FORMER PLAYERS
LB Jordan Anthony (Troy): Troy (4-3) had a bye.
RB Zach Charbonnet (UCLA): Charbonnet ran 15 times for 35 yards and caught 3 passes for 21 yards in a 34-31 loss to Oregon.
WR Kekoa Crawford (Cal): Crawford caught 1 pass for 15 yards in a 26-3 win over Colorado.
Hit the jump for more.
P Will Hart (San Jose State): Hart punted 1 time for 38 yards in a 27-20 win over UNLV.
QB Ren Hefley (Presbyterian): Hefley completed 31/43 passes for 390 yards, 4 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions in a 69-28 loss to San Diego.
WR Giles Jackson (Washington): Jackson had 2 rushes for 9 yards and 3 punt returns for 8 yards in a 21-16 win over Arizona.
S Jaylen Kelly-Powell (Akron): Kelly-Powell made 16 tackles in a 45-10 loss to Buffalo.
DE Aaron Lewis (Rutgers): Rutgers (3-4) had a bye.
WR Oliver Martin (Nebraska): Nebraska (3-5) had a bye.
QB Dylan McCaffrey (Northern Colorado): McCaffrey completed 11/23 passes for 74 yards and 1 touchdown. He also ran 14 times for 100 yards and 1 touchdown in a 17-9 win over Southern Utah.
QB Joe Milton (Tennessee): Milton did not play in a 52-24 loss to Alabama.
LB William Mohan (Tennessee): Mohan did not record any stats in a 52-24 loss to Alabama.
DT Phillip Paea (Utah State): Paea made 2 tackles in a 26-24 win over Colorado State.
QB Brandon Peters (Illinois): Peters kinda sorta didn't record any stats, but he did throw the winning 2-point conversion in a 9-overtime 20-18 win over Penn State.
S Hunter Reynolds (Utah State): Reynolds made 6 tackles in a 26-24 win over Colorado State.
RB O'Maury Samuels (New Mexico State): Samuels did not record any stats in a 48-34 loss to Hawaii.
LB Drew Singleton (Rutgers): Rutgers (3-4) had a bye.
DT Aubrey Solomon (Tennessee): Solomon made 2 tackles in a 52-24 loss to Alabama.
RB Christian Turner (Wake Forest): Turner had 5 carries for 23 yards and 1 touchdown in a 70-56 win over Army.
LB Ben VanSumeren (Michigan State): Michigan State (7-0) had a bye.
DE Luiji Vilain (Wake Forest): Vilain did not record any stats in a 70-56 win over Army.
RB Kareem Walker (South Alabama): Walker had 5 carries for 3 yards and 1 reception for 2 yards in a 41-31 loss to Louisiana-Monroe.
LB Cornell Wheeler (Kansas): Wheeler did not play in a 35-23 loss to Oklahoma.
RB Tru Wilson (Northern Colorado): Wilson ran 16 times for 85 yards in a 17-9 win over Southern Utah.
S J'Marick Woods (Duke): Duke (3-4) had a bye.
FORMER COMMITS
RB Tim Baldwin, Jr. (Indiana): Baldwin did not play in a 54-7 loss to Ohio State.
CB Te'Cory Couch (Miami): Couch did not record any stats in a 31-30 loss to North Carolina State.
C Emil Ekiyor, Jr. (Alabama): Ekiyor is Alabama's starting center.
RB Eric Gray (Oklahoma): Gray ran 1 time for 5 yards and caught 3 passes for 42 yards in a 35-23 win over Kansas.
OLB Stephen Herron, Jr. (Stanford): Stanford (3-4) had a bye.
C Jalil Irvin (Auburn): Irvin is a backup lineman for Auburn.
LB Branden Jennings (Maryland): Jennings made 1 tackle in a 34-16 loss to Minnesota.
RB Amauri Pesek-Hickson (Kansas): Pesek-Hickson did not play in a 35-23 loss to Oklahoma.
S Otis Reese (Ole Miss): Reese made 9 tackles and 0.5 tackles for loss in a 31-17 win over LSU.
S Antwaine Richardson (Kent State): Richardson did not play in a 34-27 win over Ohio.
OT Erik Swenson (Oklahoma): Swenson is Oklahoma's starting left tackle.
TE Leonard Taylor (Cincinnati): Taylor made 2 catches for 16 yards in a 27-20 win over Navy.
WR Xavier Worthy (Texas): Texas (4-3) had a bye.
