Analytics, Basic Stats, and Recent Historic Context: The ABC’s of Penn State Football – The 2021 Offense Retrospective
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Introduction
Same deal as last year: we put the much-hyped (in the preseason, anyway) 2021 Penn State offense under the microscope and examined every data point available. It’s funny, because in the Jan. 2021 edition of this blog post we spent close to a dozen paragraphs whining and complaining about how Kirk Ciarrocca’s offense underperformed versus expectation. Twelve months later, man, what I wouldn’t give for some ho-hum 2020 offensive output.
Penn State obviously took a step or two back this year (to be polite). You don’t need us or the numbers we’re about to present to tell you that. But what these basic and advanced stats DO reveal is a clearer picture of how and why Mike Yurcich’s Happy Valley debut was a bit of a flop. So with out further ado let’s all hold our breath, pinch our noses, dive face-first in this mess and analyze Penn State in various offensive metrics compared to the rest of FBS and Penn State squads from the recent past.
Yardage Production
We’ll start with yards per game and the graph du jour. In this table (and the tables like it as you keep scrolling down) every dot represents every FBS team each year. The red bar and red number are the FBS average (does not include games vs. FCS foes), and the Nittany Lion logo and blue number next to them represent PSU’s performance in that given season.
As you can see, in 2021, Penn State generated 24 yards fewer Yards Per Game than the FBS average of 390. That’s a severe drop off even from 2020 standards (down 64 yards; 15% less year-over-year). Sure, the 2020 Nittany Lions tripped out of the gate to an 0-5 start, but at least the offense moved the ball. The 2021 squad ranked 87th nationally in YPG compared to 36th last year.
If we narrow our focus to Yards-Per-Play (YPP) the 2021 squad compares more favorably with Ciarrocca’s 2020 ‘Grand Opening, Grand Closing’ club. Partially because of Ciarrocca’s ball-control mentality, Penn State ran a lot of plays last season and finished just below the FBS YPP average. Yurcich’s tempo-based, fling-it-deep approach was supposed to eliminate all those methodical marches we saw in 2020…but it didn’t. Not even close. The 2021 Penn State offense averaged 5.1 YYP — 100th in FBS, 0.5 yards below average. What’s more disturbing as you look at this table is the steady downward slope in YPP since Joe Moorhead’s departure following the 2017 season — the Nittany Lions’ YPP highpoint.
The 5.1 Yard Per Play posted by the 2021 Penn State offense marked the 2nd fewest YPP of the post-Paterno era, besting John Donovan’s Geo Prizm offense from 2014.
One of the biggest factors in this year’s offensive drop off was the poor performance of the run game. Below, we have two charts that illustrate Penn State’s game-by-game performance in two important rushing metrics: rush-yards-per-attempt (RYPA) and rush-yards-per-game (RYPG). In the RYPA chart, the red marks represent out-of-conference games (including FCS foes), orange represents game vs. the Big Ten West, and blue represents Big Ten East opponents.
In 2021, Penn State generated only 3.1 RYPA and 106 RYPG, which are both considerable dips compared to 2016-2017 and are far more comparable to the 2014 offense which, until now, was clearly Franklin’s worst at Penn State. What’s also noteworthy about these two graphs is that when compared to the Ciarrocca 9-game season, the 2021 team nearly matched the peaks seen in 2020. But there was a tremendous lack of consistency and far more bad performances than good which dragged the average down considerably.
Moving on to our Pass-Yards-per-Attempt (PYPA) and Pass-Yards-per-Game (PYPG) graphs, we finally see a few areas of quality performance and reasons for optimism in 2022.
The 269 PYPG in 2021 was the 2nd best compiled under James Franklin. Note Sean Clifford has now been the starting QB for 2 of the 3 best passing offenses (at least in terms of yards) during the Franklin era. PYPA was basically average for a Franklin coached team, which shows us that the per-game passing yards were aided by the high number of passes attempted in 2021 versus previous seasons.
About that…
…2021 represented the highest ratio of pass/run plays since at least 2014. On the season, Penn State threw the ball on 53% of all plays on offense. Compare that to 2018-2020 when the Lions on only put the ball in the air on 41%, 41%, and 45% of plays, respectively. This tilt toward a more pass heavy offense was probably the biggest shift we witnessed under Yurcich versus Rahne and Ciarrocca. Considering the nauseating numbers put up in the run game, one might suspect this pass-heavy approach was taken out of necessity rather than design. But when we examine Yurcich’s Run/Pass ratio from previous OC stops at Texas and Oklahoma State, turns out his 2021 pass-happy bias is not out of character, at all.
Scoring
For as bad as the 2021 offense was in producing yards, they were somehow even worse when it came to scoring points. The Nittany Lions averaged 23.9 points-per-game (PPG) vs. FBS opponents, which ranked 89th nationally. This marks the first below-average scoring offense in Happy Valley since 2015. To be fair, the 2021 offense did score more than John Donovan’s 2014 and 2015 clubs…but that’s not much to hang your hat on. Mike Yurcich’s 2021 offense finished 3 touchdowns per game shy of matching the 2017 Penn State offense (6th nationally, 41.1 PPG). Memories, like the corner of my mind…
When we analyze scoring on a game-by-game basis (including Villanova), it’s interesting to note there’s no real ‘outlier’ outcome that artificially inflates Penn State’s PPG average like there was with 2020’s 56-point season finale vs. Illinois. The highest mark on the chart this season is the 44-point effort vs. Ball State. Note how many Big Ten West orange dots (Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois) are clustered near the bottom of the graph. To me, this is one of the most telling graphs of the season. Except for two inferior OOC opponents (Ball State and Villanova) and a late Pick-6-aided result vs. Maryland, Penn State didn’t break 28 points all year and a finished a FULL FG shy of simply being average nationally in this metric. Considering Penn State’s defense allowed 24 or fewer points in 4 of 6 losses, it’s not outlandish to suspect that Penn State would have won 10 or 11 games had its offense been average.
