ACC Fantasy Football Focus: Field Goal Units
by BirdGT on Dec 1, 2010 11:00 AM EST
in Georgia Tech Football
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Part I | Part II
Often times the field goal unit is a mixture of defensive and offensive players on the 2nd and 3rd teams. There may be a superstar or two with a nasty vertical leap in the mix but for the most part, it's not your starting offensive line versus their starting secondary. It's a hodge-podge of players. Today is part two of the ACC bowl slate preview series. Part I revolved around defending the tight end. Today's preview revolves around field goal kicking and blocking units. And the first topic I wanted to discuss was field goal unit range of the ACC's kickers.
Florida State's Dustin Hopkins has the longest made kick in 2010 ACC play at 55 yards. His accuracy in 2010 has been a little suspect as he finished the regular season with the 2nd worst field goal accuracy of ACC kickers in conference play. I don't like giving props to the Hokies but Chris Hazley led the conference making 14 of 14 field goal attempts and had the highest average field goal attempt in ACC play at 35.6 yards per attempt.
A lot of Florida State fans may argue for Hopkins. He has had a pretty tough road as no other ACC kicker even attempted more than one 50+ yard kick. Hopkins attempted 3 in 2010. So if we were to break down the kicks each kicker attempted by difficulty, the chart below would tell more of a story. It shows the accuracy each team should've expected based on the difficulty of their kicker's 2010 kicks.
A lot of the Tech fans reading this are probably thinking, "Did Tech succeed in any particular area concerning special teams?" Well, we definitely made over 11% more of our field goals than the ACC's average kicker would have made in 2010. Also, Tech fielded the best field goal defense in ACC play. We didn't block any kicks but opponents only made 57% of their field goal attempts against Tech in 8 ACC games. This can definitely be attributed to a good push from our field goal blocking unit, disruptive edge rushers, and some athletic leapers in the middle affecting the kicker's aim.
And the final group of stats I wanted to pull up was to see who had the best blocking unit. Or basically who blocked the most kicks per attempted kicks. The winner is Clemson by a landslide. Clemson blocks about 8% of its opponents PAT attempts and 7% of its opponents FG attempts. The worst blocking unit is NC State who allows opposing teams to block 12% of its field goal attempts.
Any thoughts on field goals or PAT's? I personally am going to avoid mentioning the acronym PAT forever.
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Good work
but the picture is of backup QB Will Secord, who the AP mislabeled as Hopkins ;)
This team will improve in '10... on its 16-16 conference record over the last 4 years.... after losing 20 games in the last 4 years... after having the 7th worst major-conference defense... after not even winning its own division in the ACC in the last 4.
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by Bud Elliott on Dec 1, 2010 11:03 AM EST reply actions 1 recs
Field position
It would be interesting to see the average and longest length of attempted field goals of each team and then compare that to the average and longest length of attempted field goals of each GT opponent when they played GT. I’m wondering if GT’s apparent success in defending field goals may be due in part to opponents kicking from further out than usual. Why would GT opponents have attempted longer than usual field goals against GT? I don’t know that they did, it’s just an idea.
I would have never thought that GT would be leading the conference in defending field goals. Not too say that the field goal unit is bad – your numbers suggest quite the contrary – but I tend to think of good defending units as getting an occasional block and, as you noted, GT did not block a single attempt.
by Dive Keep and Pitch on Dec 1, 2010 2:36 PM EST reply actions
averages
1. ACC Average Kick in 2010 was 34.4 yards.
2. ACC Average Make in 2010 was 33.3 yards.
3. ACC Average Miss in 2010 was 38.8 yards.
4. ACC teams allowed 13.9 kick attempts in 2010, GT allowed 14 in 2010.
5. The Average ACC Make against GT was 29.3 yards.
6. The Average ACC Miss against GT was 38.2 yards.
Looks like teams thought they could tickle the uprights from further out against us.
I write stuff From the Rumble Seat.
Thanks for the effort!
Let’s see…
Average make is four yards less than average against GT, perhaps suggesting that GT’s red zone defense is somewhat better than it’s non-red zone defense as opponents are closer than normal to the goal when kicking field goals. Red zone defense versus non-red zone defense might be a good topic for another post.
Average miss is very close. With the average make distance being lower than average and the average miss distance being average, I think that takes the air out of the idea that GT defended field goals well due to opposing teams attempting a lot of longer than typical field goals against Tech.
It looks more and more like we can give the field goal defense teams kudos for being good defenders.
by Dive Keep and Pitch on Dec 2, 2010 12:30 PM EST up reply actions
Hopkins
Went to high school with Hopkins. He is a an awesome guy and can sure kick the crap out of it. Wish he could convert on a higher percentage but great kid wish him the best.
As for Tech……. The problem is that opponents don’t kick against us very often and when they miss maybe its because the kicker is SOO close and he’s got a bad angle?
I dont know its been a frustrating season and looks like this winter isnt going to help much with Paul Blewit leading the team. But hey living here in Texas it could be worse. Look at Texas they arent even going bowling this year.
Go Cocks and Beavers!
And more importantly Go Frogs!!
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