[NU Sports] Some Crucial Stats

Tue Nov 20 15:08:15 CST 2007

 Here's my 2007 recap, for whatever minimal value it's worth:
 The Wildcat defense, regrettably, and as in far too many prior
campaigns, remains entirely susceptible to big plays.
 The offensive line was weirdly inconsistent.
 Nonetheless:
 We were 4-8 last year, 6-6 this year. Should have been 7-5 (Duke).
 With a second-year coach who is learning his way through
game-management (Duke). 
 With a quarterback in his first full season of Big Ten play.
 With the star running back out for half the season.
 With a potentially star receiver out for the entire year.
 Even so:
 We had fourth-quarter leads on Michigan, Purdue and Iowa. Each of those
games was entirely winnable.
 We were thoroughly outplayed in only two games, Ohio State and
Illinois.
 Thus: 
 I look at the 2007 season, and for all the maddening moments, I see
real progress.
 Next year, assuming the offensive line can keep him safe, I would
expect Bacher to make far better decisions and to be more precise in his
passing. I don't doubt that some of Bacher's interceptions this year
were his own damn fault. But way too many came because he was fleeing
like a bunny in front of the howling hounds.
 Next year, the defensive scheme must be re-tooled to minimize the big
play risk. I saw major improvement this year in containing the run.
(Exception: mobile quarterbacks, e.g., Williams, Juice). The 2008
Wildcat defense must learn to defend the pass.
 If those big if's can be met, I for one expect big things in 2008.

-----Original Message-----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com]
On Behalf Of Jonathan Hodges
Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2007 11:23 AM
To: CHerron604 at aol.com
Cc: nwu-sports at romaine.tssi.com
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Some Crucial Stats

The primary problem this year was red zone scoring: NU scored 77% of the
time in the red zone but scored TDs only 60% of the time.  NU showed a
great ability to move the ball "between the 20s" but failed to punch it
in numerous times.

It was obvious that McGee's offensive game plan this year was to run a
pass-centered offense.  Right off the bat in NU's first offensive series
of the year, NU passed the ball 7 times (with 7 completions) along with
2 Sutton runs and 1 Bacher run (for the TD) against Northeastern, which
should have indicated this trend early on (NU's OL easily outsized
Northeastern's defensive line which definitely lent itself towards
running the ball, but NU passed anyways).  What this strategy meant was
that if Bacher, the offensive line, or the receivers were out of sync
then things could go south quickly (as we learned in the 4th quarter of
more than one ball game) - which is in stark contrast to a run-heavy
game where you need to focus on plowing the defense off the line and
letting the RB do the rest.

In any case, the red zone issues mostly came because the spread
pass-heavy attack just isn't effective when the field shrinks, which is
the case in the red zone.  A perfect example, unfortunately, is the end
of the Duke game where NU went 1-7 passing on 2 new sets of downs inside
the red zone: Duke could blitz CJ almost at will while managing to cover
as much field as necessary, therefore forcing bad throws - they didn't
have to worry about the run and they didn't have to worry about
receivers getting downfield too far.

Also, the fact is that the OL underwhelmed for much of the year
(allowing 32 sacks on the season) and CJ has not shown a consistent
ability to throw well while on the move (whether that be while
scrambling, on a designed roll out, or having to move in the pocket).
This meant that when pressure got back there (which was more often than
we would have liked), CJ had to get rid of the ball - sometimes to bad
results.

I fully expect McGee to learn and address this issue in the offseason -
because look at how much he improved the offense from last year.  What
we saw in yards vs. points this year was most likely a direct result of
the relative lack of coaching experience on the offensive side (remember
that Walker was the NU offense's guru) and that we've already seen
improvement so more should be coming.

The question I'm much more worried about, though, is how can NU shore up
its defense and get back to respectability.  Since Walker took over in
1999, the best defensive performance in terms of points yielded was 2003
(25.1 ppg, 57th nationally) and in terms of yards was 2006 (362.5 ypg,
85th nationally).  I have no doubt that the offense can manage to pull
out some wins for NU, but the defense has to give the offense a fighting
chance in order to have a shot at a championship, as you noted.

On defense, NU needs to be much more aggressive (in order to generate
those
turnovers) and more physical up front.  NU ranked 95th nationally this
year in sacks, which is probably the easiest stat to turn to.  If the
defense can get guys in the backfield quickly and get the the QB/ball
carrier, good things can happen: fumbles, sacks, bad throws that turn
into incompletions or INTs.  The fact is that NU's defense hasn't been
able to consistently get to the QB: hence why opposing QBs can look like
All-Americans every week (look at Duke's Lewis and Iowa's Christiansen
who were horrible most of the year... except when playing NU).  And the
"soft" coverage in the secondary hasn't helped matters either (but then
again any QB can find an open receiver if they have all day to throw).
To me this points to the need for a big strategy change (e.g. coaching
shakeup on that side of the ball) as what's been going on obviously
hasn't been working despite having at least a decent amount of talent
(look at the roll call of NFL bound defensive
players: McGarigle, Castillo, Cofield, Bentley...).

Jonathan

On Nov 20, 2007 12:42 PM, <CHerron604 at aol.com> wrote:

> Today's Chicago Tribune contained some very interesting statistics.
>
> The Cats finished 1st in conference passing (307.9 ypg), 11th in 
> rushing (a mere 119.8 ypg), and 1st in total yardage (427.7 ypg) - but

> 10th in scoring
> (25.8 ppg).  Most other teams scored in proportion to the yardage they

> gained.
>  The other exceptions were OSU, which was 8th in yardage (397.1  ypg) 
> but 3rd in scoring (32.0 ppg), and Indiana, 9th in yardage (393.3 ypg)

> but  4th in scoring (31.6 ppg).
>
> Some of our problem was turnovers - we were 2nd worst in the league in

> turnover margin at -9 (16 takeaways, 25 giveaways).  But the problem  
> remains - we gained alot of yards, but did not convert those yards 
> into  points.  And until we can convince the NCAA to start deciding  
> games on 'yards gained', we've got a problem.
>
> The top 7 teams in the league standings finished 8th, 3rd, 10th, 5th, 
> 7th, 11th and 9th in yards gained.  That would seem to indicate that 
> there is  not a
> strong relation between yards gained and league success.   The
relation
> seems
> to be defense - the top 7 finished 1st, 7th, 3rd, 4th,  2nd, 5th and 
> 9th in total defense.  We were not last - we gave up 410.5  ypg, and 
> the Gophers gave up 518.7 ypg.  The message seems clear - good  
> defenses win in the Big 10.
>
> Indiana seems a very interesting case.  9th in yardage but 4th in  
> scoring, and 9th in yardage given up, they still managed to finish 7-5

> and  are probably Bowl bound.  We finished 1st in yardage but 10th in 
> scoring,  and 10th in yardage given up, and we will be home for the 
> holidays.
>
> So how do we attack these 2 problems ?  Other than taking the ball  
> away more often than we give it away, how do we start converting 
> yardage gained  more efficiently into points scored ?  And how do we 
> stop finishing at or  near the bottom of the league in defense ?
>
> Chuck Herron   Tech '85
>
>
>
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-- 
Jonathan W. Hodges
1237 Emerson St Apt 2
Evanston, IL  60201-3577
(847) 736-2449
jonathanwhodges at gmail.com
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