Did the GT offense mature from year 1 to year 2?

by BirdGT on Jul 29, 2010 8:00 AM EDT

Any sane football fan can tell you that the Georgia Tech offense was a much more reliable machine in 2009 than in 2008. Most sane football fans, however, don't realize how much more efficiency the offense acquired from year 1 to year 2 under CPJ. The most noticeable change in the offense was the increase in scoring opportunities. In 2008, GT ran 130 legit offensive drives. Only 56 of those drives (43%) resulted in a field goal attempt or touchdown. In 2009, we racked up 145 legit drives and made a field goal attempt or scored a touchdown 78 times (54%) of the time. Check out the chart:

Our better execution is definitely evident in the numbers. We reduced our turnover rate by 7.8% and increased our touchdown to field goal attempt ratio by 49%. This may be attributable to the sometimes erratic Scott Blair but I'd like to believe it's because CPJ's back-breaking 15 play drives cripple a defense's will in the red zone.

The original point of this piece was to display an increase in efficiency from 2008 to 2009. I came up with some fancy charts to show how often a drive results in a given result based on the play count. Hopefully, your touchdown percentage increases as your play count increases. This was not the case in 2008:

A generally erratic pattern follows the 2008 season as we'd play horribly at UNC yet execute magnificently against Miami. The 2009 season shows us a lot more uniformity and the trend most offensive tacticians would appreciate. As the play count increases in the drives, the scoring opportunities increase as well:

A talking point amongst many negative Nancies in the media is that opposing DC's have figured us out. However, our yards per play has stayed fairly consistent since 2008. There hasn't been a magical drop off. This is shown in the chart below:

Ultimately yardage is irrelevant to CPJ and the average Tech fan. CPJ wants two things: Points and Wins. Here's all you need to know about Tech since 2008 (points per drive is normalized so it would fit on the same graph as running win percentage):

Any thoughts out there?

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Comments

Great post.

by Mike TBD on Jul 29, 2010 8:08 AM EDT reply actions

Rec'd

for awesomeness

Better to have died a small boy than to drop this football - John HeismanFromTheRumbleSeat

by Winfield Featherston on Jul 29, 2010 8:36 AM EDT reply actions

Great Post

I’d like to see punt % in 4th down situations compared to yards to first down.

Ramblin', Gamblin', HELL OF AN ENGINEER!

by JBar on Jul 29, 2010 8:43 AM EDT reply actions

Terrific post.

by dcyellowjacket on Jul 29, 2010 9:31 AM EDT reply actions

I love The Rumble Seat

Seriously, graphs like this make me hot, and hell I was a management major.

M-Train Engineer, with significant experience in non-language related skills....

by A hellava Financial Engineer on Jul 29, 2010 9:31 AM EDT reply actions

Turnovers

I love that the turnover rate is going down, but wow that’s still scary to think that 1 out of every 5 drives we are going to turn the ball over. Anyone know of a national average this could be compared to?

by FuzzyB17 on Jul 29, 2010 9:45 AM EDT reply actions

I have the ACC rates in ACC play

VT – 17.58%
Wake – 21.21%
Duke – 22.22%
BC – 22.94%
UVA – 25.00%
Clemson – 25.20%
UNC – 26.47%
Miami – 26.67%
GT – 27.36%
FSU – 30.00%
Maryland – 30.28%
NC State – 33.33%

Having a low turnover rate doesn’t necessarily equate success according to these numbers.

I write stuff From the Rumble Seat.

by BirdGT on Jul 29, 2010 11:31 AM EDT up reply actions

I love it when

the empirical verifies the anecdotal.

by Atlanta's original team on Jul 29, 2010 2:36 PM EDT up reply actions

We Punt?

I didn’t think we punted since Durant Brooks “got out”.

CPJ likes to bring up the lack of punting as an indicator of success for the system.

by DressHerInWhiteAndGold on Jul 29, 2010 12:38 PM EDT reply actions

Punt % of Drives Away in ACC play

Now, we’re talking…

GT – 20.75%
FSU – 24.00%
Clemson – 29.27%
VT – 30.77%
Miami – 31.43%
NC State – 33.33%
Wake – 37.37%
MD – 38.53%
Duke – 39.39%
UNC – 43.14%
BC – 47.71%
UVA – 50.00%

I write stuff From the Rumble Seat.

by BirdGT on Jul 29, 2010 1:17 PM EDT up reply actions

Some thoughts

They have obviously improved over the last two season. That may be due to the players as opposed to anything with the scheme, but it’s good to see.

Second, although we had fewer yards per drive and plays per drive at the end of the season (which would indicate a fall in production), it appears as though we had more points per drive (which would indicate an increase in production). I wonder why that is…

by acedarney on Jul 29, 2010 1:39 PM EDT reply actions

awesomeness

Thanks to the enlightening discussion regarding the offensive outcomes – good work. In regards to turnovers, I wonder how many occured during our drives within the redzone?In otherwords, how many turnovers cost us either 3 or 7 points?

by twojackets on Jul 29, 2010 1:56 PM EDT via mobile reply actions

So what if . . .

the improvement in offensive execution is as great from 2009 to 2010 as it was from 2008 to 2009?

Staggers the brain doesn’t it.

by Atlanta's original team on Jul 29, 2010 2:38 PM EDT reply actions

gigidy

Better to have died a small boy than to drop this football - John HeismanFromTheRumbleSeat

by Winfield Featherston on Jul 29, 2010 3:08 PM EDT up reply actions

I love how

Tech fans all go to the math and statistics as a way of reassuring themselves of CPJ’s words against the media, and the media’s mission to prove the offense won’t work forever. I can’t imagine really any other schools coming up with stats like this. Haha. But don’t get me wrong, I do love to see that there’s statistical analysis to back up the fact that we can hold our own, that the Perfect Option won’t go out of style, and that we’ve shown steady improvement.

by LilBroey700 on Jul 29, 2010 5:11 PM EDT reply actions