Red zone efficiency
Every week it feels like we do a great job of getting into the red zone but failing at capitalizing. I see quite a few posts every week about the points we left on the field. I went digging and found this site. According to it we’re successful 84% of the time in the red zone. Wisconsin leads the big with a 92.59% success rate. The really shocking stat was Alabama is 82% successful. I’ve not watched any of their games except last night so I don’t have any basis for thinking they were more successful. Ohio state is 75% successful and ranked 113th. So is my perception wrong? The rankings and stats seem to imply that.
November 4th, 2018 at 7:47 AM ^
Helps if I put the site. Hooray for our edit feature.
https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/red-zone-scoring-pct
November 4th, 2018 at 7:55 AM ^
In the last 3 games (vs. ranked teams) Michigan is 75%. Not all that spectacular hence the moaning.
November 4th, 2018 at 8:25 AM ^
As you point out, those are ranked teams. I imagine an analysis limited to that kind of competition would show us doing decently compared to other top teams.
November 4th, 2018 at 8:33 AM ^
This raises a side question. If a team doesn’t end the season ranked did we really beat a ranked team?
November 4th, 2018 at 9:08 AM ^
No. Which is why literally all rankings including CFP rankings should be tossed until the end of the year. It creates a false narrative wherein teams benefit greatly from transitive bullshit.
Look at the rankings after last week. LSU gets huge credit for beating georgia who had beaten literally no one despite that LSU lost to florida the week before who just lost to a team that was 3-4 prior to beating florida. But people are talking about keeping georgia in the playoffs because georgia beat UK who beat florida who just lost to a 3-4 team but got credit for beating LSU.
It's a big stupid sec circle jerk that literally only exists because of georgias preseason #3 ranking.
November 4th, 2018 at 7:57 AM ^
Typically don't stall in the red zone. Stalling drives that concern people are between the 35 and 45. O is crossing midfield but not getting points as often as perhaps it should.
November 4th, 2018 at 8:14 AM ^
This is the problem, not anything in the Red Zone. Stalling a drive between the 35 and 45 is the worst! And it usually stems from a single (sometimes two) bad play calls. I mean baaaad, head scratching calls that make zero sense. If the defense makes a play, or two - good on them. But it's usually Michigan killing itself, and that hurts.
It's janky, and there is very little flow to the entire passing game. Seriously, the pass game is not nearly as smooth as the run game is going - and that is where this offense can most improve.
November 4th, 2018 at 8:00 AM ^
Alabama does not lack for scoring. I wonder if it's a case many of their scores originate outside the red zone?
November 4th, 2018 at 8:09 AM ^
Tua’s drive chart for all games combined is like all touchdowns, 6 field goals and like 4 punts. It’s amazing.
November 4th, 2018 at 8:14 AM ^
Alabama is in a league of their own this year. I didn't think LSU was as good as their ranking suggested, but I also didn't think they'd get trucked like they did. And that was at LSU at night, which is often a very challenging venue. Yet Alabama rolled, 29-0, with the stats showing Alabama domination. Unless something really, really weird happens, it looks like it's Alabama's trophy to lose.
November 4th, 2018 at 8:08 AM ^
The issue is being in field goal range while both refusing to go for the field goal and going for it on fourth and short. If you desire to gain some points from the drive then a field goal would be optimal. I am unsure if Coach Harbaugh lacks the confidence in Nordin making the kick why we can't try someone else to make an attempt.
The way in which Michigan is pigeonholed into punting on a stalled drive between the 35 and 45 will eventually hurt them.
November 4th, 2018 at 8:20 AM ^
they kept talking about the swirling wind yesterday. Not sure if that had an effect.
November 4th, 2018 at 8:50 AM ^
The wind definitely held up the would be TD to DPJ that ended up getting broken up. And the bomb to Nico May have been a TD if the wind didn’t hold it up.
November 4th, 2018 at 8:15 AM ^
"Figures lie and liars figure" remains true. Jim Harbaugh values controlling the LOS and TOP-as an offensive strategy. He has always understood that keeping the other team from scoring is critical to a winning strategy. Many points have surely been left on the field. But what part of "total domination" do the hand-wringers not like about these last three wins-over teams that are "consensus good teams"??? If it wouldn't be such a disastrous proposition, y'all should walk in a coach's shoes sometime.