FORMER COACHES
Don Brown (Defensive Coordinator, Arizona): Arizona dropped to 0-7 after a 21-16 loss to Washington.
D.J. Durkin (Defensive Coordinator, Ole Miss): Ole Miss won by a score of 31-17 over LSU.
Jedd Fisch (Head Coach, Arizona): Fisch is 0-7 as Arizona's head coach so far this season.
Brady Hoke (Head Coach, San Diego State): Hoke and the Aztecs moved to 7-0 with a 20-14 win over Air Force.
Scot Loeffler (Head Coach, Bowling Green State): Loeffler dropped to 2-6 this season after a 55-24 loss to Eastern Michigan. Loeffler's only FBS win over the past two seasons is against . . . Minnesota.
Rich Rodriguez (Offensive Coordinator, Louisiana-Monroe): ULM scored a season-high 41 points in a 41-31 win over South Alabama. ULM's quarterback Chandler Rodgers completed 25/35 passes for 369 yards, 4 touchdowns, and 0 interceptions.
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ReplyDeleteTennessee offense under Huepel has a chance to be special. As soon as they made the switch at QB, the difference was obvious. They went from the QB being a liability, to a Davey O'Brien candidate who is among the more efficient passers in the nation
ReplyDeleteThat offense is built for QBs to shine, unless they are a poor fit or just really bad
I know you're just trying to poke Lank, but this is another case where the "backup" has been so much better than the "starter" that it's really confusing as to why Milton was chosen to begin the year as the top guy.
DeleteHooker: 68.3% completions, 9.4 YPA, 17 TD, 2 INT
Milton: 46.7% completions, 5.7 YPA, 1 TD, 0 INT
And it's not like rushing needs to be the major difference, because Hooker has 101 carries for 416 yards and 4 TD, while Milton has 23 carries for 156 yards and 2 TD. They're both decent runners.
Milton must look terrific in practice. That's the only explanation I can think of, for both Michigan and Tennessee. In practice he does all the right things and drops beautiful passes with his rocket arm, but in game situations things move too fast, he gets confused and apprehensive, and he no longer does the right things.
DeleteI don't know why Heupel chose Milton. It was a real surprise to me and I'm a Milton apologist. Hooker seemed like the obvious pick even in the offseason. He's a better runner, he's more experienced, he's older, he had more time on campus, and it seems clear he's better at in-game decisions right now.
DeleteSo I guess I'm surprised to read here that Heupel's offense might be special when he made a pretty fundamental error going into the season. I'm also surprised to see implicit praise for Hooker from JE who said he was bad also.
Rhett Rodriguez at Louisiana-Monroe looks to be passed over by freshman Chandler Rogers. The ULM website shows Rhett with offensive statistics through September 25, then it goes dark.
ReplyDeleteChandler Rogers is from Texas. He's 6'0" and 188 pounds. In the South Alabama game, in addition to the passing stats that Thunder lists above (25/35 for 369 yards), Rogers also ran 15 times for 40 yards, with a long of 21 yards. In the previous game against Liberty (which ULM won), Rogers ran 25 times with 16 pass attempts.
I haven't watched any ULM games, but my guess is Rich Rodriguez is following his pattern from earlier; that is, he's looking for his next Pat White. That's fine, but I don't know that it's a formula for success in today's game. Pat White probably wouldn't do that well in today's game.
But, it's probably good enough for ULM.
Fisch/Brown at Arizona: 0-7 is bad, regardless of what they started with. Their remaining games are: at USC, Cal, Utah, at WSU, at ASU. None of those are sure or even likely wins. Their main rival (ASU) is 5-2 right now, and if Arizona goes up to Tempe and gets thumped by ASU like last year, then it's going to be a difficult conversation between the AD and Jedd Fisch.
It would be insane to put Fisch on the hot seat after 1 season. I think he's wildly overrated by Michigan fans (2015 offense was mediocre by Michigan standards and 2016 was only a bit better) but not all turnarounds can happen overnight. Even Harbaugh took 3 years to get Stanford to a winning record.
DeleteNo doubt Chandler Rogers is playing better than Rhett Rodriguez for ULM, but Rodriguez was put in ICU with a football injury a few weeks back. I'm not sure if/when he's returning.
DeleteThe best ex-backup QB appears to be Hefley. Well if you don't mind adjusting for level of competition. Speaking of that...
ReplyDeleteCharbonnet is a heisman contender supposedly but 15 for 35 is what happens when you run into a top defense. cough Denard Robinson haters cough.
