I'm a bit doubtful that they break/tie Georgia's record, but I'll be interested to see next year if the '24 and '25 Wolverines drafted outpaces the total '22 and '23 Bulldogs drafted (25).
Just going off the top of my head... Donovan Edwards. Will Johnson. Mason Graham. Kenneth Grant. Derrick Moore. Josaiah Stewart. Makari Paige. Colston Loveland. All those guys are locks to get drafted if they go, and who knows if a few linemen show out this year, or if some of the other DBs up their game (Quentin Johnson), or if the LBs show out in their third years.
I remind you that offenses are supposed to score points. A team that goes three yards and a cloud of dust on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd down then punts would come out with an EPA of zero.
Wait. In your chart, if a team doesn't convert on third down, they get a negative EPA. So if that team spends all game getting three yards on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd down, then punts on 4th, they'd have a negative EPA. A very negative EPA.
I think it'd absolutely be the latter. If FSU beats Louisville, the one-seed absolutely deserves to play them. Not having Jordan Travis really hurts them, and the committee is allowed to take that into account.
I have to assume you can get multiple pressures on one play. PFF has Michigan down for 26 pressures. Tagovailoa threw 31 times. There were certainly more than five dropbacks on which Tagovailoa was clean.
You can. To check the actual pressure rate in a game, you have to go to the Passing Pressure & Depth page. On 38 drop backs, Tagovailoa was pressured 15 times and kept clean 23 times.
Yes, in this metric. Michigan has the 4th best offense (behind LSU, USC, and Washington) and the 3rd best defense (behind PSU and OSU). If you wanna feel a little better, go to BCF Toys and look at the F+ rankings: second in offense and second in defense there.
“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.”
My two closest friends from high school (one Wolverine, one Spartan) don't get why I love to watch Iowa football. I'm glad you (and, I guess, Orson Scott Card) do.
Just a note on the MSU-Rutgers game: Brian said that Rutgers' final drive was "12 plays and 32 yards. Kyle Monangai's damage happened before that drive. That was just salting the game away." It's important to note that the first nine plays of that drive were Monangai runs that went for 51 yards. The last three were extended kneel downs by Wimsatt that lost 19 yards. Monangai still had a good game before this (97 yards on 15 carries), but more than a third of his yards came on that drive. I agree with Alex: MSU really did just quit.
I'm constructing a new formula now that (I think) will be an improvement on the current equation (which I think undervalues the damage gains of two yards or less do to an offense, overvalues high-single digit gains, and doesn't remove power success runs from the equation like it should), and I'm going to use it to compare Blake Corum in 2022 to Blake Corum in 2023 (based on what Brian was hypothesizing this week about his drop in performance).
However, in order to do a ranking for all FBS teams, I'd need a programmer who can scrape data for me. I can be a crappy Jobs, but I need a crappy Wozniak.
I'm not sure how Brian would answer it, but I think one difference is that we're much more likely to see Ben Hall in a big game than we are Beetham. Michigan playing three TEs on regular downs is already an oddity, and if one of them gets hurt, they'll probably opt for capping it at two WRs since there are so many other skill position players you'd plug in before Beetham. (I bet you're more likely to see a 6th OL than Beetham against PSU/OSU.)
Since Hall plays running back, and teams regularly use 2-3 RBs in competitive games anyway, all it takes is one injury (see: Kalel Mullings' injury for this game) for him to have a very good chance at playing in real time, provided he can hack it (early returns say, "Yes, he can").
However, I can see how this answer might not satisfy you, since the easy retort is, "But they played at the same time," to which I say, "Yeah, I dunno. Maybe something to do with the offensive line getting a percentage score and the RBs just getting +/-?"
At the end of the day, though, it's a subjective scoring system on a free blog that has (as far as I know) no impact on how Michigan plans to run their team in future games.
Seth covered this when someone griped about it. He said the point of UFR is to be predictive. Once you start playing your deep backups in garbage's garbage time, you know the UFR score is going to tank. But those guys are never going to play against PSU or OSU. It's the same reason the best advanced stats filter out garbage time––because it's literally irrelevant to future results.
This is probably sacrilegious to say (especially given the week), but the back Ben Hall kind of reminds me of is Le'Veon Bell. Not necessarily the fastest guy, or the shiftiest, but big, and so patient when it comes to setting up his blocks and bursting through the holes. I always appreciated (not enjoyed) watching Bell when he played at MSU and in the pros. I have a feeling I'm going to appreciate Hall even more (and enjoy watching him, too)!
