Analytics, Basic Stats, and Recent Historic Context: The ABC’s of Penn State Football – Ciarrocca vs. Yurcich
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Introduction
Annnnd Scene.
Well, it’s Tuesday night. Like a runover raccoon, the Michigan debacle grows more and more distant in the rearview mirror as we move forward and face another horse-and-plow rushing attack, that being P.J.’s coxswains led by former Minnesota OC/former PSU OC/current Minnesota OC Kirk Ciarrocca. For those of you who like to bury traumatic, painful memories at inaccessible depths within in your subconscious mind, James Franklin hired Ciarrocca to replace Ricky Rahne in late December 2019. Four wins and several hundred Zoom meetings later, Franklin dumped Ciarrocca in favor of ousted Texas OC Mike Yurcich.
Today we’re going to compare Ciarrocca and Yurcich by examining how they fared in several basic and advanced stat categories while at Penn State, and during Ciarrocca’s two tenures at Minnesota.
Graph Explanation
So we’ll be using the same graph template over and over today..so stick with me as I go through it and don’t get distracted by the pretty colors. The circles represent a single season of offense. That season’s metric in a singular statistical category is typed inside each circle (when it can fit). The circles get bigger when the metric is greater. The graphs show the performance of either Penn State or Minnesota (rows) by Coordinator (column) and year (color) for each stat. The horizontal rows represent either Penn State or Minnesota. The vertical columns represent whether Ciarrocca was calling the plays, Yurcich was calling the plays, or someone else was calling the plays. We also have a “Non-Ciarrocca” column for the two years (2020 and 2021) between Ciarrocca’s first and second stint at Minnesota.
Trust me, it sounds more confusing than it looks. You’re smart. You’ll figure this out.
Let’s go…
Red Zone and Explosive Scoring
We’ll start with Red Zone performance (points per Red Zone attempt or ‘points/RZA’). As you’ll recall, this was Ciarrocca’s kryptonite in 2020 (goal line fades all day). It’s also one of the few categories where Yurcich has righted the ship for Penn State this season. Currently, Penn State’s 6.0 points per Red Zone trip in 2022 is the best the Nittany Lions have done in this metric dating back to 2009. The FBS average in Pts/RZA is 4.8. During Ciarrocca’s lone season in Happy Valley, his PSU offense generated 4.3 points per Red Zone trip – substantially lower than what his Minnesota offenses produced in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Ciarrocca’s 5.5 Points per Red Zone Attempt in 2022 bests what the Gophers scored in 2020 and 2021.
To measure “explosive scoring” we’re going to lean on our homemade TORZ metric. For newcomers, TORZ = TD points scored from outside the Red Zone. So, any touchdowns scored from 21 or more yards is what we’re measuring here.
Let’s look at Ciarocca first:
In 2020 at Penn State, it might surprise you to learn that Ciarrocca’s offense finished well above the FBS average in TORZ, scoring an 11.7 (or roughly 1.5 TDs outside of the Red Zone per game). The FBS average that year was 8.7 TORZ. The 2020 team, led by Jahan Dotson, had the ability to be explosive. At Minnesota, Ciarrocca had one decent TORZ year in 2019 with an 8.2. But outside of that, Minnesota, no matter the coordinator, really struggles in this category. For 2022 thus far, their circle is so small that the number won’t even fit (it’s 4.2). Therefore, if Penn State loses in the Whiteout against the Gophers, it likely won’t be because Minnesota threw over defenders’ heads or busted long TD runs.
Remarkably, Mike Yurcich – Mr. Explosivity – hasn’t matched Ciarrocca’s 2020 TORZ rating during his initial two seasons at Penn State. Yes, his TORZ scores have been above average – 8.8 last year (thanks Jahan) and 9.3 this year (thanks Nick) – although Penn State is trending down in this category recently after failing to generate any TORZ points vs. Northwestern and Michigan. The two BIG circles in the Penn State row belong to the 2016 and 2017 Joe Moorhead offenses.
Havoc Plays & Ball Control
Minimizing HAVOC plays (as in not surrendering sacks, TFL, interceptions, and fumbles) has been a problem for Penn State dating back to 2016, as the Lions consistently have been around or above the FBS average of 9.6 — remember being above average in this stat is bad. This is one stat that really highlights Penn State’s struggles along the offensive line throughout the years. Under Ciarrocca, the Lions’ HAVOC rating ballooned to 11.2, which was the 2nd worst for a Penn State team since 2009. In Mike Yurcich’s first year at Penn State, the Lions didn’t change much and had 10.8 HAVOC plays against in 2021. This year, though, Penn State has improved quite a bit with a much better than average 7.0 HAVOC figure. A good running game and better-than-bad offensive line will do that for you.