November 4th, 2018 at 8:20 AM ^
Hand-wringers? You're making this an all or nothing conversation, and it's not. When the O moves the ball 40 yards, into opposition territory, and then makes a dumbass play call, it stops itself. If there's a criticism of this team, it's that it stops itself way more often than it should. The offense is still a bit herky-jerky and has next to zero flow in the pass game. The total domination is there, and nobody denies that. But it could be more - PSU should have been down 28-0 at the half. The difference is small - a couple of plays here and there. Maintain the domination without the head scratching calls...
November 4th, 2018 at 8:25 AM ^
Spot on.
I would like to add that Michigan was actually an incompletion and a penalty from surrendering 14 points in the first half which makes taking points when you can all the more crucial. Penn State thankfully screwed up their opportunities but Alabama won't.
November 4th, 2018 at 9:24 AM ^
The total domination is there, but you want more? Like total super total domination, and we take their lunch money? I’ve seen you demand perfection in every thread. It’s tiresome to read. We get it-you wanted the score to be 28-0 at the half. You want every drive to result in a touchdown. You want zero bad play callas and every game to be over after the first quarter. Just go root for Alabama so we don’t have to read how our offense leaves points on the board in every thread
November 4th, 2018 at 9:34 AM ^
Yeah, I do want more. I want an offense that doesn't kill itself a few times in every game. I want an offense that curb stomps its opponent at the first opportunity, and doesn't need to rely on the defense to help grind a team into dust. I want an offense that has a passing game that flows, say, 2/3 as well as the run game flows. They don't have that right now.
I feel bad for you if you think everything is good enough. It's not. It's really friggen good - but not good enough yet. The room that's there for improvement needs to be occupied.
November 4th, 2018 at 12:16 PM ^
Lol. You feel bad for me because I understand football and I pointed out that what you are asking doesn’t exist outside of Alabama. You say that there is room for improvement after we demolished a ranked Penn State team. You want perfection and it doesn’t exist, so you’re going to keep saying the same thing over and over. You quite literally want 100% of our drives to end with touchdowns. You wouldn’t be happy with any of the things you listed above because you would just find something new to bitch about.
November 4th, 2018 at 12:27 PM ^
"...what you are asking doesn’t exist outside of Alabama."
"You want perfection and it doesn’t exist..."
So which is it? Make up your mind and stop changing the goal. FWIW, I want the Alabama version of your indecision. You're getting all mad because I want to see some things cleaned up, and you don't think its necessary. Whatever... If Alabama has the perfect offense, I want Michigan to match it. Otherwise, there is no hope for beating them. The defenses are equal, but right now the offenses are not. If you understand football so well, you should be able to see that.
November 4th, 2018 at 8:20 AM ^
Am I in the Twilight Zone. No we don’t score every time we have the ball. But my god, we are dominating these games, vs ranked opponents, by greater and greater margins.
Some people always expect more; perfection.
Ask yourself how long during the games you were nervous about the outcome. That will tell you the domination.
Sure the coaches can demand perfection but I for one am just enjoying the whompings.
November 4th, 2018 at 10:49 AM ^
I was nervous that we couldn't score very well after the first TD and then had a FG blocked for what looked like a TD the other way that would have tied the game.
Don't kid yourself....PSU left a lot of points on the field. They had a WIDE open TD on that McSorely just missed badly. Haskins or and playoff team probably will not miss those easy scores. It could have been a lot closer than it was.
November 4th, 2018 at 1:07 PM ^
So it would have been 42-14. I could handle that kind of margin vs. OsU.
November 4th, 2018 at 8:24 AM ^
Sounds like scoring efficiency is a better metric since our frustration is the mid range game. According to espn we’re ranked 14th. Bama has a 98% efficiency, Purdue is 9th with 78%, osu is 10th with 77% and Michigan is 14th with 75.
http://www.espn.com/college-football/statistics/teamratings/_/sort/offEfficiency/tab/efficiency
November 4th, 2018 at 8:45 AM ^
This is specifically what will cause this team to run the table or eventually fall before the playoffs.