That excludes garbage time and does attempt to adjust for opponent. Line yards in this one were quite bad—1.8—and my grading still came out very positive.
I'm very skeptical of Game on Paper's line yards. That site is awesome and I use it all the time, but there are a bunch of mistakes in their data all the time. I'm a little less skeptical of College Football Data's line yards for this game, which were 3.2. Also still skeptical of them, though. I didn't know until today that the line yard formula is as follows:
Lost yardage counts 120%
0-4 yards count 100%
5-9 yards count 50%
10+ yards count 0%
For such a simple formula, why are the results so vastly different?
I also don't understand why it's not: the first yard is 90% on the line, the second yard is 80% on the line, the third yard is 70% on the line, and so forth. There's a huge difference between a zero yard gain and a four yard gain.
Wow. Thanks for the heads up that Marcus Freeman and Urban Meyer are front-runners for the MSU job. Had no idea. Names are just flying around. Last I heard, it was down to Paul Bear Bryant, Barack Obama, and Jesus Christ, but that the Spartan brass had released a statement strongly indicating that none of them were good enough to lead this team. Maybe my information is faulty. Idk.
McCarthy's played these defenses: 81st, 101st, 96th, 31st, 26th, 41st, 80th (65.1)
Penix's played these defenses: 89th, 84th, 36th, 63rd, 60th, 20th (avg. 58.7)
Yes, Penix has played slightly better defenses on average. Barely.
2. Yup. Can't disagree. Penix has played in two close games (Arizona and Oregon). McCarthy's played in none.
3. Yup. Also can't disagree with that. Penix will play in ~five close games (based on rankings) and McCarthy will play in ~two-and-a-half close games. He also has one good defense remaining on his schedule (Utah at 7th in DF+). McCarthy has (YMMV) two-and-two-halves (MSU [36th], PSU [2nd], Maryland [27th], OSU [6th]). McCarthy shouldn't have to put up Penix numbers to take the lead in Heisman votes from him––but he will have to.
4. I apologize if I implied volume doesn't matter. I agree that it does. I just think efficiency matters more, especially when you've thus far played in a lot of blowout games (as both teams do).
The reason I put Y/A was because the chart was about efficiency, not about volume. Y/A is an efficiency stat. Yards is a volume stat. If all the efficiency stats are the same, and the competition at the end of the year is the same (it's not, as Michigan will end up playing several more much better defenses on average), then the QB with more volume should win.
Also worth pointing out that Washington, by rate, throws the third most in the FBS at 66.0%. Michigan's at 44.6%. If Michigan threw as much as Washington and kept McCarthy in the game for as long, his volume stats would be basically the same.
5. See all the above. Washington throws more, which leads to that difference. Penix plays more, which leads to that difference. They've basically played an equal slate re: other teams' defenses. You also can't just say, "Well, Penix has more passing yards," without looking at rushing yards. Penix is part of an offense. He's not an offense in his own right. Wouldn't a lot of teams also be just as happy having a successful and strong rushing attack like Michigan's? I bet a lot of teams would be happy to have the murderer's row of WRs like Rome Odunze, Ja'Lynn Polk, and Jalen McMillan like Washington has to help out their QB.
In a vacuum, yeah, teams would like to have Penix's stats more, but we're not in a vacuum.
"Explosive" often just depends on who you ask. I've seen it be 10+, 15+, 20+, 1.8 EPA+, etc.
I'll definitely try to make something a little more detailed than last week, though I'm not the best at making charts and graphs using the computer, so we'll see what I can manage.
This is arithmetic I probably won't get around to doing, but it's a good question.
Also, good point with "bend but don't break," but I think the same general logic applies. Games are going to be closer if the other team is on the field longer because they may not necessarily score more, but our offense will be on the field less frequently, and thus our score will be lower.
Totally agree. I just wonder where the diminishing returns are. At how many snaps is a defensive lineman maximally effective? Obviously, it's different for each player (I'm sure Mason Graham can, at this point, handle a higher snap count better than Kenneth Grant), but if there are (say) 100 DT snaps to go around in a game, can we give Graham and Jenkins 40 each and give Grant the other 20? Or is that too much workload, and it makes sense to throw Benny out there for 10.
I just went and looked at the snap counts for Georgia's championship win over Alabama in 2021. The Georgia defense was on the field for 87 snaps and 361 defensive linemen snaps (4.15 per snap).