Ed Warriner is a notable omission from the above list but the FAU Owls run game had a bounce back week rushing for 5 ypc against Charolotte after the woeful 1 ypc performance vs UAB. FAU is 4-3.
Trying to think what the Denard comment might refer to. Double-checked the OSU game from 2010: 18 for 105, 5.8 YPC.
DeleteDenard was great but his detractors point to how his production declined when facing tough defenses.
DeleteI wasn't limiting it to rushing. But it holds there too. 10 for 27 against Alabama, 26 for 90 against ND, 18 for 42 against MSU.
DeleteNot a criticism of him. Tough defenses are tough.
Check the 2011 Gator Bowl game against Mississippi State. He was 11 for 59 yards (5.4 YPC), with a long of 24. Take away the long and it was 3.5 YPC. I recall watching that game, and MSU's defense was disciplined keeping Robinson boxed in where he was less effective.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a big fan of taking out the longest carry, because the skews numbers significantly. Hassan Haskins had a great game against Nebraska with 21 carries for 123 yards. Take away the long run (where he leaped over a defender) of 50 yards, and he was at 20 carries for 73 yards (3.7 yards/carry).
DeleteIt always works like this. The outliers skew the numbers in YPC. It's essentially a proxy for how often do you break a big play. And then where did it happen when you did.
DeleteIf you think a TD run is twice as impactful if it's from your own 20 as from the opponents 40 then it's a good statistic. If you think a 4 yard run on 3rd and 3 is just as good as a 4 yard run on 3rd and 5 then it's a good statistic.
There's better numbers out there for run games (success rate) and individual RBs (YAC and tackles broken) but they're not widely published yet. We'll get there I think. Football is well behind baseball and basketball in availability of 'advanced' stats but PFF, Chris Brown, Bill Connelley and others are moving things forward.
I'm old enough to have seen huge changes in baseball driven by smarter interpretation of stats (walks being valued more, RBI's being recognized as contextual, defensive shifts, using relievers as starters). Basketball has seen a big change too (3 pointers, tempo adjusted efficiency measures). Football has changed too (more 4th down attempts, more passing, more receivers) but the individual stats we see published are still more or less the same as what we saw 40 years ago at least outside of QBs.
I agree with Thunder that taking the long runs out doesn't make sense. If you remove the long runs then basically everyone averages the same thing - 3 to 4 ypc once the opportunities are enough to sort out variance. So it tells you even less than usual.
DeleteWhat would be ideal is a histogram of yards gained by carry. But of course, that's not a simple single number. But it would help better understand the contribution of a running back.
DeleteThe extreme example: imagine an RB with 10 carries, 1 for 99 yards, 8 for 0 yards, and 1 for -9 yards. The stats would say he went 10 carries for 90 yards, or an average of 9 yards per carry. That looks great, but what gets lost is the effect of those 9 carries for zero or negative. How many unconverted third downs? How many carries on 1st and 10 that resulted in a 2nd and 10?
Take away the long run and that RB is 9 for -9, or -1 YPC.
Take away the two outliers, and he's 8 for 0, which means he's not doing much in the game.
That's the point I was making about Robinson in that Gator Bowl: I recall a lot of times where Robinson kept it, MSU's defenders boxed him in the backfield, and he tried to dart but got caught for a no-gain or short gain. My guess is a histogram of his carries that game would show a median well to the left of the average, which was pulled heavily by that one 24 yard run.
And this was all because of the comment above about "Robinson haters," which was an odd formulation. I don't know of anyone who "hated" him. But many people understood his limitations, and who saw what happened when a good defense was able to contain his running.
Two RBs:
Delete(1) 10 carries, 80 yards, Long=8, Avg=8, Median=8
(2) 10 carries, 80 yards, Long=76, Avg=8, Median=0.5
Which is the more valuable back? Answer: the first back. And it's not even a debate. A back who consistently gets a chunk of yards per carry is money; a streaky back who mostly does nothing but occasionally breaks one can be a problem
@anon
ReplyDeleteSuccess rate gets at what you are talking about. It still doesn't really tell you about the contribution of the RB as opposed to OL. To get that you'd have to somehow account for not only context, but relative success to other backs in similar context. Tough to get anything statistically significant IMO until you're near season end. Though with both Haskins and Corum getting so many carries this year we could probably compare them to each other.