The Michigan offense is definitely improved and currently improving (more than even I thought they would, esp on the OL) but it's still a wildly inconsistent unit. I'd really like to see numbers for what they do pre and post-40, forget redzone. They mostly seem to bog down once they hit the 40 but, again, I'd like to see data ad opposed to soley use what I seem to see.
During this 3 game run we've seen Michigan DOMINATE opponents and yet go into halftime with the game still within a couple scores. While that's not really a complaint anyone can make (ha) it does show a team that can't kill an opponent when the opponent is begging to be killed. That will bite them, be it Indiana or OSU or The B1GCG or Playoffs. It WILL bite them.
Very impressive wins but it still seems a bit unfortunate that they can't bury an opponent as early as they seem to be fully capable of doing. If that comes, this won't be a "can beat anyone but Bama and Clemson" team. They will be in that tier.
And imagine saying that after the ND game or even NW game.
November 4th, 2018 at 9:05 AM ^
Michigan is No. 48 nationally at 5.19 points per redzone opportunity ("scoring percentage" is the dumbest stat, because it implies three points and 7 points are the same thing). There's certainly room for improvement in it... but it's hardly a damning flaw.
Michigan State is "better" at scoring in the redzone, for example, with nine field goals and 19 touchdowns (87.5% to Michigan's 86.5%), but they've scored only 5.0 points per redzone opportunity: there's basically no way to slice that as better in any pragmatic way.
U-M's failed redzone trips are:
- A bobbled field goal snap against Notre Dame (down 21-10 at the beginning of the third quarter, that certainly impacted the outcome of the game, though didn't decide it obviously)
- Interception against SMU (tied 0-0 in the first quarter of an eventual 42-20 win)
- Interception by the third-string quarterback against Nebraska (up 56-3 in the fourth quarter)
- Kneeling out the clock on the final drive against Wisconsin (up 38-13)
- Missed field goal against Michigan State (up 7-0 right before halftime. Felt scary at that point but didn't impact the outcome of the game).
So two out of five failures were deep, deep into garbage time and Michigan didn't particularly care about a "failed redzone trip" (certainly not the Wisconsin one). So, either the team doesn't bog down in the redzone that much, or your problem is that they kick too many field goals, rather than scoring touchdowns. 21.62% field goals in redzone trips is No. 66-highest nationally (i.e.: low).
Again, anything less than perfect is an opportunity to improve, no doubt. But is redzone offense a problem (even disregarding the MGoHeuristic that "Redzone Offense" is not really a thing)? The data say otherwise, and pretty convincingly.
(If you extend the scoring zone from like the 20 to the 40 or so, the numbers are certainly quite different, a probably a little less kind to Michigan. However, that's not easy stuff to look up - it's not tracked by an easily-accessible source - and is also not encompassed by the initial question).
November 4th, 2018 at 11:30 AM ^
There is actually a source that tracks inside the 40. Bill C's advanced stat pages keep track of "points per scoring opportunity" which is inside the opposition 40 yard line. He hasn't updated for this week's games yet, but coming into this week, Michigan was at 4.63 pts per trip inside the 40, which is 67th in the country. So it is definitely something we can improve upon.
Interestingly enough we actually struggle with that on defense as well (4.58 ppt, 74th), but I wager that works out fine as we don't give up a ton of scoring opportunities.
November 4th, 2018 at 11:58 PM ^
Was reading this and thought
"Man, this feels like the old posts from around 2013 or so."
Lo and behold, it's fucking Tim who posts it.
Missed ya buddy.
November 4th, 2018 at 9:09 AM ^
November 4th, 2018 at 9:21 AM ^
Harbaugh says improve today so you’re better than yesterday. Identifying an area that has a perception or real problem isn’t unhappy. It’s looking for ways to keep moving forward. This idea that you can’t talk about areas of improvement because the team is drastically improved from last year is just outright asinine.
November 4th, 2018 at 9:48 AM ^
Totally agree. Like the saying goes, Michigan fans aren’t happy unless they’re unhappy.