They basically played 3.5 edges.
Travon Walker (75 snaps, 46 outside)
Nolan Smith (60 snaps, 57 outside)
Robert Beal Jr. (29 snaps, all outside)
Tramel Walthour (12 snaps, 10 outside)
They put their LBs on the edge sometimes, too.
Channing Tindall (15 snaps outside)
Quay Walker (12 snaps outside)
They basically played 3.5 edges, too.
Devonte Wyatt (48 snaps inside)
Jordan Davis (47 snaps inside)
Jalen Carter (46 snaps, 44 inside)
Travon Walker (75 snaps, 27 inside)
I guess this means maybe we're half a guy short inside and half a guy up outside? (Obviously, YMMV on certain players.) It's almost certain that Michigan isn't going to be in a game with 87 defensive snaps (clock rules, style of play, etc) that they also have a chance to win, IMO. If it's a 70 play game, can Graham and Jenkins go 55 each and the other 30 go to Grant?
I just looked at his PFF grades for each game. He hit 120 carries at the beginning of the Penn State game. His four best game grades from the season come from PSU on.
I suppose you could make the case that more snaps means more guys getting to 10+ per game, but it could also be that if they were facing more snaps it means the other team is scoring more cause they're on the field more, and thus the games are closer so we'd just end up giving more snaps to our better guys rather than our fourth stringers.
I love requests. Think they'd actually make this easier, and get better engagement, which is a double win. I'll add this in next week. You want Y/C for each specific game?
One thing to keep in mind with these grades is that Georgia played an SEC championship game and two playoff games, so a much tougher schedule. PFF's grading is not opponent invariant.
I agree. I was just trying to more make the point that I don't think we'd actually be thinking, We can beat Georgia in the national title game this year, without our defensive line being utterly elite.
I think it's very possible he drops to the fifth or sixth round, but I also think an NFL team says, "He'll be an awesome WR, let's take him late in the second." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Hopefully that Donovan Edwards touchdown is a turning point for him. I didn't think he had a particularly great game otherwise, though. Not seeing the holes. But Benjamin Hall looked awesome! He and Mullings are going to be a thique 1-2 punch next year.
It's nuts the type of statistical dominance they've had. Unfortunately, they are 30th in F+ and this is their remaining schedule: Wyoming, Navy, CO State, Army, Hawaii, and UNLV.
Even if they go undefeated I'm pretty dubious. But it would be cool!
1. I obviously defer to you, Chuck. I was going off what I found on PFF, which says he got five snaps in that ND game (so, essentially, zero) and still started the following weeks against Arkansas State, Wisconsin, and Rutgers, but all that means is that he was out there for the first defensive play, not that he should actually be considered the starter in a base formation. Regardless of fandom, though, it's nice to see a sixth year guy finally get his flowers.
2. Every time I've watched OSU football this year, the announcers have made a point of pointing out exactly what you're pointing out. I definitely think it's fair to consider that change in scheme when looking at their stats, but 116th in the country is still way too low (IMO) for a team with that kind of talent at pass rushing positions. Also, looking yesterday, I found that Michael Hall Jr. also grades out really well as a pass-rusher. Have you noticed that they often take turns pressuring the QB? Oftentimes it takes two guys getting into the pocket to bring a QB down. Do they just have the misfortune of the stars not aligning?
3. FO's shut down has truly been a tragedy. They were the best for season-long line yard stats. I've been using College Football Data, which not only gives season-long line yard stats, but also line yard stats for each game, which is great. My biggest issue with the site, though, is that the only way to compare stats to other teams is to use their Team Metrics graphing tool (see: the three images I included). There's no list ranking the teams, and so if you want to figure out where a team ranks in line yards, you have to go to the graph and count every team that's ahead of them by their logo. Very tedious and difficult, especially when it seems super easy to have a page on the site that just ranks stats.
I appreciate the love, but I've always been more of a small, devoted-fanbase guy. I had three friends in high school and only hung out with them. I had three friends in college and only hung out with them. I have three friends now and only hang out with them. If I can get three people to read this column and love it every week, I'm set. I have enough fun spending hours poring over football statistics.
Recent Comments
Sorry, I meant come back like come back in '25 and sit out all of '24.
I was hoping he'd come back after the injury.
