 40 passes (32.5% completion). In the last 12 years, only 5 other D1A teams have thrown at least 40 passes and completed less than 32.5% of them.
  8. Virginia only gained 223 yards on Saturday. Since Bronco resumed defensive coordinator duties in 2010, BYU has held 23 of their 33 opponents to under 300 yards of offense. They’ve lost 6 of those 23 games.
  9. Virginia had 223 yards of offense against BYU. Since 2001, 31 of 146 teams (21.2%) have won with between 220 and 225 yards of offense, but such teams only won 5 of 93 games against opponents that gained at least 350 yards. BYU finished with 360 yards of offense.
  10. Only 3 teams had fewer yards per offensive play than Virginia’s 3.01. BYU’s 3.89 yds/play was only better than 15 other teams.
  11. BYU’s pass efficiency of 72.5 was their 9th lowest since 2001, spanning 152 games. Their efficiency before the 52 yard clock-expiring heave to Apo was 60.8, which would have been their 6th lowest during that span.
  12. Since 2001, only 16.2% of NCAA teams have won with a pass efficiency between 70 and 75. BYU’s efficiency was 72.5.

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August 26, 2013 · 9:16 pm

The Successes of Robert Anae — v1.0


When Robert Anae left BYU at the end of the 2010 season, it was in the midst of a significant amount of fan discontent in the wake of a 7-6 season. That discontent seemed to largely drown out what had largely been a very successful 6 year run as BYU’s offensive coordinator. This blog post is not going to attempt to address criticisms of Anae’s first tour of duty in Provo, but rather highlight specific areas where BYU was particularly successful during that time. Even though the Anae v2.0 offense, influenced by his time with Rich Rodriguez in Arizona, may be quite different in some respects from the offense we saw from 2005 to 2010, there is a chance that we will see some of these same strengths in v2.0

Scoring

BYU finished in the top 25 in scoring in 4 of Anae’s 6 seasons, finishing as high as 5th in 2006. BYU also averaged a solid 33.3 ppg in bowl games, including 2 of the 3 highest scores in BYU bowl history (44 vs Oregon State and 52 vs UTEP). Overall, BYU had the 15th highest scoring average under Anae v1.0:

AnaeScore

3rd Down Conversions

From 2005 to 2010, BYU absolutely dominated their opponents on 3rd down, converting over half of the time during that span. So dominant, they converted nearly a full 2% more than Navy, the next best team on 3rd down.

Anae3rd

It also didn’t matter where on the field BYU was during 3rd down; they were able to continue to convert 3rd downs as they got progressively closer to the end zone:

Anae3rdFieldPos

EDIT: Just a quick note that the first chart shows all 3rd down conversions, including conversions through defensive penalties, but the second chart only includes first downs via pass and runs. It’s a limitation of the data available.

Red Zone Efficiency

Perhaps most importantly, when BYU got into the Red (Blue) Zone, they were not just able to score, but score touchdowns. Only Texas Tech (Anae’s former employer) was more successful in finding the end zone once they had crossed the opponent’s 20 yard line:

AnaeRedZone

So while Anae v2.0 may have some striking differences from v1.0, there’s still reason to believe that his offense will find ways to put points on the board by excelling in 3rd down situations, getting themselves into the Red Zone and turning those opportunities into six points.

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August 22, 2013 · 11:04 pm

Do BYU QBs Have Favorite Receivers?


BYU has seen its share of changes at quarterback over the past 3 seasons, with 4 different QBs getting at least 1 start during that span. A question that is often raised is just how much does a change at QB affect the distribution of passes to the receivers? In other words, do different QBs have different “favorites” they like to throw the ball?

Below is a heat map showing how often receivers were targeted (i.e. were recorded as the intended receiver, regardless if the pass was actually completed) by different BYU QBs over the past 2 seasons. The heat map shows that there were definitely some receivers that benefited/suffered by the change in who was throwing the ball to them.

WRHeatMap

Conventional wisdom was that in 2011, Jake Heaps favored Apo more than Hoffman and it was vice versa when Riley Nelson took over as the starter. It turns out in this case that conventional wisdom was actually correct. Heaps threw to Apo 19.1% and Hoffman 17.8% of the time, but Nelson only looked to Apo 14.0% and Hoffman 25.9% of the time. That’s a pretty pronounced swing in receiver preference.

