Georgia Tech's First Down Blues

by BirdGT on Oct 18, 2011 7:00 AM EDT in Georgia Tech Football

Georgia Tech's rushing attack on first down is illustrated in the chart below. Basically, I broke the chart into two long running stat lines on first down rushing attempts alone. The blue bars are the season's average yards per carry since the Middle Tennessee State game. This stat fluctuates the least with big runs or big losses. The red line is the running average of the last 10 carries up to that point so it will fluctuate a lot more.

The first thing you'll see on the blue bars is that our average per carry dropped from 9.27 to 7.06 yards per carry against FBS opponents since the onset of the UNC game. That's a 24% drop in productivity in our run game on first down. Not horrible but not great. The passing game on first down has been downright abysmal.

The fact that the average per attempt has dropped from 32 ypa to around 15 ypa is nothing big. The real issue is that red line featuring our last 10 passing attempts average yards per attempt. It's a big time downward trend (currently at 2.7 YARDS PER ATTEMPT@!!!@!#). If Tech wants to be successful, we can't be setting ourselves up for 2nd and 3rd and long.

Since the Middle Tennessee game, Tech has averaged 3rd down with 6 yards to go. Think about this fact: Tech has averaged 3rd and 3 yards to go 40% of the time against I-A opponents. In the last 10 3rd down situations, we've only had one 3rd down attempt with less than 6 yards to go. We're digging ourselves a nice little hole with incompletions and sacks and expecting ourselves to dig out with the same shovel. I don't think we need a drastic change but I think we definitely need to reevaluate our first down playcalling philosophy.

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Great post

There is no doubt about it, when we throw an incomplete pass now on first down an audible groan is heard across Jacket nation. That is a hole with not very good statistical odds for us to climb out of.

Here is what I think is happening. Johnson sees what the defense is doing and realizes that he has got to do something to loosen up how tight the secondary is playing the run. He doubles down on his bet by figuring that by not running the ball on first down he has a better chance of both catching the defense off guard and giving Tevin more time to pass. But it ain’t working. In the NC State game I noticed several times that Johnson would call a play over and over until it worked. It was like he said to himself that the play call was correct even when the team did not execute the play and therefore he was going to call it until they got it right. Could that be that notorious stubborn streak that we hear about? I don’t know but I am sure he could explain his play calling with a clearly articulated philosophy.

Side note. Have you seen Moneyball? It’s a good movie. Your statistical analysis reminds me that for all of my “psychologizing” about players the bottom line shows up in the statistical charts.

by Atlanta's original team on Oct 18, 2011 8:30 AM EDT reply actions

I’ve seen Moneyball, decent but made for Hollywood. I would rather people read Michael Lewis’ book first, since that had the complete backstory of Bill James (and his disciples), Paul Depodesta (how they could get the bumbling Jonah Hill to portray him is ridiculous), and Billy Beane’s playing career…which help put everything into context.

by TBuzz on Oct 18, 2011 8:35 AM EDT up reply actions

Once again, the book is always better than the movie.

by Atlanta's original team on Oct 18, 2011 9:16 AM EDT up reply actions

It was like he said to himself that the play call was correct even when the team did not execute the play and therefore he was going to call it until they got it right.

This is an interesting question. If the correct playcall is pass, but the team can’t execute pass. Then what do you do? Do you keep calling pass because that is correct or do you call a different play and hope your players can make something happen?

As a coach, I’m sure that is the most fustrating part. As a fan, I know that is the most fustrating part. You know what the correct call is, but your player’s can’t execute it. As fans, it’s tempting to blame on the coaching staff for not getting the team ready to play, but the reality is that you know the team practiced the play and has executed it in practice. So either the practice was ineffective or the players can’t handle the game pressure.

by Dive Keep and Pitch on Oct 18, 2011 10:08 AM EDT up reply actions

I believe that is what is happening

That then sets up another chain reaction which goes like this (in my opinion): My players are not executing plays that we practiced over and over and as a result my playing calling list gets shorter and shorter. Finally it reaches the point where I am trying to minimize the mistakes my team is making and I am reduced to just a handful of plays that minimize the risk of negative results. The team becomes pretty one-dimensional at that point.

by Atlanta's original team on Oct 18, 2011 10:58 AM EDT up reply actions

Whoa slow down here.

Don’t assume that Paul Johnson “always” calls the correct plays just because he says they are correct. People are giving coach Johnson way to much credit.

I don’t think Paul calls the correct pass plays half the time. Players are not going “execute” his long pass plays near as well as they would a little curl route or a slant route. People wonder why we have a sub-50% passer right now, but that’s just because of the playcalling. I do agree though that Tevin did not throw the ball well at all against NC State and Maryland. I didn’t get to see much of the Virginia game where he went 2-8, but I’ve got a hunch that I know what plays coach Johnson was calling.

by RamblinWreck7 on Oct 19, 2011 1:23 PM EDT up reply actions

You may be right but here is my point

When plays are working no one doubts Paul Johnson’s play calling ability. When they are not working we cannot assume that it is simply a matter of him no longer calling the correct plays. Something is happening on the field that he sees that is reducing his play selection options. I am guessing that it is more a matter of players not being good enough to overcome what is being thrown at them by the other team than it is that Paul Johnson has suddenly become unimaginative.

by Atlanta's original team on Oct 19, 2011 1:34 PM EDT up reply actions

Paul Johnson is unimaginative,

When he runs outside option runs that keep getting stopped. In the NC State game, I don’t remember us running a counter play of a reverse to offset the defenses aggresive play.

by RamblinWreck7 on Oct 22, 2011 2:05 AM EDT up reply actions

I remember earlier in the season...

they would run simple sideline passes to get Tevin and the WRs into some rhythm (they’re generally not supposed to break for long gains). We haven’t seen the Fake-toss Pass since Stephen Hill dropped that sure TD against UNC. Against UVA, they hit a short hitch to Orwin that he turned into a 60 yard gain (but called back on a block int he back).

The pass plays are there, they don’t all have to be slow-developing straight go-routes to Stephen Hill. But calling option after option with 10 defenders at the LOS is kind of pointless.

by TBuzz on Oct 18, 2011 8:43 AM EDT reply actions

Two words.

Triple. Wildcat.

I already figured out the solution to all of our problems. CPJ should install this into the playbook immediately. Put your best players on the field right?

by 071u on Oct 18, 2011 8:59 AM EDT reply actions