I'm a bit doubtful that they break/tie Georgia's record, but I'll be interested to see next year if the '24 and '25 Wolverines drafted outpaces the total '22 and '23 Bulldogs drafted (25).
Just going off the top of my head... Donovan Edwards. Will Johnson. Mason Graham. Kenneth Grant. Derrick Moore. Josaiah Stewart. Makari Paige. Colston Loveland. All those guys are locks to get drafted if they go, and who knows if a few linemen show out this year, or if some of the other DBs up their game (Quentin Johnson), or if the LBs show out in their third years.
So much talent to be proud of.
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Glad you got some UpVotes.
-6391 MGoPoints?
Wow.
Congrats.
Wait. In your chart, if a team doesn't convert on third down, they get a negative EPA. So if that team spends all game getting three yards on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd down, then punts on 4th, they'd have a negative EPA. A very negative EPA.
Thanks for the dopamine, Des.
I think it'd absolutely be the latter. If FSU beats Louisville, the one-seed absolutely deserves to play them. Not having Jordan Travis really hurts them, and the committee is allowed to take that into account.
Also, sorry.
You can. To check the actual pressure rate in a game, you have to go to the Passing Pressure & Depth page. On 38 drop backs, Tagovailoa was pressured 15 times and kept clean 23 times.
It's nice to take a few minutes every week and remember how lucky we are.
This one was in Brian's column, but it certainly doesn't hurt the eyes to see it again.
That is indeed a very fun stat!
Yes, in this metric. Michigan has the 4th best offense (behind LSU, USC, and Washington) and the 3rd best defense (behind PSU and OSU). If you wanna feel a little better, go to BCF Toys and look at the F+ rankings: second in offense and second in defense there.
Narratives die hard.
Fuck yeah, Des. One of your best yet.
My two closest friends from high school (one Wolverine, one Spartan) don't get why I love to watch Iowa football. I'm glad you (and, I guess, Orson Scott Card) do.
Seth mentioned in a previous thread that teams scrub their All-22 film so that you can't see their sidelines.
The media: "There is absolutely no precedent for this sort of thing!"
Baylor:
Knocked off the front page already! Rats!
Yup! If a mod sees, please fix if you have the time! This was a boneheaded oversight on my part.
Okay if I call it "Signedlinez" bossman?
Just a note on the MSU-Rutgers game: Brian said that Rutgers' final drive was "12 plays and 32 yards. Kyle Monangai's damage happened before that drive. That was just salting the game away." It's important to note that the first nine plays of that drive were Monangai runs that went for 51 yards. The last three were extended kneel downs by Wimsatt that lost 19 yards. Monangai still had a good game before this (97 yards on 15 carries), but more than a third of his yards came on that drive. I agree with Alex: MSU really did just quit.
I'm constructing a new formula now that (I think) will be an improvement on the current equation (which I think undervalues the damage gains of two yards or less do to an offense, overvalues high-single digit gains, and doesn't remove power success runs from the equation like it should), and I'm going to use it to compare Blake Corum in 2022 to Blake Corum in 2023 (based on what Brian was hypothesizing this week about his drop in performance).
However, in order to do a ranking for all FBS teams, I'd need a programmer who can scrape data for me. I can be a crappy Jobs, but I need a crappy Wozniak.
I think that's a fair question.
I'm not sure how Brian would answer it, but I think one difference is that we're much more likely to see Ben Hall in a big game than we are Beetham. Michigan playing three TEs on regular downs is already an oddity, and if one of them gets hurt, they'll probably opt for capping it at two WRs since there are so many other skill position players you'd plug in before Beetham. (I bet you're more likely to see a 6th OL than Beetham against PSU/OSU.)
Since Hall plays running back, and teams regularly use 2-3 RBs in competitive games anyway, all it takes is one injury (see: Kalel Mullings' injury for this game) for him to have a very good chance at playing in real time, provided he can hack it (early returns say, "Yes, he can").
However, I can see how this answer might not satisfy you, since the easy retort is, "But they played at the same time," to which I say, "Yeah, I dunno. Maybe something to do with the offensive line getting a percentage score and the RBs just getting +/-?"
At the end of the day, though, it's a subjective scoring system on a free blog that has (as far as I know) no impact on how Michigan plans to run their team in future games.
Seth covered this when someone griped about it. He said the point of UFR is to be predictive. Once you start playing your deep backups in garbage's garbage time, you know the UFR score is going to tank. But those guys are never going to play against PSU or OSU. It's the same reason the best advanced stats filter out garbage time––because it's literally irrelevant to future results.