Speaking of a good offensive line and a strong running game…2022 Minnesota is currently only allowing 6.8 HAVOC plays against in Ciarrocca’s first year back on the boat. Except for the 2020 Penn State season, low HAVOC rate has been a hallmark of Ciarrocca’s teams throughout the years. They are never “poor” in this stat. Every Minnesota team, except for 2009, has been average or better in HAVOC allowed. With Tanner Morgan’s status up in the air, look for the Penn State defense to sell out against the run to force 3rd and longs – ripe opportunities for HAVOC plays whether the Gophers QB is old or young.
Moving on…
Ball control is a function of yards gained and TOP. In Ball Control, bigger numbers are better with 30.9 being the FBS average. The 2016 and 2018 Penn State teams were somewhat below average in Ball Control, as was the 2021 squad under Yurcich.
Ball Control was an area where Ciarrocca did well in his one year at Penn State, scoring 34.0 in this metric. The 2022 PSU team is still respectable (the Michigan game notwithstanding). But the 38.7 Ball Control score that the 2022 Minnesota team is currently carrying is the 14th best FBS rating since 2009, which should scare the you-know-what out of Penn State fans considering the carnage we all witnessed last Saturday. Look for a heavy dose of Gophers All-Everything RB Mo Ibrahim until Penn State proves they can stop him. If Penn State can’t counter with a good running attack of their own, the defense will be put into difficult positions, again.
Efficiencies & Overall Effectiveness
Yards-per-Possession and Points-per-Possession are our efficiency metrics. Currently, Kirk Ciarrocca’s 2022 Minnesota offense in thriving in YPP, posting 43.9 yards per drive, which is 98th percentile level good. Actually, this is the stat where you see the biggest drop-off between the Ciarrocca and Non-Ciarrocca years for Minnesota.
For Penn State, Ciarrocca did well in 2020 with a 34.3 YPP (slightly better than the 32.1 FBS average). That mark is actually comparable to the two Moorhead seasons at Penn State (2016 – 32.9 and 2017 – 36.9). Ciarrocca’s Penn State offense moved the ball…they just couldn’t convert those yards into points enough. Mike Yurcich had a poor start in 2021 with a below average YPP number but has rebounded in 2022 with 34.5. Here, again, is another stat that has taken a hit after the last two games and will have to get better if Penn State pans to make a NY6 bowl.
In terms of scoring efficiency, both Ciarrocca’s Penn State offense and Yurcich’s v. 1.0 Penn State offense totally bombed. Penn State’s 2.6 pts/drive for 2022 is above the 2.2 FBS average (an average that Penn State was notably worse than in 2021) but still isn’t great. It ranks 445th so basically 75 %-tile. Not bad but not the super dynamic offense that we expected when Penn State dumped Ciarrocca. Moorhead’s PSU offenses scored 2.9 and 3.3 points per possession, which were top 300 (out of 1700+) since 2009.
Even in 2020, where everybody thought Ciarrocca underperformed, he was not that much below the PPP rate of Penn State’s 2022 and 2018 teams. The Ciarrocca-led 2019 and 2022 Minnesota offenses did/have done well with 3.2 points/possession. That’s more PPP than any Penn State team since 2009, except the 2017 squad. So, in this metric, there’s been basically no upgrade with Yurcich compared to Ciarrocca.
We end with Overall Effectiveness where an average FBS team scores 29.1 and a top quartile offense (top 443) scores 35. The 2016 and 2017 Penn State teams rank 107th and 195th respectively out of the 1700+ FBS offenses since 2009 in this stat. In fact, every team from 2016-2019 ranks better in Overall Effectiveness than the current iteration of the Nittany Lions offense.
Penn State in 2022 is better than Minnesota 2022 in OE but they’re not substantially better. It’s fairly close. In fact, reviewing all of these stats and graphs, it’s safe to conclude that the switch from Ciarrocca to Yurcich has made Penn State’s offense different but not necessarily better. Not yet, anyway. And when you remember Ciarrocca lost two All-Big Ten caliber RBs seconds into the season, perhaps he was unfairly scapegoated for the nightmare that was Penn State’s 4-5 2020. Because, for the most part, Yurcich and Ciarrocca’s statistical output during their time calling plays at Penn State has essentially been the same.
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