Charting the Miami Hurricanes 2.0: Florida Atlantic Owls

Last season I began to chart Miami Hurricanes football games. As it was the first year, there was some trial and error in getting the stats to the point I was happy with, but by season’s end I found a solid formula. This Article from last year breaks down those stats. Going into the 2015 season I knew some things were missing though. The easiest (and most obvious change), was adding down and distance to each play. After doing that, I realized success rate could be calculated very easily for every play, and from that, I could break out success rate by play type and even success rate for individual player touches.

I have also added yards after catch and yards before catch for receivers. With the way this is broken out, a player could have more yards after catch than actual receiving yards, but the yards before catch and yards after catch will always add up to their receiving yards. The yards before catch is always measured from the line of scrimmage, and yards after catch is measured by yards from the catch point. The running back stats were also tweaked, as forced missed tackles is replacing broken tackles. This effectively gives runners credit for not letting defenders even touch them as they continue to run down the field.

The last big change was a bit more complicated. All last season I would have issues where a player would have a significant impact on a play, but wasn’t at all recognized in the stats for this. A defensive lineman would pressure a quarterback, forcing a bad throw, but the stats would only show an off target throw to DB #1. So thus the “Impact” column was born. There is a wide range of play types that can be included in this column (and is still growing as I chart games), but the biggest change is going to be to the offensive and defensive lines, where I can note how often an offensive lineman is giving up pressure, and how often a defensive lineman is effecting the quarterback. Both positive and negative plays with show up in this column, and can be for any of the 11 Canes on the field.

With all that said, everything from last year is returning. Player snaps, offensive and defensive targets and the QB chart will all be included every week. And just like last year, this will continue to grow from week to week.

Offensive Snaps – 78 total

QB – Brad Kaaya (69), Malik Roser (9)

RB – Joseph Yearby (35), Mark Walton (32), Trayone Gray (11), Gage Batten (3)

WR – Herb Waters (63), Rashawn Scott (61), Malcolm Lewis (42), Lawrence Cager (13), Tyre Brady (13), Darrell Langham (9)

TE – Standish Dobard (53), Christopher Herndon (33), David Njoku (13), Jerome Washington (5), Jake O’Donnell (4)

OT – Sunny Odogwu (72), Trevor Darling (53), Kc McDermott (25), Tyree St. Louis (6)

OG – Danny Isidora (69), Alex Gall (59), Joe Brown (19), Tyler Gauthier (9)

C – Nick Linder (69), Hunter Knighton (9)

Defensive Snaps – 71 total

DL – Calvin Heurtelou (50), Anthony Moten (45), Ufomba Kamalu (44), Chad Thomas (35), Courtel Jenkins (18), Kendrick Norton (13)

OLB – Tyriq McCord (61), Trent Harris (42), Alquadin Muhammad (31), Darrion Owens (8)

ILB – Raphael Kirby (71), Jermaine Grace (52), Marques Gayot (19)

CB – Tracy Howard (58), Artie Burns (50), Corn Elder (42)

S – Deon Bush (51), Dallas Crawford (43), Jamal Carter (28), Rayshawn Jenkins (20)

Offensive Targets

Mark Walton – 4/4, 20 yards, -17 Yards Before Catch, 37 Yards After Catch

Joseph Yearby – 3/3, 97 yards, 1 TD, 27 YBC, 70 YAC

Herb Waters – 5/10, 102 yards, 2 Drops, 3 PBU, 70 YBC, 32 YAC

Malcolm Lewis – 4/6, 30 yards, 2 Off Target, 8 YBC, 21 YAC

Rashawn Scott – 3/6, 22 yards, 1 Drop, 2 OT, 8 YBC, 14 YAC

Chris Herndon – 2/2, 16 yards, 6 YBC, 10 YAC

Tyre Brady – 0/1, 0 yards, 1 Drop

Jerome Washington – 1/1, 13 yards

Defensive Targets

Artie Burns – 4/8, 44 yards, 3 OT, 1 INT (Grace Target)

Tracy Howard – 4/6, 62 yards, 1 PI, 2 OT

Jermaine Grace – 0/4, 0 yards, 3 OT, 1 PBU

Marques Gayot – 1/1, 17 yards

Dallas Crawford – 1/1, 8 yards

Rashawn Jenkins – 1/1, 6 yards, 1 INT (Burns Target)

Corn Elder – 0/2, 0 yards ,2 OT, 1 PBU (Screen)

Raphael Kirby – 2/4, 16 yards, 1 OT, 1 Drop

QB Chart

RB Stats

Joseph Yearby had 64 yards after contact on 18 carries, with 10 forced missed tackles. Mark Walton totaled 29 yards after contact, with 6 FMT. On just 7 caries late in the game, Trayone Gray forced 5 missed tackles adding 23 yards to his runs.

Offensive Play Calling

The Hurricanes offense was in shotgun on 48 snaps, averaging 7.8 yards per play. A new wrinkle this season is the pistol formation, which Miami operated from on 25 snaps, averaging 5.5 yards per play. Miami was very rarely under center against FAU, averaging just 0.8 ypp on 5 snaps, though 4 of the 5 were goal line plays. In 2 TE sets, Miami averaged 3.7 ypp on 18 plays. When operating with 1 TE, the average was 3.9 on 25 plays. Miami had most of their big plays with 4 receivers out wide, averaging 11.5 yards per play on 30 snaps.

In the run game, Miami averaged 5.3 yards on 20 carries on outside zone plays. On inside zone, that averaged dropped to 3.4 yards on 10 carries. There was a lot of success on draw plays, with an average of 13.4 on 5 carries. It looks as if Miami will feature mostly zone blocking this season, as only 5 power run plays were called, averaging 4.4 per carry.

FAU relied almost exclusively on rushing the passer with their front 4, bringing more than 4 only once all game. Kaaya completed this pass for 11 yards. Miami’s passing offense focused on the short passing game, with an average of 5.2 yards before the catch on their completions.

Defensive Play Calling

The Miami defense also showed significant changes since last season. The biggest being the change from having the defensive line primarily 2 gap to being primarily a 1 gap scheme. Miami’s DL played 1 gap technique on 20 plays, where FAU averaged 6.5 yards per carry. On the 10 plays Miami played 2 gap technique, FAU averaged 6.3 yards.

The other significant change was the pass coverage Miami played. Generally last season the defense played a cover 3 shell with the LBs and SS playing underneath zone, this season the CBs are playing closer to the line of scrimmage and mixing man and zone techniques. This did however make charting the defensive play calling fairly challenging, and it is going to be something I have to work on to be able to show correct stats for man vs zone coverage going forward.

For formations, Miami lined up in a 3-4 on 33 snaps, allowing 5.9 yards on these plays. Miami played 28 snaps in a 4-3, allowing 3.9 yards per. Miami played nickel on 6 snaps allowing 40 yards. Miami blitzed on 17 pass plays, with FAU averaging 4.2 on these plays. When rushing 3 or 4, Miami averaged giving up 4.2 yards on 22 pass attempts.

Entire document: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RGRQPJgff1iICEHDCHtIB-DeZprC0VjLb856gyGJjEw/edit#gid=340861879

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