But it wasn’t, hence 7-6.
One of the big issues that cratered the 2020 season was Penn State’s inability to score points in the Red Zone (goal line fades anyone?). And somehow, once again, the Nittany Lions were slightly worse in this metric this season despite Red Zone inefficiency not being the hot button message board talking point it was 12 months earlier. In 2021,Penn State’s 4.2 points per RZ trip ranked 115th nationally — the worst showing of the James Franklin era.
Hate to pile on, but Penn State only managed to venture inside the Red Zone 40 times in 12 FBS games in 2021. Last year they had RZ 37 attempts in 9 games. Below is a plot of RZ attempts per game by season. The 3.3 RZ trips per game in 2021 represents the low mark since 2014 (noticing a trend yet?). When you multiply these two stats – RZ attempts and points per RZ attempt – you see that the 3.3 x 4.2 in 2021 equates to 13.9 RZ points per game (RZPPG). Compare that with the 4.5 x 5.8 in 2017 which yielded 26.1 RZ PPG.
Additionally, the high-octane 2017 squad scored another 15 PPG from outside of the Red Zone (big plays!). The 2021 team had a reasonable amount of PPG from beyond the Red Zone (10 PPG – 56th in FBS) but was only 100th in RZ PPG. For comparison, the 2021 Ohio State team scored 24 RZ PPG (10th) and 21.5 points outside the RZ per game (1st in 2021, 9th best since 2011). The Buckeyes were an explosive offense. [Side Note: Points Scored in and out of the RZ versus overall scoring related to FBS average seems an interesting stat.]
Advanced Stats
Havoc Avoidance Rate has always been one of our favorite, and most telling, advanced stats. For those who forgot, Havoc Avoidance Rate (HAR) takes the sum of tackles-for-loss, sacks, and turnovers an offense gives up divided by their total plays. For this metric, lower percentages are better. So how did the 2021 Penn State offense do in HAR? Well, not as poorly as you might have guessed. Despite finishing 85th in the country in HAR, the Lions’ 15% score, if you will, was a single percentage point away from the the FBS average. The 2021 HAR is similar to HARs posted by some of the best Penn State offenses in recent history, which speaks to the boom-bust mentality of Franklin’s offenses.
Mike Yurcich’s offense was very close to average in HAR. It shows that the team wasn’t terribly mistake prone. Specifically, it shows the Lions did a decent job protecting the football — 1.2 turnovers per game. Because when we dig down one level deeper and isolate the TFL and Sacks allowed per game, the scene gets ugly. The 2021 team’s rate of 9.6 TFL/Sacks per game was the worst since 2015 and ranked 100th in FBS (bad).
Next, we move to Explosivity. We measure Explosivity by multiplying points and yards (Yard*Point = overall productivity) and then dividing by 100 plays. So, if a team scores lots of points and generates lots of yards in a small number of plays, they’re explosive.
Quite frankly, the 2021 Penn State Nittany Lions were not explosive. In fact, their Explosivity score of 1.2 was the worst since 2014 and the 3rd worst number since 2009.
After James Franklin aggressively dumped Ciarrocca last January because his 2020 offense was too methodical, Penn State ranked 94th nationally in Explosivity this year with tee-it-high-and-let-it-fly Mike Yurcich running the show. So, in the short term, Franklin’s switch pretty much backfired. Ohio State’s Explosivity rating (3.6) in 2021 was THREE TIMES greater than Penn State’s! To contextualize this a bit more, let’s say that Penn State and Ohio State play a game where each team runs 70 plays. The Buckeyes would be expected to generate 25,000 Yard*Points and the Nittany Lions 8,600 Yard*Points. The expected score for such a game would be 45-23 in favor of the Buckeyes.
Finally, we have our Offensive Efficiency (OE) metric. This stat was the basis of my game-by-game predictions (which exactly tied SP+ in predictive power for bowl season – more on this in the coming months). It combines scoring and ball control to spit out a single number to calibrate how good or bad an offense is. The 2021 Nittany Lions had an OE value of 24.6 (average was 29.2; they ranked 86th).
Let’s dissect that OE value and specifically evaluate Penn State’s Ball Control (BC) and Scoring (Points-per-Minute) metrics. An average team has a BC value of 30.89 and generates 0.93 points-per-minute (PPM). The 2021 Nittany Lions had a BC of 28.8 and generated 0.86 PPM both of which are below average. In the chart below, you can see how the 2021 PSU team compares vs. all of the recent Nittany Lions squads in PPM (Y-axis) and Ball Control (X-axis). The bigger issue this year appears to have been Ball Control as it ranked 4th worst amongst Penn State teams since 2009. In PPM, Penn State was middle of the pack compared to its peers from the past. The Lions poor Red Zone productivity certainly factored in this ‘meh’ showing in this particular metric.
Conclusion
In summary, we just spent, let’s see here…(mumble counting)…1,900 words and…(more mumble counting)…16 graphs illustrating a thought that could have been conveyed in one simple sentence: The 2021 Penn State Offense wasn’t very good. Running The Ball. Red Zone Efficiency. Preventing Sacks and TFLs. Lack of Explosive Plays. There were a ton of issues. On the bright side, they were decent at limiting turnovers (45th best nationally) and did manage to generate a reasonable amount of points from outside of the Red Zone (56th). In 2022 though, they need more. Not just marginal gains in one or two of these statistical categories, but major leaps in almost all of them. The run game needs to be better; the Red Zone performance needs to be better; they need to be more explosive.
Yurcich needs to be better.
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