Something that appears to have gone largely unnoticed is that McKay Jacobson suffered even more by Nelson’s playing time, having his targeting percentage cut nearly in half, from 14.8% to 7.8%.

In 2012, the distribution of the ball was a little more consistent between QBs. The biggest differences were that JD Falslev was targeted much more frequently (7.1% increase) and Kaneakua Friel much less (6.9% decrease) by James Lark, compared to Riley Nelson.

All 3 QBs in 2012 relied equally heavily on Cody Hoffman, targeting him between 30.3% and 33.8% of the time. With most of the receivers from 2012 returning in 2013, it will be interesting to see if the ball distribution will be a little more even than it was last year.

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August 22, 2013 · 10:04 pm

Is “Go Fast, Go Hard” Contagious?


This blog post from a couple of weeks ago discussed whether or not BYU should expect to have to play an additional 15 to 20 plays per game on defense compared to 2012, due to the Cougars going with a very uptempo offensive scheme in 2013.  The post’s conclusion was that based on historical data of other uptempo teams, that the number of additional defensive plays these teams faced was considerably less than Bronco’s estimate of 15 to 20 per game.

A question that arose while analyzing this topic was whether or not facing an uptempo team would affect the opponent’s own offensive tempo. Would their offensive pace increase because they get sucked into a track meet, or perhaps their tempo would slow down in an attempt to counterbalance the hyper-speed approach they were up against? The answer appears to be neither.

OppTempo

The bar chart shows a classic “bell curve” shape where the average time per play is almost exactly the same against uptempo teams as it is against the rest of their schedule. This is based on 270 games involving all teams between 2005 and 2012 which averaged over 80 plays per game for an entire season.

Another way of looking at it is the average seconds per play:

Uptempo teams: 20.97 secs/play

Opposition vs other teams: 25.08 secs/play
Opposition vs uptempo teams: 24.83 secs/play

So the average result of normal tempo teams playing against uptempo teams is that their tempo speeds up by 0.25 seconds per play, or a mere increase of 1%. Also worth noting is that normal tempo teams have a tempo that is 18.4% slower than their uptempo counterparts.

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August 20, 2013 · 2:26 pm

How Much Does Field Position Matter?


Last week, starting cornerback Jordan Johnson tore his ACL while practicing kickoff returns. Bronco Mendenhall explained that he had Johnson returning kicks because of a study that showed how much impact winning the field position battle had on wins and losses. Unfortunately, Bronco neglected to share any of the specifics of that study with the media. Well, in order to fill that information vacuum, Cougarstats has done its own research.

Of 6,372 games played between 2005 and 2012, the team that won the field position battle (i.e. their average starting field position for each drive) won 71.9% of the time. Even if the battle was won by less than 5 yards, the odds of winning are 57% and the win percentage increases fairly rapidly with additional yardage.

FieldPosition

Of course, starting field position is due to a large number of factors of which punt and kickoff returns are only a part. Drives begin after a kickoff 41.0% and after a punt 37.7% of the time, for a combined 78.7%. However, many kicks and punts are not returned. Drives beginning after a kickoff RETURN or a punt RETURN happens only 39.0% of the time, so even if you increase your kick return average 5 yards, it will improve your average starting field position by about 2 yards.

So was the reward worth the risk of injuring one of the more irreplaceable players on the BYU defense? You be the judge.

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August 4, 2013 · 9:09 pm

Will “Go Fast, Go Hard” On Offense Put an Added Strain on BYU’s Defense?


The mantra heard throughout this offseason has been “Go Fast, Go Hard”.  This is in reference to the offensive tempo as well as the offensive mindset that Robert Anae intends to make the trademark of the BYU offense.

Last season, at times, BYU went fast with their periodic employment of the Nitro offense where Riley Nelson would pick and choose moments to accelerate the pace of the offense and get the next snap off as quickly as possible.  Despite the difficulty in several games to put points on the board, BYU still managed to be successful at winning the time of possession battle (19th nationally at 31:57 per game).  As a result, BYU ran 77 plays per game on offense, which was 5.5 plays per game more than the NCAA average.

In part because BYU was able to win the time of possession and in even larger part because BYU had the 3rd ranked defense in 2012, BYU’s opponents only ran 59.9 plays per game, the fewest in the nation.

As part of Go Fast, Go Hard, Anae has mentioned trying to run as many as 90 plays per game on offense.  Only the 2012 Marshall team has averaged 90 plays per game for an entire season, so this is a lofty goal.  Bronco is mindful of the impact this could have on his defense, mentioning several times that he expects his defense to have to be on the field for an additional 15 to 20 plays a game, due to the increased tempo on offense.