RE: Robinson - yes it's doubters not haters. The point is that most everyone does better against easier competition. Denard was no different than Henne, Rudock, etc. The guys who are transcendent and play great regardless of competition level are rare. That's typically dependent on a very strong supporting cast - Braylon wasn't necessarily going to be doing Braylon things if he wasn't surrounded by NFL guys.
I like the success rate metric: it gets to the very core of the game, which is moving the chains. Any team that can do that consistently will win ball games.
DeleteThunder noted above that if you remove that 50 yard play by Hassan Haskins, it yields a 3.7 average. I see that a good thing, and it's one of the reasons he's so valuable: the guy makes yards pretty consistently.
I wish box scores would include median as well as average. I'd probably be the only one who would care, but it would help understand the distribution of the carries.
I went and looked at the stats for Ron Dayne for his four years at Wisconsin. Holy smokes ... 7,125 yards for an average of 5.8 per carry. Average can be misleading for one game, but across *four years* it tells a story.
DeleteIn almost all cases the median is more telling than the mean but in this case most every RB would land at the same number: 4.
DeleteOSU and Wisconsin finished the season ranked No. 5 and No. 7 in the AP Poll. Robinson ran 22 times for 121 yards and 2 TDs against Wisconsin. OSU numbers above. I quoted OSU because I seem to remember everyone discounting all the offense in the WI game as coming too late, even though Michigan made it a 10-point game at the end of the third quarter. It looks like he had 74 yards rushing in the first half. He also had 239 yards passing for the game, although the bulk of that did come in the second half. While I am used to seeing his passing accomplishments not acknowledged (compare his 2010 stats to Harbaugh's), and RR's offenses criticized, the idea that we would revise (and diminish) his rushing as well comes as a surprise.
ReplyDeletehttps://touch-the-banner.com/ranking-michigans-quarterbacks/
DeleteDenard Robinson: #1 all-time in interceptions, #5 in attempts. Imagine how many interceptions he would have thrown if he didn't have a ton of bubble screens built in.
DeleteImagine how many Chad Henne would have if he wasn't surrounded by NFL draft picks at every position, had to endure a mid-career coaching change that included an entirely different offensive philosophy, and was asked to run the ball 20 times a game.
DeleteCareer totals:
Henne: 47 games, 9,400 yards, 90 TDs, 37 INTs. Pass Rating 134
Robinson: 49 games, 10,000 yards, 91 TDs, 39 INTs. Pass Rating 139
Chad Henne paired with one of the most innovative offensive coaches in modern football? Chad Henne with a shotgun run game that opens up more opportunities in the run/pass game? Yeah, that sounds interesting.
DeleteI know it's hard to believe that the guy with a 14-year NFL career as a quarterback was a better quarterback than the guy who finished his college career as a running back and never played QB in the NFL and has been retired for a few years...
I'm crazy like that, though.
FWIW My rankings were Henne 1 and Robinson 2.
DeleteMAR 18, 2017 AT 11:36 AM
So no one here is saying you are crazy for saying Henne is better than Robinson. The point here is about the INTs and your insistence in bringing them up with Denard.
Henne wasn't a good fit for a Rodriguez offense and Denard wasn't a good fit for an NFL offense. All we have to go on are their times at Michigan and based on that their productions (and INTs!) were similar.
Some of your other ranks are crazy IMO, but Henne the least of them...
@ Lank 5:37 p.m.
DeleteYes, Robinson and Henne threw a similar number of interceptions...
Denard Robinson: 39 interceptions on 747 attempts (5.2%)
Chad Henne: 37 interceptions on 1,387 attempts (2.7%)
Of course. Denard threw a lot less and ran a lot more. We know that. Attempts isn't the only measure of volume. You look at yards and TDs and you get two QBs who look very similar. Weighed against INTs the production was exceedingly similar. That was the point. Everything else is style points.
DeleteI put Henne higher than Denard but I'm not sure how strongly I feel about it. I think objectively Denard had it harder and did more. Henne had a good NFL career but that probably shouldn't be that relevant. Emphasizing what they did is as objective as I know how to be. Henne going 0-4 against OSU is tough to swallow, but not like he is alone in that in recent UM history.
@ Lank 3:33 p.m.
DeleteDenard did more what...? More losing? More fumbling?
More winning against OSU. Better record in bowl games.
DeleteLess losing as starting QB. (Chad Henne had 13 losses to Denard's 11).
The more you argue Thunder the more I'm inclined to change my position and give Denard the honor of best QB career at Michigan.