This is probably sacrilegious to say (especially given the week), but the back Ben Hall kind of reminds me of is Le'Veon Bell. Not necessarily the fastest guy, or the shiftiest, but big, and so patient when it comes to setting up his blocks and bursting through the holes. I always appreciated (not enjoyed) watching Bell when he played at MSU and in the pros. I have a feeling I'm going to appreciate Hall even more (and enjoy watching him, too)!
I'm very skeptical of Game on Paper's line yards. That site is awesome and I use it all the time, but there are a bunch of mistakes in their data all the time. I'm a little less skeptical of College Football Data's line yards for this game, which were 3.2. Also still skeptical of them, though. I didn't know until today that the line yard formula is as follows:
For such a simple formula, why are the results so vastly different?
I also don't understand why it's not: the first yard is 90% on the line, the second yard is 80% on the line, the third yard is 70% on the line, and so forth. There's a huge difference between a zero yard gain and a four yard gain.
Appreciate the work you put in anyway! It's impressive to see all the talent from Michigan. If only we had one more Hughes on this team...
It's unfortunate that you can't save a draft. I always type my diaries in Google Docs and then only copy them over when I'm ready to go.
Wow. Thanks for the heads up that Marcus Freeman and Urban Meyer are front-runners for the MSU job. Had no idea. Names are just flying around. Last I heard, it was down to Paul Bear Bryant, Barack Obama, and Jesus Christ, but that the Spartan brass had released a statement strongly indicating that none of them were good enough to lead this team. Maybe my information is faulty. Idk.
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1. Better teams. Per DF+:
Yes, Penix has played slightly better defenses on average. Barely.
2. Yup. Can't disagree. Penix has played in two close games (Arizona and Oregon). McCarthy's played in none.
3. Yup. Also can't disagree with that. Penix will play in ~five close games (based on rankings) and McCarthy will play in ~two-and-a-half close games. He also has one good defense remaining on his schedule (Utah at 7th in DF+). McCarthy has (YMMV) two-and-two-halves (MSU [36th], PSU [2nd], Maryland [27th], OSU [6th]). McCarthy shouldn't have to put up Penix numbers to take the lead in Heisman votes from him––but he will have to.
4. I apologize if I implied volume doesn't matter. I agree that it does. I just think efficiency matters more, especially when you've thus far played in a lot of blowout games (as both teams do).
The reason I put Y/A was because the chart was about efficiency, not about volume. Y/A is an efficiency stat. Yards is a volume stat. If all the efficiency stats are the same, and the competition at the end of the year is the same (it's not, as Michigan will end up playing several more much better defenses on average), then the QB with more volume should win.
Also worth pointing out that Washington, by rate, throws the third most in the FBS at 66.0%. Michigan's at 44.6%. If Michigan threw as much as Washington and kept McCarthy in the game for as long, his volume stats would be basically the same.
5. See all the above. Washington throws more, which leads to that difference. Penix plays more, which leads to that difference. They've basically played an equal slate re: other teams' defenses. You also can't just say, "Well, Penix has more passing yards," without looking at rushing yards. Penix is part of an offense. He's not an offense in his own right. Wouldn't a lot of teams also be just as happy having a successful and strong rushing attack like Michigan's? I bet a lot of teams would be happy to have the murderer's row of WRs like Rome Odunze, Ja'Lynn Polk, and Jalen McMillan like Washington has to help out their QB.
In a vacuum, yeah, teams would like to have Penix's stats more, but we're not in a vacuum.
"Explosive" often just depends on who you ask. I've seen it be 10+, 15+, 20+, 1.8 EPA+, etc.
I'll definitely try to make something a little more detailed than last week, though I'm not the best at making charts and graphs using the computer, so we'll see what I can manage.
Thanks for the input!
This is arithmetic I probably won't get around to doing, but it's a good question.
Also, good point with "bend but don't break," but I think the same general logic applies. Games are going to be closer if the other team is on the field longer because they may not necessarily score more, but our offense will be on the field less frequently, and thus our score will be lower.
Totally agree. I just wonder where the diminishing returns are. At how many snaps is a defensive lineman maximally effective? Obviously, it's different for each player (I'm sure Mason Graham can, at this point, handle a higher snap count better than Kenneth Grant), but if there are (say) 100 DT snaps to go around in a game, can we give Graham and Jenkins 40 each and give Grant the other 20? Or is that too much workload, and it makes sense to throw Benny out there for 10.
