FanPost

Should FSU throw more on First Down? A quick look at the numbers.




There is no need to numerically demonstrate the struggles of FSU's offense or even more so FSU's run game. It's obvious. That said, the football guide for dummies will tell you when the offense is struggling, a good strategy is to invert your play calling. IOW more passing on early downs and more running on third down. And, like all of us, I have grown increasingly frustrated as FSU seemingly bangs its head against the wall game after game, insistent on establishing the run--especially on first down. The UL game was no exception. I have been chewing on this for a few games but after the late game comeback against UL I had to dig a little deeper. Is the passing game doing as well on first downs as it "feels"? Well since my wife has firmly established I dont have feelings, I went to the numbers to find out.

I looked at all FSU's first down plays using ESPN's play-by-play and tagged each as a run or a pass (and two double reverse, maybe pass, thingys). I didnt "look at the film" so if a QB run is really a scramble or if the play call was a true RPO will not show up here. Plus there is the general inaccuracy of ESPN's tracking that my be embedded in the data as well. Caveats of the data source aside, I tracked a handful of results from each play:

  • Drive No. (first, second, etc).
  • Quarter
  • Yard Line
  • Score Differential
  • Run or Pass
  • Yards to Gain (most often 10, obv.)
  • Play Success (as defined by S&P: 50% Yards to Gain)
  • Explosive Play (as defined by S&P: 12+ yd run, 16+ yd pass)
  • On Schedule (results in 2nd Down and 7 yards to gain or better)
  • Stuffed (gains zero or fewer yards)

The analysis is far from robust but should still paint a decent picture how successful FSU is at running and passing on first down. So what do we find?

On the season FSU has run 130 first down plays that didnt result in penalty, were not not in an end-of-half obvious passing situation (not truly a run/pass play call choice), and were not in garbage time (last couple drives of VT and NIU, all but one drive in the 4th Qtr of Syracuse, and the Samford and UL kneel downs). By ESPN's count FSU has attempted 76 runs (58.5%), 52 passes (40%), and two trick plays. Removing Samford doesnt impact the breakdown much but does tick up the run percentage to 60.5%. While I am certain the true percentage is slightly lower, as some of 12's rushes are really scrambles, finding a 60/40 split is just what I expected (thanks Bud) so this approach seems decent enough... we trek on.

Including Samford does skew the results of the plays however. For example, FSU has 14 explosive plays on first down but 5 of those were against Samford. Given the obvious drop down in competition, I've removed Samford from the numbers below. So now everything is from a 91 first down play dataset. Therefore, the number of qualifying first down plays by game is 23-0-15-30-23 with a 55-34-2 run-pass-trick play split.

Using S&P's definition of success, passing plays have yielded much better results, 38% success rate for pass vs. 23% for runs. The gap is even larger in terms of explosiveness with 6 explosive pass plays and 3 explosive run plays, which may seem similar but by percentage is 17% of passes and 5% of runs. In terms of keeping the offense on schedule, the play selection is a bit less predictive with 44% of passes resulting in 2nd and 7 or less and 36% of runs. Just like we be screaming, right?

Here is the catch though: 50% of FSU's first down pass plays have gained no yards or worse, 17/34. Not that the running game is great at 33% but the UL game is the first time all season passing plays gained yards on first down more often than running plays (25% v. 31%). The VT game was particularly atrocious with only 3 (!!!) of 11 first down pass attempts gaining positive yards. There needs to be some allowance here for expected incompletions but suffice it to say 50% is not good.

So what did we learn? This offense isn't very good. SURPRISE! There is some evidence to suggest throwing more on first downs is prudent especially if the UL performance (and return of #69) is indicative of what may be possible moving forward. Of course, UL has proven to be far from good and FSU has proven to be anything but consistent to date so maybe this was just a giant waste of my time. I will try to post the raw numbers in the comments (not sure if it will work) if anyone wants to play with them. I am sure there is more that can be teased out.

Go Noles!

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