A discussion of offensive balance

You call 50% passing plays on first down and it works→ you took what the defense gave you and had an unpredictable scheme

You call 50% passing plays on first down and it doesn’t work→ you had an unbalanced offense

If I’m reading TC’s post correctly, BC threw less than expected on second down and more than expected on third (given the field position at the time). Sounds like they were able to run the ball in passing situations on second and gain enough yards to get out of trouble. Jags seems like a gutsy enough coach to go for more 4th down tries than is conventional, maybe they threw on third and short expecting 2 down territory.

By the way, if you throw deep on third and short you’re more likely to get PI and holding penalties from a defense asleep at the wheel (especially against our D).

and I think that was the point I was hoping to make…BC stuck with the run on 2nd down, gaining some yardage to put them in a more favorable position in 3rd down, giving them the option to run or throw to get those PIs. Oh wait, Robinson’s penalties came on 2nd down.

(again my usual I’m not a statistician but a just a really interested fan who likes to pretend he can discuss stats)

During the Clemson game, we ran 62 offensive plays, 47% of them were pass, a statistically balanced offense. On 1st down, we threw the ball 48% of the time. On second down, we only threw the ball 24% of the time while only being in passing situations 38% of the time. Compare this to the BC game, where were in passing situation 58% of the time on 2nd down. On 3rd down, we threw the ball 90% of the time, while being in passing downs 70% time.

Our success rate during that game was roughly 50% on each down regardless of situation. I think the biggest contrast from the Clemson game is that we won 1st down more often, putting us in a more favorable position on second down.

That said, we were in a better position to take risks on 2nd down during the Clemson game, so we could have thrown the ball more if we chose to, but we didn’t…we stayed with the run, which I think echoes BC’s strategy on 2nd down as well.

I know it is not fair to compare the Clemson D-line to the BC D-line, but I’m just saying.

For Example, if we had a 3 and out, would Jimbo have been totally conservative and played the run, run, run, don’t fumble, punt game?

 Comments from other Thread

    It also comes down to predictability on offense…

    I warn you I’m no statistician, but I found the following points to be interesting. I took a look at the BC and FSU play calls on specific downs. For the sake of this argument I included screen passes in the “pass” category, some may argue that some screen plays should not be considered in the passing game, I’m not one of those.

    On 1st down, BC threw the ball 36% of the time. On second down, they threw the ball 30% of the time despite the fact that 48% of those were passing situations. On third down, the threw the ball 60% of the time when 50% of those downs were passing downs.

    To contrast that, FSU threw the ball 50% of the time on 1st down. On second down we threw the ball 41% of the time and 58% of those were passing situations. On 3rd down, we threw the ball 92% of the time and 75% (9/12) were passing situations.

    Obviously, BC was having success running the ball. But I think (hope) this shows that they remained committed to running the ball on 1st and 2nd down, regardless of it being a passing situation or not. To me, this means that they were patient.

    We got ourselves into a lot of bad situations and I totally agree that we were hit or miss on 1st down. This, I believe, made our offense a little more predictable as well. I’m all about changing it up on first down, but 50% passing plays? This automatically puts you at a disadvantage if you’re not successful. Maybe this stemmed from us knowing we would have difficulty running against their line and linebackers and maybe one could argue that going to the air on first down was a good idea. I disagree.

    BC was patient and put themselves into position to be successful as FSUncensored has nicely demonstrated and explained (as always).

    I hope that we have more consistency and discipline this week on both sides of the ball. We need to package our intensity and athleticism into a focused attack.

    Go Noles.

    by TrueCubbie on Nov 19, 2008 2:18 PM CST reply reply actions actions 0 recs

    Patient… and winning

    The wind Saturday night made it a horrible time to try to throw the ball and get back into a game. Especially going toward the north endzone.

    BC up 7-0 on the first drive of the game.
    BC recovers onside kick.

    We were punched in the mouth from the very beginning.