I just went and looked at the snap counts for Georgia's championship win over Alabama in 2021. The Georgia defense was on the field for 87 snaps and 361 defensive linemen snaps (4.15 per snap).
I guess this means maybe we're half a guy short inside and half a guy up outside? (Obviously, YMMV on certain players.) It's almost certain that Michigan isn't going to be in a game with 87 defensive snaps (clock rules, style of play, etc) that they also have a chance to win, IMO. If it's a 70 play game, can Graham and Jenkins go 55 each and the other 30 go to Grant?
I dunno, man.
I just looked at his PFF grades for each game. He hit 120 carries at the beginning of the Penn State game. His four best game grades from the season come from PSU on.
I think next week I'm going to compile all the third quarter stats from the year. I have a feeling they are going to be overwhelming.
I absolutely meant to and then I absolutely forgot. Here they are:
I suppose you could make the case that more snaps means more guys getting to 10+ per game, but it could also be that if they were facing more snaps it means the other team is scoring more cause they're on the field more, and thus the games are closer so we'd just end up giving more snaps to our better guys rather than our fourth stringers.
Thank goodness they've come back down to Earth.
I love requests. Think they'd actually make this easier, and get better engagement, which is a double win. I'll add this in next week. You want Y/C for each specific game?
One thing to keep in mind with these grades is that Georgia played an SEC championship game and two playoff games, so a much tougher schedule. PFF's grading is not opponent invariant.
I agree. I was just trying to more make the point that I don't think we'd actually be thinking, We can beat Georgia in the national title game this year, without our defensive line being utterly elite.
I think it's very possible he drops to the fifth or sixth round, but I also think an NFL team says, "He'll be an awesome WR, let's take him late in the second." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Pretty sure they did go back to him. Then Michael Barrett ate his face and took the ball.
I'm not positive, but I think on the broadcast they said "undisclosed."
*But JJ and the defensive line is the season here.
Otherwise, we're just USC.
Hopefully that Donovan Edwards touchdown is a turning point for him. I didn't think he had a particularly great game otherwise, though. Not seeing the holes. But Benjamin Hall looked awesome! He and Mullings are going to be a thique 1-2 punch next year.
This is offensive PPA (x-axis) vs defensive PPA (y-axis) per CFBD. Big Ten teams are circled. Sorry if it's kind of small, but lookit Air Force go!
It's nuts the type of statistical dominance they've had. Unfortunately, they are 30th in F+ and this is their remaining schedule: Wyoming, Navy, CO State, Army, Hawaii, and UNLV.
Even if they go undefeated I'm pretty dubious. But it would be cool!
1. I obviously defer to you, Chuck. I was going off what I found on PFF, which says he got five snaps in that ND game (so, essentially, zero) and still started the following weeks against Arkansas State, Wisconsin, and Rutgers, but all that means is that he was out there for the first defensive play, not that he should actually be considered the starter in a base formation. Regardless of fandom, though, it's nice to see a sixth year guy finally get his flowers.
2. Every time I've watched OSU football this year, the announcers have made a point of pointing out exactly what you're pointing out. I definitely think it's fair to consider that change in scheme when looking at their stats, but 116th in the country is still way too low (IMO) for a team with that kind of talent at pass rushing positions. Also, looking yesterday, I found that Michael Hall Jr. also grades out really well as a pass-rusher. Have you noticed that they often take turns pressuring the QB? Oftentimes it takes two guys getting into the pocket to bring a QB down. Do they just have the misfortune of the stars not aligning?
3. FO's shut down has truly been a tragedy. They were the best for season-long line yard stats. I've been using College Football Data, which not only gives season-long line yard stats, but also line yard stats for each game, which is great. My biggest issue with the site, though, is that the only way to compare stats to other teams is to use their Team Metrics graphing tool (see: the three images I included). There's no list ranking the teams, and so if you want to figure out where a team ranks in line yards, you have to go to the graph and count every team that's ahead of them by their logo. Very tedious and difficult, especially when it seems super easy to have a page on the site that just ranks stats.
I appreciate the love, but I've always been more of a small, devoted-fanbase guy. I had three friends in high school and only hung out with them. I had three friends in college and only hung out with them. I have three friends now and only hang out with them. If I can get three people to read this column and love it every week, I'm set. I have enough fun spending hours poring over football statistics.