Is this an accurate expectation?  The analysis below will show that may not necessarily be the case.

Image

The scatterplot chart above plots the season average number of offensive plays per game versus the average number of defensive plays per game, both relative to the NCAA average for that season.  The reason for this chart is to visually determine if more plays on offense necessarily results in more plays on defense.

The chart boils down over 1,400 individual data points into a trendline.  If Bronco’s premise is correct, the trendline would be expected to have nearly a 45 degree slope, or in other words, for every additional play on offense, there would a corresponding additional play on defense.  However, the data do not show such a relationship; with the trendline just barely greater than horizontal.

But does this relationship change for the handful of teams that REALLY push the pace?

Image

Since 2001, only 33 teams have averaged at least 80 offensive plays a game for an entire season.  The scatterplot shows that for teams which really push the pace, it does often result in their opponents also running more plays per game than the NCAA average.  Of the 33 teams that ran over 80 plays per game, 10 of them had opponents that failed to run their normal average number of plays per game and 23 of them exceeded their season’s average.   Overall, these 33 teams’ collective opponents ran 3.16 plays more than they averaged for that season; far from the 15 to 20 plays that Bronco has been preparing for.

The 2012 Arizona opponents ran 12.3 plays against the Arizona D more than they did overall, the largest increase of the 33 teams.  It’s also worth noting that the 2012 Arizona defense was ranked 118th in the nation, so the large increase in their number of plays can’t be blamed entirely on their offensive tempo.

The expectation is that the 2013 BYU defense will more closely resemble the 2012 BYU defense than it will the 2012 Arizona defense, so should we really expect to see the Cougar D on the field as much as Bronco fears?  Based on the analysis above, even if BYU can up their offensive output from 77 to between 85 and 90 plays, it would appear the defense will be playing closer to between 5 to 10 extra plays than it will be 15 to 20.

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May 17, 2012 · 11:39 am

Your CougarStats 2000s All-Decade football team


The voting is over and the readers have spoken. Listed below is the CougarStats All-decade BYU football team for 2000-2009:

QB: John Beck

RB: Luke Staley, Harvey Unga

TE: Dennis Pitta

WR: Austin Collie, Reno Mahe

OL: Ben Archibald, Travis Bright, Ray Feinga, Scott Jackson, Matt Reynolds

DL: Brett Keisel, Jan Jorgensen, Chris Hoke, Ryan Denney

LB: Bryan Kehl, Cameron Jensen, Brady Poppinga

DB: Aaron Francisco, Andrew Rich, Brian Logan, Jernaro Gilford

K: Matt Payne

P: Matt Payne

RS: Austin Collie

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May 1, 2012 · 9:40 am

CougarStats 2000s all-decade team: Special Teams


Last week’s voting for all-decade linebackers was a clear-cut choice for Aaron Francisco, Andrew Rich, Brian Logan and Jernaro Gilford. All of the other candidates only had single-digit vote counts.

This week, the final week of the survey, we have three polls, please vote in all of them. Kickers, punters and return specialists. Vote for whomever you like, but keep a few things in mind.

Kickers – Owen Pochman’s 2000 season should be the only one considered. 97-99 were in the previous decade.

Punters – Riley Stephenson’s 2009 season should be the only one considered for the same reason.

Return Specialists – Only vote based on Austin Collie’s kickoff and punt return abilities. Not his overall pass catching awesomeness.

The nominees are for 2000s all-decade team return specialists are O’Neil Chambers, Austin Collie, Bryce Mahuika and Nathan Meikle.

So, the nominees are for 2000s all-decade team kickers are Jared McLaughlin, Matt Payne, Mitch Payne and Owen Pochman.

The nominees are for 2000s all-decade team punters are Aaron Edmonds, Derek McLaughlin, Matt Payne, CJ Santiago and Riley Stephenson.

 

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April 25, 2012 · 10:31 am

CougarStats All-Decade Team: Defensive Backs


After a long delay, we’re ready to finish up our CougarStats 2000s All-Decade defense. Vote for FOUR defensive backs. The nominees are Aaron Francisco, Jernaro Gilford, Quinn Gooch, Brandon Heaney, Jared Lee, Brian Logan, Levi Madarieta, Andrew Rich and David Tafuna.

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