    I would point out that their stats could be slightly skewed as they were trying to eat the clock in the fourth quarter. Good work with the analysis.
    by MattDNole on Nov 19, 2008 2:24 PM CST to parent up reply reply actions actions 0 recs

    Excellent points…

    I should have kept that in mind during my discussion…especially considering the fact that the major point of one of my previous posts was that we got caught with our pants down for a majority of the first quarter.

    And very true about trying to milk the clock in the 4th quarter…but they were still kicking our ass running the same play over and over again and continued to keep themselves out of passing situations.

    by TrueCubbie on Nov 19, 2008 2:28 PM CST to parent up reply reply actions actions 0 recs

    And this is why FSUncensored is…

    the statistical guru who were thought he is. One day…I hope to be 1/10th as good.

    So it looks like our passing “gambles” on first down were literally hit or miss at 48, which I think most offensive coordinators would be happy with a 50 success rate on first down with the pass. And as we worked further in downs, our success got worse no surprise there, particularly due to our down and distance.

    Thanks for clearing up the details on my thoughts…I still think we threw the ball too much, but I don’t think we had much of an option.

    by TrueCubbie on Nov 19, 2008 3:06 PM CST reply reply actions actions 0 recs

I decided to look at a team that is dramatically different from us: TexasTech. They have a huge experienced line and we know they love to throw the ball. I hope this will play into the discussion of balanced offense. I realize that TTech is one of the extreme offenses in college football, but they have been incredibly successful.

In their game against UT, here are their play calling decisions:

Overall, they ran 81 plays, 65% were pass plays. They averaged 8.9 yards per pass ATTEMPT and 3.8 yards per rush attempt, clearly a successful team no matter what they choose to do.

On 1st down, they threw the ball 65% of the time. On second down, they threw the ball 63% of the time and were in a passing situation 54% of the time. On third down, they threw the ball 78% of the time. However, they were only in passing situations 35% of the time.

Clearly, TTech has a unique offense and can throw the ball extremely well. So, it’s really not surprising that they throw the ball so much. But, it goes to show that you don’t need a balanced offense to win football games. There are a lot of confounders to these thoughts: they have a great line, amazing receivers and a quarterback who plays well in the system.

But I wonder about the following…what kind of offense are we developing into (obviously knowing Jimbo’s history helps)? Are we going to be a predictable offense? An anxious offense? I think the key to this is the continued development of our offensive line. We have the talent at the skill positions…but without a line does any of that matter? Are we placing our future in the development of our young skinny line?

…21% of the time they faced passing downs, the majority of which were on 2nd down. They only had 5 passing downs on 3rd downs. They didn’t attempt any fourth downs. And were successful 8-16 times on third down.

This game throw out or stats because we didnt control the ball like we have in other games. We got wooped and schooled. I dont think Jimbo will pick a pass play over a run on distance and down. I think hes wanting to get the best play in for the yards/feild pos./people. agenst BC on 3rd and long we were going deep to Carr or PPdown the mid.

People look at FSU as a running school but thats a fake stat. We can run because we make teams fear our passing. This is why were having a good season rushing. most teams use the run to open up the pass we are useing the pass to open up the run. when you take 3 of the 5 top WR out of the pic it hurts but when the D fails thats a game loser

the Stats said we were a running school before the BC game and thats not true. We cant start off a game running we have to pass the ball to spread the D out so we can run. Thats all I was saying. People want to ask us can we run on BC can we run on Maryland the anwaser is no but once we have them fearing the pass we will be able to.

1) what all formations do we realy have/use
2) do we run onle out of power I and shotgun w/ 1 RB or do/can we run with 2 like we used last week.
3) If so isnt that kinda telling the other team what we are doing.
I know out of power I we can run play action and in the shotgun we try to sell the pass and run QB draws. how far are we from seeing D’vo come in and trying a fake run and passing. I know Jimbo trys to set thinks up w/ Reversed and bubble screens but is he also setting things up for games down the road. Last about the screens are we moving away from them, we havent thrown many as of late. Was it because of the sups. last week or are we trying something else.